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Teaching and Learning Resource (TLR)

1. Title

Environmental Analysis of Films Part 1: Exploring the Diversity

2. Keywords

Environment, nature, films, media messages, representation.

3. Introduction

In an article on hazard perception and behaviour, Diana Liverman and Douglas Sherman write that “many people must obtain images of natural hazards from sources other than personal experience” (1). Amongst the sources they identify are novels and films which, unlike broadcast news programmes and newspapers, “provide us with fictional accounts of disaster.” They go on to discuss the popularity of such fictional accounts (which seems not to have diminished in the years since the article was first published), and their possible social implications - with reference to a large number of well-known films and novels from the 1970s and 80s. The authors approach these questions primarily as geographers “concerned with perception and response to natural hazards” who “consider popular culture, as expressed in novels and movies, as a potentially significant source of information about disaster.” However, for those with an interest in environmental issues, their article raises questions not just about the portrayal of natural hazards, but also of the environment/nature more generally. And for those with an interest in environmental sociology, it raises questions not just about the provision of ‘information’ (as a form of public education), but also about the social and environmental significance of what is portrayed. Thus, one might ask:

• What images of the environment/nature do people ‘obtain’ from films?
• What do the images tell us about the people/organisations who produce films, and the social context within which the films are produced?
• What effects do the images have on the people who consume films, and on society more generally? (2)

4. Aim

The TLR is the first in a set of two TLRs concerned with representations of the environment/nature in films. The aim of this first TLR is to encourage students to explore the multiplicity of ‘messages’ that films can convey about the environment/nature, and to think critically about the social and environmental significance of those messages.

5. Learning outcomes

After using this TLR, students should:

• be aware that representations of the environment/nature can be identified in many, if not most, films.
• be aware that the ways in which the environment/nature is represented may vary widely both from film-to-film and within films.
• appreciate that there is more to the environmental analysis of films than decide whether or not a film is ‘about’ the environment, or whether it is pro- or anti-environmental.
• be able to identify and analyse the key environmental ‘messages’ conveyed by films.
• be able to make an informed contribution to debates about the environmental significance of film-making.

6. Pre-requisites

Ideally students should have some knowledge of ‘environmental values’, and some ability to analyse the value content of texts. Where this is lacking, the following TLRs could be used prior to this one:

• Introduction to Personal Environmental Values
• Approaches in Environmental Ethics
• Guidelines for the Analysis of Environmental Values in Texts

The TLR does not assume or require any specialist knowledge of film-making or film studies (including semiotics and structuralism). However, if a class contains students who do have such knowledge, their informed contributions should be encouraged.

7. How to use TLR

The TLR has been designed to be used with a class of up to about 20 students broadly as follows.

1. Introduce the TLR, reviewing the nature of the content, the aims and learning outcomes, and the way in which the TLR will be used.
2. Instruct the students - working individually or in small groups - to ‘brainstorm’ a list of films in which the environment/nature features prominently in some way; and to make a brief note of how the environment/nature features in each of the films they have listed.
3. Compile a single, class list - on a black/white board or overhead projector – based on the students’ lists; and make a brief note of how the environment/nature is featured in each of these films.
4. Invite the students to suggest ways in which this (hopefully diverse!) list of films might be classified according to general categories of the ways in which they feature the environment/nature. (See Appendix for an example an illustrative taxonomy of films - which might be shared with the students in the form of a handout or, suitably enlarged, an overhead transparency.)
5. Conduct an all-class discussion of the key points to have emerged so far. By this stage of the exercise, students should have realised that the environment/nature (broadly defined) features in many - if not most - films in some way or other; but that the way in which it features may vary greatly from film-to-film and within films(3). Consequently, films may carry quite diverse ‘messages’ about the environment/nature. Thus, there is more to the environmental analysis of films than deciding whether or not a film is ‘environmental’, or whether it is pro- or anti-environment.
6. Invite the students to consider the environmental significance of film-making. Issues that might be raised at this point include: the environmental impact associated with the production of films (4), and with their ‘consumption’ (travel to and from cinemas, etc) – as well as, perhaps, the extent to which films reinforce and/or challenge mainstream ideas and practices concerning the environment.

The TLR requires 60-90 minutes of class time.

8. Instructions to students

As directed by tutor.

9. Stimulus Material

None.

10. Degree stage

The TLR has been designed to be used at degree stage two or three.

11. Resource requirements

This TLR has no special resource requirements.

12. Preparation

No preparation is required for this TLR.

13. Links with other TLRs

This TLR has been designed as part of a set of two TLRs concerned with representations of the environment/nature in films:

1. Environmental Analysis of Films Part 1: Exploring the Diversity
2. Environmental Analysis of Films Part 2: Case Study of Grapes of Wrath

The first of these TLRs can be used independently of the second, or as a precursor to it. More generally, the aims and/or learning outcomes of this TLR are related to those of other TLRs listed in the following 'thematic cluster':

• Environment and the mass media

14. Follow-up activities

See Section 15 - Recommended reading and Section 13 - Links with other TLRs.

15. Recommended reading

For students who wish to learn more about the analysis of films, the following (non-environmental) introductory texts are recommended:

• Braudy, L and Cohen M (1998) Film Theory and Criticism. Oxford University Press.
• Perkins, VF (1993) Film as Film: Understanding and Judging Movies. De Capo Press.

For students who wish to deepen their knowledge of the representations of the environment/nature in the mass media more generally, the following texts are recommended:

• Anderson, A (1997) Media, Culture and the Environment. UCL Press, London. [Provides an accessible cultural analysis of news media coverage of environmental issues set within a context of pressure-group politics and the environmental lobby.]
• Burgess, J and Gold, J (eds) (1985) Geography, the Media and Popular Culture. London: Croom Helm. [See especially Chapter 4: Natural Hazards in Novels and Films: Implications for Hazard Perception and Behaviour (pp. 86-95) by Diana Liverman and Douglas Sherman.]
• Chapman, G et al (1997) Environmentalism and the Mass Media. The North-South Divide. Routledge, London. [Analyses the effect of cultural, political and religious context on the interplay of media coverage and public opinion / knowledge by means of a comparative study of the United Kingdom and India.]
• Gauntlett, D (1996) Video Critical. Children, the Environment and Media Power. University of Luton Press. [Provides a detailed investigation of the influence of television on children’s perception of the environment, based in part on an ethnographic study in which schoolchildren were invited to make their own videos about the environment.]
• Hansen, A (ed) (1993) The Mass Media and Environmental Issues. Leicester University Press. [Provides a collection of eleven papers on diverse aspects of media (especially news media) coverage of environmental issues.]
• Hochman, J (1998) Green Cultural Studies. Nature in Film, Novel, and Theory. University of Idaho Press. [Includes detailed textual readings of the films, The Silence of the Lambs, Deliverance and Daughters of the Dust.]

APPENDIX

Representations of the Environment/Nature in Films

An Illustrative Taxonomy

Notes:

1. The categories, descriptions and examples listed in the table below are based on suggestions made by students and colleagues.
2. The ‘match’ of exemplar films to categories has not been checked and cannot be assumed to be accurate.
3. Films have been assigned to a single category as if they contained a single, unambiguous message about the environment/nature. In fact, many films contain mixed messages and could, therefore, be assigned to multiple categories.
4. The taxonomy should therefore be seen as illustrative rather than definitive and/or exhaustive. as such, it is intended as an aid to further analysis and not as an end-point of analysis.

Illustrative Taxonomy of Representations of the Environment/Nature in Films

(1) Natural Hazards in Novels and Films: Implications for Hazard Perception and Behaviour. In Burgess, J and Gold, J (eds) Geography, the Media and Popular Culture (London: Croom Helm, 1985).

(2) There is, of course, much debate concerning the relationship between fiction and behaviour, most notoriously in the context of the alleged effects on children of television violence. (Put very crudely, does art imitate life or vice versa?) For a (highly!) critical review of research on media effects in general, see David Gauntlett’s Moving Experiences: Understanding Television’s Influences and Effects (London: John Libbey, 1995). For a detailed investigation of the influence of television on children’s perception of the environment, see Gauntlett’s Video Critical: Children, the Environment and Media Power (University of Luton Press, 1996).

(3) It is important that students are discouraged from making simplistic judgements about the messages conveyed by films. These may change, sometimes quite dramatically (eg from ‘nature as refuge’ to ‘nature as threat’), from moment to moment within a single film, as well as varying from one film to another.

(4) On this point, it is interesting to note the controversy surrounding the film of Alex Garland’s 1996 novel, The Beach (20th Century Fox, 2000). During filming, a genuine tropical beach in Thailand was transformed in order to make it appear more like the (film-maker’s!) ideal tropical beach. This in itself was much criticised. The film-makers then attracted further criticism when their attempts to restore the beach to its original condition were - according to some – unsuccessful. There was a particular irony in all of this because the film is very much concerned with exploring the idea of paradise.