Ecocinema and the City III

Our next section of Ecocinema and the City, “Urban Nature and Interdependence” begins to elucidate more positive relationships between human and nonhuman nature. The films examined in the urban nature and interdependence section demonstrate the interdependent possibilities of biophilic urbanism. Biologists Bjørn Grinde and Grete Grindal Patil draw on E.O. Wilson’s biophilia hypothesis to reinforce the benefits humans gain from affiliating with nonhuman nature, both through interdependent relationships and sustainable urban living conditions. Wilson defines biophilia “as the innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes” (Biophilia 1). Urban and environmental planner Timothy Beatley asserts that this affiliation with the natural world provides “social, psychological, pedagogical, and other benefits,” even in urban areas (211). “Urban Nature and Interdependence” showcases films exploring zoos, birdwatching, and urban gardens and highlights moves toward such biophilic urbanism.

Chapter 5, “Hatari Means Danger: Filmic Representations of Animals Welfare and Environmentalism at the Zoo” examines how zoo films with differing perspectives beg the same question: Does Hatari mean danger for humans or for the animals they capture and enclose for their own enjoyment? Although African safari films like Howard Hawks’ Hatari (1962) seem to promote trapping wild animals for human amusement in zoos or some other enclosure, and fictional zoo-centered films such as We Bought a Zoo (2011) and Zookeeper (2011) emphasize the benefits to humans provided by animals and a zoo setting, they also highlight, at least peripherally, the educational roles zoos have always held. Documentaries such as Zoo (1993), Nenette (2010), and Blackfish (2013), however, provide a more complex view of zoo life, revealing the detriments to animal welfare caused by captivity, as well as the complicated relationship humans have with entrapped wild creatures.

Chapter 6, “Eco-Therapy in Central Park: Documenting Urban Birdwatching” explores how the interdependence a union between humans and nature suggests also coincides with human improvement in three bird watching documentaries: Pale Male (2002), The Legend of Pale Male  (2009), and Birders: The Central Park Effect (2012). Whether they anthropomorphize the birds on display—as do Pale Male and The Legend of Pale Male—or display them in spectacular close up—as does Birders: The Central Park Effect—these urban birding documentaries highlight the multiple ways birding helps humanity. Despite their human approaches to ecology, however, all three films also demonstrate how these Central Park birds may inadvertently save themselves by healing their birders’ environmental grief.

Chapter 7, “Green Lungs: Partnering with Nature in the Urban Garden Film” examines how the U.S. animated feature Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941), the Vietnamese family melodrama The Scent of Green Papaya (1993), and the Peruvian drama The Milk of Sorrow (2009) demonstrate the interdependent possibilities of biophilic urbanism, although resting on varied visions of the “garden.” These films highlight the effectiveness of relationships between human and nonhuman nature that are more like the partnership ethic environmental historian Carolyn Merchant proposes or the re-constructed garden ideal ecocritic Joni Adamson recommends.