Framing the World: Explorations in Ecocriticism and Film (Under the Sign of Nature: Explorations in Ecocriticism)

The essays in this collection make a contribution to the greening of film studies and expand the scope of ecocriticism as a discipline traditionally rooted in literary studies. In addition to highlighting particular films as productive tools for raising awareness and educating us about environmental issues Framing the World: Explorations in Ecocriticism and Film encourages its readers to become more ecologically minded viewers sensitive to the ways in which films reflect shape reinforce and challenge our perceptions of nature of human/nature relations and of environmental issues.. The contributors to this volume offer in-depth analyses of a broad range of films including fictional and documentary Hollywood and independent domestic and foreign experimental and indigenous. Drawing from disciplines including film theory ecocriticism philosophy rhetoric environmental justice and American and Indigenous studies Framing the World offers new and original approaches to the ecocritical study of cinema. The twelve essays are gathered in four parts focusing on ecocinema as activist cinema; the representation of environmental justice issues in Hollywood independent and foreign films; the representation of animals ecosystems and natural and human-made landscapes in live action and animation; and ecological themes in the films of two eco-auteurs Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Peter Greenaway. Willoquet-Maricondi’s introduction provides an overview of the field of ecocriticism and offers both philosophical and theoretical foundations for the ecocritical study of films.