Green documentary: environmental documentary in the twenty-first century

185 Pages·2014·3.712 MB·English

by  Hughes, Helen

Y
During the first decade of the H
twenty-first century, a stunning array u y
g r
of documentary films focusing on h u
e R t
environmental issues has been met s n
e
with critical and popular acclaim. C

Green Documentary is the first book- t
A s
length study of this phenomenon. 1
2
It explores how the films offer a e
h
variety of responses to the questions T t

raised by environmental change: n
i
about the future of the countryside, y
N r
the relationship between health a
t
and industrial pollution, the role n
e
of corporations, and the politics m
of energy and climate. Offering a E u
c
coherent analysis of imaginative, o
D
controversial and high-profile

documentary films such as Into M al
t
Eternity, The Yes Men Fix the n
e
World and An Inconvenient Truth, m
n
the book divides the responses
U o
into contemplation, irony and ir
v
passionate argument, and the n
E
recruitment of the filmmaking
C
process itself into the campaign
to bring about better change.
Along with analysis that
s O
includes the wider context e
h
of environmental documentary g
u
filmmaking, about local rural H
communities in Britain and Europe, n D
Green Documentary underlines the e
l
e
important role of documentary film G H
in the on-going public debate about R

the environment. E
E N
N

D
Helen Hughes is Senior Lecturer
O
in Film Studies at the University E
C
of Surrey.
U
M
E
E
N
T
A R
R
Y
G
intellect | www.intellectbooks.com
Green Documentary
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Green Documentary
Environmental Documentary in the
Twenty-First Century
Helen Hughes
intellect Bristol, UK / Chicago, USA
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First published in the UK in 2014 by
Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2014 by
Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street,
Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright © 2014 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library.
Cover designer: Holly Rose
Cover image: Still from Sleep Furiously (2007). Gideon Koppel,
courtesy of the film-maker
Copy-editor: MPS Technologies
Production manager: Jelena Stanovnik & Claire Organ
Typesetting: Contentra Technologies
Print ISBN: 978-1-78320-183-9
ePDF ISBN: 978-1-78320-255-3
ePUB ISBN: 978-1-78320-256-0
Printed and bound by Hobbs, UK
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Chapter 1: Introduction: Contemplation, Irony, Argument 1
Chapter 2: The Institutional Context 21
Chapter 3: The Contemplative Response 41
Chapter 4: The Ironic Response 83
Chapter 5: The Argumentative Response 115
Chapter 6: The Material Response 135
Works Cited 143
Index 157
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Acknowledgements
This project developed out of a personal interest and has involved the discovery of an engaged
and inclusive community of film programmers, scholars, activists and film-makers. I have
benefited greatly from the work of colleagues who have screened films in London at the
BFI Southbank, the Goethe-Institut, the Austrian Institute, the French Institute and Curzon
cinemas. I am also grateful to colleagues who have founded and run the International
Environmental Communication Association (IECA), as well as the Association for
Literature and the Environment (ASLE), the UK and Ireland version ASLE-UKI, and the
European Association for Studies of Literature, Culture, and the Environment (EASLCE)
all of which have provided a context to engage with current debates. I would like to thank
Axel Goodbody in particular for organising the conference Environmental Change, Cultural
Change and the AHRC Landscape and Environment network ‘The cultural framing of
environmental discourse’.
At the same time I would like to thank my colleagues at the University of Surrey,
particularly Rachel Fensham, Hing Tsang, Bella Honess Roe, and Lois Davis, for many a
useful reference and for some great conversations on documentary film. I’d also like to thank
Tarla Rai Petersen and Anabel Carvalho for directing my thoughts towards the politics of
environmental communication. I’d like also to thank Salma Monani and other members of
the Ecomedia Studies group for their friendship and companionship at conferences.
I thank all the students who have chosen to take my course in Green Film at the University
of Surrey and have helped me to experiment with various ideas. I should also acknowledge
and thank my husband Martin for pointing out many of the films that sparked and
maintined my interest in this documentary phenomenon and my sons Alex and Sam who
have kept me up to date with Internet sites and the syllabus in UK schools. And finally thanks
to Jelena Stanovnik, Claire Organ and Intellect Books for taking an interest in this project.
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Chapter 1
Introduction: Contemplation, Irony, Argument
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