ABSTRACT

This essay explores how a recent controversy about the use of artifice in natural history films is animated by a double fascination – with nature and the moving image – on which the genre has been premised since its formation in the early cinema period. Building on recent scholarly interest in the genre, I use the case of the BBC’s 2014 series Hidden Kingdoms to explore how this fascination is a unifying feature of natural history films that invites us to 1) rethink the genre’s foundational documentary impulse, and the controversies that surround it, in terms of histories of aesthetics, formalism, and modernism in the cinema that might otherwise seem far afield; and 2) to reimagine the genre as a vehicle for reinforcing ‘cinematic’ ways of seeing nature.

摘要

这篇文章探讨了最近关于自然历史电影中技巧使用的争议是如何被双重魅力所激发的——自然和运动图像——自早期电影时期形成以来，这种类型一直以这种双重魅力为前提。基于最近学术界对该类型的兴趣，我以 BBC 的 2014 年系列Hidden Kingdoms 为例来探索这种魅力如何成为自然历史电影的一个统一特征，它邀请我们 1) 重新思考该类型的基础纪录片冲动，以及引发的争议围绕它，就电影中的美学、形式主义和现代主义的历史而言，否则它们可能看起来很遥远；2) 将这种类型重新想象为一种加强“电影”方式看待自然的工具。