Can the Film Industry and the Environmental Movements Mix?

Even though oil drilling films we examined in Film and Everyday Eco-disasters attempted to show us that oil and water can mix, at least if appropriate safety precautions are in place, the filmic representations of everyday eco-disasters explored throughout this book all highlight the negative consequences (externalities) of fulfilling our basic needs. They also demonstrate that, more often than not, these eco-disasters also jeopardize those needs. Total Recall, for example, illustrates the repercussions of oxygen deprivation, but it also emphasizes the cause of unequal distribution of air: turning resources into commodities. Quantum of Solace, despite its James Bond action-adventure genre, demonstrates similar consequences, this time in relation to water as a necessary resource. Our Daily Bread, The Cove, Norma Rae, Blue Vinyl: The World’s First Toxic Comedy, The Last Mountain (and the other eleven mountaintop removal mining documentaries), and Black Wave: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez primarily emphasize the eco-disasters associated with fulfilling our basic needs, yet they also effectively illustrate how these everyday eco-disasters threaten the needs of both human and nonhuman nature. 

All these films, to a greater and lesser extent provide an environmental reading based on everyday eco-disasters associated with our everyday lives. Some focus on how our acquisition of our needs sometimes causes an everyday eco-disaster. Others highlight how our drive to commodify those needs endangers both the resources and ourselves. And still others show how our consumption practices risk the resources that sustain us. Yet, because these are all products of the film industry, whether made independently or as a Hollywood blockbuster, they all also contribute to the environmental degradation that translates into an everyday eco-disaster when it affects our ability to meet our basic needs. 

To illustrate, Total Recall was one of the last major blockbusters to make large-scale use of miniature effects rather than computer generated imagery, a carbon-heavy approach that draws on multiple resources, leaving behind waste that is typically disposed in landfills rather than recycled. According to Eric Lichtenfeld, five different companies were brought in to handle the film’s effects. The only CGI sequence was a 42-second scene produced by MetroLight Studios that showed the x-rayed skeletons of commuters and their concealed weapons (258). In contrast only a year later, blockbusters such as James Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) moved almost entirely to CGI. In spite of its message about the negative ramifications of turning oxygen into a commodity available to the privileged rather than the “commons,” Total Recall integrated production practices with a heavy carbon footprint.