Overview

Film and the Natural History of Destruction explores the interface between film, memory and ecological thought. It addresses several areas of crucial importance for contemporary film and media studies: biopolitics and ecological catastrophe, cultural memory and film in the Anthropocene, media archaeology and the environmental humanities and, of course, the abiding relevance of Walter Benjamin’s work for critical theory and film studies. Benjamin’s essays on media and modernity have long been regarded as important texts for film studies. The concept of natural history, however, remains a neglected tool in Benjamin’s critical arsenal yet may provide a valuable theoretical resource for analysing the visual culture of the Anthropocene. As a medium of preservation, transmission, transformation and decay, film is inherently bound up in processes of natural and historical destruction. Film images, like fossils or ruins, reveal the imprint of history as it is embedded in forms of nonhuman temporality and nonhuman life. Alan Wright brings such moments of discontinuity and dislocation into stark relief by examining images and scenes from the films of Roberto Rossellini, Belà Tarr and David Lynch, alongside recent work by Bill Morrison, John Akomfrah and Patricio Guzmán. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

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Alan Wright teaches Cinema Studies at the University of Canterbury, Ōtautahi Christchurch, New Zealand. He published Film on the Faultline (2015) after the earthquakes in the city. His research interests include the essay film, time, cultural memory and historical trauma in film.

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