DOCUMENTARY FILMS
AND NATURE
CCGL9012: Media, Politics and the
Environment
A chronology….
• Since early… documentaries occupy a fuzzy
middle ground between entertainment,
education, art and voyeurism
Early film depictions of nature
• Eadweard Muybridge (9 April 1830 – 8 May 1904)
• British photographer, spent much of career in U.S.
• invented “Zoopraxiscope” in late `70s
Images from: http://vintageprintable.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/zoopraxiscope-horse-galloping.jpg and
http://screenheritage.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/zoopraxiscope1.jpg
Nickelodeons and new technology
• Thomas Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931)
•American inventor
(phonograph, light-bulb and
motion picture camera)
•Advent of Nickelodeons and
small community theaters
(precursors to modern cinemas)
•Nickelodeons showed short
comedies, melodramas,
actualities, etc.
•Edison’s famous, "Electrocuting
the Elephant,” 1903
“Actualities”
• Not documentary films with a narrative story, but raw “actual” footage
• New lenses and camera technology offer public opportunity to view
familiar subjects/animals/landscapes in new ways
• Popular videos include people feeding animals, animals fighting
• Tech limitations led companies to film in studios – led to increased
numbers of studio zoos
• First half of 20th century also characterized by nationalistic themes in
nature films, glorifying bees or ants obedience, willingness to sacrifice
for their ordered insect society
• Germany was a leader in early nature filming:
• 1927 – a German company shot “Killing the Killer” or “Mungo der
Schlangentoter
• The scene is still popular. Consider: “Cobra vs. Mongoose” by
contemporary National Geographic
Preserving a lost reality
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Western explorer/adventurer
Edward S. Curtis
“Nanook of the North” - 1921
Martin & Osa Johnson – 1920s
Color and Sound!
• Living Desert, 1953 (won the Academy Award)
• Disney True Life Adventures (influential series)
• Disney magic in the editing room
Talking Animals?
• Some serious filmmakers in the middle of the
century made documentaries featuring
animals that talked…. Sounds silly?
• BBC One has (recently) taken the idea further
in a comedy show.
After the 1970s
• Civil Rights movement… animal rights
movement
• Nature documentaries become more critical
of mankind’s role in the environment
• Sometimes, protagonists have an “agenda,”
i.e. saving a species.
• Saving that species often requires
establishment of a park, which needs funding,
or some other public support.
Naturalist celebrities emerge…
• Two examples:
• Jacques Cousteau
– 11 June 1910 – 25 June 1997
– pioneer in scuba diving
– Filmed during`50s-`90s
• Steve Irwin, “the crocodile hunter”
– 22 February 1962 – 4 September 2006
– Died while filming with a sting ray
What’s new (and old)?
• Modern narrative techniques are applied…
and technology keeps improving… the trend
continues.
• New example: REALITY TV!
…what’s next?