Ecocinema and the City 9781138303843, 9780203730706

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Urban Nature on Film
PART I: Evolutionary Myths under the City
1 The City, The Sewers, The Underground: Reconstructing Urban Space in Film Noir
2 Documenting Environmental Adaptation under the City: Children Underground (2001)
PART II: Urban Eco-Trauma
3 Girls in the Hood: An Eco-Trauma of Girlhood
4 Dogs and Eco-Trauma: The Making of a Monster in White God
PART III: Urban Nature and Interdependence
5 Hatari Means Danger: Filmic Representations of Animal Welfare and Environmentalism at the Zoo
6 Eco-Therapy in Central Park: Documenting Urban Birdwatching
7 Green Lungs: Partnering with Nature in the Urban Garden Film
PART IV: The Sustainable City
8 Urban Farming on Film: Moving Toward Environmental Justice in the City
9 Lives Worth Living and the Sustainable (and Accessible) City
Conclusion: The “Absent City” of the Future
Filmography
Works Cited
Index

Citation preview

Ecocinema and the City

“In an era of increasing dispute about the effects of climate and science in our daily lives, Murray and Heumann offer a carefully nuanced addition to the field of ecocinema studies. The city, for them, is not just a dangerous space, but also a site of possible relationships between humans and nonhuman nature. Few scholars have the record of Murray and Heumann for serious engagement with the topic of ecology in cinema over such a broad range of critical works.” —Charles J. Stivale, Wayne State University, USA “Our environmental imagination often frames cities as doomed spaces, removed from nonhuman nature. Instead of replicating this view, Ecocinema and the City reverses the perspective: highlighting the transformative power of nature in urban settings explored in film, it offers a timely and innovative take on urban environments. With engaging close readings and cultural examples off the beaten path, the book addresses a whole array of relevant themes, from urban biodiversity to urban farming to questions of sustainability, and is required reading for environmentalists across disciplines.” —Christopher Schliephake, University of Augsburg, Germany In Ecocinema in the City, Murray and Heumann argue that urban ecocinema both reveals and critiques visions of urban environmentalism. The book emphasizes the increasingly transformative power of nature in urban settings, explored in both documentaries and fictional films such as Children Underground, White God, Hatari! and Lives Worth Living. The first two sections—“Evolutionary Myths Under the City” and “Urban Eco-trauma”—take more traditional ecocinema approaches and emphasize the city as a dangerous constructed space. The last two sections—“Urban Nature and Interdependence” and “The Sustainable City”—however, bring to life the vibrant relationships between human and nonhuman nature. Ecocinema in the City provides a space to explore these relationships, revealing how ecocinema shows that both human and nonhuman nature can interact sustainably and thrive. Robin L. Murray is Professor of English at Eastern Illinois University, USA where she teaches film and literature courses and coordinates the film studies minor. Joseph K. Heumann is Professor Emeritus of Communication Studies at Eastern Illinois University, USA and continues to teach film courses. They have co-authored six books exploring ecocinema.

Routledge Advances in Film Studies For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com.

48 India’s New Independent Cinema Rise of the Hybrid Ashvin Immanuel Devasundaram 49 Early Race Filmmaking in America Edited by Barbara Tepa Lupack 50 Film Text Analysis New Perspectives on the Analysis of Filmic Meaning Edited by Janina Wildfeuer and John A. Bateman 51 The Camera-Eye Metaphor in Cinema Christian Quendler 52 Surveillance in Asian Cinema Under Eastern Eyes Edited by Karen Fang 53 US Youth Films and Popular Music Identity, Genre, and Musical Agency Tim McNelis 54 The Cinematic Eighteenth Century History, Culture, and Adaptation Edited by Srividhya Swaminathan and Steven W. Thomas 55 The Contemporary Femme Fatale Gender, Genre and American Cinema Katherine Farrimond 56 Film Comedy and the American Dream Zach Sands 57 Ecocinema and the City Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann

Ecocinema and the City

Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann

First published 2018 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Taylor & Francis The right of Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data CIP data has been applied for. ISBN: 978-1-138-30384-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-73070-6 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by codeMantra

Contents

List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction: Urban Nature on Film

vii ix 1

PART I

Evolutionary Myths under the City

15

1 The City, The Sewers, The Underground: Reconstructing Urban Space in Film Noir

17

2 Documenting Environmental Adaptation under the City: Children Underground (2001)

30

PART II

Urban Eco-Trauma

47

3 Girls in the Hood: An Eco-Trauma of Girlhood

49

4 Dogs and Eco-Trauma: The Making of a Monster in White God

68

PART III

Urban Nature and Interdependence

85

5 Hatari Means Danger: Filmic Representations of Animal Welfare and Environmentalism at the Zoo

87

6 Eco-Therapy in Central Park: Documenting Urban Birdwatching

106

vi Contents

7 Green Lungs: Partnering with Nature in the Urban Garden Film

123

PART IV

The Sustainable City

141

8 Urban Farming on Film: Moving Toward Environmental Justice in the City

143

9 Lives Worth Living and the Sustainable (and Accessible) City

159

Conclusion: The “Absent City” of the Future 175 Filmography Works Cited Index

189 199 209

List of Figures

I.1 1.1 1.2 2.1 2.2 3.1 3.2 4.1 4.2 5.1 5.2 6.1 6.2 7.1 7.2 8.1 8.2 9.1 9.2 c.1

Bye Bye, Brasil 2 He Walked by Night 18 He Walked by Night 29 Children Underground 31 Born into Brothels 45 Fish Tank 50 Girlhood 67 White God 69 Amores Perros 83 Zoo 88 We Bought a Zoo 104 Pale Male 107 The Legend of Pale Male 122 Mr. Bug Goes to Town 124 The Milk of Sorrow 140 Voices of Transition 144 Growing Cities 158 Lives Worth Living 160 Lives Worth Living 174 Under the Dome 176

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our editorial assistant Christina Kowalski and the Routledge Press staff for supporting this project. We appreciate the professional climate Routledge provided us. Most importantly, we would like to thank our family and friends for their encouragement and understanding during this project. Parts of Chapter 5, “Hatari Means Danger: Filmic Representations of Animal Welfare and Environmentalism at the Zoo” were published in Quarterly Review of Film and Video in Fall 2015 and are used with permission.

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Introduction Urban Nature on Film

In “Remaking American Environmentalism: On the Banks of the L.A. River,” Jenny Price rebukes the environmental movement because it fails to address urban ecology, specifically that of L.A. and its sometimes concrete river. Price takes her title literally, addressing multiple ways of remaking environmentalism in L.A. from her perspective as a nature writer. For Price, an urban environmentalism locates its heart and soul in sustainable and equitable economic and social systems…. [It] understands the tremendous ecological significance of wildness, but it does not embrace wildness as a way to ignore or escape, rather than to grapple with, the use of nature to sustain our lives. (553) For Price, urban environmentalism also “emphasizes that we may all be in this together, but also that we are not all in this together—and makes clear the essential connections between socioeconomic and environmental inequities, and between using nature equitably and using it sustainably” (553). In Ecocinema in the City, we argue that urban ecocinema both reveals and critiques Price’s vision of urban environmentalism. Ecocinema in the City highlights films that move beyond nature as “an antidote to cities and modern life” (Price 542) to reveal the complex and sometimes contradictory views of nature in the cities where we live. Urban ecocinema helps reveal how both human and nonhuman nature can interact sustainably and thrive. Ecocinema in the City embraces the urban ecologies sometimes missing in the environmental movement, moving beyond a focus on “wildness” (Price 553). In both twentieth- and twenty-first century movies, however, nature and culture are typically bifurcated, with the urban representative of the culture binary usually constructed as dangerous, suffocating, and many times deadly. Nature, on the hand, is primarily represented as a haven, a pastoral escape from a deteriorating city environment where all life seems to be threatened. Such a division is particularly striking in film noir. In Nicholas Ray’s film On Dangerous

2 Introduction

Figure I.1  Bye B  ye, Brasil.

Ground (1952), Detective Jim Wilson (Robert Ryan) finds solace in the rural hills, away from the decaying noir urban setting he escapes. Wilson has become so embittered by his dealings with the heartless criminals of the urban underworld that his superiors notice his violent episodes of torture with his suspects. To curb his violence, he is ordered out of the city to pursue a young girl’s killer in the mountains up north. In this idyllic pastoral setting, Wilson gains self-awareness, with the help of Mary (Ida Lupino), the murderer’s blind sister, and frees himself of his own rage. Nighttime urban shots in the film maintain Wilson’s cynicism and desperation, but gradually, as his view of the world changes, rural shots brighten, suggesting that Wilson’s own blindness about himself has lifted. In film noir, the city is a dark, shadowy, and dangerous underworld separate from a life-giving natural environment. This same view of the city as an oppressive space occurs outside the U.S. The cityscape of Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas’s Brazilian neonoir Foreign Land (1996) resembles that of On Dangerous Ground. Foreign Land chronicles the union between Paco (Fernando Alves Pinto), an aspiring actor living in Sao Paulo, and the virtuous Alex (Fernanda Torres), who works as a waitress in Lisbon, Portugal. Like Jim Wilson, Paco seeks to escape the decay of the city and the empty seediness of his role there and find solace in San Sebastian, his dead mother’s home. Paco feels trapped by forces beyond his control, in this case literally trapped by the role of “mule” forced upon him after his mother’s death. Devoid of a clear sense of self, Paco, like Wilson, frantically battles the city and its underworld while searching for salvation outside the city and its corruption. As in On Dangerous Ground, a virtuous woman and pastoral solution to urban corruption contribute to the salvation Paco

Introduction  3 seeks. Although Paco’s attempts to escape a broken city in wild nature fail, both On Dangerous Ground and Foreign Land provide opportunities to explore representations of nature in the cities where we live. They also highlight the connections between cinema and both modern and post-modern constructions of urban space. Explorations of urban cinema may also emphasize the interconnection between cinema and a (sometimes) lifeless modern and post-modern city, opening up possibilities for ecocritical readings. In the introductory essay to Cinema and the City: Film and Urban Societies in a Global Context, Mark Shiel highlights the “curious and telling correlation between the mobility and visual and aural sensations of the city and the mobility and visual and aural sensations of the cinema” (1). The film industry contributes to urban economies around the world in the production, distribution, and exhibition of motion pictures, and in the cultural geographies of certain cities particularly marked by cinema (from Los Angeles to Paris to Bombay) whose built environment and civic identity are both significantly constituted by film industry and film. (1–2) Shiel suggests urban cinema’s grounding in the society of the city and the culture of cinema opens it up for interdisciplinary readings connecting film studies with sociology, cultural studies, geography, and urban studies. The book’s goal is to “produce a sociology of the cinema in the sense of a sociology of motion picture production, distribution, exhibition, and consumption, with a specific focus on the role of cinema in the physical, social, cultural, and economic development of cities” (3). Both sociology and film studies gain much from this connection, according to Shiel. Following an Althusserian structural view, Shiel argues Cinema and the City “recognizes the interpenetration of culture [film], society [city], and economics as part of ‘a whole and connected social material process,’ to use Raymond Williams’s terminology” (4). For Shiel, cinema is also “a peculiarly spatial form of culture” (5) in a global (inequitable) context that is historically situated. Instead of approaching cinema and the city from an architectural perspective, this volume explores the connections between the culture of cinema and the society and economics of the city. Focused exclusively on Indian cinema, Preben Kaarsholm’s edited volume City Flicks: Indian Cinema and the Urban Experience also illustrates the connections between cinema and the modern city. According to Kaarsholm, “Movies and cinemas have in themselves been central rallying points, symbols, and institutions of modernization, and battlefields for the understanding of, for formulations and appropriations of, the conditions of the new life as against ‘what used to be’” (1). They provide

4 Introduction a space in which “modern urban culture and politics” are controlled and decorate the urban landscape with “sight and sound from movie posters, film advertisements, tannoys, radio and tapes of soundtrack music” (1). Like Shiel, Kaarsholm agrees that modernity and the metropolis are intertwined and interrelated, and that association produces both positive and negative results. As Kaarsholm suggests, modernities and experiences of the breakdown of the old come to the fore in the plural—as historical conjunctures and life situations which are the outcomes of a single evolutionary logic, but rather as battlefields of contestations between different forces of development and different cultural and political agendas, (5) especially those between European colonial powers with linear and dualist views of progress and an indigenous agenda that strives for a more communal and equitable vision of modernity. Indian cinema reflects this same mixture of Westernized and indigenous cultures, both in films produced for Indian audiences and those directed at an international audience and screening circuit (9). With their emphasis on class, race, and cultural politics, Shiel and Kaarsholm highlight issues with potential environmental concerns, including environmental justice and environmental racism. But neither work explicitly connects the economic concerns illustrated by urban cinema with toxic environments and human ecology. In Ecocinema in the City, we assert that there is an urban ecocinema that reveals not only the toxic connections between “cultural and political agendas” and the environment, but also demonstrates “the fundamental connections to the environment in our everyday lives” (Price 538).

Illustrating Urban Nature Cinema Urban ecocinema typically perpetuates negative views of urban environments and maintains nature/culture and urban/rural binaries. In Carlos Diegues’s Bye Bye, Brasil (1980), modern urban culture breeds decay and despair. As a muted and low-key ensemble road movie and musical drama, Bye Bye, Brasil highlights a shabby circus, the Caravana Rolidei, crawling from small town to small town through the Brazilian backwaters to, it seems, avoid a modernity that is crumbling Brazil’s character and ecology. The caravan’s first show presents a medicine-show-like leader, Lorde Cigano (Jose Wilker), who keeps the audience mesmerized with magic tricks; an erotically charged, raven-haired dancer named Salome (Betty Faria) or the “Queen of the Rumba”; and a deaf-mute strongman Swallow, who doubles as a fire breather. When the troupe adds two more members shortly after the story begins, the strapping young accordion

Introduction  5 player Cico (Fabio Junior) and his expectant wife, Dasdo (Zaira Zambelli), however, the title Bye Bye, Brasil begins to resonate. Unlike Lorde Cigano, Cico and Dasdo find a legitimate way to mesh the idyllic Brazilian past with its modern capitalistic future. Bye Bye, Brasil clearly illustrates the cost of that modernization: eco-disaster, environmental injustice, and horrific exploitation of a land and its people. Bye Bye, Brasil illustrates these environmental and social horrors by taking the troupe on a road trip through Brazil’s arid, poverty stricken northeast and across the jungles on the trans-Amazonian highway. The repeated shots of television antennae, or what Lorde Cigano calls “fish bones,” provide the first sign of an end to Brazil’s people and environment. Cigano warns that villagers will no longer serve as rapt audiences for their show, but they also indicate a move away from nature and towards modern technologies. That move reaches climactic levels once the troupe reaches the Amazon. Because their audiences have slimmed in villages where televisions have been introduced, Cigano points the caravan toward Amazonia under the advice of a truck driver carrying a huge load of lumber. The environmental degradation of the region is first associated with the trans-Amazonian highway they traverse toward what they hope are villages untouched by technology. As if announcing the end of Brazil’s pastoral past, the remains of clear-cut forests line the road, and a close-up of a dead armadillo in the center of the highway explicitly demonstrates the devastation that may occur when a modern world literally rolls over nonhuman nature. Once the troupe reaches the Amazon, the eco-disaster extends to include indigenous populations in the region, connecting destruction of the landscape with environmental racism. “Fish bones” have replaced trees in once-idyllic towns, and decadence has replaced the interdependent relationship natives formerly maintained with the natural world. Townspeople boast that they emptied native villages by dropping dynamite and scaring indigenous populations into town, where they are rounded up and flown to Western-owned paper mills in the middle of the rainforest. As an apt illustration of the conflict between nature and culture occurring throughout the film, an indigenous tribal leader and his mother ride with the caravan into town while his mother listens raptly to a transistor radio and dreams of riding in a plane. Ultimately, the film attempts to reconcile Brazil’s idyllic past with its modern future. Although Cigano loses his caravan and hires Salome out as a prostitute in the Amazon, he recaptures his gypsy dream by smuggling illegally mined minerals and earning enough to purchase a larger van and hire more performers to accompany him and Salome. Cico and Dasdo, however, negotiate a less destructive resolution to the conflict between Brazil’s past and future. Unlike Cigano, Cico will not prostitute his wife Dasdo, and in the film’s final scene, they have resumed the musical life they abandoned in their barren village—with a modern twist.

6 Introduction In the Brasilia cafe setting of the film’s conclusion, Cico and Dasdo perform to a café audience surrounded by television sets broadcasting their show. Bye Bye, Brasil, then, leaves viewers feeling the same ambivalence toward a devastating modernity faced by Cigano and his troupe. This perspective on the nature/culture binary, however, changes in films addressing urban nature more explicitly. In Rosetta (Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, 1999), Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, 2008), and Las Acacias (Pablo Giorgelli, 2011), for example, the nature/ culture binary begins to blur. Rosetta promotes a separation ­between nature and culture but valorizes the bourgeois lifestyle “culture” will allow over the lack of security found in what counts as “nature” in the film. The Rosetta (Émilie Dequenne) of the film’s title fights to escape the hopeless “natural” life she and her mother endure in a trailer park on the other side of a forest lining a busy highway. The eighteen-year-old title heroine lives with her alcoholic mother, suffers from stomach cramps, and battles to find a steady job that will free her from the burdens of a hard life outside of culture. Wendy and Lucy reverses the binary, but only for the film’s protagonist Wendy (Michelle Williams). The film recalls the dangers associated with wild nature in films such as Agnes Varda’s Vagabond (1985) wherein Mona (Sandrine Bonnaire) becomes so tied to the natural environment that she is nearly lost in it, lying dead and buried in winter weeds on the side of a road. In Wendy and Lucy, Wendy has left home to search for a job and a new life in an Alaskan cannery. When her car breaks down in an Oregon town, her dog disappears, so Wendy seeks to reunite with her pet. When she finally finds it living happily on a farm, she leaves it behind. The pastoral environment does not offer Wendy solace, but it does offer Lucy a happier life than she can provide. Las Acacias also reverses bifurcations between nature and culture as it explores loneliness and relationships during a timber truck drive from the forests of Paraguay to Buenos Aires. Rubén (Germán de Silva), a dour, middle-aged truck driver, is transporting timber from Paraguay to Buenos Aires, and Jacinta (Hebe Duarte) and her five-year-old daughter Anahi, passengers forced upon him by his unseen boss. As Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times declares, “as the journey progresses, this improbable romantic movie reels you in.” Rubén and Jacinta develop a bond built on a hope nurtured by the joy Anahi and her mother bring to the lonely road. Rather than intimate dialogue, it is the change in the landscape and the subtle softening of facial expressions that reveal this growing connection. From the nearly clear-cut forests of Paraguay to the more fertile yards and roadsides of Argentina, Rubén and Jacinta’s connection grows stronger as Rubén bonds with Jacinta’s daughter Anahi, perhaps transforming the thorny shrub of the film’s title, as well. Jacinta discovers pictures of Rubén giving a bicycle to what could be his son, but it is Rubén’s willingness to talk about his child and their

Introduction  7 distant relationship that begins to cement the trust building between them. Rubén’s desire for connection even prompts him to take a detour and deliver a months-late birthday present to his sister. Although ­Catsoulis asserts, “What we don’t know is legion—the origin of the scar beneath Rubén’s left arm, or why Jacinta declares that her child has no father—and will remain unrevealed,” small gestures like these speak volumes about Rubén’s transformation from an isolated and alienated misanthrope to a compassionate man. As Catsoulis explains, when there’s not much to listen to, we watch more intently, noticing Rubén’s weathered face soften when he interacts with the ridiculously cute child, and Jacinta’s eyes warm in response. Trust grows in that silence, chipping away at barricaded emotions with palpable patience. The quiet also emphasizes the landscapes outside the truck cab windows. As Jacinta and Rubén watch the scenery, so do we. The film begins in the desolate clear-cut wood where Rubén picks up his enormous load of timber. The view out of the truck cab looks like a war zone, with dark sharp stumps breaking through gray hard soil. Sage-colored scrub grass and desert bushes line the motorway through Paraguay and much of Argentina, but when they come close to Buenos Aires, the landscape brightens. At a rest stop, shade trees hover over a picnic table. Green trees line roadways in the city, as well. And when they reach Jacinta’s cousin’s home, the fertility of nonhuman and human nature seems to merge, with a front yard garden and loving family members greeting Jacinta and Rubén. This fecund setting parallels the relationship between Rubén, Jacinta, and her child, highlighting the evermore interconnected relationship we share with the natural world.

Ecology and Urban Cinema Ecocinema and the City seeks to move beyond these films’ urban/ rural and nature/culture binaries by revealing nature in the urban places where we live. Research on cinema and the city explores the connection between film and urban space from a variety of perspectives. A large portion of that scholarship explores film noir and its typical city setting.1 Other film scholars examine multiple genres of films while taking a narrow approach to the notion of city cinema. These scholars may apply specific lenses to filmic representations of particular cities rather than taking more global and interdisciplinary perspectives. Andrew Webber and Emma Wilson’s edited volume Cities in Transition: The Moving Image and the Modern Metropolis intertwines viewpoints from three different sources: “filmmakers with a pronounced theoretical and archival interest, scholars specializing in film and media studies;

8 Introduction and scholars with moving image interests located in disciplines other than film and media studies” (1), especially the humanities and social sciences. Although explorations in the edited volume vary, they all emphasize “issues of transit and transition as a fundamental condition of both urbanity and screen media” (1). Readings highlight the importance of railway stations and urban maps, for example, as well as public versus private time and space, iconic urban scenes and settings, psychology, surveillance, sex, and senses other than sight. Intersections between cinema and the city then are read through the lens of movement and space. Organized imaginatively, Katherine Schonfield’s Walls Have Feelings: Architecture, Film and the City takes a more traditional approach to urban cinema, exploring “post-war architecture and urbanism in London, Paris, and New York” (iii) in relation to gender. She notes parallels between film and architecture such as Brutalism and the cinematic New Wave (4), both of which showcase a decline in their art forms while also valorizing masculine ideals of the technical. According to Schonfield, women’s roles in films after WWII were pure, suppressed, and decorative, like the Brutalist public housing structures of the 1960s. In films such as Rosemary’s Baby (1968), architectural interiors parallel interiors of women’s bodies. Schonfield suggests women are associated with the interiors of home. Heterosexual men, on the other hand, can enter both work and home (and women’s bodies), crossing borders between them. Ultimately, Schonfield’s work explores why Brutalism became so prominent in the 1960s and offers alternatives to its lifeless aesthetics. Other scholars highlight the cinema of a particular city. James S­ anders’ Celluloid Skyline explores New York as both real and mythic city, “more than a geographic or economic entity, it is a distinct locus of image, style, memory and dreams” (4). Cinematic New York “is a place unto itself, an extraordinary cultural construct spanning hundreds of individual movies” (4), according to Sanders. Charlotte Brunsdon’s ­London in Cinema: The Cinematic City Since 1945 offers an entertaining exploration of the many Londons in cinema after WWII. Throughout her film readings, Brunsdon traces “the cinematic geography of post-war London, to investigate how the spaces that are, in the cinema, created through Mise en scene, cinematography and editing, invoke and stage this city” (5). By exploring films such as The Ladykillers, in which “London is an imagined London,” Brunsdon seeks to discover “How might the relationship between the cinematic city and the material city be most productively understood?” (5). Based on her readings of selected films, Brunsdon argues, “that cinematic London has a discernible shape” (5). With its narrow focus, the text avoids diluting its argument with references to social or architectural history. Instead, Brunsdon demonstrates “how attention to the construction of place-that-is London in film can inflect our understanding of how the film works, as well as how the film’s London

Introduction  9 contributes to broader patterns of cinematic Londons” (8). Brunsdon’s work focuses explicitly on London as a setting constructed and used in diverse films. Seeking to compare London films to determine relationships between them, Brunsdon also explores how her own London background may influence those readings. Ecocinema and the City also builds on the work of a wide variety of ecocinema scholars. What follows provides only a sprinkling of the research exploring ecocinema influencing our work: David Ingram’s foundational Green Screen: Environmentalism and Hollywood Cinema, Scott MacDonald’s more focused The Garden in the Machine, Pat Brereton’s Hollywood Utopia (2004), Sean Cubitt’s Eco-Media (2005), and parts of Deborah Carmichael’s The Landscape of Hollywood Westerns: Ecocriticism in an American Film Genre (2006). Essays in Michael Dana Bennet and David W. Teague’s The Nature of Cities: Ecocriticism and Urban Environments (1999); Paula Willoquet-Maricondi’s edited volume; Framing the World: Explorations in Ecocriticism and Film (2010); and Stephen Rust, et al.’s edited volume, Ecocinema Theory and Practice (2013); and Ursula Heise, et al.’s The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities (2017) also address urban ecocinema. All these works include ecocritical approaches to urban nature films, but they primarily approach them in relation to toxic city tropes. Christina Kennedy and her colleagues’ chapter in Cinema and Landscape, “Science Fiction/Fantasy Films, Fairy Tales and Control: Landscape Stereotypes on a Wilderness to Ultra-urban Continuum,” seeks to move readings of urban cinema away from stressing the urban/rural dichotomy towards a “depth of complexity and interconnectedness of reality” missing from fairy tales and science fiction/fantasy, according to the Kennedys. As Kennedy and Kennedy note, “cities are often seen as dystopias, as urban wildernesses or jungles, seldom as utopias” (291), but they also offer a reading of Men in Black that counters this view. The rural landscape is destructive in the film, and “the city, in contrast, is clean and beautiful” (292). Our work aligns most closely with at least one chapter in Christopher Schliephake’s Urban Ecologies: City Space, Material Agency, and Environmental Politics in Contemporary Culture, “The More-than-Human City: Material Agents, Cyborgs, and the Invasion of Alien Species.” According to Schliephake, films such as Metropolis (1927) to The Host (2006) and District 9 (2009) “question the anthropocentric view of the urban as a human habitat, re-figuring it as a space of hybridity and trans-corporeality” (xiv). In his Ecozon journal, “From Green to Brown Landscapes—and Back Again,” Schliephake focuses more explicitly on the lessons of urban ecology learned from analyzing ecocinema. By reading the South Korean film Cast Away on the Moon through an ecocritical lens, he attempts to bring industrial brown and exurban green “in conversation with one another” (“From Green to Brown Landscapes”).

10 Introduction Because Schliephake stresses interdependence between human and nonhuman nature, his approach aligns well with our own. This book project highlights the increasingly transformative power of nature in urban settings explored in film. Most urban nature films emphasize a toxic city like that of film noir. But others provide more positive perspectives on the natural world. Our organizational structure seeks to reveal the increasing importance nonhuman nature plays in urban settings. Nature’s restorative properties depend on humanities’ willingness to embrace both human and nonhuman nature. Although still drawing on toxic visions of the city, some films demonstrate the possibilities of narratives of environmental adaptation. Others go further and highlight interdependent relationships between humans and the natural world. A few urban nature films demonstrate a truly sustainable worldview, however, providing attainable solutions to environmental injustice and racism that combine conservation with preservation to, as Jenny Price declares, “take [] joy in wild nature…. [and] take[] joy in our everyday connections to nature” (553). Such a definition of environmentalism includes the city, for “It is an environmentalism, all told, in which our joy in wild nature is widely and deeply informed by the great joy of using nature well” (Price 553). With such a focus on sustainability, this book project augments ecocinema studies, providing a more positive perspective on urban nature films. In our own Ecology and Popular Film: Cinema on the Edge and Film and Everyday Eco-Disasters we provide ample readings of films addressing the city as a toxic site. “Ecology and Spectacle in Oil Wells of Baku: Close View: The First Eco-Disaster Film,” for example, exposes the dual message spectacular oil well explosions and fires provide viewers: beauty and environmental disaster. Our conclusion does not validate nature. Instead we assert, reading images of oil gushers and fires through an ecocritical lens can make the workings of spectacular events transparent. This attempt to expose eco-disasters in the city continues in each of these books, addressing films from Red Desert (1964) and ­Chinatown (1974) to The Fast and the Furious (2001), Blue Vinyl (2002), and Maquilapolis (2006). But we highlight only a few films with more positive approaches to environmental adaptation in the city, including Dark City (1998) and Dark Days (2000). Such a negative approach to urban nature continues in books from Leo Marx’s 1964 work The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America to Anil Narine’s 2014 edited volume ­Eco-Trauma Cinema. Although Marx’s work focuses on literature, N ­ arine’s volume highlights urban ecocinema with an emphasis on eco-disaster, including The Host (2006), Vinyan (2008), and WALL-E (2008). This book project seeks to add to urban ecocinema scholarship by exploring four sections arranged to highlight the increasing importance

Introduction  11 nature performs in the city: Evolutionary Myths Under the City, Urban Eco-Trauma, Urban Nature and Interdependence, and The Sustainable City. The first two sections, “Evolutionary Myths Under the City” and “Urban Eco-Trauma,” take more traditional ecocinema approaches and emphasize the city as a dangerous constructed space. Part I, “Evolutionary Myths Under the City” examines evolutionary narratives of environmental adaptation in both film noir and documentaries focused on urban sewers and subways. The films explored in our first section, “Evolutionary Myths Under the City,” call into question the idea of the city as natural and unaffected by human intervention and illustrate how social and environmental injustices sometimes intertwine. The notion of displacement from the New Objectivity art movement of the 1920s helps elucidate this denaturalizing of the city. As Daniela ­Fabricius explains, “Displacement can be a way of understanding not only the abyss between a landscape and how it is represented but also the erosion of the seemingly fixed binaries that separate natural and manmade environments” (175). “Evolutionary Myths Under the City” explores these fluid binaries as it focuses on tragic and comic evolutionary narratives. The films explored in this section ask evolutionary questions about who we are, where we’re going, and which story of ourselves we choose to construct: a tragic or comic evolutionary narrative. Chapter 1, “The City, The Sewers, The Underground: Reconstructing Urban Space in Film Noir” examines the idea of the city as a social and cultural construct through a reading of He Walked by Night (1948). The film highlights how and why not genetics but social, cultural, and historical forces construct “gangsters.” But what sets the film apart from other noir films is the attention it gives to the urban infrastructure hidden below its progressive construction. By foregrounding sewers as constructions, escape routes, and seemingly safe havens for noir characters, the film demystifies what seem like “givens” and calls into question the idea of the city as natural. Chapter 2, “Documenting Environmental Adaptation Under the City: Children Underground (2001)” explores underground constructions from the perspective of homeless children in Children Underground (2001). On the surface, the children in Children Underground have entered an underground that serves as the site of technological progress where excavation produces not only the means of production—coal and oil, for example— but also the foundation for the urban infrastructure—sewage and water systems, railways, gas, and lines for electricity, computers, and phones. They have entered a technology-driven underworld and reconstructed, domesticated, and humanized it as a home, an ecology in which they can move beyond survival toward interdependence. Yet because their plight and the home they inhabit are built on both nature and former dictator Ceausescu’s cultural attitudes, these homeless children also illustrate how social and environmental injustices sometimes intertwine.

12 Introduction Part II, “Urban Eco-trauma,” highlights the repercussions of ecotrauma in relation to race, gender, and species. For Tina Amorok, ecotrauma is “a traumatic loss of intimacy with the Earth and the cosmos” and “creates a deficit in the realm of eco-Being and is a core cause of human-upon-nature and human-upon human violence” (29). Films in these chapters reveal environmental injustice, racism, sexism, and speciesism associated with urban externalities, defined as “an economic choice or action by one actor that affects the welfare of others who are not involved in that choice or action” (Goodwin). According to the EPA, “Fair treatment means that no group of people should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, governmental and commercial operations or policies.” In the films we explore in this section, people of color, women, and animals disproportionately bear negative environmental consequences. Chapter 3, “Girls in the Hood: An Eco-Trauma of Girlhood” examines the impact of environmental racism and sexism on children and young adults in films about urban slums. Films addressing representations of girls living in slum-like conditions suggest they are especially vulnerable to a so-called “sick” environment (Ross 16). The documentaries Girlhood (2003) and Get Together Girls (2012) and the coming of age dramas Fish Tank (2009), All That Glitters (2010), and Girlhood (2014) demonstrate the pervasive social conflicts and eco-traumas young girls endure when they live in urban slums and housing projects. Chapter 4, “Dogs and Eco-trauma: The Making of a Monster in White God” reveals how our companion dogs may also experience and respond to eco-trauma. Our affiliation with dogs has been well documented and narrated in films as varied as the Charlie Chaplin short A Dog’s Life (1918), Umberto D (1952), and Frankenweenie (2012). This chapter explores the consequences of disrupting such bonds and exposing once tame house pets to toxic environments in documentaries such as One Nation Under Dog (2012), Out of the Pit (2013), and City of Dogs (2014), and fictional films such as White God (2015). White God illustrates the similarities between humans and dogs, highlighting how powerfully both species respond positively to love, and negatively to cruelty. This chapter suggests White God reveals how love may counter the environmental trauma humanity creates. The last two sections, “Urban Nature and Interdependence” and “The Sustainable City,” however, 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

Introduction  13 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 birdwatching 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 reconstructed garden ideal ecocritic Joni Adamson recommends. “The Sustainable City” section illustrates green possibilities in urban settings. According to political scientist Heather Campbell and her colleagues “sustainability has become a three-pillars concept that includes the three interacting, interconnected, and overlapping prime systems: the biosphere or ecological system; the economy, the market or the

14 Introduction economic system; and human society, the human social systems” (1). Films in this section demonstrate viable ways to make the biosphere, economy, and human society sustainable. “The Sustainable City” highlights multiple ways cities become “greener.” Chapter 8, “Urban Farming on Film: Moving Toward Environmental Justice in the City” analyzes urban farming documentaries highlighting sustainability and illustrating some of the economic, social, and environmental challenges surrounding urban farming. Despite the difficulties they face, however, each of these films suggests the outcome is worth the battle. Urban farms grow strong communities, improve access to healthy food, benefit the local economy, and encourage interdependent relationships with the natural world. Although they point out a variety of challenges, films such as Voices of Transition (2012), New Farms, Big Success: With Three Rock Star Farmers (2015), and U.S. focused documentaries The Garden (2008), Urban Fruit (2013), Growing Cities (2013), and The Edible City: Grow the Revolution (2014) illustrate how well urban farming facilitates economic, social, and environmental sustainability. Chapter 9, “Lives Worth Living and the Sustainable City: Will the ‘Walls of Exclusion Finally Come Tumbling Down’?” explores the sustainable city and broaches accommodations and urban planning. Most films addressing people with disabilities highlight an individual (usually played by an able-bodied actor) who overcomes adversity to become a productive member of society. What these films do not address, however, are the architectural barriers that promote exclusion both of human and nonhuman nature. Documentaries such as Lives Worth Living (2011) move beyond the individual to reveal the importance of crossability coalitions to transform the city from an inhospitable setting for people with disabilities to a well-planned sustainable home. Our conclusion, “The ‘Absent City’ of the Future” provides insights into the future of cities in both developed and developing countries. At the center of the chapter is a reading of Mainland China’s Under the Dome (2015), a documentary that takes an approach similar to An Inconvenient Truth (2006) to demonstrate the causes of (and solutions to) urban air pollution that relies on a distribution process that augments its environmental message. Yet this optimistic, nostalgia-driven argument contrasts with those found in most fictional films exploring the city of the future. The chapters in Ecocinema and the City begin to explore such contradictory visions of urban nature on film.

Note 1 See, for example, Mark Osteen’s 2013 book Nightmare Alley: Film Noir and the American Dream, Imogen Sara Smith’s 2011 book In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City, and Christopher Nicholas’s 2010 work Somewhere in the Night. Research on film noir is massive and explored in further detail in Chapter 1.

Part I

Evolutionary Myths under the City

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1 The City, The Sewers, The Underground Reconstructing Urban Space in Film Noir

With her focus on the Los Angeles River as both natural and constructed space, Jenny Price reveals the evolutionary narratives underpinning the river and the environmental movement. This focus on artificial and natural evolution begins to highlight the eroding binaries “that separate natural and manmade environments” (Fabricius 175). On the one hand, Price’s work recalls multiple film noirs set in L.A. Films from Double Indemnity (1944) to Kiss Me Deadly (1955) promote the city as lifeless. But a few L.A. film noirs explicitly connect with the Los Angeles River as a constructed and reconstructed site born of nature. For us, He Walked by Night (1948) most effectively elucidates both the eroding binaries between natural and artificial environments and the evolutionary narratives reinforcing them. By showcasing the Los Angeles River storm drains as space constructed from nature, He Walked by Night (1948) begins to illustrate Price’s focus on “the use of nature to sustain our lives” (553). With a map of L.A. as its opening title card, He Walked by Night puts L.A. up front as its main character; “a bunch of suburbs in search of a city,” the voiceover claims. After opening aerial shots of L.A., however, the setting opens up to include narrative, “a true story.” With this prologue, He Walked by Night places film noir into the space of L.A. and of criminal history. This history is also based on the story of an actual World War II veteran on a post-war crime spree in 1946 L.A. and draws on a filmic history that builds from gangster films of the 1920s and 1930s to television procedural shows like Dragnet, which was inspired by this film. He Walked by Night fits well into criminal, cultural, and filmic history of the period and uses all three to demonstrate that the urban ecology above ground is a constructed rather than natural space, built on the storm drains and infrastructure (sewage and water systems, subways, natural gas, and conduits for electricity, telegraphs, and telephones) below it. He Walked by Night examines the idea of the city as a social and cultural construct. It also highlights how and why not genetics but social, cultural, and historical forces construct “gangsters.” But what sets the film apart from other noir films is the attention it gives to the urban

18  Evolutionary Myths under the City

Figure 1.1  H  e Walked by Night.

infrastructure hidden below its progressive construction. By foregrounding sewers as constructions, escape routes, and seemingly safe havens for noir characters, the film demystifies what seem like “givens” and calls into question the idea of the city as natural. He Walked by Night constructs Roy (Richard Basehart) as a talented criminal whose death is justifiable punishment for his crimes. The film provides enough backstory during the police investigation to explain Roy’s technological abilities and interests—the radar unit in which he served during World War II. But further explanation of his behavior—both murder and theft—rests solely on his intention to open his own technology lab. Walker’s use of the storm drains beneath L.A., however, are maintained in the film to highlight how underground space, too, can be both constructed and reconstructed to serve a new purpose.1

A Brief History of the L.A. Storm Drain System The Los Angeles River is, “as David Letterman allegedly has said, the last two-lane river left in North America. A joke, a laughingstock” (Price 542). Despite being such a butt of jokes, the Los Angeles River is prolific, running 51 miles through the city and draining portions of the runoff from three mountain ranges surrounding L.A. The storm drains aiding this are part of a system constructed to combat flooding, a construction that literally reconstructs the landscape of L.A. The storm drain system was developed in the 1930s after a devastating flood in February 1914

The City, The Sewers, The Underground  19 and increasing flooding in the 1920s (Gumprecht 174, 201). This system is one of the most extensive in the world, according to Gumprecht, who notes Brownlie and Taylor’s study of sediment management (174, 1333). As early as 1862, flooding forced the city to build flood control dikes (Gumprecht 174), but after the 1914 floods, flood control plans began in earnest with the passage of a flood control bill that included proposals to construct “five dams in the mountains, [build] basins for the spreading of floodwaters at the mouths of five canyons, [and implement] channel rectification, and the reforestation of mountain slopes,” as well as levee construction (Gumprecht 181). These flood control plans, however, could not keep up with the increasing urban development in the area, and flooding along the river continued. To offset flooding resulting from such urban growth (and counter possible astronomical economic damage), a more comprehensive plan was proposed, but money to support it was limited until after another flood on New Year’s Day in 1934 destroyed streets and homes in L.A. suburbs, including the city of Glendale (Gumprecht 203). Although the Los Angeles River was not necessarily the culprit for these floods, the devastation caught national attention, and the federal government intervened in projects underfunded by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors (Gumprecht 205). With help from the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (along with an additional $70 million), a three-pronged plan was put in place beginning in 1938: Debris basins were to be built at the mouths of mountain canyons…. Large flood control basins were to be constructed on the major rivers and their tributary streams…. The stream channels themselves were to be deepened, widened, and lined with levees or concrete to enable floodwaters to be transported to the ocean as quickly as possible. (Gumprecht 208) After another flood in March 1938, engineers opted for reinforced concrete channels as replacements for uncontrolled riverbeds. After years of work, The Los Angeles River watershed today is protected by three major flood control reservoirs, debris basins at the mouths of fifteen canyons and countless smaller structures in the mountains. Channels have been enlarged and reinforced on 47.9 miles of the river and 53.2 miles of its tributary streams. (Gumprecht 227) The Los Angeles County Drainage Area Project extends this number to 100 miles of rivers and creeks and 370 miles of tributaries (232).

20  Evolutionary Myths under the City The county’s website describes this storm drain system as a “vast network of underground pipes and open channels that were designed to prevent flooding …. and is completely separate from Los Angeles’s sewer system.” Today there are more than 1500 miles of underground pipes in this system. Modern L.A. was established in 1781 with three main boundaries— mountains, the ocean shore to the west, and the Los Angeles River, which served as the city’s parameter. The shoreline and mountains are still an integral part of the urban landscape, with construction reshaping each, but the river has disappeared under concrete, completely transformed into a system of drainage pipes and concrete basins. According to Arthur Golding, the Los Angeles River today is a relic “of the physical, economic and intellectual landscape of the 1930s that shaped it.” Gumprecht notes how lush the land was along the river when the Spanish arrived in the mid-eighteenth century. What was once a rich habitat for wildlife … [with] one of the largest concentrations of Indians in North America” has been transformed into a concrete landscape. One early visitor, Juan Crespi, wrote that the area around the river “was so green and lush it seems as though it has been planted. (Quoted in Gumprecht 9) Descriptions of the Los Angeles River found in Juan Crespi’s 1769 journal highlight the fecundity of the Los Angeles River and its surroundings: This plain where the river runs is very extensive. It has good land for planting all kinds of grain and seeds, and is the most suitable site of all that we have seen for a mission, for it has all the requisites for a large settlement…. [Indians] live in this delightful place among the trees on the river…. [Across the river, we] entered a large vineyard of wild grapes and infinity of rosebushes in full bloom. All the soil is black and loamy, and is capable of producing every kind of grain and fruit which may be planted. By 1938, however, after a series of floods caused by erosion of the land since at least the 1850s and a county-wide flood that killed 113 people, the Army Corps of Engineers began “channelizing the river with 10,000 workers applying 3,000,000 barrels of concrete by hand” (Los Angeles River History). Ten years later, the storm drains built to stem floods and control the Los Angeles River are further transformed to assist Roy in his crime wave and produce a suspenseful noir, He Walked by Night. Shot by John Alton, the low-ceilinged and low-lit round and square drains serve as sinister frames for Roy’s escape attempt. They foreground how trapped Roy has become—both literally and figuratively. But they also

The City, The Sewers, The Underground  21 remind us that the urban space of L.A. has become transformed twice, first from a natural fertile basin to concrete, and now from a drainage system to an escape route.

The Los Angeles River in Film Multiple films use the Los Angeles River and drainage system as both setting and integral plot device. Some of the most popular films highlighting this L.A. system connect this reconstructed river to science fiction creatures, which are also transformed, typically by a variety of human-caused eco-disasters. In Them! (1954), for example, giant queen ants mutated when they are exposed to atomic tests in New Mexico enter the L.A. drains to build nests for their enormous eggs. The juxtaposition of two types of transformed nature—concrete river drains and radiated ants—amplifies the film’s argument against exploiting the natural world. In more recent science fiction films, the connection between the transformed natural environment of the Los Angeles River and some kind of monster merges with technology and the modern city. Both Transformers (2007) and In Time (2011) primarily use the river as a backdrop that accentuates the films’ sci-fi themes. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), however, highlights the environmental consequences and ultimate human costs of war. In Earth’s near future, ultimate cyborg weapons turn against their human creators. In a battle for the planet played out in the L.A. drains, two of these cyborgs travel back in time to either destroy or save John Connor (Edward Furlong), the future leader of the human resistance. Most of the films that transform the Los Angeles River and drainage system, however, demonstrate that the environmental impact of this concrete-covered waterway has been treated as natural and desirable. Characters in a variety of films set in L.A. conform to this view of urban culture through their acceptance of environmental degradation in the form of both a transformation of natural and man-made landscapes. In these films, the Los Angeles River is transformed again for multiple uses. It becomes a racetrack for car chases and drag races in films as diverse as Grease (1978), Blue Thunder (1983), The Italian Job (2003), and Drive (2011). It serves as a gun range in films such as Point Blank (1967), Cleopatra Jones (1973), Gumball Rally (1976), Repo Man (1984), and Last Action Hero (1993). Most recently, the third installment of the Taken franchise, Taken 3 (2014) is set in L.A., where the hero on the run from the police discovers the storm drain system underneath a suburban home’s garage and escapes undetected into its swirling waters. The neo-noir Chinatown (1974), on the other hand, uses the Los Angeles River and drainage system to showcase a water rights theme. In Chinatown, murder, infidelity, and incest all become integrally connected with water as a commodity in 1930s L.A., a context established

22  Evolutionary Myths under the City by an FDR picture in the opening shot of the J.J (Jake) Gittes (Jack Nicholson) private investigator’s office. Jake is introduced to an infidelity case but discovers the perpetrator is Hollis Mulwray (Darrell ­Zwerling), the chief engineer of L.A.’s Water and Power. According to Water and Power, L.A. is on the edge of the desert. Without water, the valley would turn to dust, and the Alto Valley Dam will save it, but Mulwray opposes the dam because it is shoddy and ineffective and because he discovers his former partner Noah Cross (John Huston) is dumping water from the L.A. reservoir into the ocean to prove the need for the dam. Ultimately, Mulwray is murdered by the very water he serves. “Los ­A ngeles is dying of thirst,” says a sticker near Jake’s car, but, as one police officer explains, “Can you believe it? We’re in the middle of a drought, and the water commissioner drowns. Only in L.A.”

Film Noir and the Underground Despite this plethora of films showcasing the Los Angeles River and drainage system, the underground infrastructure showcased in Chinatown seems to be ignored by most film critics studying film noir and the city. Instead, when critics examine what have been defined as noir films in relation to the city and its modern foundation, they highlight the spaces above this underground, especially in relation to cultural context rather than filmic history. In Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity, for example, Edward Dimendberg explores “How … film noir illuminate[s] the late-modern spaces of the 1940s and 1950s to which it provided unique access…. [and] What lessons might its spatial representations offer in the present” (3). Dimendberg concludes that film noir does not fit into the filmic history that comes before and after the noir period and argues, the nonsynchronous character of film noir is best apprehended as a tension between a residual American culture and urbanism of the 1920s and 1930s and its liquidation by the technological and social innovations accompanying World War II, as well as the simultaneous dissolution of this new social compact of the 1940s and 1950s by the society emerging in the 1960s, in which the simulacra and spectacles of contemporary post-modern culture are clearly visible in retrospect. (3) For Dimendberg, although nonsynchronous with filmic history, film noir and its representation of the city stand out as a transition between a modernist urban (centripetal) world and a post-modern fragmented world that grows out of post-World War II “innovations.” In the film noir world, bifurcations remain, so good and evil is more easily discerned.

The City, The Sewers, The Underground  23 In the post-noir world, “the dark cities of film noir” are “eclipsed by the dispersal of space in the suburbs and the geographic ubiquity and impersonality of the large corporation and the more opaque social and economic relations developing in its wake” (Dimendberg 4). Dimendberg’s argument makes sense from a visible architectural perspective, where prior to the Interstate Highway System of the 1950s, the city center served as the space of focus in wartime and post-World War II U.S. cities—thus a centripetal urge. Centrifugal forces stimulated suburban growth and, in film noir, action moved outside the city from the 1950s forward, according to Dimendberg. But Dimendberg begins from the perspective that the cityscape and its evolution are a given, a “natural” response to changes in social and cultural conditions rather than an environmental adaptation that effects change at the level of an ecosystem. Instead of simply an element of the mise–en–scène, we suggest that film noir’s cityscape is a constructed space resting on the sewer system and underground infrastructure below it. We argue, then, that in He Walked by Night, the hero both adapts and is adapted by an underground built to sustain the city above them, all in response to a war-torn world around them. Underground rail systems play a big part in film noir. Subways, like the underground sewer and water drainage systems in other films, are first constructed and then reconstructed to serve the needs of the films’ protagonists. In Pickup on South Street (1953 Sam Fuller), Murder by Contract (1958 Irving Lerner), and Dark City (1998 Alex Proyas), for example, a noir underworld becomes a literal underworld in scenes shot in a dark angled subway or sewer used primarily as a hiding place for protagonists and/or their enemies. In film, the underground serves as a cinematographic wonderland, an aesthetic as well as ecological space that serves both function and form for noir films like He Walked by Night. Visually, film noir suggests that a constructed urban environment may both literally and figuratively trap characters in a chaos they seek to escape. This need to escape becomes heightened when characters leave the city for either a rural setting or an underground, as we see in He Walked by Night. Traditionally, this need for escape is explored in later noir films like On Dangerous Ground (1951). In On Dangerous Ground, the urban underworld is a hopeless prison. The rural areas outside the city contrast completely with the menacing milieu of the city. And the musical score by Bernard Hermann amplifies this contrast. Wilson escapes his urban prison and finds comfort in both the country and in the arms of a woman, who is trapped in literal darkness. For Dimendberg, On Dangerous Ground reflects a later “phase” of film noir and reacts to centrifugal and, to a certain extent, post-modern forces of the 1950s. Dimendberg sees this movement away from the city as a reaction to white flight to the suburbs after World War II. But this flight also reflects a

24  Evolutionary Myths under the City desire to return to a more natural—albeit controlled—environment. On Dangerous Ground emphasizes the healing state of a more natural world, no matter what perspective is applied to it. Film director, writer, and critic Paul Schrader examines later noir films in relation to cultural, social, and film history. In “Notes on Film Noir” Schrader outlines phases of film noir that parallel movement from wartime to a modernist post-war period and then to a more fragmented post-modern phase, somewhat like Dimendberg. But Schrader does not see film noir as “nonsynchronous” and suggests that film noir of the World War II period reflected an unflinching dark vision that evolved into the realism of the post-war period. The early 1950s brought psychotic action and suicidal impulse; modernist responses to chaos. But “stragglers” from the later 1950s like Touch of Evil (1958), Murder by Contract (1958), and Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) illumine a changing world away from the urban center. Murder by Contract also includes important sewer escape sequences that pay homage to He Walked by Night. The parallels between Dimendberg’s and Schrader’s readings of noir, its urban setting, and its evolution are blatant. But Schrader leaves us with one observation that questions the so-called natural state of urban changes: The actors and setting of noir are often lit with equal emphasis so that actors are hidden in realistic tableaus of city and night, with their faces blacked out by shadow as they speak. The city will outlast and negate the best efforts of protagonists, not because it is a natural and organic force but because it is a constructed space that is continuously changed and adapted, both in the social and filmic worlds. Schrader illuminates this view in his own screenwriting for Taxi Driver (1976) and Bringing out the Dead (1999), and both writing and directing for Blue Collar (1978), Hardcore (1979), American Gigolo (1980), and Light Sleeper (1992). 2 The urban space in which most film noirs are set changes not only because of the characters that inhabit it, but also along with them. In a city built for mainstream enterprise, the underbelly of society forms a subculture that embraces both establishment and anti-establishment values. This “underbelly” transforms this constructed space into an underworld—both figurative and literal. For film critic Colin McArthur, cities “are always already social and ideological, immersed in narrative, constantly moving chess pieces in the game of defining and redefining utopias.” For McArthur, narratives collide in this urban space; the “hegemonic” narrative clashes with alternative narratives like those of the noir world. Critic Frank Krutnik describes this noir city as “a shadow realm of crime and dislocation in which benighted individuals do battle with implacable threats and temptations” (83). Like Dimendberg, Krutnik asserts that film noir shows us a bifurcated view of the city, one that

The City, The Sewers, The Underground  25 presents the vitality of the city along with its corruption, and its enticements alongside its horrors (84). Nicholas Christopher compares this vision of the city to a “labyrinth of human construction, as intricate in its steel, glass, and stone as the millions of webs of human relationships suspended within its confines” (16). The narratives colliding in this cityscape, then, emerge from a space literally, socially, and ideologically constructed. The literal space reflects and constructs the narratives characters in film noir enact. In films such as He Walked by Night, the urban labyrinth descends underground. He Walked by Night and the Post-War Experience He Walked by Night highlights how the city and its underground both constructs and is constructed by its protagonist. Retelling the story of World War II veteran renamed Roy Martin, He Walks by Night shows how and why war heroes sometimes return as criminals. Because he was assigned to a radar unit during the war, Roy gained and perfected electronic skills that structure his crimes—chiefly stealing and improving electronic equipment from establishments like the Radio Television Supply Company where he shoots and kills an L.A. cop after failing to break into the store. Roy modifies and then rents out stolen equipment through Reeves Electronic Labs but tells Mr. Reeves that he plans to open his own lab soon, presumably with money earned from rentals and stolen from liquor stores in later hold ups. With the help of “scientific” police procedures, Roy’s plans are thwarted, but the journey to his inevitable end provides us with visions of an underground ecology that counters arguments about urban progress as a “natural” part of an evolutionary cycle. Roy Martin has adapted the storm drains to meet his needs as a criminal on the run. Lit and staged in chiaroscuro style, he enters this underground space after committing one of his many liquor store robberies. To avoid capture by the police, Roy rolls into a sewer opening, as wide as he is long. And as Roy runs through the dark sewer into which he has escaped, a voiceover narration explains his “avenue of escape.” The narrator explains, “Under Los Angeles is a vast and intricate system of huge storm drains built to siphon off the flash floods of the rainy season.” We watch Roy run deeper into the sewers as the voice explains, Many of the tunnels are large enough for two cars to drive abreast. Here were 700 miles of hidden highway, ideal for someone who needed to hurry from place to place without being seen, ideal as a hiding place for guns and supplies in case of emergency. Roy has constructed the storm drains of L.A. into a passageway, a hiding place for weapons, and an escape route. The film shows us the actual

26  Evolutionary Myths under the City system of storm drains to reinforce the sewers as a constructed space Roy has further adapted. All the points made in the voiceover are later illustrated by Roy’s climactic attempt to escape the police, once they discover his identity and track him down. In his Belle View Court apartment, Roy has become humanized by his relationship with a loyal and friendly dog. But Roy and his dog sense that the police have discovered their aboveground hiding place, so Roy grabs his gun, a flash light, and his jacket and climbs out through the top of his closet onto the roof, leaving his dog behind. Avoiding police gunfire, a solitary Roy slides into the sewer opening and runs down the squared sewer with his flashlight shining through the blackness. Here, the film builds suspense by shifting back and forth between Roy and the police. Roy acts alone, moving through sewer space with precision that builds to fear. A police team plans Roy’s capture methodically and scientifically. We hear Roy’s running steps in the sewer, and then we see the police detectives driving away—“I want a map covering the storm drain system in this area,” the captain exclaims. Then we see Roy clutching a flashlight, this time running down a round drain. He tries to climb out into the street, but the opening is blocked by a police car. Then there is a cut back to Roy running down the beautifully lit sewer, from round to squared walls. After a view of the sewer system map from a police perspective, we again see Roy running underground, but this time he looks frantic as he eludes police with battle lanterns marching toward him. Roy doesn’t need a map, as he runs toward the main system entrance. On the way, he climbs an attached sewer ladder and picks up a hidden shotgun rolled into a blanket. He loads it with shells from his jacket and runs on like a trapped animal. He keeps looking for a way out, but all the drains are covered, so he shoots through a round sewer pipe at the line of police beyond. Masked cops firing tear gas walk four abreast down the enormous passageway. We see pipe and wires lining the ceiling of the sewers right before Roy makes one last attempt to escape, this time through a manhole blocked by another police car. The police shoot and hit Roy; then they throw tear gas into the concrete piping where he is hiding. Roy climbs up to the manhole and pushes again, but he can’t get air, so he comes down for one last shootout. The return fire drops Roy into the sewer water below. Still wearing gas masks, the police turn over Roy’s body, so we catch one last glimpse of his frightened face—eyes still open—before the movie ends, framing itself with another view of the map of L.A. that opened the film. The end credits appear on the City of Los Angeles Metropolitan Area map. This conclusion is obviously a construction—one that fits with a motion picture production code that requires punishment for violent criminals that usually ends in death. But Roy’s character is based on the life

The City, The Sewers, The Underground  27 of “Machine Gun” (Erwin) Walker, a World War II veteran, who returned from the conflict suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. According to Dick Meister, “Walker returned from overseas duty deeply disturbed, certain he had caused the death of his best buddy and others of his unit by not preparing adequately for a surprise attack.” Meister states that, in response to this trauma, Walker stole six submachine guns and a dozen pistols from an Army warehouse in Los Angeles and set out on a spree of more than a dozen holdups and burglaries—to raise money, Walker said, for construction of a ‘death ray machine’ that somehow would make another war impossible. The sewer scenes in He Walked by Night come directly from Walker’s experience eluding the police. According to Meister, “Walker shot his way out of police traps, escaping through the labyrinth of storm drain pipes under Los Angeles.” Instead of dying in these storm drains, as Roy does in the film, however, Walker was captured in his own bedroom because his girlfriend confessed his crimes to a priest. In spite of an insanity plea, Walker was sentenced to death, but his sentence was postponed when he attempted suicide and, in 1971, he was granted a new trial and released. Unlike Roy in He Walked by Night, Walker’s life ended as a chemist in Southern California. Although based in some fact, the film constructs a character and narrative that aligns with audience expectations: Roy, the criminal is a loner with only a dog, not a girlfriend, and he receives punishment that fits his crimes—death. Erwin Walker confesses to a girlfriend, serves time in prison, but is released and works as a chemist. His story makes clear that his behavior was constructed by traumas of war, not the behavior of an innate criminal.

Conclusion: Dangers of Reconstructing the Underground The city itself is built on a foundation for the urban infrastructure— sewage and water systems, railways, gas, and lines for electricity, telegraphs, and telephones. Joanne Gottlieb and Andrew Ross assert that historically, “the city of the future has its roots in the nineteenth-century underground” (234). Both Gottlieb and Ross see the city and its underground roots as a space where technology and evolution meet, where an “invented nature of the technological utopia persistently has been associated with evolutionary themes” (Gottlieb 233). Ross even claims that the idea of the city has been so central to the linear narrative of ‘civilization’ that urban growth, or urbanization… is often conceived in evolutionary terms, either analogous to biological processes or as organic development of an advanced social and political community. (114)

28  Evolutionary Myths under the City Continuous progress is justified, then, through natural analogies—urban progress is defined as parallel to biology and evolution of species. It is also justified by the hidden infrastructure from which it springs. Gottlieb notes that “In Paris, according to Christopher Prendergast, the sewers and catacombs served to rationalize urban space: through the ‘fantasy’ of odorless sanitation, concerns about disease and contagion are elided with an ideal of social order and discipline” (79, quoted in Gottlieb 237). The underground serves as the anti-establishment underbelly that allows the (sometimes corrupt) establishment above it to thrive. Descent into the underground has been so associated with descent into an underworld that images of Dante’s hell and its “evolutionary” qualities still persist in the underground roots of the city. According to David L. Pike, “The descent to the underworld functions simultaneously as a repository for the past and as a crucible in which that repository is melted down to be recast as something other than what it had been” (2). Descent into the underground, then, is seen as a transformative journey for heroes like Odysseus and Juno (Pike 5). But this transformation becomes possible only because the hero who descends into it survives the “death” below, as in Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus (1950) where mythic characters descend into the underworld to debate their own deaths. This mythic metaphor rests on biological and evolutionary views of the city and the underground on which it is built. This hidden underworld naturalizes the progress above it and mystifies cultural and ideological constructs. From this biological and mythic perspective, the noir city and its underworld become natural rather than constructed, a clear fabrication since, for example, tunnel workers in films like The Organization (1971 Don Medford) continue their construction work no matter how much extended narrative violence occurs around them. If the city, its underground, and its inhabitants are “natural,” however, they are all “givens” that are unchangeable, except perhaps through evolution—a long-term process in which only “the fittest” survive, an argument Richard Dawkins and his so-called “selfish gene” theory would support. Instead, Andrew Ross suggests that “the only really sensible thing to do is to eschew this kind of attribution altogether, and look elsewhere, to local and culturally specific explanations, for existence of selfish and altruistic behaviors” (257). We agree with Ross’s contention. Characters in the noir films we examined adapt the underground sewers and drain pipes to serve their purposes—as constructed by their war and post-war experiences. Since 2000, however, the Los Angeles River may serve as an iconic symbol of the environmental movement. As Jenny Price explains, “The campaign to bring it back to life has quickly become the most ambitious, well-funded, and widely supported vision to revitalize the quality and equality of life in Los Angeles” (542). In film noir, however, such a reconstruction seems impossible. An underground first seems to provide

The City, The Sewers, The Underground  29

Figure 1.2  He Walked by Night.

safety for post-war noir anti-heroes in He Walked by Night, as it did for civilians during World War II; it also serves as an ideal aesthetic space for post-World War II film noir. Adapting an already transformed concrete space into both an escape route and a quintessential noir setting, Roy seems to construct (or at least adapt to) a setting devoid of nature where lone anti-heroes escape the urban wilderness above them. Building on the already denaturalized environment—a concrete covered river and valley in L.A.—He Walked by Night suggests that in such an unnatural world, human nature also suffers. Instead of saving them, the sewers Roy reconstructs trap him and ultimately become his grave. Constructed as a criminal seeking success after World War II, Roy meets the only fate an underworld and underworld culture can provide, especially in the noir world of the late 1940s cinema—death.

Notes 1 In Carol Reed’s British noir The Third Man (1949), Harry Lime (Orson Welles) transforms the sewers of post-World War II Vienna into a similar escape route. Lime has adapted these sewers to meet his own needs— for escape and movement between sectors. But these tunnels are literal constructions—built to replicate the Viennese sewers in a studio in London. They also help construct a noir world built on post-World War II disillusionment. Constructions reconstructed to serve many purposes, these sewers are one underground source that illustrates environmental adaptation. 2 More recently, Schrader directed the noir Dog Eat Dog (2016).

2 Documenting Environmental Adaptation under the City Children Underground (2001)

Roy Martin’s use of the storm drains beneath Los Angeles in He Walked by Night highlights how underground space can be both constructed and reconstructed to serve a new purpose. Edet Belzberg’s Oscar-nominated documentary Children Underground (2001) illustrates another use for underground urban spaces—providing a home for displaced children. The opening of Children Underground offers a grim picture of the lives of unwanted children in Romania. A written introduction explains, “In an effort to increase the nation’s work force, former communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu outlawed contraception and abortion. Thousands of unwanted children were placed in state orphanages, where they faced terrible conditions.” After Ceausescu’s fall in December 1989, many children from orphanages and impoverished families “moved onto the streets.” As of 2001, there were 20,000 homeless children living in ­Bucharest. Because “the resources for sheltering these homeless youths were severely limited,” some of those children moved into the Victorei subway station to escape a savage city and the brutal winters above them. On the surface, these children have entered an underground that serves as the site of technological progress where excavation produces not only the means of production—coal and oil, for example—but also the foundation for the urban infrastructure—sewage and water systems, railways, gas, and lines for electricity, computers, and phones. They have entered a technology-driven underworld and reconstructed, domesticated, and humanized it as a home, an ecology in which they can move beyond survival toward interdependence. Yet, because their plight and the home they inhabit are built on both nature and Ceausescu’s cultural attitudes, these homeless children also illustrate how social and environmental injustices sometimes intertwine. As environmental historian Christopher Schliephake asserts, “urban life, rather than constituting a solely human-dominated domain, is conditioned by the interaction with nonhuman life forms and agents” (xiii). Children Underground showcases this interaction. Most views of the city, however, separate it from nonhuman nature, rather than highlighting how it is conditioned by an interaction between nature and culture. And this separation has consequences, according

Documenting Environmental Adaptation under the City  31

Figure 2.1  C hildren Underground.

to urban studies scholar Lewis Mumford. In The Culture of Cities, for example, Mumford argues, The city is a fact in nature, like a cave, a run of mackerel or an antheap. But it is also a conscious work of art, and it holds within its communal framework many simpler and more personal forms of art. … in utilizing or denying the natural site, the city records the attitude of a culture and an epoch to the fundamental facts of its existence. (5) Such a view of the city grows tragic when driven by the conscious economic plans of Romania’s communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu. The Bucharest metro station housing homeless children in Children Underground embodies the cultural attitudes Ceausescu promoted. As Matthias Luftkenshe et al. of the online travel guide In Your Pocket explains the Bucharest metro is one of the most revealing legacies of the Ceausescu regime. It was designed to get workers from the massive housing estates built during the 1960s and 1970s (Titan, Militari) to the factories where they worked, as quickly and efficiently as possible, using as few resources as possible.

32  Evolutionary Myths under the City Because of this pragmatic design, “the metro isn’t all that useful for traveling around the city centre [sic]” (Lufkenshe et al.). Instead, the ­Bucharest Metro reflects and records cultural attitudes and their eco-disastrous consequences during Ceausescu’s reign and fall. Children Underground starkly illustrates these consequences by revealing the painful lives and ecology of five children living in a subway station in Bucharest, Romania.

Homeless Children on Film: The Search for Home Film has explored the plight of homeless children since its beginnings. And a few show these children constructing and reconstructing ecology into something more like a home. A Lumiere view from 1896 shows Indochina youth chasing coins and rice thrown by their white colonizers. Charlie Chaplin’s tramp character adopts a homeless boy in The Kid (1921). But in Wild Boys of the Road (1933), two boys, Eddie (Frankie Darro) and Tommy (Edwin Phillips), leave home during the Depression to relieve their parents’ economic woes. They join Sally (Dorothy Coonan) and a group of boys and girls illegally riding trains and desperately looking for work in both rural and urban settings. One scene in particular highlights their ability to adapt to their tragic environment, reconstructing a “Sewer City” into viable homes. After WWII, films of various genres include homeless characters searching for and sometimes adapting their environment into homes. A B-Western, Song of Arizona (1946) centers on preserving a ranch for wayward boys. The second segment of Rosselini’s war drama Paisan (1946), which is set in Naples, ends with a military police officer taking a young thief home to a community living in caves under the most primitive conditions. The historical drama Border Street (1948) highlights the trauma that orphaned children suffered in the Warsaw Ghetto by contrasting their tragic environment with that of deluded Hitler Youth. In the comic fantasy Miracle in Milan (1951), orphaned homeless teenager Toto (Francesco Golisano) builds a communal shantytown for hoboes with the help of a magic dove. A homeless child even appears in the comic The Betty Hutton Show in 1959. The stories of homeless children grow more tragic in fictional films from the 1980s. Hector Babenco’s crime drama, Pixote (1981) highlights the devolution of a ten-year-old boy Pixote (Fernando Ramos da Silva) after police arrest him for vagrancy. Life in the detention center is deadly, but life on the street to which Pixote escapes is almost as hard. Another crime drama, Salaam Bombay (1988) and an animated film, Grave of the Fireflies (1988), illustrate the diversity of films about homeless children during this period, but also show how difficult it is to transform hellish environments into homes. More recent features provide hopeful resolutions for homeless children adapting hostile environments into homes, especially when responsible

Documenting Environmental Adaptation under the City  33 adults intervene. In Walter Salles’s Oscar-nominated Central Station (1998), the orphaned Josué (Vinícius de Oliveira) spends only a few nights alone in a train station before Dora (Fernanda Montenegro) takes him in and eventually reunites him with his older brothers. Pursuit of Happyness (2006) provides a similar narrative of self-realization, with father Chris (Will Smith) caring for his son Christopher (Jaden Smith) in a subway bathroom only temporarily while he pedals his invention and interns with a brokerage firm. A Gentile Polish sewer worker hides Polish Jewish children in sewers during the German occupation in In Darkness (2011). Documentaries typically provide more realistic views of homeless children, but some of these films also suggest the subjects of the documentaries can only gain self-actualization with help from Western outsiders. For example, the Academy Award-winning Born into Brothels (2004) represents a category of documentaries that highlights coping skills during fundamental transitions. Although criticized for spotlighting Western intervention as a cure for poverty in India, the film still attempts to show us, as a review from Newsweek proclaims, “the power of art to transform lives.” In the film, Zana Briski, a photographer first drawn to Calcutta’s red light district to photograph women sex industry workers, teaches prostitutes’ children how to take pictures, and she attempts to finance some of their education through exhibits of their photographs. The film’s construction, documenting these children’s transition from hopeless resignation to hopeful love of learning, is certainly fabricated through Briski’s narrative (and editing) choices. But, the film does attempt to show how the children and their mothers cope with changes brought on by the entrance of the Westerner (Briski) and her camera. Here, a vision of progress draws on an “outsider” view shown as dominant and superior to that of the “natives.” In Briski’s case, the “natives” are Calcutta children and their prostitute mothers, and she appears to beg for a pat on the back for all the help she and her program have provided.1 Other documentaries seek to reveal environmental injustices faced by both homeless adults and children in order to promote change. The Academy Award-nominated short documentary Recycled Life (2006) concentrates on homeless adults and children living in the Guatemala City Garbage Dump they consider their “source of life.” The landfill is toxic, and the lives these children live are short and full of suffering. This short film reveals the traumas children such as Elmer endure here. Because his parents died of cirrhosis of the liver, he moved to the landfill and rarely leaves his tent home because he mistrusts a society and government that do not trust him. Dangers such as collapsing trash, lung diseases, and cancers are highlighted, as well. But the film also shows viewers a possible solution; the Santa Clara Nursery and changes in city

34  Evolutionary Myths under the City ordinances regarding the dump. A devastating fire convinced the city to protect children under fourteen and provide them with schooling and job training, but more than 4,000 still work and live in the dump. The Children of Leningradsky (2005) parallels Children Underground most closely. Directed by Hanna Polak and Andrzej Celinski, the Oscar-nominated short documentary focuses on homeless children living in and under the Leningradsky Station in Moscow after the fall of communism. Children are briefly introduced and tell their stories, but the short film merely reveals the horrors of street life without offering solutions to them. Here, children suffer from the cold, police beatings, sexually transmitted diseases, rape, and after effects of glue sniffing, but the hopes for a communal home are trampled because, as a young girl declares, “there is no love.” Children Underground and Environmental Adaptation Children Underground documents a similar post-communism horror story. Stephen Holden of The New York Times argues “The misery Children Underground records is a bitter legacy of the despotic Ceausescu regime…. Since 1989, Romania’s failure to adjust to a free-market economy has left the country one of the poorest in Eastern Europe.” But this fulllength documentary follows a narrative of environmental adaptation that also reveals the negative effects of cultural and environmental disasters. We see the film following a pattern like that we found in Marc Singer’s Dark Days (2000) noted in our Ecology and Popular Film: Cinema on the Edge. As in Dark Days, which records the lives of several “homeless” adults living in subway tunnels underneath New York City, Children Underground documents the lives of five homeless children who enter a domesticated underground. In the Victorei subway station where those with little economic stability struggle to make a home and family, these children attempt to adapt a seemingly lifeless environment into an underground home. And their attempts suggest a more sustainable view of urban environments and their development. For at least two of the boys in the film, this narrative of environmental adaptation draws on comic and communal rather than tragic and individualized notions of species preservation. According to Joseph Meeker, humans typically embrace a tragic evolutionary narrative as in The Odyssey that counters the climax communities of plants and animals, which are “extremely diverse and complicated” (162). But this position comes at a price and may cost humanity its existence, Meeker asserts, “We demand that one species, our own, achieve unchallenged dominance where hundreds of species lived in complex equilibrium before our arrival” (164). This attitude may not only lead to the destruction of other species but of humanity itself. Meeker believes humanity has “a growing need to learn from the more stable comic heroes of nature, the animals” (164).

Documenting Environmental Adaptation under the City  35 To at least a certain extent, Children Underground explores what might happen if humanity did learn from these more stable comic heroes, since, according to Meeker, “Evolution itself is a gigantic comic drama, not the bloody tragic spectacle imagined by the sentimental humanists of early Darwinism” (164). Meeker asserts: “Nature is not ‘red in tooth and claw’ …. Rather, the evolutionary process is one of adaptation and accommodation, with the various species exploring opportunistically their environments in search of a means to maintain their existence” (164). Successful evolution encourages communal action to ensure survival and follows patterns found in literary and film comedy. To succeed, all living things “must adapt themselves to their circumstances in every possible way” (166). To do this, Meeker outlines “ground rules” for success that include “avoid[ing] all-or nothing choices,” “prefer[ring] any alternative to death,” “accept[ing] and encourage[ing] maximum diversity,” “accommodate[ing] themselves to the accidental limitations of birth and environment,” and “prefer[ring] love to war—though if warfare is inevitable, it should be prosecuted so as to humble the enemy without destroying him” (166). Unlike the tragic evolutionary narratives of The Odyssey and of “early Darwinism” that support extermination, the evolutionary narratives these children pursue highlight the need for accommodation. In the documentary’s Bucharest context, however, only boys are offered the community that makes a comic evolutionary narrative possible.

Cinéma Vérité, Synthesis, and Ethnography in Children Underground Described as cinéma vérité, Children Underground draws on a variety of documentary forms and styles, including direct cinema and portraiture. Stephen Holden declares the film “goes out of its way not to sentimentalize its subjects. Its visual rhythms are harsh and jagged.” Variety’s Robert Koehler asserts the approach “will stir debate and emotions.” Although Holden claims it “doesn’t try to impose a tight structure and has no music,” we see its sometimes fragmented narrative drawing on ethnographic approaches from early cinema. Like Robert J. Flaherty’s subjects in films such as Nanook of the North (1922), the homeless children of Children Underground have adapted the environment to meet their needs. But also like Flaherty, director Edet Belzberg’s shapes her subject romantically. She further transforms her subjects’ context by manipulating her subjects’ stories into a traditional narrative. In this framework, we assert that Belzberg’s ethnographic portrayal of five of the homeless children living beneath the city complicates images of the underground either as hell or as technological foundation. Within the romantic narrative Belzberg constructs, these homeless have transformed their underground environment just as American pioneers transformed the Western

36  Evolutionary Myths under the City landscape two hundred years ago. Belzberg argues that by reconstructing the “hell” beneath the city, these homeless redefine notions of progress in relation to community rather than individual growth. Children Underground first presents an ethnographic reading of certain homeless children in the Budapest subways, using film as her tool. She adheres to the criteria Karl Heider outlines for ethnographic filmmaking, explaining, “the most important attribute of ethnographic film is the degree to which it is informed by ethnographic understanding” (5). According to Heider, first, “ethnography is a way of making a detailed description and analysis of human behavior based on a long-term observational study on the spot” (6), a technique Belzberg applied by interacting with the homeless for several weeks before shooting her film. As Belzberg explains in an interview with Independent Lens, I went out a little bit before the DP came and just looked for the right kids to follow…. We spent about a week with the children without a camera, just being with them and hanging out, understanding their lives, understanding the rhythm of their lives, and then we slowly introduced the camera. Second, Heider suggests that ethnography should “relate specific observed behavior to cultural norms” (6). Belzberg demonstrates well how even these homeless individuals are immersed in a middle-class culture in which goals like building family and community prevail. She also shows us how middle-class norms are refracted to fit the subhuman underground environment in which the film’s subjects live. The individual narratives Belzberg provides us also support Heider’s third criteria for an effective ethnography: “holism” (6). The stories of these poor individuals are presented in not only their context as narrations unique to each individual, but also in the context of an overarching story about the movement down into the subway beneath Bucharest, the growth of a community below ground, and then the movement back to a brighter life for at least two children in the social centers above ground. These interconnected stories are “truthfully represented” (Heider 7), Heider’s last criterion for an effective ethnographic film. These adeptly presented personalized narratives also served as portraits of each of the five subjects. Children Underground fits into Heider’s definition of the genre: “Ethnographic film is film which reflects ethnographic understanding” (8). Like Flaherty’s Nanook of the North in which archaic Inuit hunting practices are reenacted to highlight a romanticized, more natural state, and Ernest Cooper and Meriam C. Schoedsack’s Grass (1925) and Chang (1927), which show us how civilization has corrupted the native, Flaherty’s film reconstructs (both literally and figuratively) the stories his subjects tell, providing viewers with a romantic narrative that

Documenting Environmental Adaptation under the City  37 foregrounds progress. Heider argues that Flaherty’s and Cooper and Schoedsack’s works “reflect the romanticism of the period” (26). Children Underground suggests that family values highlighted in this film rest on such “romanticism,” a foundation of middle-class society. The contrast between the hell found above ground and the family found below it also illustrates the complex combination of documentary and ethnographic strategies Belzberg draws on in Children Underground. The film not only follows the approaches taken in ethnographic films; it also integrates elements of at least two other types of documentaries. The first of these answers the question, “How do they do that?” which focuses on the details of human skill or ingenuity practiced in unusual circumstances. This is the focus and the appeal of films like Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001) (which documents how skateboarders learned their craft practicing in empty swimming pools) and Riding Giants (2004) (which shows us how the forerunners to skateboarders upped the ante for surfers). The other common type of documentary filmmaking illustrates how people cope when they are in a transitional state or moment in their lives, as do Born into Brothels, and the earlier Maysles brothers’ Salesman (1969) and Frederick Wiseman’s Basic Training (1971). Dogtown and Z-Boys shows how skateboarding evolved from a dying fad to a competitive sport based on hot-dogging stunts that grew out of surfing techniques. The documentary includes footage of stunts performed in empty swimming pools around Santa Monica and clips of some of the first competitive events sponsored by Zephyr Productions Surf Shop. The film depicts the rise of the skateboarding lifestyle, including how skateboarders like Tony Alva, Jim Muir, and Jay Adams transitioned from surfboard to skateboard, performing similar tricks on land as well as water, as they do in Riding Giants. The Maysles brothers’ work shows us how bible salesmen cope in Salesman. The film follows middle-aged male salesmen on their day-today, house-to-house sales pitches and from the winter in Massachusetts to new territories in Florida. While the weather becomes vacation-like, many of the men question whether they can continue in this line of work, questioning their ability and contemplating a transition not only from region-to-region but from the stressful profession of Bible sales to something else. In another transitional documentary, Wiseman reveals how military recruits survive in Basic Training. Providing the fascination of the “how do they do that” type of documentary, Belzberg shows us what these homeless literally do to survive in the second phase of her film, which climaxes with a view of how they cope with a transition from their underground community to a life above ground. Children Underground combines the romantic views of Flaherty, and Cooper and Schoedsack, all harking back to a more communal and, perhaps, more natural state, a community which Children Underground implies that the homeless create for themselves in their

38  Evolutionary Myths under the City underground haven. As with Flaherty, the film also critiques the negative impact contemporary “civilization” has on these pioneers below ground. Yet the film ends with a vision of progress like that recorded in Born into Brothels. As in Briski’s Indian documentary, the “outsider” view is shown as dominant and superior to that of the “natives.” In Briski’s case, the “natives” are Calcutta children and their prostitute mothers. In Belzberg’s case, those natives are homeless children. Children Underground’s Narratives of Environmental Adaptation To demonstrate these children’s need for accommodation, the narrative of Children Underground follows four loosely structured acts: 1 going underground and introducing the five children of focus in the film, 2 living like a family in the relative bliss below the savage city, 3 interacting with outsiders who halfheartedly try to help them, and 4 after police force them to leave, climbing back above ground where success depends on gendered views of community and survival. The first act of Children Underground reveals a bustling Bucharest where homeless go unnoticed by passerby. The children living in the Victorei Subway Station are first shown as anonymous and lost. Crowds go down a subway tunnel where they pass a young girl sleeping along a wall. Her clothes are dirty, and her pillow looks like an old sweatshirt. The camera pans quickly over the setting before returning to the girl, who now turns over. Adults buy food from vendors. A rapid train rolls by. The girl gets up and uses water from a bottle to wash her hands. Other children arrive beside the vendor. The vendor chases one away. Above ground a child plays an accordion and begs for money outside the subway. The music is happy, so the girl smiles. She fights with others over the Aurolac paint they inhale from plastic bags on street corners. Staying high cuts hunger pangs and deadens the fears the children have in this horrific situation. The subway sign for Victorei station suggests victory, but these children are lost. It is only when the filmmakers introduce each of the five children that their urge to create a safe domestic environment in the subway becomes clear. At nightfall, the children return to the subway, where an older girl, Cristina, organizes their beds, protecting them and collecting fees from their begging. Cristina has been on the streets since she was eleven. To get by, she dresses and acts like a boy. The others listen to her. An intertitle says she is sixteen. She says it is good not to give in. “I speak up. They hit, I hit back. The fist is what matters.” Now she has her own team. “They clean up the place where they pee.” She brushes their hair. She is

Documenting Environmental Adaptation under the City  39 the boss but does not beat them. She makes sure no one goes barefoot. To illustrate how safe they feel, the children she protects play among the passengers in the subway while carrying their Aurolac paint bags. The second subject is a younger girl, Ana, a ten-year-old who left home with her eight-year-old brother Marian because they were living in extreme poverty. There was no food or electricity. Despite her youth, it is clear she loves her brother. She hugs him to assuage his crying and keeps him warm on the subway floor. On the street, she begs to buy the Aurolac paint they both inhale. Ana and Marian’s playfulness contrasts with the tragic stares of another subject, fourteen-year-old Macarena whose lips shine with the silver Aurolac paint she continuously huffs. She brags that she bought four bottles wholesale to get high and explains that her nickname comes from her dancing, but now she is “the most street kid,” “the most Aurolac kid,” and her staggering and silver mouth prove her point. Macarena exchanges paint for food, stuffing fish in her stained mouth. The last subject, Mihai is a small twelve-year-old boy who left home at eight or nine to escape his father. The older kids pick on him, but instead of huffing, Mihai smokes cigarettes. Instead of begging, he claims he earns money by unloading things. Despite his years of homelessness, Mihai looks less affected than the other children begging and huffing their bags of paint all around him. The camera reveals each of the children drinking from bottles, huffing, begging, hiding clothing, and spitting at the trains as they roll by. These introductions prepare us for the second act and the family structure Cristina has established in the subway station home. Cristina and the other children carry large bottles and crates of cola down to vendors for money. For her and the other children, the subway has become a haven from the hell of the lives they led in orphanages or neglectful and violent parents’ homes. As Cristina explains, she came from an orphanage where she was tortured. The workers would tear off her clothing and hit her in a dark basement. She had no parents and no school to attend. Instead of an insane asylum, she moved into the subway where she cares for the children around her. After vendors close their shops, children flatten cardboard boxes for their beds. Cristina looks after them, but she also punishes them if they misbehave. Ana broke a crate of bottles and robbed from a kiosk, so she must collect money to repay the shop’s owner. Cristina parents the children in the subway, creating a family for them where she is both mother and father. As a mother figure, she comforts the children. She has taken care of Macarena since their days in the orphanage. When a vendor grabs Macarena to stop her loud and tortured crying, Cristina leads her away, hugging her, wiping her eyes, and offering her a cigarette. But she also protects them like a more masculine father figure. In one scene, for example, she uses her club to force an

40  Evolutionary Myths under the City adult homeless person out of their subway area. Although he continues to yell, Cristina locks the doors behind him, keeping him out and the children safe. A happy park scene highlights how this close family structure supports them even above ground. Together they swim in a small lake stripped down to their underwear. They play like the children they are before dressing for their return to their subway home. The shelter Cristina has established for these homeless children is threatened by the environmental and social injustices of post-Ceaucescu Bucharest. The opening narration has already revealed the source of these children: reproduction forced by outlawing contraception and abortion. Driven onto the street by brutal and impoverished childhoods in shattered homes or orphanages, these children struggle to survive, escaping the cold in the subway station and hunger through the paint they huff. As Macarena declares, “when people give me money, I buy paint.” It curbs her hunger: “It’s like paradise! You dream that you eat, and I can’t give it up.” The paint anesthetizes her and the other children from their painful environment. To highlight the contrasting world of pedestrians in the sun and drug-addled children below, the film shifts to black and white. Ana and her brother Marian carry bottles to subway vendors for the money they need to buy their paint. Once they are paid, they take a train to a hardware store where shopkeepers sell them small bottles of metallic Aurolac paint despite the presence of a film crew. They even sell paint to eight-year-old Marian. Still in black and white the children shake up the bottles and pour paint into plastic bags. Older children hit Marian until Ana intervenes. She hugs and kisses Marian, but the coughing all around them suggests the dangerous side effects of huffing paint. Although Mihai sings and dances and claims he likes living on the streets because he is free, he also wants to be educated but has no one to teach him. He dreams of studying science but admits he only started fourth grade. Instead of a subway box, he wants to have his own house, and it will be pretty. The third act focuses on the few social services available to these children and their mixed results. Social worker Angi Preda comes to check on the children irregularly. Cristina and the other children love her and beg her for a day in her Heart to Hand Day Clinic. Angi seems concerned about Ana and her brother but really has little sympathy for Ana and believes the young girl likes life on the street. Marian, on the other hand, needs attention and affection. As a title card explains, the “Heart to Hand Day Clinic for Street Children is one of only two day clinics in Bucharest. It is able to provide basic medical care to street children, but not housing.” Angi takes Ana, Marian, and Mihai back to the clinic, where workers shave and bathe them to control lice and disease. They feed them and counsel them but only for the day. Ana says her flesh hurts but won’t give up the paint even when a nurse threatens that she won’t

Documenting Environmental Adaptation under the City  41 give her medicine for her cough. She claims she’s warm if they close the subway doors at night, but her illnesses suggest horrid living conditions. Mihai talks about his father’s drinking that caused an anger that turned into beatings. His mother drank alcohol, as well, so he ran away. Another care worker from Casa St. Ioan, Sister Mary Murphy, also tries to help Ana and Marian, but again offers little respite. She has been watching the young pair and wants to find a safer place for them because they are so young. She takes them to Casa St. Ioan while Macarena cries. She wants to go with the Sister to buy clothes: “She’s dressing only Ana, not me because she saw me with a bottle,” she cries. At Casa St. Ioan, a nonprofit home for children with only ten beds, children admitted must be deemed capable of rehabilitation. Although Marian may meet the shelter’s criteria, Ana looks distressed. Workers suggest both Marian and Ana have been on the streets too long to stay at the shelter. Instead, they want to contact their family to see whether the home environment is suitable. They send them away, giving Marian only water before they go back onto the streets. A third social service, The Open House School for Street Children, attempts to prepare homeless children for school. But because children need identity papers to register for regular schools, few ever do. Instead, their parents keep the papers, so they can collect welfare and control their children. Mihai seems most pleased with the school where he can read, write, and eat. To enter the school, the children must be clean and sober. Even Macarena sobers up to go to the school. Here, social workers help Mihai’s attempts to retrieve papers from his parents’ house. They take a train to his hometown near a beach, but Mihai refuses to go to the house because he fears his father’s violence. Anca Roman, a child advocate, surprises viewers here by declaring that all parents beat their children, and Mihai is embittering their last days by leaving home. Two of the workers do attempt to retrieve the documents, but Mihai’s mother won’t give them up, claiming she doesn’t have a copy. Although she says she will make a copy on Monday and send it to them, the documents are never sent. The hopelessness of this scene is exacerbated by an interview with Mihai’s father, who claims he never beat Mihai. He only slapped him and chained him to a radiator. His solution is to place Mihai in a special hospital for neuropsychiatry where Mihai might be cured. Social workers also take Ana and Marian home for a visit, but their mother, father, and stepfather are unemployed, so food and money are scarce. Her mother suggests Ana left because she had nothing to offer her, but when the stepfather enters, other reasons surface. He believes Ana and Marian are sick and doesn’t care because they are not his children. He declares that it’s torture to live with Ana. And because Marian wets the bed, he must be examined. Ana is psychopathic, he claims, and refers to the self-cutting she performs as evidence. Pieces of abuse are revealed in the conversation. According to the stepfather, he bathed her to

42  Evolutionary Myths under the City find out if she was a virgin and grows angry because Ana likes chocolate. Mom even argues that they lived better during Ceausescu’s time. The visit is unsuccessful, and Ana and Marian return to the subway.

Climax and Resolution Children Underground’s last act documents the repercussions of a police sweep of Piata Victorei a year later. Expelled from their sanctuary, the children face a new life above ground, and only the two boys find a home. The documentary suggests success and an accommodating community depend on the gender of the child seeking environmental and social justice. Ana and Marian were picked up for vagrancy and placed in a temporary state shelter. But social workers only deem Marian capable of rehabilitation. He is placed in state custody and admitted to a private residential center, Casa Robin Hood, where he plays with other children and likes soccer and computers. He looks healthier and appreciates having a place to stay off the streets. Ana, on the other hand, is sent home, where her parents only keep her because they were threatened with prosecution for abandonment if they didn’t. Although Ana too looks healthier, her mother says she is too impulsive and irritable and wants to place her in a mental hospital with a school. Ana doesn’t want to go, but her future looks bleak. Mihai also finds a safe haven in a residential center, The Arms Center for Children. He has suffered more physical and emotional trauma than Marian while living on the street, but social workers still find him capable of rehabilitation. In the Arms Center, he too looks healthy now and plays with the other children. Although his mother has not yet sent his papers, he has escaped the cold and danger of the streets. Cristina’s story is less hopeful. After being evicted from the subway, Cristina moved to an abandoned construction site controlled by older boys. She explains that things have been very hard since the year before. She is not playing the boss here, she tells us, but she has earned respect enough to survive and thanks God she doesn’t have any more enemies around her. Instead of lamenting the violence she suffered, she blames herself, suggesting she needed to get her head checked because she wouldn’t stop hitting. The only comfort we see for Cristina in the cold ruins she calls home is a puppy she playfully scratches. Macarena’s outcome demonstrates the grimmest consequences of their eviction. Continuing to live on the street, she stopped going to The Open House and broke off from Cristina’s construction site group because of their violence. She keeps to herself, she says. It’s not better, she says, because she must stay outside and gets pain from the drugs. She has been beaten and wants to die. Her suffering has driven her nearly mad, so she declares she is not from Bucharest, and her mommy and daddy are waiting for her. She has a sister who looks like her doing well at school, she

Documenting Environmental Adaptation under the City  43 proclaims. Macarena’s evolutionary journey now only resolves happily in her paint-filled hallucinations. Children Underground begins to show ways homeless children adapt the environment and themselves to survive in a sometimes savage underground world. In their underground home, Cristina, Ana, Macarena, Marian, and Mihai demonstrate the resilience of humankind and suggest that the best way to solve urban environmental problems is to construct comic evolutionary narratives that intertwine humans with each other and their environments. Above ground, however, the intervention by public organizations breaks up their family and makes decisions about appropriate behavior based on gender. In Children Underground, only boys are worth “civilizing’” once they move out of the subway. Girls must make their way alone in a savage urban wilderness, tragically needing to prove again and again that they are fit for survival.

Conclusion: Nature in the Urban Underground The narrative of environmental adaptation replicated for at least two of the children parallels evolutionary theory, demonstrating a need for interdependence for species survival. As Charles Darwin explains, “all past and present organic beings constitute one grand natural system, with group subordinate to group, and with extinct groups often falling in between recent groups” (433). This approach also connects explicitly with organismic approaches to ecology like those defined by Aldo ­L eopold. In his Sand County Almanac, Leopold explains that extending ethics to include nonhuman nature “is actually a process in ecological evolution” (202). For Leopold, “all ethics so far evolved reset upon a stable premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts” (203). Without such community, Ana, Cristina, and Macarena have little chance to evolve. As recently as 2013, for example, Cristina is 31 but still living on the street. According to blogger Stefan Mako, she is addicted to ethnobotanics, a synthetic plant-based drug, and suffering from Hepatitis C. Her drug source, Bruce Lee, however, demonstrates the continuing efforts to adapt environments, since he and hundreds of other adults and children live in the tunnels beneath Bucharest. Forced out of the subways, they have adapted these sewers and tunnels into something like a home. But the documentary illustrates other approaches to ecology, as well. Most evident is its emphasis on the need for human approaches to ecology and the environmental justice connected with this approach. The city they attempt to leave is, as Andrew Ross puts it, “sick, monstrous, blighted, ecocidal, life-denying, [and] parasitical” (16). Like Huck Finn, who runs from “civilizing” forces that encourage monstrous practices like slavery and squelch attempts to live a free life outside the status quo, subjects in Children Underground attempt to escape his or her own

44  Evolutionary Myths under the City monstrous conditions when leaving the city to build an underground “home” where they can live unique, individual, free, and, thus, more natural lives. For Ross, urban ecocriticism would embrace human ecology issues that affect humans living in the city “like sanitation, rat and pest control, noise pollution, hunger, malnutrition, poor health, premature death, not to mention the conditions that underpin these hazards, like the slashing of public services and the savage inequities of public housing policies” (15). In Children Underground, children battle sanitation that results in lice and skin diseases. The toxins they inhale in the subway, on the streets, and from their paint bags cause respiratory illnesses and chronic coughs. Hunger and malnutrition drive them to the Aurulac paint that they regularly huff. The film makes clear that these children’s homelessness is a product of drastic economic disparities and a horrific lack of social services. The film also condemns economic approaches to ecology by illustrating the human causes for the dreadful environment these children attempt to reconstruct. As Christopher Schliephake asserts, A cultural ecological approach to urban environments … has to take into account both the unseen threats built into the urban ecosystem and the way in which social disadvantage is reflected in spatial terms by residing in un-lucrative, affordable areas often located near places of risk—garbage dumps, chemical industry, or canals prone to flooding. (xli) What we need to consider is that, as Schliephake argues, “What, at first, appears to be a natural hazard, is actually rooted in human intervention and manipulation of the surrounding geography … [and] are often the symptoms of environmental injustice and political indifference” (15). Ana and Marian’s trip home serves as one example of how economic disparities contribute to environmental injustices in the film. It becomes clear there that Ana left home because her parents could no longer afford to support her. In these scenes, rural and urban poor are both economically and environmentally disadvantaged, with no electricity, employment, or inadequate food and energy to sustain them. Despite these environmental, social, and economic injustices, however, Marian and Mihai resolve their narrative of environmental adaptation successfully. They highlight how interdependent relationships can build a comic evolutionary path built on ecosystem survival. As Leslie Paul Thiele suggests, their comic evolutionary narrative proves more successful than a tragic narrative of extermination, since “awareness of the web of relationships that we act within but cannot control might well heighten our sense of responsibility. … Such a chastening is in order lest the human race as a whole suffer the fate of Oedipus” (Indra’s Net

Documenting Environmental Adaptation under the City  45

Figure 2.2  Born into Brothels.

and the Midas Touch 203). Cristina, Ana, and Macarena, however, are not considered fit for the interdependent community centers that accept and support Marian and Mihai. In the urban environment of Budapest documented in Children Underground, boys rule, girls fail.

Note 1 Sacrifice (1999) highlights only the horrors Burmese girls face when sold to Thai brothels. But, the Indian sex slave documentary The Day My God Died (2003) provides a hopeful ending.

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Part II

Urban Eco-Trauma

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3 Girls in the Hood An Eco-Trauma of Girlhood

Cristina, Ana, and Macarena’s struggles under the streets of Bucharest highlight the limits of evolutionary narratives, which sometimes “naturalize, or provide a biological gloss, for the experience of social conflict within cities” (Ross 17). An approach to urban environments that includes social ecology, however, exposes the roots of environmental racism, injustice, and sexism faced by children in slums and public housing. Representations of urban nature may strive for interdependence and sustainability, but the city is usually portrayed as toxic for the socially and economically disadvantaged. As Christopher Schliephake explains, those living in slums face a plethora of environmental hazards, all “based in resource exploitation and pollution of the natural environment” (15). Mike Davis offers strong evidence for Schliephake’s claims, arguing that “much of the twenty-first century urban world squats in squalor, surrounded by pollution, excrement, and decay” (19). Although all slum dwellers face such environmental injustices, the consequences of urban blight grow exponentially when children are involved. Films addressing representations of girls living in slum-like conditions suggest they are especially vulnerable to this so-called “sick” environment (Ross 16). As ecocritic Anil Narine suggests, “a traumatized earth begets traumatized people” (13). The documentaries Girlhood (2003) and Get Together Girls (2012) and the coming of age dramas Fish Tank (2009), All That Glitters (2010), and Girlhood (2014) demonstrate the pervasive social conflicts and eco-traumas young girls endure when they live in urban slums and housing projects. The horrors children face in urban slums come to life in fictional and documentary films, perhaps demonstrating how the history of the film industry aligns with urbanization and the inevitable slums it created. With a few exceptions, including D.W. Griffith’s shorts A Child of the Ghetto (1910), The Lily of the Tenements (1911), and Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912), as well as his feature Broken Blossoms (1919), most films narrating the lives of slum children focus on boys and their individual struggles. All of these films expose the desolate conditions of slums in the U.S., Europe, and around the world. But films focusing on young girls coming of age in urban slums or housing projects reveal the

50  Urban Eco-Trauma

Figure 3.1 Fish Tank.

heightened eco-traumas and environmental injustices protagonists face because they are female. According to ecofeminist and environmental activist Dr. Vandana Shiva, girls and women face increased violence in our contemporary global culture. Their contributions to the economy are discounted, and their bodies are commodified (xv, xvi). For Shiva, “An economics of commodification creates a culture of commodification, where everything has a price and nothing has value. The growing culture of rape is a social externality of economic reforms” (xvii). Girlhood, Fish Tank, All That Glitters, Get Together Girls, and Girlhood demonstrate the traumatic consequences of such commodification in both emerging and Western urban cultures.

Slums, Housing Projects, and Boyhood: Although many of D. W. Griffith’s movies showcased the struggles girls faced in urban slums during the silent era, later films typically highlight boys’ experiences in such lower-class neighborhoods.1 In The Blackboard Jungle (1955), To Sir, with Love (1967), and Up the Down Staircase (1967), however, the emphasis is on outsiders’ attempts to “save” boys and (sometimes) girls from their dangerous slum lives. Crime dramas like Salaam Bombay (1988) and Once Were Warriors (1994) pave the way for more recent films set in Latin American, Indian, and African slum townships. Most of these highlight a single male perspective with a narrative leading towards at least a semblance of hope based in Western

Girls in the Hood  51 colonial values. This perspective continues despite the possibility that, as Davis suggests, these slums are a product of colonialism and Europeans’ drive to separate themselves from impoverished natives (51). Told from the perspective of Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues), a favela boy turned photographer, City of God (2002) showcases the violent patriarchal culture in lower-class slums near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. But it also contrasts the ambitions of boys growing up in this horrific environment; Rocket and childhood friend Li’l Dice (Douglas Silva), who later changes his name to Li’l Zé (Leandro Firmino). Years earlier, the boys attempted a hotel robbery that turned deadly. When Li’l Dice/Li’l Zé shot and killed hotel employees, Rocket chose to leave the gang and shoot pictures instead of guns. Li’l Zé built a drug empire controlling a section of the city with weapons and fists. Ultimately, however, Rocket’s choice brought him success, while Li’l Zé’s brought him death. Rocket’s photos of gang activity and the murdered Li’l Zé turn into a career with a Rio de Janeiro newspaper. They also align him with mainstream colonial values that undermine the values a gang community may allow. As in City of God, The Wooden Camera (2003) contrasts the coming of age stories of two boys who choose between crime and art. Although narrated in part by younger “sister” Louise (Lisa Petersen), the film again illustrates the effective colonial choice for slum boys. Living in Kayelitsha, a slum township near Cape Town, South Africa, Sipho (Innocent Msimango) chooses a destructive path that cuts against Western values when he finds a gun and forms a gang. His friend and adopted brother Madiba (Junior Singo), on the other hand, chooses a stolen camera over either gun or gang and documents his slum life, relatives, and friends, turning urban environmental injustice into art. Madiba’s films reveal the environmental injustice and racism in his township home, a stark contrast to the prosperous Cape Town just miles away. Both Madiba and his films serve as a bridge between rich whites and poor blacks, whose wealth disparity continues after the fall of Apartheid. With support from a French music teacher Mr. Shawn (Jean-Pierre Cassel) and a young white cello student and activist Estelle (Dana de Agrella), Madiba escapes the squalid conditions of his township. In a turn toward fantasy and perhaps a merging of colonial and township values, Madiba runs away with Estelle, filming the past they leave behind through a train window. Set in a slum township near Johannesburg, South Africa, Tsotsi (2005) provides a starker view of slum life after Apartheid. At the beginning of the film, Tsotsi (Presley Chweneyagae) leads a small gang of boys that includes the educated Boston (Mothusi Magano), the gentle giant Aap (Kenneth Nkosi), and the violent thug Butcher (Zenzo Ngqobe). On a Johannesburg commuter train, the boys rob an innocent-looking black man. And when Butcher kills him, the gang begins to disintegrate, leaving Tsotsi to make choices that disconnect him from the community

52  Urban Eco-Trauma of his gang. To a certain extent, however, these choices also align him with the Western colonizers who oppressed them. First, Tsotsi beats up his friend Boston when he asks Tsotsi about his parents. As Tsotsi runs away, a flashback shows him as a younger boy running in the rain and sleeping in a drainpipe. But in the film’s present, Tsotsi steals a rich black woman’s (Nambitha Mpumlwana) car and shoots her when she resists. A baby’s cry from the back seat distracts him, however, so he crashes the car and eventually leaves with the child. Back in his slum shack, Tsotsi exposes the humanity hidden beneath his thug exterior. He diapers the baby with newspapers, plays music and dances to calm it, and feeds it condensed milk from a can. He even induces Miriam (Terry Pheto), a young mother, to feed the baby and compliments her on her wind chimes. And he brings Boston home to nurse him. Tsotsi’s change of heart also broaches memories of his mother. In another flashback, she lies in her bed, dying of AIDS and asks Tsotsi, now called David, to hold her hand. But his father orders him to leave, and when their dog barks, his father kicks it, breaking its back and leaving it to die. Now the reason for Tsotsi’s thug life is clear. But as Boston might say, he has not completely lost his “humanity,” perhaps because he now has a helpless baby to nurture. He even returns to the baby’s house with his gang to steal food and clothing for the child. Unfortunately, Butcher again has a gun and tries to shoot the baby’s father (Rapulana Seiphemo). Tsotsi shoots Butcher instead, so even Aap feels betrayed. In the end, Miriam provides a resolution for Tsotsi’s dilemma, convincing him to return the baby to his parents. The police track him down, but because Tsotsi had saved the father’s life, he saves Tsotsi. Tsotsi gives him the baby, surrenders to the police and survives, transcending the horrific slum environment with his choice. Although primarily a fairy tale romance, Slumdog Millionaire (2008) reveals the dire environmental and social conditions of India’s slums through the eyes of a young Jamal (Ayush Mahesh Khedekar). Seen in flashbacks by Jamal as a young adult (Dev Patel), scenes of poverty, filth, and violence highlight the environmental racism and injustice faced by Jamal and his family as Muslims growing up without a father. Despite the comic tone of most of these flashbacks, they also highlight the toxic conditions Jamal suffers throughout his childhood. In an early scene, Jamal and his brother Salim (Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail) run from police through the garbage-strewn crowded shantytown slum in which they live. In another childhood flashback, Jamal and Salim charge money to use a makeshift outhouse. When Salim locks him in the outhouse, so he cannot greet a Bollywood star, Jamal holds his nose and jumps directly into the open sewage below him. Covered in excrement, Jamal serves as both source of laughs and symbol of environmental injustice. The horror reaches a climax when Hindu vigilantes slaughter Salim and Jamal’s mother (Sanchita Choudhary), shattering their home. Although

Girls in the Hood  53 the journey to its raucous Bollywood ending is a toxic nightmare, the film ends happily, reinforcing romantic Western values based in capitalist solutions.

Gender and Eco-Trauma in Get Together Girls (2012) Films focusing on girls sometimes promote the superiority of Western values in similar ways. But they also reveal the increased traumas these young women face because of their gender. For example, Get Together Girls documents Italian activist Grace Orsolato’s mission to provide street girls in Kenya with education and career opportunities in the stereotypically feminine clothing industry. But the documentary also effectively illustrates the challenges six street girls face in the slums of Kenyan cities. Sewage streams through dirt streets between makeshift shacks. These girls face numerous environmental injustices because they lack adequate food, clean water, and bathrooms. And because they are female, they also face a patriarchal society where they are considered inferior and are compelled to disguise themselves as boys to avoid rape. Despite the focused profiles of the six girls in the Get Together Girls project, however, the film maintains Grace’s outsider perspective and reinforces the colonial values that helped create the horrific conditions on display. The film does take the time to introduce the horrors each girl faced before joining the project. With a structure organized around terms associated with the clothing industry, the film narrates and portrays each girl’s journey to the Anita’s Home shelter and the Get Together Girls work project attached to it. Each of these stories also showcases the gendered eco-traumas they each endure as either actual or potential wives and mothers. Each of the girls’ stories illustrates how these eco-traumas intensify because they are female. The shelter and project provide opportunities for these girls to recover from these multiple eco-traumas, offering “empowerment of the survivor and the creation of new connections” (Herman 133). Each story emphasizes recovery through the relationships each girl builds while participating in the Get Together Girls project. Monicah went to the streets at three-years-old after her sister and mother died. As a teenager, she moved in with a boyfriend, but after he died, she lost everything but her daughter to her boyfriend’s sister. ­Monicah believes Grace offered a great opportunity. Esther has four brothers and a Masai father with three wives. But when her mother tried to educate Esther, her husband divorced her and tried to force Esther into an arranged marriage that required female circumcision. To escape these horrors, Esther ran away to Anita’s House and the project. With the money she earns, she helps support her mom. Teresia lives with her mother in a Ngong slum. Her mother sells vegetables in the market but has little to spare. Teresia chips in with project

54  Urban Eco-Trauma earnings; buying a television, paying the electric bill and helping with the rent. According to Grace, Teresia’s loving environment has helped her gain maturity. Hellen manages a clothing shop for the project. Her mother still lives in a Nairobi slum where, according to Hellen, they have “flying toilets.” Because no one can afford the one restroom for thousands of residents, they urinate into paper and throw them out in the streets. Sewage flows everywhere. In these conditions, girls suffer without security or even sanitary napkins. Hellen pays her mother’s rent with her earnings, as well. Grace and Hellen also visit another girl in the slum who left Get Together Girls because she was pregnant. Other participants in Get Together Girls maintain their connection with the organization despite pregnancies. Mary has to give up a scholarship to be an obstetrician when she gets pregnant and is left alone to care for her son when her boyfriend is shot. Yet, she continues work as a seamstress. Irene also gets pregnant and loses focus, but Grace keeps her on as a seamstress, and she moves in with Monicah. Despite these attempts to personalize each girl, the film ends with outsider Grace’s perspective, who worries that giving the girls 180 ­Euros for Christmas will send them away from the center. They stay on and work, despite Grace and her intern Teresa refusing to accommodate ­A frican styles or practices. Instead, outsiders from Italy determine their approach to fashion, and Grace’s struggles to build and sustain the center take precedence over the girls’ ideas. To survive, the girls accept traditional roles both in their families and careers, as well. Still, the street girls and Grace agree that the project is a success, and the fashions they create make it to runways in Nairobi and Milan shows.

Environmental Injustice and Racism in the Projects Although the environmental and social problems are less obvious in films set in housing projects in the UK, U.S., and France, here too individual boys overcome eco-traumatic circumstances by choosing an established patriarchal path, while girls face more ambivalent futures. La Haine (1995) reveals how the lifeless environment of Paris housing projects results in violence, especially when coupled with a corrupt and indifferent power structure. Although the protagonist of Harry Brown (Michael Caine, 2009) has “come of age” as an elderly vigilante, he battles a youth gang in his London estate housing project to avenge his friend’s murder. These themes continue in U.S. films, including Spike Lee’s Clockers (1995). And the documentary The Wolfpack (2015) highlights how fear of the eco-disasters surrounding them in a New York City ghetto leads the head of the Angulo family to lock his wife and sons away in their apartment. Attack the Block (2011) takes a different approach to the male coming of age story as it follows a teen gang and its leader Moses (John Boyega)

Girls in the Hood  55 as they defend their South London housing project “block” from an alien invasion. Director Joe Cornish gives an indie feel to the comic science fiction genre by setting an alien invasion in a council estate in South London on Guy Fawkes bonfire night, casting wannabe gangsters as the heroes who defeat the low-tech yet menacing aliens, and integrating a scientific reason for their attack. But the film takes this genre further by including at least two intersections between humans and the urban environment in which they live; an exploration of the impact of a “lifeless” urban environment on children and young adults and an alien attack explicitly connected with the natural world that motivates these children to change. The council estate apartment building, which serves as the primary setting for the film, establishes a cold stark tone to the film, while its sparsely lit narrow hallways serve as hollow caverns. Overhead lights blink on and off, their fluorescent gray glow encouraging multiple cast shadows. Outside the enormous buildings, dark streets are interrupted only by exploding fireworks and bonfires commemorating Guy Fawkes, who attempted to overthrow England’s King James I in 1605. The explosions also mask the alien invasion, since trails of light from the alien ships and their blasts on impact blend with flowering pyrotechnics surrounding the city serving as a disguise for the entrance of the frightening sightless alien creatures with glowing fangs. Like Guy Fawkes, these aliens’ attempts to “overthrow” the council estate block are thwarted, but this time the heroic champions are teen thugs, who enter the film as a “gang” when they mug Sam (Jodie Whittaker), a nursing intern. The gang’s leader, Moses (John Boyega), comes off as a tough urban hood, even when the crime is interrupted by an exploding car. When Moses and his boys investigate, instead of finding the remnants of fireworks, Moses is attacked by a small alien creature, which then runs into the darkness. Instead of letting it run away, as they did with Sam, Moses and the gang chase the creature and kill it, carrying it to their adult friend and drug dealer, Ron (Nick Frost) for advice about selling it on eBay. In this scene, these thugs seem to be constructed by their harsh urban environment and become products of the lifeless world around them. The enormous projects even seem to breed the aliens who climb their walls in enormous numbers. As Andrew Ross argues, mainstream environmentalists view the city as a monstrous savage (16), so the contrasting idea of an environmentalism grounded in the city—an urban ecocriticism—may be, as Ross puts it, “an oxymoron” (16). For Ross, urban ecocriticism would embrace environmental priorities that affect urban residents, like sanitation, rat and pest control, noise pollution, hunger, malnutrition, poor health, premature death, not to mention the conditions that

56  Urban Eco-Trauma underpin these hazards, like the slashing of public services and the savage inequities of public housing policies. (15) Attack the Block begins to interrogate these issues by setting a typical science fiction narrative in a low-income urban housing project. Moses underpins the dire consequences associated with environmental injustice and racism in the city. The council estate in South London where Moses, Sam, and the gang live is crowded, dirty, and surrounded by concrete. So, it comes as no surprise that this lifeless setting also breeds drug use and crime. Police brutality has undermined any trust in law enforcement and politicians, as well, so much so that Moses suggests they sent the aliens to destroy them: I reckon, the Feds sent them anyway. Government probably bred those things to kill black boys. First they sent in drugs, then they sent guns and now they’re sending monsters in to kill us. They don’t care man. We ain’t killing each other fast enough. So they decided to speed up the process. At fifteen, he lives virtually alone in a sparsely furnished apartment with an uncle who comes and goes, “goes mostly,” according to Moses. This forced independence has toughened Moses, transforming him from child into thug on the streets, an appearance that conceals his youthful humanity. Sam even thinks Moses must have a little brother when she sees his bedroom decorated with comic book heroes. When the teen gang turns into the heroic team that defeats the alien attack, the stereotypes about the savage urban environment and its effect on residents is turned on its head. These thugs are sons of working mothers with goals outside their initial criminal actions, and they have a fierce loyalty for their “block” and wish to defend it. Ultimately, they even team up with their mugging victim, Sam, to defeat the aliens. ­Moses again highlights this transformation. The film begins to reveal his humanity when he looks through Sam’s purse and discovers she’s a nurse who lives in their project. He doesn’t want to pick on fellow compatriots and seems to show remorse for the mugging. Moses’s emotional and intellectual abilities are also highlighted, when he kills a female alien and wants to show it off to a prospective girlfriend, Tia (Danielle Vitalis). To determine the creature’s species, he seeks help from the Block’s amateur biologist Ron, because he watches National Geographic and oversees a secure weed room. But Ron can only declare, “Maybe there was a party at the zoo, and a monkey fucked a fish.” Moses must lead the fight based on a second and, perhaps, more important connection with the natural world explored in the film: feminine pheromones as a motivation for the aliens’ attack. Pheromones are

Girls in the Hood  57 introduced in the film during the first scene in Ron’s apartment where a nerdish pot smoker, Brewis (Luke Treadaway) watches a nature program. Although Brewis declares, “the alien species isn’t of any taxonomy he has studied,” a voiceover on the television in the background explains how moths are drawn to their future mates’ pheromones. The message makes sense later, when Brewis, who also seems to have excelled in zoology classes, notices a luminescent liquid on Moses’ jacket and connects it with the program: the alien Moses killed must have been a female, he theorizes, and left a pheromone on him that the other aliens have been tracking. According to Brewis, “whatever it is, you’re covered in it and it seems to be piquing the interest of a rather hostile alien species. I’m just saying… maybe if you took those clothes off, they wouldn’t know we’re here.” After Moses connects other alien attacks with his interaction with victims, he agrees and, like a metaphorical Moses, leads the aliens away from his friends. They follow the scent of pheromones on his jacket to their deaths. These environmental messages in the film connect well with its deviations from the comic science fiction genre to make it an indie-like treat to watch. As Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out New York explains, “You can enjoy this movie as the meat-and-potatoes sci-fi flick it is, or, as with District 9 (2009), probe it for the elements of class consciousness and political rage that its makers smuggle in, like the best of subverters.” As an urban ecofilm, however, Attack the Block also illustrates the power of community as a tool to overcome environmental racism and injustice. Moses transforms from thug into hero, and Sam shifts from victim to powerful defender during their battle for the block. Although the police still blame Moses and arrest him, Sam now defends him, explaining, “I know them. They’re my neighbors. They protected me.” And the rest of the neighbors agree, chanting “Moses, Moses!” even though he’s handcuffed in the police wagon. When Moses and his gang team up with Sam, they not only defeat the alien invasion and save the block; they also begin to change perceptions of slum dwellers.

Girls in the Block: The Limits of Gender in Urban Environments In Attack the Block, Moses transforms into a masculine hero able to overcome eco-trauma and protect the ecology of his urban home. But the pheromones emitted by the female alien begin to add another ingredient: reproduction. Urban ghetto films highlighting girls amplify the limits associated with their gender and sexuality and demonstrate, as ecofeminist Catherine Villaneuva Gardner asserts, eco-traumas faced by girls are exacerbated by “the complex interactions between oppression due to gender, race, and environment” (209). According to Gardner, “women as a group are often the most affected—directly or indirectly—by the

58  Urban Eco-Trauma problems of living in cities” (209). Urban coming-of-age films with girls at the center underpin these eco-traumatic consequences, but they also illustrate the “human needs for home and community” (Gardner 209). Directed by Liz Garbus, the documentary Girlhood (2003) reveals the eco-trauma two girls face in a sexist and racist Baltimore slum by showcasing one of its consequences: serving time in a juvenile detention center. According to New York Daily News reviewer, Elizabeth ­Weitzman, “Garbus spent three years patiently mining for beauty in the ugliest environments. The remarkable result stands as a challenge to anyone who would have seen only the worst and walked right by.” Garbus documents the evolution of two inmates in the detention center to highlight the humanity in that ugly environment: At twelve, Shanae stabbed and killed a girl in a fight perhaps because she too suffered violent abuse. Megan grew up in foster care because of her mother’s drug habit. Because she ran away several times and assaulted other girls, she too ends up in the center. During the three years of the film, Shanae and Megan serve their time and, when released, reintegrate into their urban cultures to varying degrees. By focusing on only two of the girls in the center, the film is able to develop their stories, revealing some of the conditions and experiences that at least partially led to their crimes. Ultimately, the documentary also shows the important roles familial relationships and love play in resolving tensions and providing opportunities for growth and success in Baltimore’s slums. As reviewer Stephen Holden asserts, “What both girls crave is the stabilizing force of a caring and responsible mother. Of the two only Shanae receives that nurturing, and it seems to make all the difference.” Although Shanae’s crime is more heinous than Megan’s, she blossoms under the care of the detention center service workers and begins to understand the consequences of her violent actions. On her fifteenth birthday, the staff even surprises her with a cake and dance party. Her good behavior has also earned her weekend visits with her family. During these visits, we see the love and support they provide. Her mom and dad encourage her to continue learning self-discipline in the center. When she claims the murder victim has it easier than she does, they know she is not yet rehabilitated. Instead, because of her good behavior, Shanae is released to a halfway house where we learn more about the causes of her anger. During an interview at the Florence Crittendon home, Shanae looks innocent in her pink dress and shoes. But her story reveals horrific trauma associated with her sex. At eleven, she was gang raped, she explains, and began acting up at home. Her mother could not get help because Shanae had not yet committed a crime. With support from a caring family and staff, after a year at Florence Crittendon, Shanae is allowed to go home and enter the eleventh grade. She seems like a normal teenager now,

Girls in the Hood  59 ready to go to prom. Although her mother died because of complications associated with her diabetes, her father still supports her, and it seems as if Shanae will thrive. A year later, Shanae is fourth in her senior class and going to prom. Megan, on the other hand has no support system. At sixteen, she still seems rebellious and does not earn the respect of the center’s staff. Megan tells her story right away, revealing the gendered social and eco-traumas of her childhood. As a child, she grew up with her grandmother because her mother went to prison for drug possession and prostitution. But when Megan receives a card from her mother, she seems overjoyed. In these scenes, she seems both reflective and defiant, admitting that she unconsciously works to end up like her mother. She tries to escape to help her mother but gets caught and again loses the staff’s sympathy. Ultimately, though, the center releases her into foster care, where she claims she is willing to do whatever they say, signing a contract as proof. At the foster home, the foster mother takes her up to her room and explains that she will need to go to school and get a job. It only takes a week for Megan to rebel, leaving the home to fix strangers’ hair and search for her mother. When Megan visits her mother in the Baltimore Detention Center, she begs her to straighten her life out. Ultimately, she moves in with a friend, but like her mother, she also smokes pot in the trash-strewn streets. After three months, she begins to have some stability, however, making a home with a friend. A year later, Megan moves in with an aunt and goes to counseling through social services. Her mother is back in jail, but she writes and recites rap poetry as a release. Shanae and Megan’s conflicting stories point to the importance of family and support for success in a desolate urban setting. Unlike most documentaries, some fictional films provide insider points of view of girls’ struggles in low-income housing projects. Set in a bleak London estate project, Fish Tank (2009) centers on fifteen-year-old Mia’s (Katie Jarvis) search for self in a hopeless environment. Reviewer Roger Ebert declares, “There is no suggestion of a place this girl can go to find help, care or encouragement.” Instead, as reviewer Ian Buckwalter suggests, What glimmers of hope the film may offer are severely undercut by the knowledge that reprieves for young women such as Mia has are generally short-lived…. Her story is simply another sad revolution in an ongoing cycle, captured bravely here by Arnold. In such a harsh ecology, it comes as no surprise that Mia responds with violence, a typical response to eco-trauma. According to environmental psychologist Tina Amorok, We defend ourselves from this fearsome side of interconnectedness through separation ideologies and practices (war, religious

60  Urban Eco-Trauma fanaticism, racism), and psychological defense mechanisms (denial, dissociation, psychic numbing) and an array of debilitating behaviors and responses that bear the signature of trauma, ranging from depression, anxiety, and addictive lifestyles to violence toward self, others, and nature.. (29) Fish Tank’s main character Mia demonstrates a variety of psychological defenses and debilitating behaviors that attest to the eco-trauma she endures. But the film highlights Mia’s evolution from eco-trauma to potential recovery following a pattern ecocritic Anil Narine explores. She first wants “to combat the trauma” (Narine 5). She then wants “to disavow the trauma” (Narine 5) Ultimately, she wants “to make meaning from traumatic events” (Narine 5). But recovery comes only within the context of relationships. Even the opening of Fish Tank shows us Mia’s responses to ecotrauma. Instead of an establishing shot of the “block,” the film highlights her violent responses to trauma. As reviewer Lisa Schwartzbaum declares, she “doesn’t play well with others.” First, Mia talks angrily on a cell phone in a dark and empty apartment. In the next scene, she walks quickly across the sterile grounds and throws stones at a window to tell a girl she’s a “cunt.” Trees and grass surround a concrete and asphalt playground, but Mia’s anger is palpable when confronted she head-butts another girl and storms off. Mia’s walk home to through what Schwartzbaum calls “a crappy U.K. housing project” introduces more of the lifeless setting that contributes to Mia’s anger. Her project is near a busy highway, and her apartment is small and crowded and violent. When she enters from a narrow balcony, her mother (Kierston Wareing) pushes her because the playground assault broke a girl’s nose. Mia unapologetically declares, “You’re what’s wrong with me” and runs up to her room. There we see family pictures and a “Love You” bunny poster that hint at her youth. Defying her mother, however, she sneaks out while her mother paints her toenails to practice dance moves in an empty apartment. Although the enormous estate buildings and dimly lit apartments hint at the lifeless desolation of urban environments, signs of nature pop up through windows and on Mia’s angry walks. Wind turbines spin in the distance, and dogs play both inside and out. Most unexpectedly, a horse grazes in a vacant parking lot in what seems like an unnatural urban setting. Mia seems obsessed with the horse, the most surprising form of nature in the film, borrowing a hammer to free it when she thinks the young men guarding the animal are gone. Although they grab her, toss her handbag, and attempt to grope her, she fights them, and escapes after another man lets a dog loose to distract them. As she runs home, we see an overhead shot of her apartment complex, a concrete mass growing out of a dying landscape.

Girls in the Hood  61 In the apartment, an opposing upper-class “having” culture is introduced through music videos and reality television shows. But a realistic contrast to their lower-class life appears in the form of Conor (Michael Fassbender), her mother’s new boyfriend. He compliments Mia’s dancing, invites her to go with them on a drive into the country, and loans her his camera to make a video for a dance audition. The trip to the country begins to break down bifurcations between nature and the city. Instead of a bucolic paradise, Mia finds a complex world of both pleasure and pain. Celebrating nature, Mia and Conor walk into a pond and catch a fish together with their hands. But the idyllic scene is broken by violence when Mia cuts her foot as she emerges from the water and watches Conor pierce the fish with a long branch while it struggles for life. The violence of the housing project parallels this scene, especially when instead of cooking the fish, Mia’s mother throws the carcass on the kitchen floor for the dog. Mia’s hopeless situation is amplified by a social worker urging her to attend a special boarding reform school. Again, Mia angrily runs away, this time to a crowded street with shops and an Internet café where she learns about the dance audition Conor helps her prepare for. Instead of providing an alternative future, however, Conor, the camera, and the dance audition cause suffering like that she and the fish experienced in the country. Mia perfects her dance to one of the tunes Conor shares with her, but when she shows him her moves, he seduces her, sexually molesting her on her mother’s couch. After Conor leaves, Mia travels by train to visit his home and discovers he is married with a young daughter. In retaliation, Mia drags the daughter into a field. In a reversal of the fishing scene however, Mia saves her when she falls into a lake. Mia’s eco-trauma has lessened, it seems. The most positive force in the film aligns with the incongruous horse and its owner Billy (Harry Treadaway). Billy befriends Mia, offering her playful respite from her angry life. They roll around on shopping carts and play piggyback. Together they drink and laugh and steal car parts for his Volvo. Although the horse dies because it’s sick and old, Billy offers a viable alternative to the special school and life as an exotic dancer, comforting Mia when she cries and offering to take her with him on a long car ride to Wales. A wide shot of the projects reveals lively balconies with music and children playing in courtyards. Mia too seems happier after packing her bags to go. She dances with her mother and hugs her sister goodbye as she leaves. Her sister chases after the car, and a balloon flies overhead as Mia and Billy leave. The ending of Fish Tank offers a temporary hope for Mia’s future. We are left unsure about where she will be after her trip. She is only fifteen and is dating a nineteen-year-old man. But a bright balloon suggests something good is on the way. New Yorker reviewer David Denby declares the film “may begin as a patch of lower-class chaos, but it turns

62  Urban Eco-Trauma into a commanding, emotionally satisfying movie, comparable to such youth-in-trouble classics as The 400 Blows.” For us, Fish Tank demonstrates the heightened eco-traumas girls face in the projects and the ambivalent future they hold even when they recover from their traumas and leave. Although chiefly illustrating the contrast between working-class immigrants and upper-class Parisians, All That Glitters (2010) also provides a female-centered insider view of urban apartment life. Twenty-something daughters of Moroccan immigrants, Lila (Leïla Bekhti) and Ely (Géraldine­ Nakache) are dissatisfied with their humdrum existence on the outskirts of Paris and construct imaginary upper-class personas to escape their colorless apartments, embarrassing families, and mindless jobs. When they sneak into a high-end dance club, their dreams seem to come true. Lila meets Maxx (Simon Burret) and begins a passionate affair that she believes will free her from her working-class boyfriend Éric (Manu Payet) and soothe the pain she feels when her Moroccan father divorces her mother, returns to Morocco to remarry, and sends her a letter telling her to “forget” him. Ely saves rich fashion model Joan (Linh Dan Pham) from a mugger and seems to earn her and her partner Agathe’s (Virginie Ledoyen) respect and friendship. When Joan and Agathe begin treating her as both servant and nanny, Ely begins to lose interest in their superficial luxury. Lila, however, at first refuses to admit Maxx has thrown her over for an old girlfriend, lies to Ely and nearly destroys their friendship. The film reaches a climax when Maxx takes Ely back to her real working-class apartment building. Lila is furious, and their relationship seems irreparably shattered. But this is a comedy, so after an evening watching her mother sing at a karaoke lounge, Lila wises up, convincing her mother that her ­Moroccan husband will never return. Instead of searching for a rich husband, Lila talks her way into a job in a high-end Parisian shoe store, bringing her dream of living in style down to earth. Ely also finds a middle ground where she can love her family but also live her own life in an apartment nearer to the Paris she loves. And after Ely finds and reads Lila’s letters from her Moroccan father, she tracks her down at the shoe store and apologizes. The film ends as it began, with the two sharing a cab and jumping out without paying: “tweedle dee, tweedle dum” they say before running down the busy street. Their laughter convinces viewers their friendship is restored. Although All That Glitters primarily highlights the personal journeys of two daughters of hard-working Moroccans, it also points out the disparity between rich and poor in urban areas. The message here, though, favors the values of working-class immigrants over the spoiled inner city Parisians they first try to emulate. As an apt example of what Naomi Vogt calls banlieue, a film genre that explores the effects of “peripheral French housing projects in states

Girls in the Hood  63 of social disrepair” (38), Girlhood (2014) highlights the plight of teen girls living in massive public housing on the outskirts of Paris. By showing the summer experiences of one sixteen-year-old girl, Marieme (Karidja Touré), the film reveals the devastating effects of environmental racism, injustice, and sexism in the contemporary European city. Unlike the individual hero Moses presented in Attack the Block, Marieme seeks community and friendship to cope with the horrendous conditions and low expectations placed upon her. Ultimately, Marieme gains strength not by succumbing to the feminine expectations placed upon her but by resisting them, choosing not to follow the few paths open to women in her insular housing project. By rejecting the housing project’s mores and refusing the roles of wife, mother, or whore its patriarchal leadership allows, Marieme faces loneliness and pain. But she also may find hope. Girlhood showcases Marieme’s rejection of stereotypical gender roles from an opening American football game forward. In this incredible first scene, young women play American football in full uniform and helmets. They aggressively huddle, tackle, run, and throw touchdown passes under the lights in a stadium, revealing themselves only when they take off their headgear to celebrate. According to filmmaker Céline Sciamma, “It’s a metaphor for the whole film. It’s girls playing violence for fun, making points and being stronger together. I like that” (quoted in Smith, Adrienne). Jesse Hassenger suggests the scene “feels celebratory rather than mythic or self-serious,” setting it apart from “male-centric versions.” The stadium lights go off suddenly, however, so the girls walk home in the dark, chattering as they climb concrete stairs toward their sterile housing project. They cross a concrete bridge together and say farewell to each pair of girls as they leave, signifying a loss of interdependent relationships. The housing project setting also seems to symbolize a loss of power this community provides. Marieme is left alone and walks toward her apartment smiling at a boy, Ismaël (Idrissa Diabaté), waiting for her brother. Her two younger sisters let her into her crowded apartment through multiple security doors and long dim hallways. Because Mom is working and big brother is holed up in his room, Marieme takes on the role of mother when she enters. In the bedroom Marieme shares with the middle sister, they play but grow silent when they hear big brother walking out to meet his friends. This is a man’s world, so Marieme instructs her younger sister to wear baggy t-shirts to disguise her budding womanhood. And when her brother returns, he hits Marieme and pushes her away from a videogame he now controls. As they go to sleep, Marieme and her sister hold hands, showing their solidarity against the violent brother and his gang. Marieme’s environment has been established as a dangerous concrete island she escapes through play both on the football field and in her shared bedroom. Her meeting with a white school counselor limits her

64  Urban Eco-Trauma prospects even further. Instead of attending high school, she is offered only vocational school options because her grades are too low, and the white counselor refuses to allow her another year to raise them. Marieme does not tell the counselor she takes care of her sisters and their home, instead exclaiming, “I want to be like others. I want to be normal.” But the counselor just tells her it’s “too late for that.” Like Mia, Marieme responds with anger when offered brochures for vocational training and races from the school looking like the three tough girls who ask her to sit with them. One of the girls, Lady (Assa Sylla) asks her to go to Paris with them, and Marieme agrees when she sees her brother’s friend Ismaël approaching them. Marieme’s interactions with Lady and the gang assuages the eco-traumas she endures at home and school. The changes Marieme is experiencing are emphasized by rising music and a blackening screen. The next day Marieme has straightened her hair, modeling her look after her new group, and starts shaking down white students for Euros, so the gang can have a party in a Paris hotel room. The celebration is raucous and communal, and when Lady gives Marieme a necklace with “Vic” for victory on it, she truly becomes part of their group. They try on stolen dresses and sing Rihanna’s “Diamonds.” In their dresses, they are “beautiful like diamonds in the sky.” The scene in the hotel room contrasts starkly with the public housing setting revealed more fully the next day. When Ismaël claims he cannot be her boyfriend because of her brother, we see how massive their housing project is. Concrete towers jut out of sterile courtyards with weeds growing out of concrete pots. The desolate scene is amplified by the violence Marieme suffers when she enters her apartment. Her brother grabs her around the neck and chokes her because she turned off her phone. The violence is paralleled by Lady’s fight with a rival gang girl. It seems at first as if Lady has the upper hand, but ultimately, the other girl knocks her down and tears off her sweater. Lady is lying there shirtless while girls film her defeat on their cell phones. Marieme’s response is to sneak off with Ismaël and kiss in a vacant stairwell, connecting the ferocity of the fight with the passion of sex and the patriarchal community that defines its rules. The fight and kiss also seem to move Marieme away from her mother’s role, choosing not to clean hotel rooms all summer. The changing music and black screen again signal this change. Highlighting the need for community, Marieme is left with few future ­ ady’s choices when the girl gang begins to disintegrate. After the fight, L father has cut off her hair, so she looks young and distraught when Marieme joins her and the others. After playing mini-golf, they walk through a gang of boys who saw Lady losing her fight on a video. “You shame us,” they say. Other girls threaten them in a restaurant where Marieme also meets the girl she replaced in the gang, a new mother who has now lost all independence. In the concrete courtyard, Marieme tries

Girls in the Hood  65 to convince Lady to fight the girl again. When she won’t come, Marieme fights her and wins, ripping off her shirt and pushing her, so she is on all fours like Lady was. She cuts off her bra and leaves. Now, she and Lady make up. Even her brother shows her respect by offering to play his soccer videogame with her. But the screen goes dark again after she meets Ismaël one more time. What follows showcases a final celebration before Marieme loses her community. Marieme and Lady dance together in a sunny concrete park until Marieme sees her sister with a group of girls trying to steal a white woman’s purse. Marieme slaps her sister when she won’t leave, “just like her brother,” but they make up, go home on the train, and hold hands. When Marieme enters the apartment, though, her brother is waiting for her and calls her a slut. He found out about Ismaël and thinks she shamed him, so Marieme must again run, this time to the Kung Foo restaurant where she meets with drug kingpin Abou and leaves home to work for him. She is sixteen, he claims, so she won’t go to jail if arrested but will enjoy the fun of reform school where there will be mountain biking and water skiing. She tells her gang about her plan to sell drugs for Abou, and they first say she’s screwing up. When she gets defensive, though, they show compassion, hug and comfort her, and make her laugh with a story about Lady’s real name, Sophia. The respite is short. Now alone, Marieme climbs up red-carpeted stairs wearing a blonde wig and high heels. A young white woman pays for drugs, and she leaves, changing back into her street clothes in the back of a car. She’s one of Abou’s boys, she thinks, eating pizza and playing videogames, not a whore like Monica, the young woman she cares for in her new apartment. But at Abou’s party, Marieme learns this role will change. Abou comes up behind her as she dances with Monica, trying to kiss her. Instead, she slaps him, and Abou tells her to lower her eyes because she’s his. As reviewer Alan Scherstuhl explains, the film “illustrat[es] the ways an indifferent society boxes the people who grow up in project-style boxes.” Girlhood demonstrates the limitations are even greater for girls. After Marieme leaves Abou and returns to Ismaël, he apologizes and asks her to stay, telling her, “if we’re together, no one can say anything.” In this patriarchal community, a sexualized girl must marry to be “decent” again. But Marieme doesn’t want to be his little woman and have his baby. Even though she kisses him for saying he’d marry her, Marieme can’t. “I don’t want that life,” she says and leaves with nowhere to go. Sunlight shines through a courtyard surrounded by trees, as if the concrete has come to life. Music comes up as she looks out over the green trees in the distance and cries. According to reviewer Jesse Hassenger, Marieme’s life “stretches out in front of [her], an uncertain path into a haze.” The screen goes black, signaling a change, but this time the film ends, leaving Marieme’s resolution unanswered and ambivalent.

66  Urban Eco-Trauma The ambivalent resolutions found in Girlhood (2003), Fish Tank, All That Glitters, Get Together Girls, and Girlhood (2014) also point to differences between male- and female-centered movies in the “hood.” In these films, boys individuate, gaining success by rising above their environmental circumstances and embracing patriarchal Western values. These same circumstances and values, however, leave girls feeling trapped. Ecofeminist Jytte Nhanenge explains, to transform these crises, “the modern world needs to make a shift from seeing social and natural elements as being mechanical and static, to perceiving them as being systemic, dynamic patterns of change” (68). The girls in these films are searching for a perhaps unattainable, alternative path that allows such transformation. And ideally, this path is based in community instead of masculine individualism. Catherine Villaneuva Gardner suggests, “although calls for social and racial justice…are appropriate, it is not simply urban dwellers’ rights that are under threat” (209). For Gardner, “The moral community and the fundamental human relationships of that community…are also under threat. Without this community, talk of rights and justice will become empty goals” (209). Feminist ecocritics Greta Gaard, Simon C. Estok, and Serpil Oppermann, further define this community by embracing “an ethics based on situated values” (1). Gaard and her colleagues assert such an ethical approach “opens up new ethical pathways to contest the sexist, racist, speciesist, ecophobic, classist, nationalist, and homophobic discourses” (2) found in constructions of nature and culture. In Girlhood (2003), Fish Tank, All That Glitters, Get Together Girls, and Girlhood (2014), young women’s “lived experiences” are mediated by “gender, class, and race” (Seager quoted in Gaard et al. 2). What surprises us, however, is how similarly these experiences are mediated. Whether they grow up in the “planet of slums” Mike Davis describes or the clean but lifeless housing projects of Baltimore, London, or Paris, girls endure eco-traumas missing from the experiences of boys. Limited by the gender roles prescribed to them by their respective cultures and vulnerable to the patriarchal culture of violence that sometimes becomes sexualized, the girls in these films have fewer opportunities for the neat resolutions boys experience even when coming out of the worst slum experience. Despite these difficulties, some of the girls and young women highlighted in these films do overcome these traumas, primarily because they find and maintain a community that defies what Amorok calls “our individualistic worldview and alienation from life” (31). According to Amorok, “The eco-recovery of Being also needs community containers for expressing the anguish one feels for the world and sharing that experience with others” (31). Her approach aligns with Carolyn Merchant’s partnership ethic, which is “based on the idea that people are helpers,

Girls in the Hood  67

Figure 3.2  G  irlhood.

partners, and colleagues and that people and nature are equally important to each other” (191). The Get Together Girls community provides opportunities for eco-recovery, if within more stereotypical feminine constructs. With a strong family unit and caring staff to support her, Shanae in Girlhood (2003) also moves toward eco-recovery. Lila and Ely encourage one another in All That Glitters, as well. But in Fish Tank and Girlhood (2014), Mia and Marieme meet an ambivalent future. By rejecting social and ecological expectations, they are left to face the ­unknown instead.

Note 1 William Wyler’s Dead End (1937), Michael Curtiz’s Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), and Luis Buñuel’s Los Olvidados (1950) illustrate the negative effects urban slum settings have on boys.

4 Dogs and Eco-Trauma The Making of a Monster in White God

Girlhood (2003), Fish Tank, Get Together Girls, and Girlhood (2014) highlight the powerful eco-traumas young women experience when their lives are mediated by “gender, class, and race” (Seager quoted in Gaard et al. 2). But both human and nonhuman animals may suffer the consequences of eco-trauma. As part of human society, dogs may also be traumatized by a toxic environment. As David R. Shumway asserts, “pets … ought to be understood as elements of a healthy human society” (272). According to Shumway, “if humans have typically lived in a mixed community with animals, then our definition of ‘society’ should be expanded to reflect the fact that not all of the subjects to whom we relate are human” (272). As noted, ecocritic Anil Narine suggests, “a traumatized earth begets traumatized people” (13), but a traumatized earth may also negatively affect other species. Films highlighting dogfighting reveal much about the complex connections between humans and their dogs. Although the documentaries Out of the Pit (2013) and City of Dogs (2014) expose the abuse dogs endure during cruel training for and violent assaults in the dogfight ring, the fictional film White God (2015) more powerfully demonstrates the repercussions of mistreatment in a toxic environment: eco-trauma. These films suggest a traumatized earth may also traumatize the pets we love, especially in an urban setting. The opening of White God highlights the consequences of such environmental trauma. A long shot reveals a starkly empty silent Budapest street where thirteen-year-old Lili (Zsófia Psotta) rides her bike across a deserted bridge. The music is quiet as she passes an abandoned car and bus, suggesting a forced escape for their passengers. Cutting to a city street as she continues to bike, an enormous pack of dogs runs up behind and past her, as if responding to the trumpet in her backpack. This opening scene ends with a flashback to Lili playing with her dog Hagen to underpin the dramatic change trauma has produced in this once happy house pet. When her mother leaves for three months to Australia, Lili and Hagen’s lives are disrupted when they are forced to move in with Lili’s meat inspector father Daniel (Sándor Zsótér), who lives in a small and insular apartment building. In this traumatic ecology, a neighbor (Erika

Dogs and Eco-Trauma  69

Figure 4.1 White God.

Bodnár) reports illegal mixed breed ownership to authorities, claiming Hagen bit her. Canine officers warn Lili and her father they must pay a heavy state tax and register the mixed breed or lose him. Forced to sleep in a closed bathroom, Hagen howls. Only Lili’s trumpet can calm him. When Lili sneaks Hagen into her band rehearsal and disturbs the practice, her director throws them out. In retaliation, Lili’s father casts Hagen out of their car in the middle of a crowded avenue and drives off. His actions catalyze the series of traumatic experiences that nearly condemn Hagen to death. Ultimately, White God illustrates the similarities between humans and dogs. Both species respond positively to love, and negatively to cruelty. In White God, the hope is that love may counter the environmental trauma humanity creates.

Affiliation between Humans and Dogs Most recognize how dramatically the emotional and physical responses of dogs parallel those of humans in domestic settings. Pet ownership statistics begin to reveal the affiliation humans share with dogs. Dogs continue to be the most popular pet in U.S. homes. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, in 2012, approximately 36.5 percent of U.S. households included at least one dog, down less than a percentage from 37.2 percent in 2007. Cat ownership, on the other hand, decreased from 32.4 percent in 2007 to 30.4 percent in 2012 (“U.S. Pet Owner Statistics”). These statistics provide evidence for Kari Weil’s claim that “anthropologists have promoted a model of coevolution that views domestication as a symbiotic and dynamic relationship between humans and animals independent of either’s forethought or conscious intent and that potentially ascribes agency to both” (58). This close affiliation between humans and their dogs may also promote anthropomorphic responses that benefit both species.

70  Urban Eco-Trauma Recent work in psychology, biology, and science history demonstrates that anthropomorphism may serve practical, psychological, and evolutionary purposes. As Marc Bekoff asserts in Animal Passions and Beastly Virtues, “hard data do not tell the only story, and in my view it is perfectly okay to be carefully anthropomorphic” (16). In fact, Bekoff explains, “by being anthropomorphic, we can more readily understand and explain the emotions or feelings of other animals” (25). Bekoff and bioethicist Jessica Pierce declare, “there’s nothing unscientific about using the same terms to refer to animals and humans, particularly when we’re arguing the same phenomenon is present across species” (41). And Alexandra Horowitz and Bekoff suggest it may illustrate “features of responsiveness that make early infant-caretaker relationships develop” (28). It may also “help […] predict animal behavior” (30). It may advance animal rights arguments and, as Lorraine Daston and Gregg ­M itman declare, elucidate “the performance of being human by animals and being animal by humans, and the transformative processes that make thinking with animals possible” (6). From an organismic ecology perspective, anthropomorphism that highlights humans as animals may also provide a way to preserve a biotic community, a land ethic in which all parts of the “land” are of equal value. Organismic ecologist Aldo Leopold applied human ethics to the natural world, constructing his “Land Ethic” manifesto. This program outlined in Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac encouraged an ecologically centered view of the land as a biotic pyramid in which humans were a part, a principle that rests on the belief that humans are simply members of a community of living things who interact cooperatively and with equal ethical value. One species—humans or other “sentient” beings––is not constructed as a conqueror but as a group of “biotic citizens” ­ araway’s (Leopold 223). Such interconnectedness lines up with Donna H notion of companion species. Instead of only humanity benefiting from relationships with their pets, Haraway argues that we should move toward “an ongoing ‘becoming with’” (When Species Meet 16). Such an approach encourages species interdependence rather than power structures that inevitably place humans at the top. White God demonstrates what might happen if that paradigm was perpetuated and the biotic pyramid was broken. Ultimately, though, it also offers an alternative approach that “knot[s] companion and species together” instead (Haraway When Species Meet 19).

Dogs as Pets in the City: Dogs as Animal Companions or Companion Species Films as diverse as Umberto D. (1952), Beethoven (1992), I am Legend (2007), Hachi: A Dog’s Tale (2009), and Frankenweenie (2012) demonstrate the powerful relationships dogs may have with their owners in

Dogs and Eco-Trauma  71 an urban setting, but Disney films explicitly showcase the importance of these connections. As we noted in our That’s All Folks? Ecocritical Readings of American Animated Features, at least some Disney features illustrate the strong relationship between humans and their dogs in urban settings. Lady and the Tramp (1955), 101 Dalmatians (1961) and its remake (1996), and Beverly Hills Chihuahua (2008) highlight the connection between dogs’ relationships with their owners and animal rights and environmentalism. According to Peter Singer, “Animal Liberation is Human Liberation too” (vii), and “human equality … requires us to extend equal consideration to animals too” (1) and preserve their rights as we might other human rights, as in the civil rights or women’s rights movements. The Animal Rights Movement typically bases its arguments on principles of the Human Rights Movement and nineteenth-century utilitarianism, which defined good as pleasure, and bad as pain. Creatures capable of feeling pleasure and pain, in Singer’s vision, have the same rights as humans because their “sentience” gives them inherent value. Animal Rights principles focus on individuals, a focus that may disrupt Aldo Leopold’s concept of the “biotic community” (qtd. in Callicott 252), a principle that rests on the belief that humans are simply members of a community of living things who interact cooperatively and with equal ethical value. Aldo Leopold calls these community members “biotic citizens” (Leopold 223).1 Connecting animal rights and environmentalism through what philosopher Mary Midgley calls “animal welfare,” Lady and the Tramp, 101 Dalmatians, and Beverly Hills Chihuahua demonstrate ways to build interdependent relationships between human and nonhuman nature. They also both explicitly advocate for animals and promote environmentalism, at least in the domestic sphere. Because Lady and the Tramp illustrates the bond between humans and their dogs, it highlights connections between animal rights and environmental movements. Although dogs are “imprisoned” by dogcatchers and a cat-loving visiting aunt, ultimately, they are on equal ground with their human owners in a relationship like that described by Midgley’s and British philosopher David Hume’s ethical theories. According to ­Bosley Crowther’s New York Times review, “the various types of canines that are burlesqued in human terms are amusing—if you like canines endowed with the mannerisms of human beings” (“Disney’s Lady” 17). Although Crowther asserts, “Mr. Disney’s affection for dogs is more sugary than his appreciation of mice and ducks,” their representation highlights an interconnection between animal welfare and environmentalism. By merging the domesticated Lady and the homeless urbanized Tramp in a suburban home, the human and animal worlds are interconnected, at least in this domestic realm. The same interdependent domestic bliss is attained and perpetuated in 101 Dalmatians (1961), but this time the nuclear family living in a

72  Urban Eco-Trauma Victorian suburban home includes a pair of Dalmatians and their pups. The villain Cruella De Vil also serves as the source of environmental destruction in 101 Dalmatians. She finds Dalmatians’ coats so appealing she wants to collect enough dogs to make a coat of her own. The film’s conflicts begin when she steals ninety-nine puppies from owners Roger and Anita, and Pongo, the film’s Dalmatian narrator, and his mate Perdita. Cruella and her henchmen hide them in a country house with eightyfour other pups, waiting for them to mature, so their spots will appear. When Pongo and Perdita rescue the pups, the film makes clear that animals have rights that overrule a human’s desire for fur. Both Lady and the Tramp and 101 Dalmatians ultimately achieve an orthodox domestic bliss where both nonhuman and human nature are controlled by the rules of domesticity. But they also highlight the interconnected relationships between humans and dogs. Beverly Hills Chihuahua also demonstrates this bond between humans and their dogs but promotes changes in both communities. Chloe (Drew Barrymore), a spoiled Beverly Hills Chihuahua learns to survive without pampering when she is carelessly abandoned in a Mexican city. Chloe’s human caregiver Rachel (Piper Perabo) gains a sense of responsibility when she must find and return Chloe to her Aunt Viv (Jamie Lee Curtis). Although both Chloe and Rachel find love during their trials, they also suffer traumatizing experiences. Kidnapped and held for ransom by the head of a dogfight ring, Chloe bears witness to cruel punishments inflicted on other dogs but escapes her fate in the ring as a bait dog with help from Delgado, a German Shepherd (Andy Garcia). Rachel faces off the kidnapper Vasquez (José María Yazpik) with help from love interest Sam (Manolo Cardona). These shared trials build stronger bonds between dogs and humans, demonstrating the possibility of both animal rights and biotic views of community as part of a healthy human society. White God transfers animal rights and species interdependence like that found in Beverly Hills Chihuahua to the horror genre. Positive relationships between humans and their pet dogs are also emphasized in documentary films. Most would agree that alliances between human and canine are strong and that typically people bond with their pets because they offer positive benefits that encourage mutual nurturing rather than brutality. The documentaries The Dogs of New York (2011) and Dogs on the Inside (2014) highlight contrasting human reactions to this bond. The Dogs of New York illustrates the upscale treatment pet dogs receive in a ritzy Manhattan doggy day care, the Canine Carriage House, but it also reveals the comfort dog ownership provides New Yorkers in a post-9/11 world. Dogs on the Inside centers on a canine training program for select prison inmates helping both abandoned dogs and prisoners rehabilitate. While it showcases pampered pets, The Dogs of New York also chronicles how both purebreds and shelter dogs provide support for

Dogs and Eco-Trauma  73 their owners struggling to recover after the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks. The narrator explains that Manhattan residents bought half a million new dogs after 9/11. As veterinarian Tom Tobosso declares, “People love their dogs in Manhattan.” Dog owner and psychologist Susan Banon highlights the anthropomorphic relationships owners have with their dogs and asserts, “owners want their dogs to need them” to explain why she uses dogs in her therapy sessions. Because they see their dogs as sources of security, they worry about leaving them alone during their long days at work. The Ritzy Canine Carriage House provides a worry-free space where patient low-income caretakers can nurture these pampered pets, making it possible for owners to develop strong relationships with their dogs. The doggy costume party that closes the film illustrates the lengths these Manhattan dog owners will go to celebrate their pets. For these well-to-do urbanites, dogs are more than house pets. They’re family members and at times literally eat with their own place settings at the family dinner table. Dogs on the Inside further demonstrates the special bonds humans sometimes build with their dogs. Because the documentary focuses on prison inmates in a canine training program for neglected strays, however, its construction of dogs moves beyond that found in The Dogs of New York. Dogs on the Inside not only shows how relationships between dogs and people transcend class, race, and profession, but also illustrates how animal companions may transform into what Haraway calls companion species. The film emphasizes how both dogs and inmates benefit from the connections between them. Here, the dogs are neglected or abused strays adopted from overcrowded shelters across the nation where three million dogs are euthanized each year. Instead, the dogs and the inmates who train them get a second chance in this ­Massachusetts correctional facility. Both the dogs and their inmate trainers benefit from this process. After months of bonding with inmates and learning the skills they need to thrive in a traditional home, the dogs are adopted by area families. The inmates also gain social skills but more importantly find hope for a future outside the prison walls. According to the documentary press release, “Connected by their troubled pasts, the dogs learn to have faith in people again while the inmates are reminded of their own humanity and capacity for love and empathy.”

Anthropomorphizing Pain: Documenting Canine Eco-Trauma in the Ring Although the dogfight scenes in Beverly Hills Chihuahua are brief, they broach another way dogs and humans connect—through their pain. City of Dogs, Out of the Pit, and segments of One Nation Under Dog (2012) underline the violent repercussions of (sometimes) negative relationships humans build with their dogs. They also authenticate the traumas

74  Urban Eco-Trauma Hagen faces in White God. The Dogs of New York and Dogs on the Inside highlight the positive effects of bonds between humans and their dogs. But those bonds may also have detrimental consequences, especially when they transform loving pets into fighting machines. Dogs on the Inside broaches some of the horrific traumas dogs face in shelters but focuses primarily on the solution they find in the prison rehabilitation program. Segments of One Nation Under Dog showcase the disastrous repercussions of overcrowded animal shelters. City of Dogs and Out of the Pit, however, highlight the vicious traumas dogs face when prepared for and thrust into fight rings. All of these mentioned documentaries highlight connections between dogs and humans. In these specific films, however, animals suffer the same horrific responses to the traumas humans face in neglectful, ignorant, and ultimately violent environments. Despite these similarities, dogs and other animals usually are treated differently from humans in traumatic situations. According to Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine Professors Ferdowsian and M ­ erskin, interventions, which “minimize pain and distress in animals” in an experimental laboratory setting “focus on reducing the numbers of animals used and making changes to specific protocols rather than evaluating the suffering individual animals experience over the course of their lifetimes” (448–449). This approach differs from that taken with human subjects, whose individual “acute, recurrent, and chronic trauma” are examined to determine ways to specifically reduce suffering. Ferdowsian and Merskin disagree with this protocol, arguing, “because animals are frequently used in research, there is an ethical imperative to better understand the cumulative effects of captivity and the rigors of laboratory research on animals” (449). In their study, these researchers sought to determine “in what ways … animals suffer physically and psychologically as a result of their use in laboratory research” (450) and what factors may contribute to their pain. Based on this study, Ferdowsian and Merskin “identify parallels between established traumatic conditions for humans and existing laboratory conditions for animals” (450). Their work reveals behavioral and psychological similarities between humans and animals based on similar factors. They first note behavioral similarities, explaining, “animals express pain in ways similar to humans, including through avoidance behaviors, abnormal postures, guarding to protect an affected area, vocalizations such as whimpering, aggression, and physiological and endocrine responses” (452). After conducting their study, they found these similarities were more nuanced than expected. As with humans, “there are also differences across species and between individual animals…. Animals often exhibit fearful, avoidant, and hyper vigilant behaviors considered parallel to those expressed by traumatized humans” (452). Humans and nonhuman animals also exhibited similar psychological responses to trauma, especially when examining mammals. Because “mammals

Dogs and Eco-Trauma  75 share a large number of brain regions associated with emotional affect,” it comes as no surprise that the shared ancestry of humans and nonhuman mammals are manifested in “attachment disorders, depression, complex anxiety disorders, and persistent disorders of social behavior” (453). These homologies are also associated with “variations of posttraumatic stress disorder… in chimpanzees and other animals” (453). Ferdowsian and Merskin also state “Researchers have also described signs of depression in animals, including nonhuman primates, dogs, pigs, cats, birds, and rodents” (453). Characteristics of depression such as “learned helplessness” and “anhedonia,” the inability to feel pleasure, “have been described in mice and other animals” (453). The environmental and experiential factors contributing to animal suffering “resemble potentially traumatic conditions and consequences of human captivity that have been described elsewhere” (Brenner, 2010 cited in Ferdowsian and Merskin 454). Multiple studies also substantiate the negative consequences of severed bonds and social deprivation. Studies in 1969, 1973, 1980, and 2008 all confirm, “Among both humans and animals, if a parent is not present early in life, offspring are likely to develop stereotypic behaviors” (455), including bar biting, anxiety, and aggression. Prolonged isolation and sensory deprivation also increased depression and anxiety in both humans and nonhuman mammals. Lab animals may self-mutilate, and “standard laboratory housing also appears to cause changes in nonhuman primates’ and rodents’ brain regions (Kozorovitskiy et al., 2005) important to memory” (456). In dogs, isolation and sensory deprivation may cause “a variety of behavioral pathologies ranging from crying to dominance aggression” (456). Based on their extensive research, Ferdowsian and Merskin conclude Anatomical, physiological, and behavioral similarities across species demonstrate that animals experience pain and distress in ways similar or identical to humans. There are also commonalities in the factors that contribute to pain, distress and suffering in humans and other animals. Furthermore, animals’ vulnerability and dependence on humans while in captivity likely contribute to their suffering. (461) Because of these similarities, Ferdowsian and Merskin declare, “it is the potential for physical and psychological trauma that inevitably contributes to the ethical considerations regarding the use of animals in research.” Their final point aligns with the trauma documented and illustrated by dogfighting films. As they assert, “These findings also have implications regarding other ways in which animals are used by humans” (461). For Ferdowsian and Merskin, whether nurtured as pets or researched in a laboratory, dogs should be treated as companion species rather than either animal companions or subjects.

76  Urban Eco-Trauma In documentaries exploring negative relationships between humans and dogs, however, people tend to depersonalize dogs, seemingly justifying the terrible suffering they endure. In part three of One Nation Under Dog, for example, animal shelter employees must ameliorate massive dog overpopulation and the overcrowded kennels that results. As the film declares, there are more than three million homeless dogs, and more than 70 percent of them are routinely euthanized in animal shelters. The documentary takes the time to show viewers the terrible suffering these dogs endure when placed in canine gas chambers. Well-behaved dogs are walked by leash to the chamber and piled on top of one another. The chamber is closed and locked, and the attendant starts the gas. Dogs howl and scream in pain before the gas silences them. When the attendant opens the chamber, we see the lifeless corpses. Now flattened with death, they provide room for another layer of dogs in the chamber. This time the attendant brings in dozens of puppies and drops them on top, again closing and locking the lid. The high-pitched yelps and howls are painful to hear. And when they too grow silent, a dump truck rolls up to take them all to a rendering plant. These dogs are not pets or even subjects. They are trash. This segment of One Nation Under Dog depersonalizes dogs, so they can be more readily and easily killed. City of Dogs—an episode of Louis Theroux’s LA Stories series—and Out of the Pit bastardize the relationship between humans and dogs, turning the bond into a vicious and vindictive connection built on blood and driven by commerce and power. Set on the south side of L.A., City of Dogs showcases the chaotic world of gang dogs and the limited solutions for these delinquent canines. As a patrolling pit bull enthusiast exclaims, “It is hard to choose which one to kill today.” Dogs are left behind when homes are foreclosed. Others are bred as puppies and thrown out of their homes, remaining unclaimed when they go back home. They are in pain and suffering from hunger worms, and fleas, and the pit bull enthusiast wants to help as many of them as possible find a new home. Their alternative is death in a dog ring or an overcrowded shelter like that found in One Nation Under Dog. In this violent section of L.A., residents even train these dogs to attack assailants. After fighting and killing other dogs, though, these dogs are deemed monstrous menaces and euthanized. There is no hope for rehabilitation. Only a Zen dog trainer finds hope in these violent canine weapons and retrains a violent German Shepherd. When he removes its muzzle, it doesn’t attack. As the trainer explains, “We created it. It is not what we wanted. Why should we have to deal with aggressive dogs?” but he “hasn’t met a dog that must be destroyed.” The object is to “exist with him emotionally in the moment instead of teaching commands,” and after several training sessions, dogs sometimes become rehabilitated. The documentary explains that dogs are “among us but not truly of us. They

Dogs and Eco-Trauma  77 are a colonized species whose chief flaw is to misunderstand us.” Many dogs in shelters and on the streets live like death row inmates, waiting for their inevitable destruction. In City of Dogs, the only hope is to accept dogs as companion species, existing with them as does the Zen trainer who successfully retrains attack dogs. Out of the Pit amplifies the negative consequences of environmental trauma without providing any hope for rehabilitation. By documenting the rigorous and vicious training and strategies canine ring fighters endure as gang dogs in Chicago, these dogs have no Zen training to transform them from deadly monster to companion species, despite serving as pets for gang members. Combining interviews with archival footage and direct cinema, Out of the Pit reveals the torturous process implemented to prepare dogs for battle and its long historical roots. The documentary opens with police investigating a dogfighting ring inside a Chicago house. Archival footage of gang-related dogfighting illustrates this escalating death sport. Images of dead and injured dogs reinforce the traumatic consequences of these battles. A veterinarian explains that these dogs are doomed, and reinforcing images show dogs dripping with blood, their skin already dying and their infected wounds oozing pus. The few officers policing Chicago’s dogfighting epidemic rail against what look like gladiatorial contests, and the Anti-Cruelty Society President argues they are tearing apart the social order. Yet, this current rash of dogfighting grew out of centuries of battling canines. In a brief historical overview, the documentary explains that dogs were trained for war as early as 3500 B.C.E. Mastiffs fought along with the Romans around 50 A.D. By 1100 A.D., pit dogs fought against a variety of animals, including bulls. These pit fights continued into the nineteenth century when the British Mastiff was bred with shorter and faster dogs. By 1835, bullbaiting was outlawed, and dogfighting took hold in Britain and the U.S. The pit bull terrier bred for speed, tenacity, ­ merican and loyalty to humans proved most adapted to the ring. The A pit bull used in most contemporary dogfights serves as evidence of this long history of canine soldiers. Although dogfighting was banned in most of the U.S. in the 1970s, it is still legal to attend fights and possess fighting dogs in some states. And the popularity of the sport in the last twenty or so years has outpaced police response. The sport has a clear structure, according to the documentary, normalizing the environmental trauma endured by the fighting dogs. The Humane Society outlines three levels of dogfights: professional fight organizations with large kennels and training facilities; hobbyists who may breed and sell dogs within the county and state; and gang related street fighters who raise and haphazardly train pit bulls in their neighborhoods. Pit bulls still are the dog of choice. They are aggressive, loyal, and eager to please, willingly returning to battle even when badly injured. Archival footage shows the training techniques used at the professional

78  Urban Eco-Trauma level. These are elaborate and intense, with regimens that include running on treadmills and swimming in pools and irrigation ditches, ingesting steroids and hormones, living isolated lives to foster aggressive behavior, developing stronger jaw muscles, and suffering dehydration to limit bleeding. Street fighting rings emulate these techniques in miniature, training dogs more quickly and recruiting neighborhood children to participate in the training. Children walk potential fight dogs around the block and use bait animals to attract and keep the dogs’ attention. Unlike professional fighters, street fighters draw on urban legend for their training techniques, burning dogs’ testicles to increase their aggressive behavior and feeding them raw meat. Out of the Pit takes the time to show the procedure during actual fights, as well. Although held in private homes instead of larger facilities, street fights follow the same format as professional fights. Dogs meet in a 16 by 20 square foot ring with a carpeted floor and two straight scratch lines. Opposing handlers wash each other’s dogs before leading to their lines. In the ring, a ref yells, “face your dogs” and “go,” and each handler releases their dog. Archival fight footage shows how pit bulls drive to attack their opponent’s neck. Each round continues until one of the dogs gives a turn. Handlers then take them back to their corner and wash them. The rounds continue until they are no longer capable of going in for the fight. Fights usually last for about forty-five minutes but may last as long as five hours. The dogs suffer serious injuries, of course, and they are shown in shock, dehydrated, and bleeding to death by the end of the fights. Fight footage shows the pain and suffering they endure. Dogs yelp and stagger, and handlers leave them to die. Professionals may treat their dogs as commodities meant to be preserved. But street fighters take a different approach and punish losing dogs by setting them on fire or shooting them. Police officers show dogs with their eyes and faces torn off. One gang skinned a losing dog. Because they participate in the training process and watch these fights, children as young as five learn to treat canine fighters as monsters rather than pets. Despite the contempt police officers, veterinarians, and Humane Society officials show for these street fighters and their torturous treatment of dogs, the documentary offers no hope for pit bulls rescued from the ring. Instead, detailed scenes with county veterinarians reveal that all of the dogs will be euthanized once the gang’s court cases are settled. In Out of the Pit, the environmental trauma faced by fighting dogs always leads to death. Alejandro Inarritu’s Amores Perros (2000) illustrates both the neglect documented in One Nation Under Dog and the traumatic consequences of forced dogfights. Although the three overlapping stories in the film highlight the primarily negative consequences to characters involved in illicit or unrequited love, they connect only through the dogs they both abuse and nurture. The car accident that opens the film brings the three

Dogs and Eco-Trauma  79 stories together, but it also links them through their two disparate dogs: Cofi, a family dog turned into a deadly fighter and Ritchie, a coddled terrier who leaves the accident scene without a scratch. For both dogs, however, it is the environment that transforms them from loving pets into something more dangerous. Although Ritchie’s change is inadvertent, caused by unstable flooring, Cofi’s is deliberately constructed to equip him for the dogfight ring. The film’s opening shows us the consequence of Cofi’s successful transformation into an aggressive and vicious fighter. Because Cofi has won all of his bouts and left other dogs hopelessly wounded or dead, rival owner Jorocho retaliates, shooting Cofi in the middle of a fight. The car accident opening the film is a result of Cofi’s wound. To save his dog’s life and escape the dogfight thugs, owner Octavio (Gael García ­B ernal) and his friend Jorge (Humberto Busto) speed dangerously through crowded streets. Their car races through an intersection, ramming into another car, that of Valeria (Goya Toledo) the protagonist of the second story. The accident kills Jorge and injures Octavio and Valeria but leaves Ritchie unscathed and Cofi untended, leaving room for a third story with Cofi and El Chivo (Emilio Echevarría), a former professor and political revolutionary turned vagrant and part-time assassin. Cofi is the most obvious victim of environmental trauma. A seemingly untrained Rottweiler, Cofi faces violent aggression throughout the film. In an early scene, fight dog owner Jarocho sets his own dog loose on Cofi, when he sees him wandering the streets. Cofi meets this hostility with violence and kills Jarocho’s dog before heading home. The aggressive response grows deeper in Cofi when he fights and kills several dogs in the pit. After El Chivo helps him recover from his bullet wound, Cofi kills all of El Chivo’s other dogs when left unattended for an afternoon. Although the film does not show training sequences, we see Cofi evolve from house pet to killing machine. He has endured environmental traumas on the street and in the ring and reacts with aggressive violence. Ritchie recovers from his trauma. Cofi only survives outside the pack with El Chivo, who are both condemned as professional killers to wander the wastelands outside Mexico City at the film’s conclusion.

White God and Eco-Trauma By drawing on the need for interdependence found in Lady and the Tramp, the environmental trauma explored in Amores Perros and the animal cruelty documented in Out of the Pit, White God showcases how the connections between humans and dogs can torture and nurture both species. Ultimately, though, it offers a way to build relationships based on Haraway’s companion species ideal instead of either pampering or torture. The opening title quotation from Rainer Maria Rilka establishes

80  Urban Eco-Trauma the primary argument of the horror drama White God (2014): “Everything terrible is something that needs our love.” To support its claim, however, White God demonstrates how horrific mistreatment may also create the terrible, turning a house pet into a feral hyperintelligent revolutionary menace. Set in an alternate Budapest, the film’s conflicts begin when Hungary sets a severe tax on those who own mixed breed dogs, so pedigree and purebreds will be favored. To avoid the tax, mixed breed owners dump them on the streets or in overcrowded animal shelters. The film’s production notes argue the film serves as “a stark, beautiful metaphor for the political and cultural tensions sweeping contemporary Europe.” But its focus on one mixed breed dog’s responses to a lifeless urban environment and the hostile situations he experiences after abandonment by his young owner’s cruel father also suggest an expanded view of eco-trauma may be warranted. In White God, mixed breed Hagen battles urban ecological catastrophes and eco-trauma that transform him from loving pet to vengeance seeking monster. For Narine, eco-trauma is a product of the ecological catastrophes that “confront us directly, as experiences, or indirectly, as images circulating in the media” (1). Narine suggests, “these events tend to confound us and even paralyze us politically and psychologically” (1). Psychologist Tina Amorok argues that ideally, humans experience lives that are interconnected with others and the natural world. But, Amorok suggests, “The experience of interconnectedness contains paradox, for we sense not just the profound beauty of life but also the pandemic of human violence and the existential anxiety that it causes” (29). Our responses to the eco-trauma this dilemma causes may be violent, Amorok declares, and include separation ideologies and practices (war, religious fanaticism, racism, and sexism), psychological defense mechanisms (denial, dissociation, psychic numbing), and an array of debilitating behaviors and responses that bear the signature of trauma, ranging from depression, anxiety, and addictive lifestyles to violence toward self, others, and nature. (29) White God illustrates how a domesticated dog reacts with similar violence when facing eco-trauma and urban ecological catastrophes associated with it. White God acknowledges and illustrates in detail the loving home Hagen must leave when Lili is forced to live with her father for three months. Before dropping Lili off at the slaughterhouse where dad works inspecting freshly slaughtered beef, Lili and her family share a picnic. Hagen seems joyful as he plays what New York Times reviewer Manohla

Dogs and Eco-Trauma  81 Dargis calls “a quietly portentous game of tug-of-war” with Lili. His tail wags as he adeptly catches and retrieves the toy. And the close relationship between the two continues even in Lili’s father’s cramped apartment, where she attempts to feed Hagen meat scraps from the table. Los Angeles reviewer Robert Abele calls Hagen “her true bestie, a lovable reddish-brown mutt.” Despite dad’s refusal to allow Hagen to sleep in Lili’s room, she preserves their bond by soothing Hagen with her trumpet in the bathroom where he’s trapped. White God also shows the horrific conditions and experiences Hagen faces in the streets of Budapest. Although Rene Rodriguez of the Miami Herald suggests the first half of the film “plays like a spinoff of Babe: Pig in the City or a Disney movie about a lost pet fending for itself,” it also illustrates how Hagen’s former relationship with Lili transfers to other species. He sleeps under a bridge and searches for food and water, but he also seeks community, connecting with other dogs around the city. With a small canine companion, Hagen discovers a pack of dogs in a wet empty lot. As a group, their intelligence seems to grow. Hagen and his companion dog “escape [] from a cleaver-wielding butcher tired of mongrels hanging outside his shop” (Abele). When animal control arrives, Hagen leads the dogcatchers away from the lot, so the other dogs can escape. Hagen and his pack adopt behaviors Ferdowsian and Merskin suggest parallel those of humans, including “avoidance behaviors” when they evade the dogcatchers who not only plan to force them into kennels at a crowded dog pound, but also seek to euthanize them as they routinely do in American animal shelters according to One Nation Under Dog, City of Dogs, and Out of the Pit. Hagen’s newfound freedom turns into a vengeful battle when a homeless man (János Derzsi) saves him from the officials but sells him to a dogfight coordinator to train. As Rodriguez declares, “Anyone who wasn’t able to sit through Amores Perros should take heed: What comes next isn’t easy to watch.” The trainer’s horrific tactics line up with those documented in Out of the Pit. First, he feeds Hagen sleeping pills and offers him protein injected with steroids when he awakens. Wearing a mask, the trainer beats Hagen while chained and builds his strength on a treadmill. He even sharpens his teeth. Drugged up on steroids, Hagen kills his dog opponent in his first fight. According to Abele’s review, These scenes bond us to Hagen’s plight with unrelenting primacy. Filmed with the jagged energy of a Paul Greengrass nail-biter, they make clear that few films have ever so explicitly shown the daily threat to life for a creature left to fend for itself in a society that dismisses it as a beast designed for subjugation, abuse, and/or extermination.

82  Urban Eco-Trauma Having maintained some connection to his canine comrades, however, Hagen finds a way to escape this abuse. He runs away back to the vacant lot where he finds his former little dog friend. When animal control captures and cages them, however, the dogs’ fates there depend on their responses to vicious shelter officials. When Hagen tries to attack a woman trying to pet him, he is sentenced to death. Seemingly aware of his doom, Hagen again breaks out, freeing other caged dogs and stampeding over the woman who would have killed him and his pack, in a scene taken straight from the slave revolt in Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960). As Abele suggests, Hagen’s breakout is also a “reminder that the iconography of freedom and uprising needn’t only belong to humans.” Despite the horrors he experiences, Hagen still searches for Lili, leading his gang of dogs into the concert hall where she is performing with her band. When she discovers Hagen and the pack’s entrance into the hall, Lili leads them away on the borrowed bicycle that opens the film. Instead of ending here, though, White God continues, showing the dogs knocking her down as they run on. Abele calls the scene “dreamlike… until scores of dogs careen around a corner, their bodies in full, magnificent motion.” With only her knee skinned, however, she gets back on her bike. Hagen makes no attempt to deliberately hurt his former companion. But Hagen does find the men who bought and tortured him, and with his canine army, kills them one by one. He even kills the neighbor who reported him to animal control. Police retaliate violently, shooting and killing dogs as they run wild throughout Budapest. Hagen continues his revenge plot, searching out and finding Lili’s father’s slaughterhouse workplace. Lili is there, though, and tries to bring back the pet she loves. She first tries playing fetch with him, but he bares his teeth instead. Yet when Lili plays her trumpet, Hagen and the remaining pack members stop barking and lie down. Lili lies down with Hagen, and her father joins her, bringing the film back to its opening Rilke quote. Made terrible by eco-traumas and the horrific behaviors they have caused, Hagen and his pack need love and respect and seem to find it with Lili and her trumpet.

Conclusion Many reviewers agree with the production notes’ argument that White God serves as a “metaphor for the political and cultural tensions sweeping contemporary Europe.” Anthony Lane asserts, “you can hardly stage an insurrection, of whatever species, on the streets of Budapest without raising the ghost of the uprising there against Soviet rule, in 1956.” Rene Rodriguez suggests director Mundruczo is up to something far grander and more ambitious than putting the viewer through the wringer. Although the allegory may seem facile, White God pulls off the difficult trick of exploring the consequences

Dogs and Eco-Trauma  83

Figure 4.2 Amores Perros.

of exploiting the lower classes by using cute dogs as symbols for the oppressed and downtrodden. For these reviewers, Hagen and his pack represent oppressed humans rather than dogs suffering from real environmental trauma. For us, though, Hagen moves beyond symbol. As a companion species whose pleasure and pain align with our own, Hagen stands in only for himself, a dog who, as Donna Haraway asserts, is a “full partner in worlding, in becoming with” (301). Manohla Dargis sees White God as a parable about how “a faithful animal, separated from its loving owner, endures, suffers, struggles and resists while trying to transcend its brutal fate.” Hagen is certainly a loving dog who endures and resists, but he is also Lili’s companion species. Together they are “messmates at table, eating together, whether we know how to eat well or not” (Haraway 301). Haraway’s parting assertion is one “with a longing that it might be said of me someday what good agility players say of those whose runs they admire, ‘She has met her dog’” (301). By disrupting that possibility, White God reveals the consequences of eco-trauma while offering a solution to its violent repercussions: a mutual longing between species.

Note 1 The principles of organismic environmentalism valorize biodiversity and interdependence and draw on Aldo Leopold’s land ethic, which “enlarges the boundaries of … community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land” (204).

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Part III

Urban Nature and Interdependence

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5 Hatari Means Danger Filmic Representations of Animal Welfare and Environmentalism at the Zoo

The mutual longing between human and canine species highlighted in White God may also extend to other less domesticated species. This desire for interdependent relationships between species sometimes encourages humanity to house nonhuman animals in urban zoos that preserve wild animals and entertain their human visitors. According to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), the 223 “AZA-accredited zoos and aquariums provide the public with essential connections to the natural world [and] …attract more than 179 million visitors every year.” But as the Association also asserts, “AZA-accredited zoos and aquariums are leaders in the protection of endangered species.” Such a dual purpose has made zoos one of the most controversial urban nature sites.1 The conservation goals lauded by the AZA may or may not align with the need to provide entertainment. Zoos must amuse the visitors who pay to explore their wildlife exhibits. Ideally, cinematic representations of zoos embrace conservation, interdependence, and biotic communities missing in more negative filmic portrayals of the city. They also reinforce what philosophy professor Ralph Acampora calls humanity’s “strong sense of biophilia, one which moves them to seek out diverse life-forms when their own territories become too anthropocentrically homogenous or monocultural” (1). A similar conundrum underpins recent violent incidents in zoos. 2 Much has been written about the deadly 2016 accident at the Cincinnati Zoo Gorilla World exhibit. To save a three-year-old boy who slipped under a barrier, a Dangerous Animal Response Team fatally shot an endangered gorilla. Later reports suggest the barrier was not in compliance with USDA standards and has since been redesigned to include six more inches of fencing now covered in nylon mesh. The new fencing improves safety but impairs views of the gorillas on display. In the Cincinnati case, entertainment value conflicts with conservation when a gorilla loses his life because an open barrier provides clearer observations. This conflict between conservation and entertainment also occurred at the Nuremberg Zoo in 2008. Environmental journalist Lucy Siegle highlights this conflict in her 2008 Observer Magazine exploration of why officials at the Nuremberg Zoo allowed a polar bear to eat her cubs.

88  Urban Nature and Interdependence

Figure 5.1 Zoo.

Although experts have shown that polar bears are unsuitable for captivity, the Nuremberg Zoo included them in their attractions because, according to Siegle, they are a popular “charismatic species… which pull in the crowds,” a result that provides increased ticket sales, “the primary source of funding” for zoos. Yet, Siegle also asserts that the best zoos would deny including unsuitable species because they please audiences, “shifting emphasis away from animals as entertaining curios (a Victorian idea) and on to the ‘modern’ zoo’s noble aspirations: species conservation and education.” This shifting focus of zoos, however, does not negate the need for a large number of zoo visitors to finance zoo upkeep and programing. In fact, because educational programs and animal welfare strategies require increased funds, the shift may increase the necessity for increased gate fee results. This dilemma raises a difficult question: Can these two competing and conflicting motivations for zoos (profit and conservation) be reconciled in favor of the ethical treatment of zoo animals? We believe films highlighting urban zoos suggest they can. For us, the fictional films We Bought a Zoo (2011) and Zookeeper (2011), and the documentaries Zoo (1993) and Nenette (2010) most effectively showcase the benefits of zoos for both human and nonhuman animals. These films suggest zoos allow us to build interdependent relationships with wild animals. They also suggest zoos

Hatari Means Danger  89 educate and entertain human visitors and fulfill their biophilic needs. But the zoos showcased in these films also conserve multiple animal species and provide them with a better quality of life than in the wild. In her piece, Siegle outlines multiple benefits of modern zoos: a more natural “captive experience,” smaller environmental footprints, and species conservation that, according to David Whitley’s exploration of Disney animation, might “encourage [] the next generation of children to protect the natural world” (quoted in Siegle). Despite the positive bent of her exploration, however, Siegle does not argue that zoos can resolve their conflicting interests with animal welfare goals in place. Instead, she leaves readers with more questions to ponder and an answer that demonstrates her own ambivalence toward zoos: “Does the choice come down to gawking at a live polar bear in a German town, or a fictional mouse in large yellow shoes? I’m sticking with my Planet Earth box set.” This same ambivalence pervades multiple films with zoos at their center. Some may focus on the customer for the animals being captured, as in Howard Hawks’ Hatari (1962). Others may examine zoos as a backdrop for comic or dramatic action, as in Cameron Crowe’s We Bought a Zoo and Frank Coraci’s Zookeeper. Still others showcase zoo settings as documentary subjects, as in Frederick Wiseman’s Zoo and Nicholas Philibert’s Nenette. Although African safari films like Hatari 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 and Zookeeper 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 and Nenette 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. With their direct cinema approaches, Zoo and Nenette show viewers some of the dangers animals face when held captive in a zoo setting, even when ethical standards are in place. Despite their differing stances, however, all these films beg the question: Does Hatari mean danger for humans or for the animals they capture and enclose for their own enjoyment? We Bought a Zoo, Zookeeper, Zoo, and Nenette demonstrate how a focus on interdependent relationships that accommodate both conservation and entertainment can transform danger into hope in the urban zoo.

The History of Zoo Capture and Enclosure: From Entertainment to Conservation Zoo movies reflect a long history of trapping and enclosing exotic animals for education and entertainment. Although the word “zoo” is a relatively recent construction, collections of exotic animals kept in

90  Urban Nature and Interdependence captivity have existed for at least 4,000 years. These collections, known as menageries, existed in ancient Aztec and Incan civilizations and in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and China (Hosey, Melfi, and Pankhurst 18), as seen in epics such as Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s ­Cleopatra (1963). Records show a diversity of species in captivity from 2500 B.C.E. in Egypt to 322 B.C.E. in Greece, but the Romans captured wild animals “not so much for education and contemplation, but rather for slaughter in the gladiatorial arena” (19), a tradition seen on screen in films such as William Wyler’s Ben-Hur (1959) and Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000). During the Middle Ages, a few menageries continued to entertain wealthy courtiers. The Tower of London Menagerie, which opened in 1245, stayed open until 1832 (20). Outside the royal courts, exotic animals were made accessible through traveling circuses and exhibitions (20). With the widespread colonization of Africa and Asia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by European nations came “a wider public interest in natural history” (20). As Hosey, Melfi, and Pankhurst explain, “By the nineteenth century, the ‘modern’ zoological garden had been born, with the Jardin des Plantes in Paris and Regent’s Park Zoo in London vying for position as world leaders” (21). These zoos were open to the public and prompted the popularizing of the word “zoo” when a music hall artist composed and performed “Walking in the Zoo on Sunday” for large London audiences (23). The London Zoo is considered the most influential of these early zoos because it inaugurated the dual roles of the modern zoos: “it was founded on scientific principles…[and] it was created in a large, public open park with informal naturalistic landscaping” (Hosey et al. 25) that invited a diverse public to enjoy its spectacles. Other European zoos followed the Paris and London zoos’ lead, but the first American zoological gardens opened in Philadelphia in 1874. The Cincinnati Zoo followed in 1875, and the New York Zoological Park (Bronx Zoo) opened in 1899 (Hosey et al. 27). These early zoos in the U.S. and Europe highlighted more naturalistic, moated enclosures like that of Hagenbeck in Hamburg, “a permanent zoo park with concrete and cement rocks and gorges, based on real geological formations” (Hosey et al. 26). According to Rothfels, “visitors flocked to see the artificial mountain landscape built to house African animals and the Polar Panorama with its Arctic animals” (quoted in Hosey, et al. 26). Instead of fences and bars, animals were separated from visitors with moats and ditches. As Hagenbeck explains, “I wished to exhibit them not as captives, confined within narrow spaces and looked at between bars, but as free to wander from place to place within as large limits as possible” (quoted in Hosey et al. 27). Early zoos in the U.S. also responded to what Elizabeth Hanson calls a “middle landscape” of environments combining urban and wilderness values with “a curious and

Hatari Means Danger  91 often uneasy blend of scientific research, education, and entertainment to negotiate their desire to create an authentic experience of nature for a popular audience” (9). Zoos in films before 1970, however, typically illustrate what Hosey and his colleagues call “The Disinfectant Era” that began in the 1920s and 1930s and persisted into the 1970s. Instead of the open enclosures of early zoological gardens, these “modern” zoo enclosures “were designed primarily for ease of cleaning rather than with regard to the needs of the animals housed within them” (29). This design disregards the welfare of the animals on display. According to Hancocks, the use of tiled walls, concrete floors, plate-glass viewing windows, and steel doors in many of these minimalist enclosures leads to an environment that is not only sterile, but which is likely to be noisy in a way that promotes increased stress. (Quoted in Hosey et al. 29) Depictions of the London Zoo in Stuart Walker’s Werewolf of London (1935), the Bronx Zoo in Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People (1942), and the New Orleans Zoo in Paul Schrader’s remake of Cat People (1982), as they were recreated in the films’ respective studios, illustrate this sterile enclosure of the period. 3 As Hosey and his colleagues declare, however, “public reaction against some of the worst enclosures of the Disinfectant Era may well have speeded up the advent of the modern zoo, with its naturalistic settings and a new emphasis on seeing animals within the context of their ecosystem” (32) in “bioexhibit[s that] portray life in all its interconnectedness” (38). David Eady’s independent British family film, Zoo Baby (1960) highlights this transition from the Disinfectant Era to the advent of ecosystems, bioparks, and wildlife parks. In Zoo Baby, a young son of African explorers, Pip (Gerard Lohan), is sent to London to live with his aunt, Mrs. Ramsey (Angela Baddeley) and go to school. Because the authorities confiscate his hamster at the airport for quarantine, Pip misses animal companionship and begins to explore the nearby zoo with the Ramsey maid, Mary (Doreen Keogh). He declares, “We had a lovely garden in Nairobi,” providing viewers with an explanation for his zoo wanderings and choice to adopt a raccoon-like coatimundi. The wild animal escapes when a photographer convinces the zookeeper to allow him to photograph it outside its cage, and Pip hides him in his coat and sneaks him out of the zoo. Although the bulk of this short film concentrates on Pip’s attempts to make money to purchase mealy worms for the coatimundi now housed in the attic, it also illustrates the enclosures of the Disinfectant Era. More importantly for this transition piece, it shows the effects of a move from Colonial to post-Colonial Africa on zoos and zoo capture. Scotland

92  Urban Nature and Interdependence Yard investigates the loss of the coatimundi because it was a gift from an African nation and its loss might disrupt England’s relationship with its government. Although the zoo enclosures demonstrate a less than humane environment for zoo animals, Pip’s parting words in the film may predict the coming changes in zoo habitat. When his aunt offers to procure him another pet coatimundi, Pip exclaims, “No thanks, Aunt Julia. Animals are much too difficult to keep in London.” Those words seem to anticipate the contemporary zoo of ecosystems and animal welfare demonstrated in current cinema.

Populating the Urban Zoo: Hatari and the Politics of the Capture Although set outside cities, some films emphasize the animal capture rather than captive breeding needed to populate urban zoos. They also illustrate the dual roles of zoos as money-making entertainment centers and scientific research and education institutions. Over the decades, there have been a number of big budget Hollywood films about the white man’s adventures in Africa from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. Many involve the “great white hunter” and include the fashion dummy retro look of John Ford’s Mogambo (1953), Sydney Pollack’s Out of Africa (1985), Clint Eastwood’s White Hunter/Black Heart (1990), and Stephen Hopkins’ The Ghost and the Darkness (1996). Hatari (1962) is in a similar world, but focuses on animal catchers, groups of men and women who capture wild animals for zoos and circuses all over the globe. It is also about the power of audience, both for the film and for the zoo and circus entertainment promoted by its narrative. When placed alongside films that document animal capture, such as Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s Chang (1927), Clyde E. Elliott’s Bring ‘em Back Alive (1932) and Martin E. Johnson and Osa Johnson’s Congorilla (1932), Hatari begins to reveal the consequences of turning safari adventure into a moneymaking enterprise, consequences that question the possibility of an ethical approach to zoo culture. Hatari focuses on the typical close-knit insular “Hawksian” world of skilled professionals, people who risk life and limb for money, adventure, and the freedom it provides. But, as Hawks biographer Todd McCarthy explains, “With its mix of people and animals against grand landscapes, it would even have the feel of a Western, albeit a modern and quite exotic one” (572). Hawks himself described it as “a hunting season from beginning to end. It’s what happens when a bunch of fellows get together to hunt” (quoted in McCarthy 572). In Hatari, however, there is a powerful economic component to the pursuit of capturing all manner of wild animals for the businesses that demand them, so if you want to join this group you must have a skill set they need or you are rejected without a moment’s notice. In Hatari, hesitation means injury or death.

Hatari Means Danger  93 The danger and adventures behind capturing wild animals for profit is the primary concern of the film, as highlighted by a rhino chase that opens and closes the film, ultimately goring Indian (Bruce Cabot) because his jeep’s driver was not anticipating the rhino’s attack. The group’s leader Sean Mercer (John Wayne) continually scans a large board filled with neatly laid out rows of all the animals requested for delivery each year before the rainy season. Director Hawks was determined to minimize the use of stunt doubles, and once Wayne was willing to put himself in considerable danger to enhance the excitement of the actual captures, all the other actors fell into line and joined in the action. Audiences were then engaged in over an hour of screen time devoted to the attempts to chase, rope, and subdue wildebeests, antelope, giraffes, cape buffalo, and rhinos from open-doored jeeps and open-bed trucks. Unlike many of the other Hollywood African epics already mentioned, Hatari is unconcerned with killing, though in one sequence a crocodile is supposedly shot to save Kurt (Hardy Kruger) from attack while he is in a river trying to winch a jeep stuck in the water. Hatari seems to say that real adventure means no guns. You want a buffalo? Go out and capture it with your bare hands. Instead, when a young elephant calf has been orphaned and is about to be shot by the game warden, it is rescued by the group’s newest member Dallas (Elsa Martinelli), an Italian magazine photojournalist, who demands to be given the opportunity to keep the calf alive. The group tries to dissuade her, but when she demands loyalty they immediately drop everything, pool their meager money to purchase a herd of goats from local farmers and learn to milk them, while she finally develops a formula that saves and nourishes the elephant. By the film’s end, Dallas has saved three young orphaned elephants and they follow her around like ducks that have imprinted on her as their mother. These elephants provide much of the comedy for the film’s ending making sure Dallas and Sean become a couple both professionally and romantically. It is this amiable comic quality that separates Hatari from most adventure epics. The captures are always serious affairs, jeeps overturn, and people are injured, but amid the serious tone is the moral universe of Hawks where people are only judged by their abilities and nothing more, and most of the time their actions are comic and ludicrous in turns. Men and women are reduced to foolish animals when their sexual drives overcome their good sense. The only way to control those impulses is through serious work. This small group functions as a smooth unit willing to face death in order to fulfill its contracts. Back at their home base they relax with card games, drink, banter, and mild sexual jealousies, which are always settled in the friendliest of fashions. It is an idealized white world that never has to challenge the results of the work that they do and rarely acknowledges the African nation and its people.

94  Urban Nature and Interdependence But, it is this work that fills the zoos of the world with animals that were once free and living without disturbance in their own space. Hatari takes great pains to represent the mythic and enormous beauty of Tanganyika (now Tanzania), its Great Plains, rivers, and forests all full of life. The intrusion of the capture group is contrasted with the power and grace of the free roaming animals. Now that these animals have become commodified for their value to be displayed in artificial environments, their capture is portrayed as being merciful. At least they won’t be shot by some rich industrialist on safari or killed by an indigenous cattle herder, the film suggests. But since Hatari’s crew never questions their work, we never question our own needs for such entertainment. Without us as an audience, animal captures would never exist. Documentaries addressing zoo safaris embody that same attitude toward capturing animals for entertainment and profit. William C. Ament’s Jungle Cavalcade (1941) a compilation of scenes from Bring ‘Em Back Alive (1932), Wild Cargo (1934), and Fang and Claw (1935) present multiple exhibitions that intermingle action sequences with captivity narratives. These episodes are meant to entertain viewers with their suspenseful action. But, again and again, the star, Frank Buck explains that he must fill orders from American zoos. In these sequences, too, Buck is characterized as both hero and savior, heroically conquering the jungle and its predators, while saving local indigenous animal and human populations from the horrors of “fang and claw.” During Buck’s first adventure, for example, he and a partner encounter a tiger and monkeys on their route and watch a battle between a leopard and a tiger that ends in a draw. A python attacks the leopard, and we see it strangle the leopard within minutes, amplifying the action but offering an opportunity for the pair to capture the python for one of their zoo orders. In another scene, the pair attempts to capture monkeys in a tree, and when they fail, they bring back the crew with nets. While Buck shoots at branches, the crew hold nets and catch the falling monkeys. In another sequence, one of the crew captures a bear cub while Buck and a crewmember capture a monkey. The monkey and bear cub are tied near one another back at the compound, but Buck explains that he has provided them with a safer life away from jungle danger. In this context, captured animals are constructed as victims of the jungle who are offered a better life in zoos. Their journey out of the jungle is much less arduous. Traveling first by wagon and then by truck, they cart animals to a cargo ship ready to sail to European and American zoos. The dangerous jungle has been conquered, and some of its animals have been saved, the film implies, to entertain us and fill zoo coffers. In David Attenborough’s Zoo Quest: Paraguay (1955), host Attenborough also mixes entertainment and profit as he introduces the expedition in search of rare species of mammals in Paraguay as if planning a vacation. Interspersed between “talking head” explanations of his travels,

Hatari Means Danger  95 Attenborough and his crew show audiences the perils and pleasures of a hunting trip to replenish zoo stock, while educating them about the exotic lands they visit. The trip begins with a boat journey across the Brazilian border to Paraguay. The first of the wonders introduced here are the multitudes of butterflies of various species. This first encounter with nature suggests Attenborough is enjoying a 1950s ecotourism trip, but once he and his crew cross into Paraguay, it becomes clearer that this is a financially beneficial hunt for rare resources. Although Attenborough seeks zoo animals, he and his crew also showcase various hardwoods as other sources of revenue. The film takes the time to show us natives cutting hardwood trees with their axes before Attenborough begins listening for nests of exotic birds. He tells us he must wait and listen to better capture his prey. Here, animals and hardwood are connected as revenue building resources. Throughout the first part of this episode of Zoo Quest, Attenborough captures animals and then reveals little-known facts about them, educating audiences about the prey he will then ship to zoos around the world. He captures capybaras, which he tells us are rare because they have been widely hunted by the local population for their hides and meat. He also captures a variety of birds, including rheas, ostrich-like birds, which eat thistles. He also bags an armadillo after tracking droppings to its underground nest. These hunting scenes provide a bifurcated vision of ecology in which rare species are valorized yet captured for entertainment and profit in zoos. The finale to this episode reinforces this ambiguous worldview. While a mariachi band plays a song that, according to Attenborough, sounds like the Guyra Cayana, a rare bird that is “almost” the national bird of Paraguay, credits reveal that this show was possible because of the World Land Trust. The entertainment of the musicians may be opposed to the conservation message of the World Land Trust, but in the context of Zoo Quest, entertainment and environmentalism can mix. This message may fail to resonate for contemporary viewers, however, and, perhaps, for contemporary zookeepers who embrace conservation above profit.

Zookeeper and We Bought a Zoo: Zoo Animals as Human Salvation Although films documenting worldwide quests for zoo animals highlight the need to fulfill orders to create a profit, contemporary films reflect the current emphasis on zoos as biodiversity-conservation nonprofits whose aim for ticket sales is maintenance of the zoo, its animals, personnel, and its education programs. The focus on entertainment continues, however, as a way to facilitate higher attendance. Research from BioScience and other biological journals from the late 1980s forward illustrates this shift to conservation rather than entertainment for profit. But they also

96  Urban Nature and Interdependence highlight the tension between animal welfare, which concentrates on individual animals and species, and conservation, which emphasizes biodiversity and the more holistic organismic approaches to ecology. This tension is illustrated well in two recent fictional zoo films: ­Zookeeper and We Bought a Zoo. Although both films demonstrate the benefit a zoo may hold for its owners or zookeepers, they approach animal rights and animal welfare issues in different ways. Zookeeper recalls earlier appeals to individual animals, as do the 1950s’ Jungle Cavalcade and Zoo Quest and the 1960s’ Hatari, and its message of interdependence draws on the conceit of talking animals found in the Dr. Doolittle films. We Bought a Zoo aligns with the current conservation ethic embraced by most zoos, as well as the tensions between animal welfare and conservation inherent in the zoo ideal. Although John Perry of the U.S. National Zoological Park declared in 1966 that the first aim of the zoo was “to keep animals healthy and to prolong their lives” (590), debates between conservation and animal welfare were underway in the zoo environment as early as 1989 when veterinarians and zoologist Glenn H. Olsen explored the repercussions of the U.S. Animal Welfare Act for zoos. According to Olsen, the 1985 amendments to the Animal Welfare Act require “institutions to address the psychological well-being of nonhuman primates and dogs” (135). Although this amendment centers specifically on these two species, Olsen asserts that “The correct step is for each zoo to treat all animal exhibition and research as if were under the purview of the animal regulations” (135–136). Olsen advocates for high standards in zoo and wildlife research despite oversights in regulations but argues, “There should be little need for change in the care and treatment of our animals if we have been performing our jobs in a humane manner” (137). Improvements Olsen proposes include “transfer [ring] knowledge about normal animal behavior and requirements to the zoo or captive wildlife setting to improve animal husbandry” and “devising safe capture methods, including immobilization drugs and their reversal agents” (137). For Olsen, the Animal Welfare Act should be viewed “as a minimal care standard we are trying to exceed” (137). Olsen’s arguments resonate well with animal welfare and conservation concerns, highlighting the need for a more humane approach to animal conservation in zoos. Because it takes a more general approach to zoo management, however, Olsen’s piece excludes animal-rights driven issues related to particular species that may or may not respond well to captivity. Writing in 1992, zoologist Jeffrey P. Cohn, however, examines in detail some of the decisions zoos must make in relation to ethics, politics, profit, and animal-rights concerns, which may conflict with conservation goals. We touched on the polar bear dilemma in our introduction. Cohn explores issues surrounding the rare white tigers and other hybrid species, demonstrating well the conflicts that still exist between animal

Hatari Means Danger  97 rights and conservation advocates. Cohn illustrates this ethics clash with a scenario ending with a question: “To get more white tigers, zoo managers in India and the United States in the 1950s mated fathers and daughters, granddaughters, and even, on occasion, great granddaughters. Should zoos continue this practice?” (654). Cohn lays out clearly the ideology behind the conflict, explaining that conservation and animal rights or welfare ideals differ in relation to treatment of surplus animals and focus on individual animals and/or species. According to Cohn, “zoos often have to decide how many and which subspecies of an endangered species to keep and breed in captivity” (654). This is especially problematic with tigers “because there are five surviving subspecies, four in US zoos, and each individual is expensive to maintain” (654). Whereas animal rights advocates would argue for maintaining all species and subspecies of tigers, conservation biologists assert that only “175 individuals of each tiger subspecies are needed to ensure their survival and genetic diversity in captivity” (654). Cohn also examines conflicting views of hybrids, such as orangutans, as well as the politics of breeding species such as the northern white rhino. Although some conservationists argue there are “too few northern white rhinos for captive breeding, especially given the need to preserve black, Sumatran, and Javan rhinos…. The northern rhino has become a flagship species for other conservation efforts in Zaire” (655–656). According to Robert Reece, American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums’ species coordinator for rhinos, the preservation of the northern white rhino “gives Zaire a reason to preserve Garama and other national parks for wildlife” (quoted in Cohn 656). This connection with Zaire parallels the move toward ecotourism made by two of the Earth’s oldest cattle cultures, the Masai in Kenya and Himbi in Namibia documented in David E. Simpson’s Milking the Rhino (2009). To support their villages while maintaining their culture, several tribes seek to conserve endangered species to attract tourists to comfortable lodges where primarily Western tourists can enjoy an ­A frican ecosystem. Despite drought conditions that threaten their cattle, many of these lodges serve as practical community-based conservation projects, which balance the needs of wildlife and people. The film highlights some of the complications of this community-based approach to conservation, but it also lauds these locally driven projects, bioparks like those advocated as early as 1992 by tropical biologist and zoo director Michael H. Robinson to promote biodiversity (345). Although some animal rights advocates “even ask whether people have any right to, in their words, imprison other living beings in zoos” (Cohn 654), most take a more limited position and oppose conservation approaches to surplus zoo animals as individual species. Zoo managers, with their emphasis on conservation, “have to be concerned with species and population rather than individuals… If animal rights groups have

98  Urban Nature and Interdependence their way, we will lose species” (Cohn 659). Ultimately, however, even conservation-driven zoo managers are faced with the dilemma of needing exotic individual animals such as the white tiger to attract the crowds necessary to maintain the zoo’s conservation and education programs. Palmer Krantz, executive director of the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, South Carolina explains it this way: “It is our job to get people to at least think a bit about conservation while they are having a fun family outing” (quoted in Cohn 659). As Cohn explains, however, “Doing that job today requires making some difficult decisions” (659). In 2001, Elia T. Ben-Ari explores the conflict between animal welfare and conservation ideals, but instead of suggesting a resolution is impossible to negotiate between them, Ben-Ari offers multiple ways zoos can benefit from animal welfare arguments, just as Olsen does in 1989. According to Ben-Ari, “Providing captive animals such as the ­Hawaiian honeycreepers with opportunities to display a range of species-­appropriate behaviors and to make behavioral choices that give them some control over their lives is among the goals of an animal husbandry approach” (172). Cathy Carlstead sums up well how this animal welfare approach can not only coexist with but benefit a conservation ethic: “We want the highest standards of animal welfare in zoos because these are animals that are representatives of their wild counterparts…. They are supposed to inspire people to protect the habitat of wild animals” (quoted in Ben-Ari 177). These conflicts are addressed to a lesser or greater extent in Zookeeper and We Bought a Zoo. Although Zookeeper leans toward individual animal rights arguments in its fantastic premise that animals, especially primates, can talk to and advise their zookeeper Griffin Keyes (Kevin James), We Bought a Zoo takes a more balanced approach, highlighting both animal welfare and conservation approaches (at least on the periphery) in its family melodrama narrative. Zookeeper not only anthropomorphizes animals for human benefit, drawing on animal rights principles. It also asserts, as do earlier animal capture films, that wild animals benefit from their zoo enclosure, as long as zookeepers treat them humanely. In Zookeeper, zoo animals break their vow of silence because Griffin, their favorite zookeeper, may leave his post as lead zookeeper to win back his lost love Stephanie (Leslie Bibb). To keep him from leaving the zoo for a position as a car salesman, the zoo animals decide to provide Griffin with the advice he needs to regain Stephanie’s love without losing his zookeeping skills. Ultimately, Griffin follows the animals’ advice and successfully rekindles his romance with Stephanie. But Griffin also learns lessons about friendship and identity from the zoo animals and his experience as a zookeeper that highlight the individualist leanings of animal rights and welfare arguments. When Stephanie convinces Griffin to leave the zoo, and Kate (Rosario Dawson), the zoo’s veterinarian takes a job in Nairobi, Griffin discovers that his

Hatari Means Danger  99 connections with Kate, the zoo, and its animals overwhelm his affections for Stephanie. Griffin’s self-revelation seems to come as a result of Stephanie’s acceptance of him: Griffin Constantine Keyes… Mm! The changes I’ve seen in you these past few weeks have been nothing short of remarkable. And I’ve been doing a little soul searching, and I did a mistake five years ago on that beach, and I wanna correct it, she says, as she pulls out an engagement ring. Because Stephanie bases her renewal of Griffin’s proposal to her from five years ago on how well he changes, however, Griffin refuses, declaring, “Come on, you had to see this coming. When we first started dating, you assumed I was gonna turn into the type of guy that you always dreamed about. But you know what? I don’t like that guy.” Griffin has certainly benefited from his connection with the zoo and its animals, accruing a personal profit, perhaps, from his friendship with zoo animals. But these zoo animals’ similarity to humans (one of the main tenets of the Animal Rights movement) is also emphasized by the film. According to Peter Singer, for example, “Animal Liberation is Human Liberation too” (vii), and “human equality… requires us to extend equal consideration to animals too” (1) and preserve their rights as we might other human rights, as in the Civil Rights or Women’s Rights movements. Creatures capable of feeling pleasure and pain, in Singer’s vision, have the same rights as humans because their “sentience” gives them inherent value. From Peter Singer’s groundbreaking 1975 work Animal Liberation, to Norm Phelps’ 2007 overview The Longest Struggle: Animal Advocacy from Pythagoras to PETA, animal advocates base their arguments on the close connection between humans and nonhuman animals. Joe the Lion (Sylvester Stallone), Jerome the Bear (Jon Favreau), Donald the Monkey (Adam Sandler), Bernie the Gorilla (Nick Nolte), and Janet the Lioness (Cher) all provide very human advice in perfectly spoken English, demonstrating their sentience and clear resemblance to humanity. But Griffin’s response when he declares his love for Kate takes that connection further. Not only do animals resemble humans. Humans also share similarities with zoo animals. Kevin explains his wild reaction to Kate by drawing on elements of the animal world: Well, when an eagle finds its perfect mate, they cartwheel, right? That’s what they do. They… they lock their talons together, and they spin out of control, and just before they hit the ground… they break apart. The only difference between me and an eagle is… I will hit the ground, as you’ve just seen.

100  Urban Nature and Interdependence Zookeeper takes its animal rights argument into the realm of the fantastic, but it still resonates. Even though its message that animals thrive in a zoo environment may contradict some animal welfare claims, the film connects nonhuman and human animals, emphasizing the worth of individuals over the environment as a biotic community. We Bought a Zoo also foregrounds the advantages humans may gain from interacting with zoo animals, but unlike Zookeeper, the film moves beyond promoting individual animals to the detriment of a biotic community and makes a conscious effort to show how zookeepers can help provide the most ethical and humane conditions for them both at the beginning and end of life. The film amplifies tensions caused by new zoo ownership by infusing the narrative with a strong family melodrama, but the zoo experiences illustrated in the film align well with those recounted by Mee in his memoir, even in a U.S. setting. In the film adaptation of We Bought a Zoo, Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon) must comply with current zoo regulations that draw on animal welfare ethics. But he also must learn to move beyond individual animal rights and prepare for “end of life,” a preparation that not only helps Mee move forward a stagnant mourning process but also highlights the film’s more balanced approach to animal welfare. Unlike Zookeeper, We Bought a Zoo valorizes both the welfare of individual animals and a biotic community of interconnected species. The family melodrama in We Bought a Zoo is both caused and partially resolved by Mee’s wife Katherine’s (Stephanie Szostak) death. Her passing has left Mee as the primary caretaker for two children, sevenyear-old Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones) and fourteen-year-old Dylan (Colin Ford). To renew his relationship with both children and facilitate their recovery from this tragic loss, Mee quits his job as an adventure journalist and, with help from Rosie, sells their home and buys a dilapidated zoo. As he tells the realtor, Mr. Stevens (J.B. Smoove), “We just want new. We want new… new everything. New opportunities. New schools. Just new.” Because the zoo is so far from the friends he left behind, Dylan resents the move. Rosie thrives immediately. Ultimately, the zoo helps Mee reconcile with his son and come to terms with his wife’s untimely death. Within this simple narrative, however, are authentic portraits of a zoo and its animals, images that validate an animal welfare approach that includes organismic environmental views drawn from Aldo Leopold’s land ethic and an interdependent biotic community. Benjamin Mee’s description of the zoo to his brother ­Duncan (Thomas Haden Church), demonstrates one way the film moves beyond animal rights arguments because it emphasizes the work of the zoo to preserve endangered species: “It’s only two zebras. And a lion, and a jaguar and forty-seven other species, seven of which are endangered, and all of them are saved the second we make this deal.”

Hatari Means Danger  101 But it is Mee’s changing relationship with Spar, an elderly tiger, that most illustrates the film’s more balanced approach to animal rights. Head zookeeper Kelly Foster (Scarlett Johansson) provides details about Spar as a nonhuman animal worthy of respect during a conversation she has with Rosie: That guy there, that’s Spar. He’s our oldest. He’s seventeen. He’s a Bengal tiger. You know tigers have a special sensor in the front of their two-inch canines. They can actually detect the pulse in your aorta. So when they attack, they bite you, take your pulse with their teeth, reposition those suckers and boom! There goes your carotid. Benjamin Mee, however, makes a personal connection with Spar, perhaps using him to help replace the loss of his wife, Katherine, so he attempts to prolong Spar’s life no matter how difficult kidney disease and other ailments make it for him. When Walter Ferris (John Michael Higgins), the zoo regulator, explains that he should “begin to draw up an end of life plan” as “part of the humane care of an animal,” Mee denies the “end game of [this] big cat” is near, claiming, instead, “it’s fine.” When Spar refuses to eat, then, Mee attempts to coax him, seemingly connecting Spar’s situation to that of his wife, declaring, Come on, man. We talked about this. You’ve gotta eat that food. It’s got all the meds. You know, there’s a major buzz for you inside that meat. Your neurotransmitters are gonna be firin’ away all the way to the moon and back…. Buddy, if you don’t eat the food, and you don’t get your meds in you, it all goes downhill very fast. I’m telling you the truth. Just like his wife during her illness, Spar, too, might go downhill fast. Yet the film argues against this anthropomorphizing of Spar. Instead, Mee’s evolution as a zookeeper and father are demonstrated by his acceptance of Spar as a suffering animal, who deserves an end of life plan. After Spar’s humane passing, they post a plaque in remembrance and use a drawing of Spar that Dylan created as the new zoo logo. Other scenes highlight the film’s attempt to provide an authentic picture of zoo ethics. Enclosures are expanded, for example, to better accommodate some species. The film also maintains a clear separation between human and nonhuman animals. Humans care for the zoo animals but also provide them with lives as close to that they would live in the wild as possible. Instead of equating zoo animals with humans as in Zookeeper, We Bought a Zoo provides a balance of animal welfare and conservation ethics, even within a primarily comic family melodrama.

102  Urban Nature and Interdependence

Wiseman’s Zoo and Philibert’s Nenette: The Power of Direct Cinema Zoo and Nenette provide a direct cinema approach to the modern zoo that demonstrates the conflict between animal welfare, conservation, and entertainment, and the profits that sustain them. Zoo documents the days and nights of the Miami Metro Zoo and its animals, zookeepers, and veterinarians without comment or clearly structured conventional narrative. Yet, it too draws connections between the zoo’s animals and their human observers. The interaction between visitors and wild animals highlights their interdependent relationships throughout the documentary, sometimes because the wild animals’ behavior looks so much like that of their human observers. Flamingos in a small lake seem to be fighting like their human visitors. A stork stands in the distance like the adults with cameras watching exhibits while a monorail rolls overhead. An orangutan with a burlap blanket entertains with his human-like urge for clothing. Human families are also replicated by nonhuman animal parental responses when a mother monkey cares for her child. More families watch on amid the sound of spraying water and a scene of two tigers briefly playing together, this time accompanied by birdcalls. Animals shown behind-the-scenes amplify nonhuman animals’ familial relationships. While some chimps bang on the cage, mothers protect their infants, and the zookeeper gives one young chimpanzee motherly advice. The film reinforces connections between humans and other primates when it shows visitors watching a gorilla with a burlap blanket. One man mimics the ape. Another takes pictures while the gorilla runs away. A vet talks to the crowd about the differences between chimps and ­gorillas, telling them “Chimps are more like humans,” but notes Koko the gorilla learned sign language, but “they haven’t bred her and don’t know if she would pass on the language to her child.” As she talks, the gorilla feeds on leaves. One guest in a wheelchair asks questions. A child retrieves an animal trading card from the vet. When a rhino appears in another scene, guests laugh at its ears. Workers clean cages as the rhino bathes, and guests watch it walking through water. They speak in multiple languages. The film also highlights multiple births in the zoo to show another similarity humans have with nonhuman animals. The rhino guests had been watching earlier walks away, but in another scene, workers watch a pregnant rhino prepare for birth. The watch goes into the night, but when the baby is born and workers take it out of its cage, the vet is unable to revive it, even after giving it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, so the baby is declared dead. Another worker later helps the mother rhino cope with her loss. Others spray water on elephants in a pool. A pregnant alligator is caught and quarantined, while iguanas are fed in another part of the zoo. A gorilla is documented in a hospital, as well, with a news

Hatari Means Danger  103 channel’s reporter recording it. In the animal clinic, the vet talks about the death of the infant rhinoceros and documents it with photographs of the corpse and placenta. Samples are taken during an autopsy. After the corpse is cleaned and photographed, it is tossed into an incinerator, a tribute to the life and death cycle on display in this direct cinema documentary. Food provides another connection between human and nonhuman animals. The animals’ meals coincide with vendors feeding guests and entertaining them with a merry-go-round. People watch zookeepers providing food for animals in other scenes, highlighting feeding times for otters, birds of multiple species, elephants, and other animals. The camera is watching people in this scene, just as the guests watch the animals in the zoo. Other behind-the-scenes shots show trucks picking up garbage. The camera captures the mother alligator laying her eggs, and then shows a tent with robotic animals and a haircut fundraiser. The monorail rolls high above a cameraman filming lions while they are fed and their cage is cleaned. The kitchen chef preparing meals on a tray highlights feeding time. Workers feed multiple animals from a truck, placing buckets of food beside fences. One feeds a rabbit to a snake. Animals feed, but in the clinic, a wolf is castrated. Ostriches and a giraffe are shown, but during the night, feral dogs killed deer and other animals. The workers show tracks and help the surviving animals. They hunt in the brush for the dogs, find one dead, and throw it in the incinerator. A fundraising dinner where VIP guests eat meat while animals watch on in the background ends the film. The moon overhead suggests another day has ended as the film concludes, highlighting the multiple connections between human and nonhuman animals illustrated by the documentary. In Zoo, interdependent relationships between humans and the wild animals they visit grow stronger because the documentary anthropomorphizes each species’ behaviors. We all eat, sleep, watch, and parent, so we all should be preserved, the documentary suggests. A similar direct cinema approach is used to focus on one animal with no shots of humans in Nenette. The film provides a close reading of a forty-year-old orangutan captured in Borneo as an infant and transported to Jardin des Plantes, a Parisian zoo, in 1972. As with Zoo, the film attempts to capture Nenette’s life in captivity without commentary from a narrator or talking heads. In Nenette, however, voices of visitors and workers discussing the orangutan from outside her enclosure are caught on the film’s audio. While the camera provides extreme closeups of Nenette and her son and peers behind the exhibit glass, human commentary remains offscreen and accompanies the orangutan’s daily life of food, play, and gazes from their small enclosure. These human voices attribute human qualities to Nenette’s behavior and appearance, suggesting she is bored and explaining how life in Paris has grown more difficult. They admire Nenette’s red hair and discuss its symbolic value

104  Urban Nature and Interdependence in Egyptian and French culture. We see her in superimposed images of children. “How old are you?” a child asks. The documentary’s perspective turns Nenette into the visitor watching the human animals who observe here. While Nenette watches them through her window and makes faces, zoo visitors comment on her mood, talking directly to her, but the camera remains steady on ­Nenette’s face. Only music interrupts the diegetic voices offscreen, so even when in an exterior cage, we hear visitors in the background and the chants of protesters in the distance voicing disagreement with layoffs. Although zookeepers talk about deep-seated guilt held by all who work at the zoo, Nenette seems to remain unchanged, watching from her cage perches while zookeepers and visitors project their own anthropomorphized beliefs upon her. Some say she’s mimicking those around her. Others say she lives in the “now” or is “drained of curiosity” by the crowds who watch her. Although we learn about Nenette’s life in captivity from the voices we hear offscreen that describe her multiple husbands and children, we are drawn only to the image of Nenette and her offspring and peers, who live captive lives within small glass enclosures. Unlike Zoo, Nenette uses images of a particular orangutan to comment on the human experience, but at the same time, poignant images of an aging human-like Nenette behind glass encourage discussions regarding the ethical nature of zoos. Despite changes in zoos and the movies that illustrate their changing habitats and enclosures, zoos and the movies that represent them both demonstrate and “adhere to their original mission: recreation, education, conservation, and scientific research” (184). As Elizabeth Hanson explains, “a hundred years ago, menageries became zoological gardens;

Figure 5.2  We Bought a Zoo.

Hatari Means Danger  105 now the old zoos have become conservation parks and bioparks” (163). Yet, despite emphasis on conservation that has reinvigorated both the research and education aspects of zoos’ mission, “entertainment generally remains a higher priority than species preservation” (163) primarily because entertainment still remains the main source of income for zoos and biophilic pleasure for visitors. But this revenue is also necessary to sustain the other vital conservation agendas of zoos. Zookeeper, We Bought a Zoo, Zoo, and Nenette highlight how zoos can make a profit while still preserving wildlife and building interdependent relationships between human and nonhuman animals that may conserve both.

Notes 1 This controversy became amplified by the shooting of the great ape H ­ arambe after a child fell into his enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo. 2 Although focused on aquariums rather than zoos, the documentary ­Blackfish (2013) highlights the controversial captivity of killer whales, and its dangers for both humans and whales. 3 The zoo in Dead Alive (1992) reinforces this “sterile” approach.

6 Eco-Therapy in Central Park Documenting Urban Birdwatching

The many brands of seed and multiple feeders outside windows attest to Americans’ obsession with birds and the connection with wild nature they provide. According to a Wildlife Society Bulletin piece by David J. Horn et al., “More people feed birds and other wildlife than hunt and fish combined” (18). A comprehensive 2011 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report states that 46 million people, age sixteen and older, observed birds with a total wildlife watching expenditure of $54.9 billion. Around U.S. homes, 50.2 million people fed wild birds. This attachment to birds extends beyond the backyard. Finch feeders outside a dentist treatment room calm patients. Woodpecker snack cake holders entertain residents at a nursing home. The desire for a bond with the natural world these feeders represent extends to urban areas such as New York City, a phenomenon illustrated well in three recent documentaries: Pale Male (2002), The Legend of Pale Male (2009), and Birders: The Central Park Effect (2012). The interdependence such a union between humans and nature suggests, however, also coincides with human improvement. Despite their differing genres and forms, all three documentaries emphasize the benefits at least some humans gain from communing with nonhuman animals rather than the support human ties with nature might provide the birds they admire. As a synthetic documentary that combines a nature documentary with a romanticized (yet credible) voiceover from Joanne Woodward, Pale Male tells the story of a red-tailed hawk living in Central Park from the perspective of a variety of hawk watchers. With its emphasis on human responses to and connections with the hawk Pale Male, however, the documentary transforms from a narrative to a visual and rhetorical argument for interactions with the hawk and the seeming “wild nature” he represents. By documenting the lives of eccentric hawk watchers, Pale Male draws on ethnographic approaches that encourage human connections with the unlikely red-tailed hawk. But this focus on a single raptor romanticizes nature and denies the importance of biodiversity. Despite its successful portrayal of Pale Male and his obsessive followers, Pale Male fails to acknowledge that there is more than one demarcated beautiful nature.

Eco-Therapy in Central Park  107

Figure 6.1  Pale Male.

The feature length expansion, The Legend of Pale Male, takes this romanticized view even further when the filmmaker Frederic Lilian replaces Joanne Woodward’s credible voiceover with his own. Lilian’s self-reflexive approach leans toward narcissism as he attempts to solve his “daddy issues” by projecting them on the actions of Pale Male. But The Legend of Pale Male adds two major conflicts missing from the shorter Pale Male. These conflicts at first seem to amplify the interdependent relationships between Pale Male and the hawk watchers: The first showcases the benefits the hawk offers its human watchers, setting up Pale Male and the distraction he provides as a salve that helps heal traumatic reactions to the terrorist attacks on 9/11. The second, a battle over Pale Male’s nest on a high-end Fifth Avenue co-op building, is the most powerful in the film. This battle provides evidence for Marie Eaton’s claim, “that we can make a difference if we join collective energy into agency and action.” Yet, ultimately, The Legend of Pale Male showcases the benefits such solidarity offers human subjects, not the red-tailed hawk. Birders: The Central Park Effect combines interviews with visual evidence to narrate a year of birds and birding in Central Park. But by drawing on expert testimony, graphic evidence, and statistical data, Birders also promotes biodiversity and offers possible solutions to at least one

108  Urban Nature and Interdependence of the consequences of anthropocentric (human caused) environmental destruction: species annihilation. As one observer explains in the documentary, “Birding can trick you into thinking birds are fine, but [they are] bound up in a natural world in tremendous peril.” Unlike Pale Male and The Legend of Pale Male, Birders argues powerfully for protecting Central Park as an important habitat for wildlife and migrating birds. But it also demonstrates the benefits birders gain from interactions with even a constructed natural world. With varying effectiveness, all three films highlight the benefits birdwatching provides humans, holding them up as evidence for preserving at least some birds and their Central Park habitat.

Birdwatching on Film: Coming of Age or Coming to Truth in/with the Natural World Although many documentaries spotlight various species of birds in a variety of settings, films showcasing birdwatching from the silent era forward tend to be fictional narratives. Nature documentaries exploring birds in their habitats became popular during the 1950s, when television became accessible for the majority of U.S. citizens. As Gregg Mitman notes in his Reel Nature: America’s Romance with Wildlife on Film, Disney devoted at least one of their True-Life Adventures to water birds in 1952. Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom highlighted “Hunters of the Sky” in 1963. And David Attenborough documented birds in the wild from the 1950s’ Zoo Quest through his more recent series The Life of Birds in 1998. These views of birds in the natural world helped ground the popular Winged Migration (2001) and The March of the Penguins (2005), as well as the lesser known Kestrel’s Eye (1998), The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos (2008), and various episodes of Nature, including “Birds of the Gods” (2011). Rarely, however, do these documentaries showcase urban birdwatching, as do Birders: The Central Park Effect and the two Pale Male films. In fictional films, on the other hand, urban birdwatching or bird ownership sometimes becomes a central method for characters to transform and/or come of age. Early films highlight the benefits birds provide only as a plot point. In The Blue Bird (1918), a silent fantasy film from Maurice Tourneur, a fairy and two peasant children search for the Blue ­­Bird of Happiness. In Tod Browning’s The Unholy Three (1925), criminals launch crimes from a bird shop. Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963) puts birds at the center as vicious attackers in the remote village of ­Bodega Bay. The cause for their violence remains unexplained. Various animated films also highlight the benevolence of birds, both for humans and other animals. Some of these animated films foreground the need to save birds to enhance the natural world, as does The Rescuers Down Under (1990), a Disney film promoting the conservation

Eco-Therapy in Central Park  109 of golden eagles. Bold Eagles (2014) replicates this goal, perhaps for an even younger audience. Others profile the intelligence of birds and their fight for their own survival, with or without humans, as do Chicken Run (2000), The Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole (2010), Rio (2011), Adventures in Zambezia (2012), Rio 2 (2014), and Storks (2016). These animated films also set up the themes for at least two live-action films with intelligent talking birds who end up helping their human owners, The Real Macaw (1997) and Paulie (1998). With the exception of a couple of films focused on training birds in poor urban areas—Ken Loach’s Kes (1969) and Alan Parker’s Birdy (1984)—live-action birdwatching coming-of-age films gained in popularity at the turn of the twenty-first century. In several of these films, birding seems peripheral but still helps transform the films’ characters. The comic Rare Birds (2001) uses birdwatching to attract tourists to a Newfoundland restaurant but also sparks romance between the owner (William Hurt) and a substitute waitress (Molly Parker). In the drama, The Hawk is Dying (2006), training a red-tailed hawk offers a way for George (Paul Giamatti) to mourn his nephew Fred’s (Michael Pitt) death. The Hide (2008) aligns birdwatching with murder, but the thriller also offers hope for Dave (Phil Campbell) a criminal on the run through a connection with birding. Pelican Blood (2010) highlights birding as a cure for depression among young adults coming-of-age. In all these films, birding of some sort helps characters overcome loss and grow as individuals. Even more blatant birding films emphasize how birdwatching serves humanity rather than the birds they observe. In The Big Year (2011), the focus is on birders competing for the most sightings during a year-long competition. The film shows the rare species birders spot and check off their lists, but the focus is primarily on the human relationships gained through the event. Brad (Jack Black) reconnects with his father and sparks a romance with birder Jessica (Rosamund Pike). Stu (Steve Martin) builds a friendship with Brad but learns the value of family through their relationship and returns home to see his grandchild. The Birders’ Guide to Everything (2013) takes this coming-of-age theme further by highlighting adolescents’ growth through urban birding. These fictional films broach the ideals of the birding community, but they chiefly showcase how much humanity may gain from their interaction with birds. A few documentaries highlight similar beneficial interactions between humans and birds. Set in San Francisco, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill (2003) focuses on one man’s perspective of birds, demonstrating how caring for the “wild” parrots helps sustain him. Filmmaker Judy Irving and the parrot’s caretaker Mark Bittner ultimately fall in love over birds. Irving’s Pelican Dreams (2014) moves the focus from human to bird in its examination of one pelican’s journey off the Golden

110  Urban Nature and Interdependence Gate Bridge to a rehab facility. Yet, all of these documentaries also show how birds may offer a way for humans to get involved in something outside themselves. Segments of Wild Rio (2005) also illustrate how a constructed park allows humans to commune with parrots. In documentaries such as Pale Male, The Legend of Pale Male, and Birders: The Central Park Effect, birds become central characters in birdwatchers’ tales and may contribute to their own preservation.

Pale Male and The Legend of Pale Male: Synthetic Nature Documentaries with Individual Purpose Edited for the PBS series, Nature, Pale Male provides ample rhetorical and visual evidence for preserving Pale Male and his habitat. The voiceover from Academy Award-winner and activist Joanne Woodward adds powerful ethos to this argument. Pale Male opens in 1991, a year after Joanne Woodward’s graduation from Sarah Lawrence College in Brookville, New York, and at the height of her and husband Paul ­Newman’s philanthropic ventures. Their charitable food line, ­Newman’s Own, donates money to projects including the Hole in the Wall camps for children with debilitating diseases and the Scott Newman Foundation, which tackles drug abuse prevention. In 1994, she and her husband were jointly presented the award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards. Because of continued acting and voice work in the 1990s, viewers would recognize Woodward’s voice, providing validity and reliability to the documentary’s narration. These credentials add credibility to Woodward’s opening claims: “Pale Male transformed New York and Central Park from something artificial to something real in 1991. None had ever attempted what he achieved. He would awaken something all but forgotten in the New Yorkers who followed his story.” As evidence, the documentary narrates the first ten years of Pale Male’s life in Central Park as what Woodward calls a “victory for nature where we thought it couldn’t win” and “a gift from the wild… [that] lifts hearts.” To illustrate the magical effect Pale Male had on the city, the film also provides visual evidence of Pale Male’s power to transform the park and its visitors. Told from the perspective of ­Woodward and the mostly unnamed hawk watchers, the documentary follows a multiphase linear structure: 1 Pale Male’s entrance into Central Park as a violation of the park’s “romantic utopia” 2 His “decision” to stay, mate, and build a nest on a Fifth Avenue co-op 3 Pale Male’s reaction to his first offspring 4 And the legacy of Pale Male in the fledging of Pale Male’s progeny

Eco-Therapy in Central Park  111 The documentary first promotes Pale Male’s entrance to the park as transformative for the park and its visitors. An establishing shot showcases ­ oodward the vast ecosystem of Central Park, with a variety of what W calls “wild creatures” sharing an urban oasis with twenty million human visitors every year. The camera supports Woodward’s point, showing humans singing, playing musical instruments, and exercising on the loud and crowded park avenues while owls hide in tree trunks. The sights and voiceover argue that the park is a “manmade refuge” for its human and nonhuman creatures. Then, in true narrative fashion, a conflict is introduced both visually and rhetorically when we see Pale Male gliding over Central Park and hear his cry. The majority of the film tells Pale Male’s story and supports his preservation through Woodward’s voiceover and the accompanying visual evidence. According to Woodward, for example, Pale Male is constructed as a worthy opponent rather than untamed predator. As W ­ oodward explains, “In their manmade refuge, the park’s creatures were safe until a Red-Tailed hawk came to town. He came to stay, unlike other hawks— bold, focused, and self-assured. A hawk with the right stuff.” He had come here to hunt, and the Big Apple was a feast spread before him, shattering Bambi expectations of peace so much so that Charles Kennedy, veteran birdwatcher, was stunned. Woodward argues that Pale Male became an instant celebrity. Rats, pigeons, and squirrels in the park attract Pale Male, the film declares, and scenes of the hawk swooping down and capturing a mouse illustrate the park’s endless bounty. According to Woodward, Pale Male also provides a connection between humans and wild nature by illustrating nature’s life cycle in microcosm. But because the documentary highlights only Pale Male and his agency, it limits this connection. Pale Male cannot represent all of nature. In fact, by focusing exclusively on his story, the documentary denies the importance of biodiversity. Woodward declares that Pale Male violates everything Central Park is about. The park is a romantic utopian nature that is not meant to harbor the “real thing.” Birders watch Pale Male snag a squirrel and rejoice in this natural display. Pale Male disrupts Central Park as a complete fake where streams turn on and off with a faucet, declares Marie Winn, author of Red-Tails in Love. For Winn, it is a “thrill…to see him go in for a kill.” These hawk watchers invest Pale Male with agency but deny the importance of the rest of the wild creatures living in the park. A middle-aged man spreading feed for pigeons highlights this missing piece. He doesn’t think the hawk should be there because Pale Male feeds on the very birds he tries to sustain. For him, it is “not a pleasant thought to see city birds destroyed.” Other people resist connections with all wild nature, poisoning pigeons and threatening any predator that captures one that has eaten the bait. The documentary continues its individualized focus in the next segment showcasing Pale Male’s drive to find a mate and reproduce.

112  Urban Nature and Interdependence According to Woodward, in spring Pale Male seeks to create a dynasty of red-tails in New York City, and the birders grow in excitement when Pale Male attracts a female to the city. Pale Male presents her with a freshly caught pigeon. According to Woodward, “she is seduced, and the two are officially a pair.” Regulars name the female First Love, and when they mate, birders watch. The birders even count the mounting time and call it love in the afternoon. Pale Male’s choice of residence introduces another threat to humanity’s relationship with the natural world: spikes meant to prevent birds from inhabiting urban space. Birders suggest Pale Male chose the most exclusive co-op on Fifth Avenue and East 74th Street to heighten his celebrity. According to Woodward, Woody Allen’s balcony in an adjacent building is their other favorite spot. They begin nest building at the top of the co-op because bands of crows chase Pale Male off from trees lining Fifth Avenue. They choose one of the most beautiful facades on Fifth Avenue flanking Central Park. According to Woodward, Barbara Streisand applied for a co-op in the same building and was turned down, but the hawks live there four floors above Mary Tyler Moore and across from a world-famous film director’s duplex. By emphasizing the desirability of the nesting spot, the film minimizes the signs of human resistance to connections with the natural world. The spikes meant to ward off pigeons are transformed into helpful tools to lock in the large nest. Protected from prevailing wind and rain, the new nest is perfect for landing and take offs and safe from crows. Woodward briefly notes that tenants may not be “delighted with the hawk’s choice” because the hawk watchers gaze through binoculars at their windows. But any conflicts are quickly brushed off by the claim that any attempt to move the nest will violate the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and a fine of $10,000 would be charged to whomever attempted such a crime. Although Charles Kennedy calls the spectacle Pale Male and his mate provides “our own National Geographic” and suggests it might serve as an introduction to a better appreciation of nature, the exclusive focus on the red tail and the evidence of resistance to wild nature of any kind contradicts his claims. A new phase of the film is signaled by the appearance of red-tailed hawk offspring in 1995. The hawk watchers’ reactions to Pale Male’s new family heighten ethnographic approaches that encourage human connections with the unlikely red-tailed hawk. Now, as Marie Winn notes, New Yorkers become overwhelmingly curious to see how Pale Male will act as a father. From their idealized vantage point, birders see Pale Male as a perfect father figure not only for his hawk offspring but also for themselves. According to nearby resident Dr. Fisher, Pale Male even teaches the birders that parents are necessary for families. “It’s wonderful. It’s Biblical,” he exclaims. According to Woodward, as educators they’re amazing. Birders talk about the daddy and babies, and

Eco-Therapy in Central Park  113 kids watch and connect the birds to their own experience of family. As Woodward notes, the chicks will fledge in a few weeks, and everyone ­ omeless— who meets at the boat pond—young and old, millionaire and h are learning from the birds. The birders are “more together than in any other experience.” As Woodward explains, watching Pale Male feed his family triggers something deep and elemental in all of us, something happening on a regular basis. Pale Male is such a good dad, unlike our own, birders note. He is so attentive and so driven. Here in the city as we all are surviving, the birds are healthy and surviving too, and this connection gives them hope. The documentary supports these claims with visual evidence of Pale Male’s flights and dives accompanied by the music of Vivaldi. But these scenes also romanticize the Red Tail, exulting him to the exclusion of the other animal species inhabiting the park. The rest of the film highlights the story of Pale Male’s chicks’ fledgling flights and the hawk watchers’ reactions to them. Their individual responses serve as further evidence for the hawk’s power to connect humans with at least part of wild nature. Charles Kennedy comes with his camera to capture their fledgling flight. The film builds tension with minor conflicts, showing battles with crows and with a rainstorm that hits when the chicks begin flying off the nest. Their nest location poses serious problems because the fledglings cannot jump from branch to branch. Woodward tells us New Yorkers who never watched birds before are drawn to a Central Park bench for the fledging flight. Janine, terminally ill and wheelchair bound, makes it to the boat pond every morning and declares she almost feels the young birds’ fear. If birders miss the flight it is as if missing their kids’ first steps, Woodward explains. “We empathize with those birds,” Marie Winn exclaims, and she cheers as the chicks flap and begin to fly. There is a betting pool on the first flight time with money going to a rescue center. Even police officers watch. Music grows faster as the birds flap their wings, reaching a crescendo with the Ride of the Valkyries when they successfully fly out of the nest. When one of the chicks is missing after leaving the nest, a search party sets out on bikes, protecting it like one of their own children. Watchers hug when another chick fledges, and when it flies awkwardly to the ground, Kennedy saves it, carrying it up to Dr. Fisher’s apartment to call a wildlife center. After the chick flies back to its parents, Kennedy claims they are “blood brothers” because it has left him with a few puncture wounds. While they watch Pale Male hunt five times a day to feed the chicks, these birders congratulate his amazing parenting skills and admire the mother’s protective abilities. The documentary’s conclusion solidifies its political stance: We should preserve and admire Pale Male because he connects us to wild nature and gives us hope for our own relationships. As Woodward explains, “He could bring us so together and lift our spirits to unexpected heights.” Dr. Fisher agrees, asserting that he allows us to “get out of ourselves,”

114  Urban Nature and Interdependence “become a bird for a little while, and feel free from human troubles.” To illustrate this joy, people celebrate with champagne and declare, “God bless the hawks.” Strings accompany the hawk on Father’s Day. “Happy Father’s Day,” they yell for hawks that “live like they are Gods.” To illustrate this glorification of a Red Tail, Pale Male flies overhead while a choir sings Kyrie in the background. Kennedy tells us, “That’s what it’s all about—doing what we can’t do. It’s almost like I can feel the freedom. They must be so happy.” But Woodward also admits “New York is full of contradictions” in a quick aside near the end of the film, alluding to the limits of this focus on one bird as the representative of wild nature. Despite its clear valorization of Pale Male, the documentary glosses over the need for biodiversity, even in the constructed world of Central Park. While viewing the fledglings exploring Central Park, bathing in fountains, and playing on tree stumps, Dr. Lynn Sousy of the Raptor Trust warns viewers that she worries they will not gain a healthy fear of people. The film shows the fledglings walking near tourists, and Dr. Sousy asserts “they should not let people get so close because they could do the hawk harm in a heartbeat.” Even another argument for the hawks’ presence in Central Park contradicts its claim that Pale Male builds relationships between human and nonhuman animals. When Pale Male’s mate dies after eating a poisoned pigeon, Woodward argues, “The best pigeon control was killed by someone trying to get rid of pigeons.” Her statement reinforces the limitations of the film, demonstrating its lack of concern for biodiversity— pigeons can die, as long as the hawks survive. It also suggests a limited view of what counts as “nature” worth watching and worth saving. Drawing on the same film footage as Pale Male, the feature length expansion, The Legend of Pale Male, further individualizes Pale Male as the representative of wild nature in Central Park and again excludes all other nonhuman animals. But its later release date also increases the film’s activism and strengthens its political stance. Filmmaker Frederic Lilian’s choice to replace Joanne Woodward’s credible voiceover with his own, however, dilutes the rhetoric of Pale Male. Reviewer responses substantiate Lilian’s lack of ethos. Ty Burr of The Boston Globe suggests The Legend of Pale Male showcases the filmmaker’s narcissism.1 Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times asserts it is “a sugary, aggressively anthropomorphized story of one avian interloper and a whole bunch of human obsessives.” The Village Voice’s Nick Schager seems to echo Catsoulis’s sentiments, arguing that “Lilien proves wholly ­uninterested in investigating his human subjects’ habit of vigorously ­anthropomorphizing, and projecting their personal hopes, dreams, fears, and Daddy issues onto the striking hawk.” In this self-reflexive ­documentary, Lilian first retells the story Woodward narrates in Pale Male, but he also projects his own issues with his father onto the hawk and his parenting skills.

Eco-Therapy in Central Park  115 By stressing two traumatic events—the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and the destruction of Pale Male’s nest—The Legend of Pale Male does attempt a more blatant political project. The documentary argues through its beautiful nature photography and sometimes overly sentimental voiceover that Pale Male brought hope to New York City when all seemed lost. As Lilian declares, “Central Park needed Pale Male more than ever after September 11, when everything else is wrong in the world.” A shot of Pale Male on a flagpole at half-mast reinforces Lilian’s claim. The film spends little time on the traumatic event and its aftermath, but the few found footage scenes juxtaposed with shots of Pale Male underline Lilian’s argument that Pale Male benefited birders by offering them hope. The rest of the film documents the resolution of the second challenge Lilian and the other hawk watchers face when the co-op board dismantles Pale Male’s nest. The political stance of the documentary is clear here: Despite complaints from residents, the nest must be rebuilt to preserve Pale Male and his progeny. The documentary records Lilian and the other hawk watchers’ protests to illustrate this stance and excludes any opposing points of view. As Lilian tells reporters, the nest is “important to the people, not only the hawk,” and the documentary sets out to prove this by showcasing the collective energy the battle for Pale Male’s nest creates. The battle over Pale Male’s nest on a high-end Fifth Avenue co-op building, is the most powerful in the film. This battle provides evidence for Marie Eaton’s claim, “that we can make a difference if we join collective energy into agency and action.” Yet, ultimately The Legend of Pale Male showcases the benefits such solidarity offers human subjects, not the red-tailed hawk. When the co-op owners dismantle Pale Male’s nest, an army of birdwatchers and celebrities gather outside the Fifth Avenue building in protest. The assembly is unprecedented, so media around the world broadcast their demonstration. The hawk watchers’ efforts to publicize Pale Male’s plight ultimately capture the attention of the local National Audubon Society, which draws on international law protecting the hawks and their habitat to convince the co-op to rebuild Pale Male’s nest. By highlighting this success as a victory and miracle, The Legend of Pale Male argues that Pale Male benefits birders and they, in turn, help him, ensuring that his transformed co-op habitat is preserved. Although set up as “a victory for nature where it couldn’t win,” Pale Male and The Legend of Pale Male fall short because they deny the importance of biodiversity and hold up only one example to represent wild and beautiful nature. Their focus on one bird to the exclusion of all others complicates Simon Barnes’s claim: “Liking birds is not just a thing to do…. It is an act that demands a revolution in political thought, for it is quite obvious that conservation is far, far too low on the political agenda” (210). Despite the added battle in The Legend of Pale Male, both documentaries lack a conservation message that “demands” such a revolution.

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Birders: The Central Park Effect: Urban Birding and the Anthropocentric Birders; The Central Park Effect aligns well with other birdwatching documentaries, including Opposable Chums: Guts and Glory at the World Series of Birding (2008) and Ghost Bird (2009), which also document birdwatching primarily from a human perspective. Opposable Chums highlights an annual twenty-four-hour birding competition in New Jersey. Ghost Bird, on the other hand, warns us about species extinction caused by lost habitat in its exploration of possible sightings of a lost ivory-billed woodpecker in the swamplands of Arkansas. Birders: The Central Park Effect combines a focus on birders with an argument for conservation and biodiversity that draws on direct cinema, talking head, and portrait genres and rhetorical and narrative forms. Unlike Pale Male or Legend of Pale Male, Birders does not document a particular instance of social action. Nor does it emphasize the importance of only one bird and its connection to a narcissistic filmmaker. Instead, Birders provides ample visual and rhetorical evidence to support a strong argument for protecting Central Park and its multiple nonhuman animal species. Such efforts gain force in the Anthropocentric Age when even common species of birds are in decline. Although ecologists Paul Robbins and Sarah A. Moore suggest the Anthropocene may cause “ecological anxiety disorder,” a fearful response to “the negative normative influence of humans on the earth” (3), by adding the stories of multiple birders, the documentary also illustrates how humanity can benefit if they save the birds and the park. Like other birding films, Birders begins with an overhead shot of the bird habitat, in this case seemingly presenting a birds-eye view of Central Park. But director Jeffrey Kimball’s voiceover transforms a view from nature to a human perspective. According to Kimball, for example, birdwatchers like him carried their binoculars outside the city before realizing they could birdwatch in Central Park. Unlike Pale Male or The Legend of Pale Male, however, Birders: The Central Park Effect shows various species of birds as collective representatives of biodiverse wild nature rather than individual creatures with names and humanlike qualities and aspirations. The birdwatchers are personalized, so they, instead of the birds they observe, become the focus. Yet, the benefits these birders gain from watching birds also contributes to the birds’ survival, preserving the habitat that draws them to Central Park each year. To emphasize the film’s attempt to represent the natural world, the documentary is organized according to the seasons, an organizational structure that primarily highlights a year of birding and birders in the park rather than wild nature. Beginning and ending in spring, the most active season of the urban birding year, Birders emulates the cycles of nature and of bird migration and reproduction, heightening its emphasis

Eco-Therapy in Central Park  117 on biodiversity rather than an individual species. But the focus of Birders is on humans’ interdependent relationship with the natural world, so once the title card “Spring” appears, birdwatchers and their comments direct the action of the film. Spring brings more species of birds to the park, but it also brings more birdwatchers. One of the first experts, Jonathan Rosen, avid birdwatcher and author of The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature, provides credible evidence for the park’s importance for migrating birds, asserting that more than two hundred species of birds travel through the park, roughly a quarter of those found in the U.S. and Canada. Between April and May, more than one hundred of those species visit Central Park, but Rosen looks for warblers, a neo-tropical migrant that provides him a “mystical” experience. Visual evidence accompanies Rosen’s comments: groups of birders watching migrating birds contrast with long shots of New York City skyscrapers and horse drawn carriages on the paved roads surrounding the park. These shots establish the park as an oasis both for humans and for the birds they observe. To demonstrate such human benefits, the documentary not only shows the huge numbers of birders in the park during this active spring season. It also individualizes their experiences by allowing a variety of human agents to describe the multiple ways they profit from watching birds. Unnamed birders look through binoculars, declare, “Holy fricken Moses,” and call in sightings on their cell phones to illustrate a community of several hundred birders in the park during spring and fall. Birders of various ages gaze through cameras, binoculars, and even telescopes at both common and exotic species of birds, watching geese and cardinals commune with warblers and orioles in the safe environs of the park. When Kimball asks them to name the first bird that made them go “Whoa!” they quickly identify the species, from warblers to Baltimore orioles. The testimony of “regulars” also personalizes the birding experience and promotes birding as therapy. These birders illustrate a wide range of ages, genders, and races, suggesting the hobby may have healing powers for us all. The documentary takes the time to introduce each of the birders, providing mini portraits of each. In a series of scenes, we meet Chris Cooper, another warbler expert who delineates seven pleasures of birding to convince his friends that birds are worth his attention during six weeks of the spring migration. While Chris describes each of the pleasures, the film shows images of birds that reinforce his suggestions. The first four are outlined quickly, accompanied by music and shots of the park: “1. The beauty of the birds, 2. The joy of being in a natural setting, 3. The joy of scientific discovery, and 4. Joys of hunting without bloodshed.” Other birders and varied shots of birds emulate the pleasures that illustrate the next two: “5. Joys of puzzle solving and 6. The joy of collecting.” Before sharing the last of the pleasures, however, we

118  Urban Nature and Interdependence meet three other birders and see a rare male American red star, highlighting the seventh pleasure, “The unicorn effect.” For Chris, the birds he learns about in guides become magical like a unicorn coming out of a forest when he sees them in real life, he explains. For Cooper, “they take on a mythological status almost.” During this “Spring” section of the documentary, we meet birders who illustrate the diversity of birds but also emphasize humans’ interconnected relationships with the them: high school student Anya Auerbach; novelist Jonathan Franzen; artist Catherine Hamilton; writer and environmentalist Jonathan Rosen; and legendary Central Park birder Starr Saphir. Auerbach watches birds because “they are so alive and active and beautiful and varied.” She says she feels protective of birds and doesn’t want them scared. Hamilton learned birding from Starr and earned her friendship. Franzen found birds when he was looking for something to do outdoors and became involved with a woman who birded. According to Franzen, birding is “one of the rare times in an adult life when the world seems more magical rather than less.” Starr, the matriarch of the park, led birding walks four times a week for decades, charging from $6 to $8 to see numerous species of birds to, as Starr declares, “see the light go on in someone’s eyes.” All of these individuals find solace in birding, receiving joy from nature with each gaze, noting, as Auerbach exclaims, they are “so alive, so beautiful, and so active.” They “feel protective of the bird and don’t want them scared,” Auerbach explains. This segment also offers opportunities for avian experts to explain and illustrate the benefits of birding, explains why so many species appear in the park each year, and highlights the park’s importance in the Anthropocentric Age. The Central Park Effect of the film’s title gains an ominous meaning in this section because of its association with habitat destruction and the Anthropocene. Large urban green areas like Central Park have transformed into places where migrating birds concentrate, since much of their habitat has been plowed under or covered with concrete, according to Marie Winn, author of Red-Tails in Love. Dr. John Fitzpatrick, Director of the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology, explains that migrating birds congregate in the biggest parks in all the major cities. Coming from the tropics, Mexico, and South America, birds migrate as a mass movement along the coast, leaving the tropics to breed and raise their young where they have a good food supply. This is the Central Park Effect. Fitzpatrick’s testimony is illustrated by a ­computer-generated radar map recording bird migration paths over the U.S. Close-ups of birds and other animals finding sustenance in the park offer further evidence for Fitzgerald’s claims. Reasons for preserving birds are also broached in this same section. Franzen suggests that birdwatching has become popular because there are not too many kinds of birds to watch, unlike insects. Rosen notes the interconnected relationship between birds and humans, asserting

Eco-Therapy in Central Park  119 that each bird is a microcosm of behavior, as well. Sociobiologist E. O. Wilson’s notion of biophilia, a love for the natural world, is also cited as a reason for birding. Although contested by scholars such as Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene, Wilson sees this need for interaction with nature as innate and genetic, a result of our evolutionary history expressed thorough our preferences toward natural elements advantageous to our survival (31–32). Birding is seen as a way to connect earth and sky and rural and urban, according to these experts. Closeups of birds highlight Rosen’s argument that we need them around us “to feel more like ourselves.” The shift to “Summer” in the park offers credible visual and rhetorical evidence that even a constructed nature like that found in Central Park is beneficial both for wildlife and for its human visitors. For these experts, “making” nature provides a viable solution to Anthropocentric climate change and its consequences, especially for birds. Marie Winn declares that humans adapt the park for birds and other wildlife, but only some species of birds adapt to the city. A glimpse of Pale Male on his “artificial cliff” apartment building nest illustrates the reciprocal possibilities of adaptation. And the film substantiates this by highlighting parallels between the park and one of its birders, Starr who seeks the healing power of birding because she has terminal breast cancer. This revelation exposes personal information missing from Starr’s public persona paralleled by evidence revealing what happens behind the scenes of the park. By showing Central Park as an artificial space created to bring a representation of nature into the city, the film amplifies the healing effects of birding. As Joe DiCostanzo of the Museum of Natural History, David Burg of WildMetro, and Regina Alvarez of the Central Park Conservancy explain, the park is managed for birds but is also managed for humans, providing them with an escape from the surrounding concrete city. Expert testimony substantiates arguments for manipulating nature to benefit both humans and wildlife. Discussions about Central Park’s means of production suggest the park offers ways to preserve nonhuman animals, if only for human benefit. Rosen finds it ironic that he found nature here in what he calls a constructed wild metro. David Burg tells us park managers can turn off the water in this toy environment but also explains that areas we believe are wilderness are managed in similar ways. As Burg explains, the Army Corp of Engineers had to rebuild the Florida Everglades. Regina Alvarez of the Central Park Conservancy explains they seek to make the park as natural as possible with biodiversity like that found in a wild woodland ecosystem. These experts argue that managed landscapes are the norm and validate land management like this. They assert that human impact requires a new nature that lives in an urban island, and images of a raccoon family, frogs, and spider webs support their claim. For these experts, a constructed nature retains its validity and recuperative powers. Rosen declares birds are everywhere

120  Urban Nature and Interdependence but are not an unlimited resource, providing more evidence for park management. As Rosen explains, one reason why the park is such a great place for birds is there are fewer places for them to land while they migrate. This glimpse at the passing of the natural world transitions viewers into the next segment of the film, which focuses on birding in “Autumn” when migrating birds head south. This segment amplifies the importance of the park in the Age of the Anthropocene. Fitzgerald asserts, “There are not many spots as rich and vibrant and full of life as Central Park,” so migrating birds return there each year. Shots of birds in leaves and on water support his claim. As a way to personalize the waning of bird populations, the section also connects viewers with Starr’s experiences with terminal breast cancer. For Starr, time has a different meaning, not only because she is a birder reliant on migration patterns of birds, but also because her time is drawing to a close. The film amplifies parallels between Starr and the birds she watches by aligning her notebooks of bird sightings with rotating images of birds on a segmented screen. Chuck McAlexander, a brass instrument technician who creates birdhouses and feeders for wintering birds, reinforces this message of decline. As Fitzgerald explains, migrating is a dangerous process that kills millions of birds. Bird houses and feeders may protect a few more. The Anthropocentric degeneration of birds and the natural world they represent is amplified in the next section, “Winter.” Water birds migrate down from the north and make a living in the park during this season. Starr continues to bird, explaining that when she looks at the natural world, it puts things in perspective and allows her to forget herself for a while. But a December bird count led by John Flicker of the National Audubon Society highlights the massive drop in bird populations in the park. The gathering of birders seems celebratory until the actual numbers are revealed on a massive video screen. According to the count, more than a quarter of species have declined in the last forty years. Unless they reverse this trend, they will lose multiple species in their lifetimes. Numbers are way down, which leaves birders disheartened. The accompanying somber violin music heightens this segment’s tone, which ends by illustrating what humans will lose if the birds disappear. ­McAlexander snowshoes past an owl huddling in a tree trunk. And Starr declares she is still alive so she can enjoy experiences like the fabulous birding encounter she had when an immature female Goshawk flew onto her fire escape. The sudden beauty felt like magic, she declares, a joy that her end and the end of birds will crush. The film ends not with Winter and the decline it symbolizes but with a return to Spring. Yet, the remarks of the birders still highlight the environmental degradation of the Anthropocene. In the film’s last scenes, Chris is back and is, as he explains, “embedded in his deeply human activity” of birding. Rosen tells us birds are all that’s left of the wild

Eco-Therapy in Central Park  121 world that we can see almost anywhere in the country. And the awareness of how fleeting nature is makes birders want to watch and be a part of something slipping away. Starr is back, as well, and glad to be alive and joyful to be birding with Catherine Hamilton. Franzen declares, it seems nature is falling apart, and then a warbler arrives, and there’s this moment when the world is okay. In the last shot, a cedar waxwing flies off while birders watch from a distance. The camera pans out over the park and goes dark. With powerful visual and rhetorical evidence, Birders: The Central Park Effect acknowledges the decline of the natural world while demonstrating the benefits of its biodiversity for humanity and the birds they love.

Conclusion: Preserving Urban Nature for Birds and Humanity Despite their varying approaches and genres, all of these birdwatching films illustrate the transformative power of interconnected relationships with at least some birds. Biologists and ecologists suggest a variety of ways to preserve this interdependent relationship between humans and the natural world. Ecologist Gary W. Luck et al. suggests that urban bird communities become richer and more diverse when vegetation along streetscapes and in urban parklands improves (111). Biologist Kenneth Er and his colleagues show a direct relationship between the loss of forests in urban areas and local bird extinctions. With cowriters, ecologist G. Bino asserts, In the city of Jerusalem, the crucial factor shaping bird diversity was not the distance to the city edge but rather the type of environment…. Thus, the richness and uniqueness of birds in the city largely depends on how much semi-natural habitat is left for biodiversity to persist in the city. (3695) By providing and improving vegetative habitat, these studies suggest, many species of birds can thrive in cities, as they do in Southwestern China according to Tong Lei Yu and Shu Guo Yan (399) and in Central Park. Katherine Zoepf of The New York Times even declares that New York City “is one of the best spots in the world to observe birds, and its density of avian life can make learning to find and identify them easy.” As sportswriter and avid birder Simon Barnes explains, “Birdwatching embraces both halves of our natural desire for contradiction. It brings us enhanced enjoyment of the ordinary, the easy, and the safe, and it brings us moments of high drama and gratification and dangerous ­delight” (6–7). To differing degrees, Pale Male, The Legend of Pale Male, and ­Birders: The Central Park Effect begin to show how well birds have

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Figure 6.2  The Legend of Pale Male.

adapted to urban life in Central Park. They also highlight the benefits birders gain from interacting with “wild nature,” even if that nature is managed and controlled. In these documentaries, birders and birds learn, adapt, and evolve to survive, according to Joanna Macy (255). Limited by their focus on one bird and their romanticized voiceovers, Pale Male and The Legend of Pale Male deny the importance of biodiversity and weaken their arguments for conservation. With its focus on biodiversity even in constructed woodlands, Birders: The Central Park Effect provides strong evidence for preserving Central Park as a haven and partial solution to Anthropocentric species decline. Conservation biologist Tim Caro and his colleagues “fear that the concept of pervasive human-caused climate change may cultivate hopelessness in those dedicated to conservation and may even be an impetus for accelerated changes in land use motivated by profit” (185). Pale Male, The Legend of Pale Male, and Birders: The Central Park Effect illustrate ways to foster hope in a city environment.

Note 1 San Francisco Chronicle critic Walter V. Addiego calls the documentary “more heartfelt than polished.”

7 Green Lungs Partnering with Nature in the Urban Garden Film

The popularity of Central Park demonstrates the transformative power of the natural world. It is not only the birds on display but also the park itself that feeds humanity’s love for the natural world. Parks and gardens also benefit humans, providing what Timothy Beatley calls biophilic urbanism. As Central Park’s architect Frederick Law Olmsted’s claimed, “It is a scientific fact that the occasional contemplation of natural scenes of an impressive character is favorable to the health and vigor of men.” Drawing on E. O. Wilson’s notion of biophilia, biologists Bjørn Grinde and Grete Grindal Patil assert, “Humans have an inherent inclination to affiliate with Nature [and] an affection for plants and other living things.” This affiliation with the natural world provides “social, psychological, pedagogical, and other benefits,” according to Beatley (211), even in urban areas. Beatley asserts “the nature present in dense, compact cities (such as a rooftop garden, an empty lot, a planted median) … can have restorative benefits” (212). These benefits come to life in documentary and feature films with gardens and parks at their center. Most films illustrating biophilic urbanism focus on how nature improves human wellbeing. For example, documentaries exploring Central Park primarily highlight how well the park serves its human visitors. Frederick Wiseman’s Central Park (1990) takes a direct cinema approach to the park to reveal how well the park fulfills Olmsted’s mission to bring the benefits of country estates to the masses. As L.A. Times critic Robert Koeller suggests, Central Park “is a fine medium for understanding New York itself, how it needs the park and how the park means different things to different people.” The park benefits people of all races, classes, genders, and sexualities, but nonhuman nature is barely mentioned in the documentary. The Olmsted Legacy: America’s Urban Parks (2011) draws on voiceover and archival photographs and footage to illustrate the scope of Olmsted’s mission to democratize urban parks and improve humanity’s vigor. For us, however, films that stress interdependence rather than emphasizing only human benefits most effectively illustrate biophilic urbanism. Nonhuman nature also profits from biophilic urbanism, opening up a space in which human and nonhuman nature may more

124  Urban Nature and Interdependence

Figure 7.1  M  r. Bug Goes to Town.

fully interact. Although resting on varied visions of the “garden,” 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. 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 reconstructed garden ideal ecocritic Joni Adamson recommends. Typically, however, films present the urban garden as a respite from the stress of the modern city, a garden in the machine like that espoused by Leo Marx. Urban parks and gardens may aid alcoholics, as in 28 Days (2000) and increase happiness, as in Enchanted (2007). In the Central Park musicals, Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) and Enchanted, for example, characters enter gardens to promote traditional heterosexual relationships rather than ambitious female independence. New York City romantic comedies such as When Harry Met Sally (1989) and You’ve Got Mail (1998) show how love between heterosexual couples grows in the gardens of Central Park. Other romantic comedies, including New York City’s Green Card (1990) and Chicago’s Return to Me (2000), take a different approach to the garden, suggesting that romantic heroes

Green Lungs  125 Bronte (Andie MacDowell) and Grace (Minnie Driver) can only find love if they too leave the garden. The dramas Being There (1979) and The Constant Gardener (2005) illustrate how gardens shape characters but also how gardeners Chance (Peter Sellers) and Justin (Ralph Fiennes) must leave their gardens behind to succeed. Set in Washington, D.C., Being There uses dark humor to critique the political process that leads Chance toward the Oval Office. Set in Kenya, The Constant Gardener showcases Justin’s attempts to solve a pharmaceutical mystery. In both films, gardens are a stone’s throw from megaslums. Despite their differences, the garden and its urban setting are bifurcated in all these films, drawing on theories of the garden like that of Leo Marx. Mr. Bug Goes to Town, The Scent of Green Papaya, and The Milk of Sorrow bridge this separation.

The Garden as Metaphor in American Literature and Film Leo Marx’s Machine in the Garden describes America as a lush, unexplored “garden” that is in a tumultuous relationship with the “machine,” or social and technological advancements throughout American history. The “machine” overwhelms the “garden” and attempts to cultivate raw resources for consumption. Marx’s thesis, therefore, is that the “machine” alters the landscape in order to make it fit current measures of productivity. Marx bases his argument on two different definitions of the pastoral, “one that is popular and sentimental, the other imaginative and complex” (5). The first, a sentimental type, is “an expression less of thought than of feeling” (5). According to Marx, “An obvious example is the current ‘flight from the city’” (5). In literature, however, Marx asserts, the pastoral becomes imaginative and complex, as when Washington Irving describes Sleepy Hollow as a peaceful space where humans and nature can interconnect, “a state of being in which there is no tension either within the self or between the self and the environment” (13) until the peace is broken by “the whistle of the locomotive—the long shriek, harsh, above all harshness, for the space of a mile cannot mollify it into harmony” (qtd. in Marx 13). Train whistles serve the same function in Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1943) when a family picks up the man they believe is their Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotton) at the station. Here the whistle serves as a warning. Marx sees disruptions like these as revelations that illustrate his more complex vision of the pastoral. As Marx explains, “What began as a conventional tribute to the pleasures of withdrawal from the world—a simple pleasure fantasy—is transformed by the interruption of the machine into a far more complex state of mind” (15). Scott MacDonald’s The Garden in the Machine illustrates how such a vision of the pastoral translates into American film. In his

126  Urban Nature and Interdependence study, MacDonald is “fascinated by a considerable number of modern ­A merican Independent films that, by both accident and design, have invigorated traditions of thought and image-making generally thought to characterize the nineteenth-century” (2). He reinforces “the importance of landscape in American cultural history,” noting that landscape was a dominant issue in American painting and writing throughout the nineteenth century and… has remained crucial throughout this century, as the nineteenth-century fascination with ‘wilderness’ and ‘nature’ increasingly gave way, first, to a focus on cityscape and city life and, more recently, to a fascination with the forms of human signification that, in our postmodernist period, are the inevitable overlay of both countryside and city. (3) But our “earlier fascinations do not simply disappear” (3). According to MacDonald, at least some independent filmmakers “share an interest in landscape with nineteenth-century artists and writers” (4) because, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, “a broad and penetrating cultural critique was essential” (4) for filmmakers, and “was often directed at the commercialism of Hollywood” (4). MacDonald explores Larry Gottheim’s Fog Line (1970) to illustrate how such a critique might draw on nineteenth-century visions of landscape because the film demonstrates “the intersection of natural process and human technology” (10), a theme found in paintings like Thomas Cole’s The Oxbow (1836). In the context of Fog Line, however, history had transformed the American scene from a garden housing a potentially dangerous machine into a continental machine in which vestiges of that garden, or really metaphors for it, are safely contained within grids of roads, fields, and power lines. (11–12) Only those willing to view the relationship between nature and culture as interdependent will save and maintain a “garden” that ultimately ­preserves us all, a garden preserved, perhaps, by a land ethic rooted in organismic approaches to ecology. These metaphors highlight some of the negative effects modern technologies have had on our relationships with the pastoral. But other theorists see nature as a potential partner rather than an opponent that must be tamed. Drawing on scientific approaches such as chaos theory, Carolyn Merchant proposes a partnership ethic “based on the idea that ­ ature people are helpers, partners, and colleagues, and that people and n are equally important to each other [for a] mutually beneficial situation” (191). According to Merchant, “A partnership ethic holds that the

Green Lungs  127 greatest good for the human and nonhuman communities is in their mutual living interdependence” (191). Merchant highlights well how the history of America, its culture, and narratives rests on garden metaphors drawn from the two Biblical accounts of the Garden of Eden. To escape patriarchal and human-centric ideology, Merchant suggests a remything of the Edenic Recovery Narrative [that] would not accept the patriarchal sequence of creation, but might instead emphasize simultaneous creation, cooperative male/female evolution, or an emergence out of chaos or the earth. It would not accept the idea of subduing the earth, or even of dressing and keeping the garden, since both entail total domestication and control by human beings. Instead each earthly place would be a home, a community, to be shared with other living and nonliving things. (206) Such a communal garden aligns well with biophilic urbanism, but a few fictional films address its interdependent possibilities. Mr. Bug Goes to Town, The Scent of Green Papaya, and Milk of Sorrow effectively illuminate garden metaphors that connect humans with the natural world.

The Garden atop the Machine in Mr. Bug Goes to Town As we noted in That’s All Folks?: Ecocritical Readings of American Animated Features, The Fleischer Brothers’ Mr. Bug Goes to Town demonstrates the power of Carolyn Merchant’s partnership ethic. Here nature and culture negotiate a way to interact interdependently when the lowland bugs build a home in a human couple’s literal urban penthouse garden, a solution to what a 1942 T.M.P. New York Times review calls “Man’s relentless encroachment upon the domain of the insect world.” With this focus on interdependence, Mr. Bug Goes to Town critiques humans’ exploitation of the natural world by asserting that at least some humans can build interdependent relationships with the natural world. As an environmental cartoon that illustrates the need for controlling human intervention and nurturing the natural world, Mr. Bug Goes to Town stresses the need to strengthen the interdependence between human and nonhuman forces in the context of the garden. The opening credits of Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941) highlight this interdependent view, as a pan of Earth from above reveals the accurately constructed skyline of New York City and a yard full of anthropomorphized insects where a rotoscoped man, only his feet in view, drops a match. The yard is full of bug buildings, including the Honey Pot Shop where the owner’s daughter, Honey (Pauline Loth) shows off her new dress, since Hoppity (Stan Freed) is coming back to town. These closer views reveal a Bugville with highly anthropomorphized insect

128  Urban Nature and Interdependence residents. In these opening shots, the human and bug worlds are juxtaposed and interconnected through their similarities. The yard that is revealed looks like a vacant city lot, but the microscopic close-ups show us Bugville, a town in danger. Mrs. Ladybug reacts like a human matriarch and exclaims, “Those human ones. The way they’ve took to trampin’ through the lowlands. Never know who’s going to get it next.” And they all exclaim, “It’s that fence” now broken so humans can tramp ­everywhere—“The human ones will trample us to the ground.” Although the bugs are anthropomorphized, the shots of their human opponents draw on live-action effects that rotoscoping allows, and the bent rod-iron fence, cigarette, and matchbox houses are accurate and authentic. Mr. Bug Goes to Town uses hyperrealistic constructions of human-like insects to critique overdevelopment. But it is a human garden that stresses interdependence between people and the natural world. Mr. Bug Goes to Town presents humans as both destructive and constructive, oblivious to and engaged with the natural world. Carefully rotoscoped human figures trample over grass in the vacant lot, thoughtlessly toss matches and cigars, and kick cans across the Bugville yard and, in the process, destroy bugs and their homes. But they also construct impressive skyscrapers and inner-city gardens, matching a modernist urban setting with a planned and controlled piece of the natural world where flowers and grasses provide safe havens for insects. Mr. Bug Goes to Town highlights situated constructions of nature and the natural world of the 1940s. William Cronon calls these constructions “human creation[s]” (1) or representations in his “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature,” and suggests they resulted in a conservation movement attached to images of nature as either sublime or part of a frontier (3). The period during and after WWII is commonly associated with a drive for technological advancement, including constructing needed military equipment during the war, building a national highway system, and entering the space race after peace was declared (see Phillip Rothman, Saving the Planet and Hal Shabecoff, Fierce Green Fire). There were also noteworthy exceptions, like the continuation of President Teddy Roosevelt’s creation of the National Park System and the ongoing efforts of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac was published in 1949 and proved to be one of the most influential ecoworks ever written.1 Leopold’s work had a positive influence on Supreme Court Justice ­William O. Douglas and Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt. Douglas began protesting what he saw as exploitation of nature as early as 1954, when he successfully opposed the building of a proposed highway that would destroy the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and its towpath. Bruce Babbitt, who served under President Clinton, remains a tireless advocate of environmental issues, but he traces the origin of his stances

Green Lungs  129 to Leopold’s Sand County Almanac in the preface to the 2000 edition he wrote in memory and honor of Leopold’s work for the conservation movement. The period before, during, and immediately after WWII, then, focused on preservation and conservation as ways humans construct the idea of “wilderness,” an idea rooted in representations of nature as either the sublime or a frontier. Mr. Bug Goes to Town responds to this context by highlighting the garden as a space where human and nonhuman nature can unite. As a companion piece to Aldo Leopold’s vision, the film encourages interdependence between humans and the natural world both in the film’s narrative and its aesthetic, a point noticed by the 1942 New York Times review. The review illustrates the contemporaneous reactions to the film’s environmental appeal: It is a disturbing thought, but every time a steam shovel gobbles up a spoonful of earth, or a bunch of boys play kick-the-can in the corner lot or park, life becomes more complex for the bees, ladybugs, grass hoppers and others of the insect family who take refuge behind blades of grass or build their homes in discarded match boxes. Man’s relentless encroachment upon the domain of the insect world is to its inhabitants every bit as real and cruel as is man’s disregard for his neighbor’s rights. At least these are some of the thoughts, which flashed into this spectator’s mind during the unreeling of Mr. Bug Goes to Town, the feature-length Technicolor cartoon which the Fleischer Brothers presented yesterday. (21) According to the narrative, Bugville had thrived until Dick and Mary, the homeowners, are unable to maintain their lower gardens, so the lowland’s fence breaks, allowing other humans to tramp through the yard and smash the bugs’ homes and shops. Dick and Mary and their garden illustrate a more complex representation of humans that provides access to the interdependence that may preserve both human and nonhuman nature. The narrative of Mr. Bug Goes to Town also highlights the need for interdependence, drawing on melodramas, including Frank Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), its namesake, and accurate depictions of urban settings and characters. This blending of genres points to blurred boundaries between human and nonhuman nature that illustrate their interdependence. The villains in the film look like stock henchmen from Hollywood. The chief villain’s henchmen, Swat the Fly (Jack Mercer) and Smack the Mosquito (Carl Meyer), talk and dress like “Brooklyn” criminals. They have witnessed the incident and see it as an opportunity for their boss, C. Bagley Beetle (Tedd Pierce), to thwart the Bumbles. Swat and Smack tell Beetle about “the trouble in

130  Urban Nature and Interdependence the lowlands,” so he can be in a better position to ask Mr. Bumble (Jack Mercer) for his daughter, Honey’s, hand in marriage. Beetle’s property lies where humans do not trample homes and burn down buildings. But Mr. Bumble and Honey won’t listen to the marriage proposal because Hoppity is “coming back.” Humans and bugs literally share space in the vacant lot, the gardens, and even the Jazz Club and “highlands” of Beetle’s home. The bugs also share human artifacts from houses made of matchboxes to beds constructed from ladies’ compacts. Various discarded boxes and tins, laden with recognizable symbols, serve as houses and shops in Bugville. Although humans exploit the setting and seek to dominate it with the machinery of progress, they too live side by side with insects. An apt example comes up when Smack and Swat report to Beetle, the extent to which bugs have assimilated into human culture is on display. Beetle resembles a human and surrounds himself with realistic human artifacts. He sleeps in powder compact and decorates his walls with postage stamps. Spider webs secure his money. At the urging of Hoppity, the community also attempts move to the garden in the “big place” where the human ones, Dick, a musician (Kenny Gardner), and his wife, Mary (Gwen Williams), live. This new home highlights how a pastoral setting can provide a safe haven in the urban world around them. Because the human ones helped Bumble, and their garden offers security from pedestrians trampling through the vacant lot, the lowland bugs travel to this new paradise. They make their way along realistic wall cracks lit by fireflies into the garden where they can sleep in the open. But Hoppity’s plan fails when Mary accidently floods them with her sprinkler, and Bugville sends Hopppity away. In front of Dick and Mary’s house, however, Hoppity learns that Mary and Dick plan to fix the lower garden and fence if Dick sells a song he has written. Beetle, Swat, and Smack’s attempts to hide Dick’s profits from the music sale hinders the bugs’ escape to this safe human garden. And the garden seems an impossible dream when a sign goes up about a future modern skyscraper to be erected on the bugs’ community. Even Beetle’s home in the highlands will be destroyed. In Mr. Bug Goes to Town, humans do not represent the only evil in a pristine wilderness but the more powerful inhabitants of a city they have created as an urban modern landscape built on technology and hard work. The shadowy art deco humans of the street and the skyscraper are not deliberately harmful to insects, but they are “the human ones,” about which Mrs. Ladybug says, “the way they’re taking to tramping through the lowlands, it’s getting so your life ain’t worth a sunflower seed anymore. One never know who’s gonna get it next.” They tramp thoughtlessly; but they do not hunt animals with a purpose or even knowingly destroy insects and their homes.

Green Lungs  131 The conclusion of the film offers images of a rooftop urban garden as a site for interspecies interdependence. When Hoppity hears Dick and Mary explain they plan to build a cottage and garden on top of the skyscraper if they receive their check, he retrieves the stolen envelope containing Dick’s payment and drags it toward a mail carrier. Now Hoppity knows the mail carrier will forward the letter to them, and they’ll get the check. Eventually the other bugs listen to Hoppity and follow his plan to reach the promised penthouse garden. The final scenes serve as a metaphor for interdependent relationships between humans and the natural world. The bugs all climb to the top of the skyscraper where they hear Dick’s music floating from the penthouse and see the colorful garden the bugs transform into a home. Mary’s well-cared-for garden serves as a new home for Bugville, but her willingness to help Bumbles out of her watering can and to open up her garden for the bug community sets her apart even from Dick. Dick helps the bugs without realizing it. Mary helps them out of a love open to both human and nonhuman nature. Mary explicitly showcases the move toward interdependence between the human and natural world that the film articulates. Without the commercial success of Dick’s song, neither the humans nor the bugs can prosper. Mary and Dick also literally house the residents of Bugville in their garden. But that garden becomes possible only because Hoppity frees the check from the crack where Beetle stowed it and delivers it to the proper mail carrier. The garden illustrates this message of interdependence. This constructed space becomes a home where humans and the bugs of Bugville can again prosper.

Post-Colonial Gardens and the Interdependent Maid Despite moving toward the partnership ethic Carolyn Merchant espouses as an alternative to patriarchal and imperialist views of Eden, the interdependent message on display in the fantastic animated world of Mr. Bug Goes to Town draws on more traditional American garden ideology. Such a vision sometimes excludes non-Western voices, including American Indians in the U.S. and post-colonial women around the world. The Scent of Green Papaya and The Milk of Sorrow highlight these voices, while also demonstrating real possibilities for interdependence with nonhuman nature and an authentic biophilic urbanism. The goals of biophilic urbanism parallel critic Joni Adamson’s vision of a “garden” as a metaphor, but Adamson opens up biophilic urbanism for the values and concerns of multicultural groups that fall outside mainstream American environmentalism. This vision of the garden places multiple voices into discussions about human and nonhuman nature. As Adamson explains, these multicultural voices “confront and

132  Urban Nature and Interdependence problematize the dichotomization of people and nature that pervades contemporary environmentalism and much of American nature writing” (181). Adamson draws on Simon Ortiz, Rudolfo Anaya, and Leslie ­Marmon Silko’s use of the metaphor of the garden as “a powerful symbol not only of nature but of livelihood or the right of humans to derive a living from the earth” (181), but this garden does not destroy nature as it sustains an ever-growing human community. Instead, the garden metaphor Adamson describes “is often a powerful symbol of political resistance” (181), as in Patricia Preciado Martin’s story, “The Journey” that fights against destruction of barrios in Tucson. In many of the works Adamson examines, The garden becomes a metaphor for the values and concerns of multicultural groups that fall outside mainstream American environmentalism. However, I do not think that multicultural writers are urging readers to shift their energies from one Landscape to ­another—from the wilderness to the garden…. Not all of nature is wilderness, but not all is garden either. The Sonoran Desert, which is the setting of Zepeda’s poetry, for instance, is a continuum of landscapes, from the college campus to thoroughly humanized ­areas where people raise livestock and grow gardens, to exploited areas where people extract minerals, to barely humanized reaches of ­saguaro, ironwood, and desert poppy. (183) Adamson differentiates the garden metaphor highlighted in the American Indian works she examines from the garden associated with Western settlement. This Euro-American vision of a garden builds civilization out of the wilderness, developing lands and using resources to serve humankind alone. For Adamson, on the other hand, the garden metaphor calls our attention to the world as a middle place, a contested terrain in which dispute arises from divergent cultural ideas on what nature is and should be, and on what the human role in nature is and should be. Like the garden where the gardener endeavors to understand how nature’s large-scale patterns work in specific places, multicultural writers are inviting readers into an ever-widening discussion focusing on the large-scale economic, political, cultural, historical, ecological, and spiritual forces affecting both the places where people live and where they do not. (183–184) Such a garden metaphor serves as a call to action, a lens through which we can critique texts and practices in which nature and cultures are bifurcated. As Adamson explains,

Green Lungs  133 The garden metaphor calls us to an awareness that if we want to work toward the creation of a more livable world, we must assess, understand, and critique these forces; come together to discuss differently situated human practices and perspectives on nature; and arrive at some consensus (however contingent and based on local people, situations, and places) about what our role in nature will be. (184) Like multicultural writers, some films and filmmakers “are inviting readers into an ever-widening discussion focusing on the large-scale economic, political, cultural, historical, ecological, and spiritual forces affecting both the places where people live and where they do not” (Adamson 184) as a way to highlight both human and nonhuman nature. Those films and filmmakers that also help us “arrive at some consensus… about what our role in nature will [and should?] be” come closest to Adamson’s “middle place,” a place where films and filmmakers strive to be “like the garden where the gardener endeavors to understand how nature’s large-scale patterns work in specific places” (183). They embrace a middle place where multiple voices build toward a consensus “about what our role in nature will be” (Adamson 184). As Donald Worster explains, They say that we can live without the old fantasy of a pristine, inviolate, edenic wilderness—it was, after all, never adequate to the reality of the natural world as we found it. But we could never really turn all of nature into artifact. Nor could we live without nature. For all our ingenuity, we sense that we need that independent, self-organizing, resilient biophysical world to sustain it. If nature were ever truly at an end, then we would be finished. It is not however, and we are not. (253–254)

Post-Colonial Vietnam and the Garden in The Scent of Green Papaya In The Scent of Green Papaya, a courtyard garden serves as young servant Mui’s (Man San Lu and Tran Nu Yên-Khê) respite from a coming war and a 1950s and 1960s bustling city outside its walls, but it also shelters her from the traumatized family she serves, moving her to a middle place like that Adamson describes. Washington Post critic Hal ­Hinson explains, “In The Scent of Green Papaya, Vietnamese filmmaker Tran Anh Hung’s exquisite, inscrutable elegy for the lost country of his birth, time is not counted in minutes or hours, but in human measures— heartbeats and muffled prayers.” We agree but would add nature to the

134  Urban Nature and Interdependence mix, since the inner garden serves as a character in communion with protagonist Mui. For example, when ten-year-old Mui enters the garden, vines, bonsai trees, potted plants, and papaya trees seem to greet her before an older servant Thi (Nguyen Anh Hoa) picking a papaya meets her and leads her to her sleeping quarters. After her long walk from the village, the mistress of her new household (Truong Thi Loc) suggests she sleep, but instead Mui gazes at the plants and birds in the garden, watching milk on a leaf falling from the stem left by the papaya. We see the stem and milk in close-up, turning it into a broad landscape. Lizards climbing trees, frogs in a pond, and singing crickets mesmerize Mui. She also nurtures a cricket, feeding and watering it in its homemade cage. Close-ups of an open white seeded papaya highlight Mui’s natural development. Ultimately, Mui becomes part of the garden, preparing meals for the family and eating leftovers like the ants she watches carry rice scraps to their nests. Mui’s reverence for nature in the garden contrasts dramatically with the dysfunctional relationships the father and sons have with one another and the natural world. Mui listens to birds sing while she cleans the floor on her knees, but the father (Ngoc Trung Tran) stays in his room playing a stringed instrument, grieving a lost daughter and blaming himself for her death. Since he left with all their money and jewels before her death, he has good cause for his guilt. Without money, the mother could not afford the doctor or medicine to treat her. And when he leaves again, he returns only to die in his bed. The middle son also watches insects, but he pins them to his wall. And when he sees ants carrying crumbs on his windowsill, he pours melted wax over them. He smashes ants struggling to escape the wax. The youngest son spills water on Mui and farts at her as he leaves. Instead of admiring the work of lizards, he ties one to a stick and scares Mui with it. He even urinates in a vase in front of Mui and outside beside the papaya tree. Only the mistress treats Mui and the courtyard garden with respect, perhaps because Mui so reminds her of a daughter who died seven years ago. This contrast between Mui and the family continues ten years later, when Mui, now twenty, is forced to leave the family and serve her childhood crush, Khuyen (Hoa Hoi Vuong). The lizards climbing out of vases in these 1961 scenes seem to suggest the civil war outside the garden gates, a point amplified by the sounds of war planes overhead. But Mui still watches ants in the courtyard and cares for her cricket. With the father dead and mistress in bad health, however, a daughter-in-law forces Mui to leave, to save money and empty the garden for a parrot farm. Only the mistress laments Mui’s departure, giving her gifts she would have shared with the lost daughter. When Mui leaves, she takes the crickets and bids the garden and mistress goodbye, taking a portion of the garden with her. And in her new home, Mui bridges the natural world and corrupted middle class together

Green Lungs  135 through her relationship with Khuyen and the plants both inside and out, initiating a middle place where both human and nonhuman nature can thrive. She waters potted plants in an inner courtyard, watches toads on leaves, and again cooks meals outside, making Khuyen dinner while he plays Gershwin tunes on the piano. Here war planes are heard only in the background and are nearly shut out by the piano and birdsongs. Although Khuyen is dating a Westernized woman, Mui watches him and nurtures him as carefully as she feeds her cricket and waters frogs in the courtyard. In this house, pots are full of plants instead of empty adornments. And instead of taunting or ignoring her, Khuyen notices Mui’s connection with nature and careful attention to him. When Mui dresses in the clothes her former mistress gave her, even painting her lips with lipstick, he notices her, but the camera reveals not her entrance into modern Vietnam but her connection with the garden. Shots of her inside and out through latticed windows reveal how her beauty aligns with that of nature. Close-ups of rainwater juxtaposed with the shower in which Mui washes her hair reinforce this connection. When Khuyen enters her room, he sees the cricket and hears frogs before noting her beauty. Although Mui does break up Khuyen’s romantic relationship, the film suggests he has chosen well. Mui writes, “In my garden, there is a papaya tree where papaya hang in bunches.” To illustrate her words, she washes and prepares a papaya, slicing it, revealing the seeds in extreme close-up, and picking out one she places on Khuyen’s plate. These close-ups of an open white-seeded papaya juxtapose with shots of a now-­pregnant Mui further connecting human and nonhuman nature in the film. The last lines she reads during a literacy lesson reinforce this connection. Now “cherry trees are gripped in shadow” and the end is announced atop a statue of Buddha. The Scent of Green Papaya shows us what an ideal middle place might look like, if only in a fictional narrative and a visually poetic film.

The Milk of Sorrow and the Search for a Middle Place Unlike The Scent of Green Papaya, The Milk of Sorrow illustrates at least three versions of the garden growing out of classism, racism, and a bloody civil war. Centered on young daughter Fausta’s (Magaly S­ olier) struggle to cope with her mother’s death and the memories of war she leaves behind, The Milk of Sorrow draws on musical and visual poetry of gardens to reveal conflicts between Fausta’s impoverished indigenous Lima, Peru community and the white upper-class inner city fortress where she works as a servant. Ultimately, Fausta reconciles these conflicting views, negotiating a solution that promotes a middle ground like that Adamson proposes. The brightly colored artificial garden Fausta’s family creates may contrast greatly with the walled paradise inside

136  Urban Nature and Interdependence Fausta’s employer Aida’s (Susi Sánchez) gates, but the garden growing inside Fausta (both literally and figuratively) serves as a bridge between their conflicting ideologies. The first “garden” introduced in the film breaks the mournful singing and tragic death that open the film. Fausta’s mother shares her terrifying story on her deathbed, singing of the rapes she endured during Peru’s dirty war between Maoist guerrillas and government security forces in the 1980s and the cursed outcome for Fausta. Fausta has fed on her mother’s “milk of sorrow” and must feel her trauma even after her mother’s death. As critic Rick Vecchio explains, “tens of thousands of Andean Indians did flee to Lima in the 1980s and 1990s to escape political violence… [and] helped to shape the rich tapestry of Peru’s culture and form the character of its society.” When Fausta’s mother passes “like a dead bird,” however, the film reveals the colorful constructed garden outside Fausta’s uncle’s house. Although surrounded by barren mountains, Fausta’s cousin is trying on a wedding dress in their dusty yard, and the brightly dressed family sits around an outdoor table looking like flowers bursting out of the desert hills of their blue painted barrio. When Fausta appears, her nose begins to bleed, and a close-up of the blood seems to bud like a rose. A doctor’s visit to treat the bloody nose broaches a second garden, a vining potato Fausta has inserted to shield her from men and the trauma her mother suffered. The uncle insists they are there only to treat her chronic bleeding and fainting episodes, and claims they are a product of her “milk of sorrow,” a horrific side effect of the terrorism into which Fausta was born. But the doctor notes only the potato, which has now inflamed Fausta’s vagina. If the potato grows, the doctor explains, roots will protrude. The uncle worries about harvesting potatoes and insists Fausta’s only ailment is the milk of sorrow. And Fausta argues the potato is not meant as a contraceptive but as a rape deterrent. Fausta is becoming a garden, but to avoid infection, the potato should be removed. Then Fausta can escape the trauma of her mother’s rape and death and consequently more effectively represent a middle place like that Adamson asserts. Fausta’s attempt to bury her mother in her home village outside Lima reveals the third garden in the film: a traditional imperialist garden behind enormous gates walling out Lima and the arid mountains surrounding it. When her uncle gives Fausta only until his daughter’s wedding to bury her mother in her village, Fausta must find funds to transport the corpse. As New York Times critic Jeannette Catsoulis explains, the film “explores the possibility of female empowerment in a culture suffocated by superstition and poverty.” If she fails to collect the needed money, Fausta’s mother will be buried in the backyard, in a grave her uncle transforms into a makeshift swimming pool. After investigating alternatives, including taking the body on a bus, Fausta accepts a job as a

Green Lungs  137 servant for a wealthy musician. When Fausta enters the estate, she leaves the noise and desolation of Lima behind her. Inside the estate’s gates is a green paradise full of trees and flowers. This literal garden aligns with a parting song Fausta sang to her mother’s corpse as they preserved it. For Fausta, her mother will be “picking flowers in heaven.” In the estate garden, Fausta can pick them on Earth. The wall and gates, however, limit this garden to only the rich white colonizers and lock out Fausta’s indigenous family members and their impoverished community. As if responding to this exploitation, Fausta’s nose bleeds when she encounters her mistress Aida. In her servant’s alcove, she sings to hide her fear as she cuts off potato growth. The estate garden seems to usurp her own inner garden in this scene. Yet, when Fausta encounters and joins forces with the estate gardener, Noé (Efraín Solís), she discovers a way to bridge her community’s constructed garden and her own inner garden with the fecundity of Aida’s oasis. An initial connection occurs when shots of a colorful wedding in the desolate Lima hills are juxtaposed with images of a shattered piano disrupting Aida’s garden. In Lima’s desolate landscape, ornate clothing and violet tents transform into flowers erupting out of the desert. But Aida’s paradise is disrupted by the broken piano thrust from a window into the foliage below. In both scenes, the garden and machine merge, highlighting the similarity between the two spaces. But it is Fausta’s relationship with Noé that moves her to a middle place that allows both human and nonhuman nature to blossom. Aida and her garden highlight the war and exploitation Fausta and her mother attempt to escape in Lima. Fausta’s uncle’s family shows us an artificial garden built for the colonized. But Noé and Fausta integrate nonhuman nature in the wasteland outside Aida’s walls. Although Aida claims watering her garden “calms her,” she exploits Fausta, stealing her mermaid song and breaking a promise to give Fausta the pearls they collect from a broken necklace. She remains locked away, even throwing Fausta out of her car after a concert. Noé on the other hand, offers her comfort and security, not only by escorting her home (from a distance) but by teaching her to cultivate plants, a skill she gained first from a village vegetable garden before their forced move to Lima. As Noé explains, “plants tell the truth about people,” and the flowers she chooses tell him she needs comforting. Together they burn the piano, as if resisting the machine. And instead of “bleeding roses” from her nose, Fausta holds a gardenia in her mouth. When she asks him why he plants everything but potatoes in the garden, Noé explains that potatoes are cheap and flourish little. When Fausta finally begs to have the potato removed, she and Noé gain access to a more verdant middle place. After stealing back the pearls she earned, Fausta faints at the estate gate where Noé finds her and carries her to the clinic for the removal. With the pearls in her possession, Fausta can transport her mother away from Lima and reunite

138  Urban Nature and Interdependence her with the natural world she was forced to leave behind. In a dramatic turn, Fausta carries her mother across a beach and leaves her close to the ocean where she sings as the sea takes her mother home. Fausta has now become part of a larger biotic community, a middle place where thriving traditional parks, bright-colored constructed gardens, and her own potato can thrive. As a symbol of this middle place, Noé leaves a flower on her porch, a blooming potato plant.

Conclusion: The Garden and Visions of Nature, Modernity, and the Post-Modern Mr. Bug Goes to Town resolves conflict between humans and bugs in Bugville by absorbing tension between them in a penthouse garden where human and nonhuman nature can live interdependently. Mr. Bug Goes to Town embraces powerful environmental messages that rest on both its aesthetic and the ideological grounding for its narrative. Scenes from Mr. Bug Goes to Town are as impressive, but the urban setting and the multiple symbiotic relationships established between human and nonhuman nature most effectively establish the film as an example of filmic urban nature writing worth watching. As one of the last films of the first period of feature-length animation filmmaking, Mr. Bug Goes to Town also helped set up a template still used in animation features today. Mr. Bug Goes to Town foreshadows films from various studios that embrace interdependence between human and nonhuman nature, including the animated features Monsters, Inc. (2001), The Ant Bully (2006), Happy Feet (2006), Over the Hedge (2006), WALL-E (2008), and Happy Feet Two (2011). These films demonstrate the power of ecology and the complexity of the questions raised by the environmental movement, a movement discussed in animated features from Mr. Bug Goes to Town to Happy Feet and beyond. The Scent of Green Papaya takes this garden metaphor further through its character Mui’s relationship with nature, a partnership that stresses interdependence and mutual fecundity. As Desson Howe of The Washington Post asserts, the film “is so delectably sensual, you’ll swear you can smell things. It delves so passionately in the non-dramatic— objects like insects and plants, intangibles like silence and color—it transcends its own story.” The middle place Mui provides through her reverence for and connection with nature is amplified by the limits placed on the film’s production. Because director Hung was unable to film in Vietnam, he constructed a soundstage replica of the home and courtyard where Mui lives and grows that “evoke[s] the Vietnam of [Hung’s] youth, where you could hear the hollow sound of papaya cutting in neighboring houses, where life was a series of quiet, graceful rituals” (Hung quoted in Howe). As Howe explains, “This is an

Green Lungs  139 enclosed-box movie…. You feel like a cricket in a cage,” perhaps like the cricket Mui so lovingly nurtures. Although the garden in The Scent of Green Papaya is literally a constructed space, it also illuminates the urge for a biophilic urbanism that highlights humanity’s need for an interaction with the natural world that benefits both human and nonhuman nature. The Milk of Sorrow illustrates three versions of the garden that build toward Adamson’s middle place: the estate courtyard signifying colonial despotism, the constructed ceremonial garden representing indigenous community, and the middle place Fausta finds that gives nature and the exploited equal voice. The presentation of Fausta’s relationship with gardener Noé amplifies this move. As Movieline critic Michelle Orange notes, point of view shots of Fausta watching Noé work in the garden first show her distanced from him and the garden, but in a later parallel scene, Fausta enters … from the right of frame, her post—and earlier point of view—abandoned. The effect is that of an inkling made manifest: We felt her longing to join him, and then we feel the full force of those few steps to his side. By joining Noé, Fausta finds a way to transform the stifling gardens of her rich employer, uncle, and mother into a communal middle place for all. As filmmaker Llosa explains, The past is what we are, and it is also what holds us back. It is what is left on our shoulders. I think all of us try to protect ourselves from the sorrows of life. … The question is how we can drop the weight of the past and accept the trauma that was forced on us, integrate the pain, without losing our identity. That is the goal of Adamson’s garden metaphor. Instead of maintaining hierarchies and exploitation, her vision of the garden calls our attention to the world as a middle place, a contested terrain in which dispute arises from divergent cultural ideas on what nature is and should be, and on what the human role in nature is and should be. In this middle place, Fausta can integrate her pain without losing her identity, but so can nature. Mr. Bug Goes to Town, The Scent of Green Papaya, and The Milk of Sorrow respond to differing contexts and represent differing film genre conventions, but they all illustrate the possibilities of biophilic urbanism—a partnership that includes both human and nonhuman nature.

140  Urban Nature and Interdependence

Figure 7.2  The Milk of Sorrow.

Note 1 William Vogt’s best-selling conservation book, Road to Survival and ­Fairfield Osborn’s Our Plundered Planet came out in 1948.

Part IV

The Sustainable City

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8 Urban Farming on Film Moving Toward Environmental Justice in the City

Films about inner-city gardens suggest interactions between human and nonhuman nature may restore both, providing psychological benefits for humans that also encourage the nurturing that allows the natural world to thrive. But that psychological need to affiliate with nature only becomes possible if other human basic needs are fulfilled. When the garden turns into a source of food, it begins to serve those without access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Ideally, it also transforms food deserts into urban farms that rest on principles of the sustainable development movement espoused by the Brundtland Commission.1 According to the Commission’s 1987 report, sustainable development is simply the “ability to make development sustainable—to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (quoted in Kates et al. 8). Documentaries and fictional films exploring urban farming celebrate those farms that promote sustainable development practices. The best of these films showcase practices that align and facilitate sustainable economic, social, and environmental development. One of the most popular urban farming films, the stop-motion animation feature Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), illustrates how human and nonhuman nature can work collaboratively to facilitate sustainable development in a community of urban farms. Set in an urban setting where police officers still walk a beat, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit offers both laughs and suspense, with a plot addressing individual farms constructed not only to supply food but also to grow champion vegetables for an annual contest. When a giant were-rabbit begins devouring award-winning vegetables, owners and operators of the Anti-Pesto company, Wallace (Peter Sallis) and his dog Gromit set out to stop the destruction and save the farmers and their annual event. Although this comic plot seems more like entertainment than bearer of environmental message, the resolution to the conflict points toward the kind of sustainable development recommended by the Brundtland Commission. Ultimately, Wallace and Gromit not only solve the mystery when they discover the source of the were-rabbit, they also choose a

144  The Sustainable City

Figure 8.1  Voices of Transition.

sustainable solution that protects vegetables, rabbits, and the community: a wildlife refuge on Lady Campanula Tottington’s (Helena ­Bonham ­Carter) estate that allows both urban farms and bunnies to prosper. Films addressing urban farming, including The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, highlight sustainability, but they also illustrate some of the economic, social, and environmental challenges surrounding urban farming (even in a fictional animated world). The best films exploring sustainable approaches to urban farming reveal some of the real problems city farmers confront. Despite the difficulties faced by farmers, however, each of these films suggests the outcome is worth the battle. Urban farms may grow strong communities, improve access to healthy food, benefit the local economy, and encourage interdependent relationships with the natural world. Although they point out a variety of challenges, the international films Voices of Transition (2012) and New Farms, Big Success: With Three Rock Star Farmers (2015) begin to document the ways urban agriculture may encourage economic and environmental sustainability, especially for homogeneous communities. The U.S. focused documentary The Garden (2008) illustrates how urban agriculture may also promote social sustainability, despite the challenges to economic sustainability the community gardeners encounter when individual property rights come into play. For us, the documentaries Urban Fruit (2013), Growing Cities (2013), and The Edible City: Grow the Revolution (2014) illustrate how urban farming practices can most effectively facilitate economic, social, and environmental sustainability.

Urban Farming on Film  145

Sustainable Cities and the Urban Agriculture Movement For us, urban agriculture seemed like an integral part of the sustainable city, clearly providing ways to integrate the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainability. Yet, research exploring the sustainable city tends to highlight how urban planning can sustain biodiversity and ecosystems through park systems, and resources through green architecture and consumption rather than urban farming. As Leonie Pearson and her colleagues explain, “the literature on sustainable cities, and the need for transformational change to the ecology of western cities, usually ignores the opportunities for [Urban Agriculture] UA to contribute to urban sustainability” (7). They note, for example, how several “initiatives to improve the sustainability of US cities identify the importance of green space but not agriculture or food production” (8). These initiatives highlight the need to reduce carbon emissions and improve urban health but “do not mention the possible contribution of UA” (8). Initiatives like these may omit urban agriculture, but because they are based on the Brundtland Commission’s perhaps ambiguous definition of sustainable development, they also benefit from the addition of urban farming. Ecologist Robert W. Kates and his colleagues attempt to develop the parameters of sustainable development in their “What is Sustainable Development? Goals, Indicators, Values, and Practice.” The Brundtland Commission argues sustainable development “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” But Kates and his colleagues highlight how the Brundtland Commission’s report extends this definition to include the environment, economy, and society. According to Kates et al., the report highlights both social and economic sustainability when it “states that human needs are basic essential; that economic growth—but also equity to share resources with the poor—is required to sustain them; and that equity is encouraged by effective citizen participation” (11). The report also includes environmental sustainability, stating “The concept of sustainable development does imply limits…imposed by the present state of technology and social organization on environmental resources and by the ability of the biosphere to absorb the effects of human activities” (quoted in Kates et al. 11). Biophilic design like that proposed for Chicago is “an extension of the idea of sustainability” to include wooded and park areas that facilitate “better health and happiness” by fulfilling humanity’s desire to affiliate with nature (Mallgrave). But by social, economic, and environmental sustainability in its definition, the report also points to the possibilities of urban agriculture. Leonie Pearson and her colleagues propose three ways urban agriculture contributes to the sustainable city: “urban agriculture in isolation; its

146  The Sustainable City interface with the people and environment within which it is situated; and its contribution to the design and construction of the built form of cities” (8). Yet, because research on the sustainable city tends to omit urban agriculture, few studies explore the social, economic, and environmental benefits of urban agriculture. Pearson and her colleagues propose further research to “design and test policies and systems, which will maintain UA (and its environmental benefits) as part of the urban system” and “research to assess the contribution of UA to large cities” (15). The documentaries we explore in this chapter begin to both map out policies and systems that maintain UA and highlight ways urban farming benefits urban areas. The tiny meticulous backyard farms in Wallace and Gromit and larger urban farms in The Garden; Voices of Transition; New Farms, Big Success; Urban Fruit; Growing Cities; and The Edible City also highlight how urban farms served as a normal component of inner-city homes until after WWII. As journalist Tamara Thompson explains, “people have been successfully growing food and raising animals in urban areas for centuries” (7). Landscape architect Jared Green declares, urban agriculture has “been around since 3,500 BC when Mesopotamian farmers began setting aside plots in their growing cities.” Green draws on a set of scholarly papers presented at an architectural symposium to support his point. Architect David Haney, for example, explains how the Salvation Army set up “farm colonies” designed to help urbanites “take care of themselves” in 1880s London (quoted in Green). According to Professor Laura Lawson, “vacant lot cultivation associations” were established in U.S. cities at the turn of the twentieth century that provided employment and fed hundreds of impoverished families. Plots were provided on loan to lead unemployed city dwellers toward self-sufficiency. In fact, most people grew food instead of grass in the U.S. until the 1940s, according to historian Virginia Scott Jenkins. In the last decade or so, urban farming has returned to American rust belt cities, as it continues around the world. According to Pearson and her colleagues, urban agriculture “produces between 15–20 percent of the world’s food” (7). Urban agriculture enhances definitions of the sustainable city, while also building on these current urban farming practices. As ecologist Kubi Ackerman and his colleagues explain, “as a practice, urban agriculture is beneficial in both post-industrial and developing cities because it touches on the three pillars of sustainability: economics, society, and the environment” (190). Journalist ­Elizabeth Royte suggests urban farms “have enormous value as gathering places and classrooms and as conduits between people and nature.” To a lesser or greater extent Voices of Transition; New Farms, Big Success; Urban Fruit; Growing Cities; and The Edible City document how urban agriculture may provide economic, social, and environmental benefits to all.

Urban Farming on Film  147

Global Urban Farming: Voices of Transition and New Farms, Big Success Most urban farming documentaries showcase sustainable practices that respond to this history, offering alternatives to toxic agribusiness approaches. As a proposal argument, Voices of Transition establishes and provides evidence for problems associated with agribusiness and offers three viable “transition town” solutions in three countries that address each problem. With narration from experts such as Vandana Shiva, the documentary highlights an agricultural history that promotes a mixed farming approach, with horses and oxen pulling plows and fertilizing soil simultaneously. The change from such self-sufficiency to a reliance on tractors and toxic chemical pesticides and fertilizers in the twentieth century is condemned as the cause of ruined lifeless soil and erosion. The introduction of GMO seeds that require pesticides and fertilizers further sickened crops and the people they feed. These problems are exacerbated by a lack of governmental oversight of the farming industry and its toxic emissions, since the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts do not apply to agricultural runoff or air pollution caused by chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Individual examples from France, the UK, and Cuba address these problems. In France, farmers fight back against industrial agricultural practices that ignore environmental damage and discourage crop diversity. These farmers seek to sever the connection between food and oil, and reinvigorate a farming system that encourages monoculture crops to attract European subsidies and produces astronomical amounts of water and air pollution. Because of pesticides, bees are dying and small animal populations are decreasing. Soil microbiology researchers Claude and Lydia Bourguignon assert, “By falling into the vicious circle of chemical fertilizers, we have killed our soils, made the plants ill, and taken the first steps on a straight course towards famine.” Farmers Bernard Forey and his son Oswaldo offer another way, a better way to farm that includes moving their 300-acre farm toward organic, sustainable techniques encouraging biodiversity with varied crops and collective ownership, reintroducing soil-enriching plants and trees, and marketing their own produce. The focus on agroforestry—the planting of trees to replenish soil and fertilize plants—in this section of the documentary connects rural farming in France with inner-city agriculture. Scientists in both France and the UK suggest that 20 percent of land should be planted in trees to heal the earth and enrich the economy. A transition movement is offered up as a solution to toxic agribusiness practices. With roots in the South of England, the movement supports local resilience, fair economics, and a better life for both humans and the natural world. Urban farming in the city of Totnes, in Devon, UK, provides an apt example of the

148  The Sustainable City movement’s goals where community members build and cultivate raised gardens, ­secure alternative energy supplies, and promote public housing and health services. The goal of these urban farms is to encourage people to work where they live, produce energy locally, secure funding in local banks, grow and share food, and highlight public transportation instead of cars. In transition town Bristol, white East African Mike Feingold raises bees, chickens, and apple trees to produce honey, vegetables, and cider for himself and his neighbors. Urban gardener Sally Jenkins inspires others to produce food in their own gardens, and community activist Chris Loughlin shares vegetable boxes cooperatively throughout the community. These new programs build on the values represented by the Bristol Community Gardens that encouraged poor industrial workers to grow their own food in the nineteenth century. By aligning with other communities, citizens of Bristol can lead interdependently self-sufficient lives. The last segment of Voices of Transition reveals a city that transitioned from oil-based agribusiness to environmentally friendly mixed farming systems: Havana, Cuba. The closed community of Havana produces 70 percent of the vegetables it needs, and many Cubans participate in urban organic and sustainable farming. In Havana, 150 workers provide food to the city’s residents by farming 28 acres organically and cooperatively. These urban farmers stress biodiversity to stop pests and ensure that 40 percent of the land lays fallow each year to enrich the soil and encourage a thriving biotic community. All three of these segments provide an optimistic view of farming by emphasizing viable solutions available through these “transition” approaches. They also illustrate practices that facilitate sustainable economic, social, and environmental development, if only in homogeneous settings. New Farms, Big Success: With Three Rock Star Farmers (2015) takes a similar proposal approach to sustainable farming practices, this time with emphasis on farmers in the U.S. and Canada. Although the general overview of the problems associated with agribusiness is brief, each of three sections introduces solutions that address some of the same issues discussed in Voices of Transition. Environmentalist Bill McKibben establishes the film’s purpose: finding viable agricultural practices that address issues surrounding climate change. According to McKibben, climate change may have horrific effects on agriculture, depleting arable soil and discouraging biodiversity. New farming practices are necessary to combat these changes and address environmental disasters associated with agribusiness. The first sequence highlights the work of Essex farmer Kristin Kimball, author of The Dirty Life. Her farm in Essex, New York stresses the kind of mixed farming approach discussed in Voices of Transition. ­K ristin raises grass-fed beef, pork, and chickens that provide fertilizer for 50–60 varieties of vegetables, fruits, and grains for bread. Her farm

Urban Farming on Film  149 relies on solar energy and works toward economic, environmental, and social sustainability. Draft horses pull a cultivator from the 1930s, eliminating the need for coal or gasoline. By rotating her 500 acres of crops, Kristin solves problems such as potato beetle infestations. Only organic pesticides are used. Even chicken coops are moved every day to fertilize fields for hay. As the director of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) cooperative, Kristin provides consumers with produce once a week instead of following what she calls “a drug dealer model” like that of agribusiness. She emits less carbon and produces better food. Les Jardins de la Grelinette farmer Jean-Martin Fortier, author of The Market Gardener moves Kristin’s CSA model to a small-scale organic farm right outside the city of St. Armand, Quebec, Canada. Like Kristin, Jean-Martin sells vegetables directly to consumers through CSA delivery. But, he also grows and sells salad mix for local restaurants. Using only 1.5 acres of permanent raised beds, Jean-Marie grows fifty types of vegetables with help from only four full-time workers and two interns. After showing his rock star farming methods, Jean-Martin highlights how his approach addresses both agribusiness and climate change problems. Replacing mass production with production by the masses will allow farmers to make a living, he explains. His approach aligns with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moo’s arguments that biodiversity is needed to combat environmental consequences of climate change. A lack of biodiversity may limit goods and services for the poor. Climate change has already negatively affected pollination by bats, birds, and bees and the richness of soils. Sustainable farming practices can help combat these problems. The last segment highlights greenhouse manager Lauren Rathmell’s Lufa Farm in Montreal, Canada. In the farm’s urban greenhouses, ­Lauren and her crew grow a variety of hydroponic vegetables, i­ncluding eggplant, peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes, for basket subscription holders around the city. Here, the CSA contents depend on customer orders, and boxes are delivered throughout Montreal. The sequence describes and illustrates the growing process in these rooftop greenhouses. Although not certified organic, the goal is a limited carbon footprint and an adherence to as many organic rules as possible. They combat insects with insects, for example, use butterflies to pollinate and reuse water through a fully closed loop system. They harvest rainwater to reduce water consumption, as well. But because vegetables are grown hydroponically, synthetic fertilizers must be used. With five thousand subscribers, Lufa Farm relies on fifty workers to produce enough vegetables to fill and deliver box orders. This last segment shows us an alternative perspective on urban farming that stresses mechanized sustainability with less emphasis on social and environmental development. It also links to a recent debate between traditional and hydroponic organic farming. According to Wilson Ring,

150  The Sustainable City some farmers argue the synthetic process hydroponic farming requires does not warrant an organic label and suggest hydroponic urban farming may also limit sustainability. Still, each of these urban farmers seeks to integrate practices that facilitate sustainable economic, social, and environmental development that work in their various cultural contexts.

The Garden and the Battle for Environmental Justice The contemporary South Central L.A. urban farm explored in Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s Oscar-nominated documentary The Garden encourages sustainable practices, but as scholars have lauded, the documentary also engages effective narrative strategies and presents powerful messages regarding environmental racism and injustice. Jean Retzinger analyzes these narrative strategies, suggesting the film’s visual rhetoric provides ample lessons regarding community gardens and sustainable development. Ecocritics Marianne LeGreco and Dawn ­L eonard see the documentary as a model that may help others recreate the strategies used to “promote sustainable health practices and organize ­community-based food programs” (356). Christina R. Foust highlights “diverse representations of resistance featured in the film” and concludes that by implementing these strategies we “may combat the corporate food system with a multifarious approach to social change” (350). Ross Singer asserts, “by invoking the myth of a new agrarianism,” the film “is able to expose the ethnic, raced, classed, and gendered basis of land-use rhetoric, and how it perpetuates unequal access to dominant myths as empowerment resources” (344). And Darrel Enck-Wanzer asserts that despite the battles they lost, “the South Central Farmers succeeded in enacting a decolonial challenge, which compels us as scholars to rethink our approach to Farmers’ specific activism and Latin@ vernacular discourse generally” (363). With its condemnation of environmental racist attitudes of L.A. council members and activists, The Garden takes the time to document the history of the 14-acre urban farm and illustrate its benefits to South Central L.A. community members. The garden provides not only food and communal income, but it also serves as a sacred space in which community members gain self-worth as they commune with the plants they grow. Opening in 2003, the film follows one of the community garden’s farmers on his early morning commute to his vegetable plot. The garden looks enormous from the air. Dozens of vegetable species and fruit trees are planted and organically grown on these acres of cultivated green space and rise like an oasis in a concrete desert. A sign illustrates at least one purpose of the garden, declaring, “South Central Farmers Feed their Families.” The persuasive message of sustainability the garden represents is ­juxtaposed with footage from the 1992 L.A. riots and signs declaring

Urban Farming on Film  151 “No Justice No Peace.” The riots killed fifty-five people and injured one thousand, and left at least a billion dollars in lost and damaged property in their wake. The city offered the community garden space as a way to mitigate some of these problems. The South Central community garden was meant to send a positive message to residents, and that message was successfully received and implemented by hundreds of residents and their families because of L.A.’s year-round growing season. The land originally was set aside for an urban refuse incinerator, but it was blocked by community activists. From 1992 forward, the city provided land, community, and food for low-income residents from the largest community garden in the country. The documentary moves viewers quickly from the “happy days” that open the film to the main conflict of the film. Without explanation or normal judicial process, the previous owner, Ralph Horowitz, repurchases the acreage from the city, and a “notice to vacate” flyer is posted on the garden’s gate. To battle what seems like a racist decision, the farmers take their case to the city council, especially targeting their district’s councilperson, Jan Perry. Although council member Villaraigosa seems to sympathize with the farmers’ plight, he and the rest of the council argue that property laws preclude any action they might take to repeal the decision. Even when Villaraigosa visits the farm and expresses his pleasure in the special learning environment the farm provides, he claims the law stands and that their own council member Jan Perry wants to help but can’t save the land for them. After this futile visit, farmers and their leaders recognize the power of individual property rights. To win back their farm, they must focus on collective rights and explore the source of the court’s decision. According to legal documents, the city seized the land under eminent domain in 1986 in order to build a trash incinerator. But a small group of women organized by Juanita Tate’s Concerned Citizens halted the construction and the environmental injustice and racism it represented. Until 2003, the land remained in the city’s hands as the community garden these farmers worked. In fact, courts overturned Horowitz’s ownership three times until 2003 when they voted to allow the sale to Horowitz to stand for unknown reasons. The case was settled out of court with help from Jan Perry. The settlement agreement proved Jan Perry’s involvement. She approved a soccer field donated by Horowitz as part of the agreement. Papers revealed that Jan Perry and Juanita Tate collaborated on the soccer field deal and raised $4.7 million over six years. Farmers call Juanita Tate a “poverty pimp” for her actions, so the conflict between Concerned Citizens and the garden farmers escalates. When efforts with the media fail, the farmers consult with an activist defense lawyer Dan Stower to stop the back room deal with an injunction hearing. It is now 2004, and the judge on the case rules in the farmers’ favor with a temporary injunction because the settlement deal

152  The Sustainable City was made in secret. Now the farmers must build positive community relations with legislators, journalists, council members, and celebrities. Even presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich comes to the garden. Ultimately, the public relations campaigns work, and a judge again rules in their favor, forcing Horowitz to give a deposition that stimulates the judge to say, “the transaction doesn’t pass the smell test.” With these two victories behind them, it comes as a surprise when the appeals court reverses the trial court order and sides with Horowitz in an unpublished decision. Now they appeal to the mayor, saying the land is sacred and losing it is like losing a temple or church. The notice to vacate unless they raise $16.3 million stands. But their case has become public now, and celebrities such as Darryl Hannah, Martin Sheen, and Joan Baez begin working for their campaign to raise the funds. Member of Congress Maxine Roberts visits, and Darryl H ­ annah stays. Near the end of their few weeks’ respite, an offer to purchase the farm for them comes in, so it seems like this stressful ordeal will end happily. Environmental racism and injustice prevail, however, when Horowitz rejects the farmers’ offer to buy back the land. And the mayor refuses to come to the farm and support them. Larry Frank, the deputy mayor comes and admits that their offer is refused because Jan Perry was hurt and doesn’t want the farmers to be vindicated. According to Frank, these farmers won’t support her in a future election, so she doesn’t want to empower them. Frank’s candid remarks are an astonishing proof of environmental racism and injustice. And when they can’t save the farm, bulldozers destroy all of their work, providing visual evidence of the injustice. Although the city offers residents 7 acres of land for a farm under power lines, they are allowed access to less than 3 acres, a small fraction of that they farmed in the garden. As of 2015, the 14 acres remain vacant. As ecocritic Robert Emmett suggests, “the overarching tension in community garden stories circulates around valuing land as private property and asserting that neighborhood gardens regenerate meaningful community.” In The Garden, private property wins nearly usurping efforts to promote sustainable economic, social, and environmental development.

Farming and the American City: The Edible City, Urban Fruit, and Growing Cities Other films set in the U.S. highlight sustainable farming practices and spotlight environmental racism and injustices explored in The Garden. The Edible City, Urban Fruit, and Growing Cities, however, demonstrate how urban farmers can resolve differences within their communities and build interdependent relationships that connect human and nonhuman nature. The Edible City illustrates successful urban

Urban Farming on Film  153 agricultural stories in the San Francisco Bay Area. The film applauds the sustainable farming practices of San Francisco farmer Antonio ­Roman-Alcala, Oakland farmer Willow Rosenthal, San Leandro farmer Hank Herrara, and Berkeley farmer Jim Montgomery. It also celebrates multicultural perspectives on community food reform, valorizing the work of retired city of Berkeley health outreach worker Joy Moore; the Berkeley community supported kitchen pioneered by professional chef and a passionate home cook Jessica Prentice; and the efforts of Michael Dimock at San Francisco’s Roots of Change to provide a healthy, equitable, and resilient food system to everyone. In this documentary, successes outweigh challenges. Urban Fruit, however, illustrates successful efforts to combat environmental racism and injustice in L.A. By documenting three diverse farmers and their struggles, Urban Fruit demonstrates how organic, local, and environmentally conscious food production can facilitate economic, social, and environmental sustainability in the city. Eco-visionary Ron Finley, home growers Jenna and Adam Barber, and Rishi Kumar, founder of The Growing Home, each demonstrate sustainable food practices in the L.A. area, and they each overcome challenges like those combatted in The Garden. Because these urban farmers also represent varied cultures, classes, and races, however, their experiences suggest sustainable food production is attainable and desirable for all. To underline the importance of these urban gardens, Urban Fruit first establishes a food desert setting with concrete streets lined with rows of fast-food restaurants. As Ron Finley asserts in this opening scene, “food should not kill,” as do the chemicals and empty calories found in the fast food on display. Yet, L.A. is also a prime growing area blessed with an ideal climate for urban farming. Vandana Shiva suggests in a radio interview that we must bridge both a mental and material divide to move cities from lifeless concrete structures to urban farm meccas. The stories of the three farmers showcased in Urban Fruit illustrate various ways to bridge those divides. Rishi Kumar gave up a computer science career to bring healthy food to the masses. Leaving a basement office for an outdoor Growing Home model urban farm and learning center, Rishi embraces a quotation from Gandhi posted in his yard: “To forget how to dig the earth and tend soil is to forget ourselves.” After learning organic farming techniques in his native India, Rishi quit an unfulfilling job and created his Growing Home. But his transition met with challenges from family members who defined success in relation to financial gain. Although supported by both his parents, Rishi faced cultural and economic challenges when he changed direction and began implementing and modeling organic farming. The successful urban farm he created in his own yard earned Rishi his aunt and grandfather’s support. But he also struggled throughout the film to find ways his farming techniques could also build economic

154  The Sustainable City independence. Ultimately, he concludes that his most effective strategies are educational. Rishi begins to make a living off his Growing Home by teaching others to grow food for themselves and their families. Ron Finley offers sustainable solutions for the lifeless food desert of South Central L.A. Ron first shows us how much food already exists in the city when he gleans lemons from a friend’s backyard trees. Hundreds of trees around the city could be used for food, and when Ron fills up his bags he exclaims, “it’s like the plant wants to feed you.” The resident takes only three of the lemons he offers despite the lack of healthy food sources in the area. The rows of used wheelchairs for sale along the road showcase the legacy of fast food, he explains: obesity and death. Like ­R ishi, Ron believes everyone should grow their own food, but he moves beyond his yard to the streets for his urban farms, planting vegetables and fruits in medians and sharing plants with neighbors and friends. Ron acts as a mentor for young men and women, teaching them to plant sunflowers and other edible plants along parkways and cultivate compost for plots around the city. Donations from a hydroponic group help others care for their urban farms, as well. He explains, “This is one of the most subversive things you can do—grow your own food.” Ron proved this message when a city ordinance prohibited growing vegetables in medians, and he fought back, giving a TED talk that aroused enough support to change the ordinance. L.A. now allows growing fruits and vegetables on parkways. Jenna and Adam Barber represent the L.A. forage movement and its sustainable goals. The couple grows a variety of vegetables in raised beds that take up most of their backyard and trade some of their vegetables for meals in the Forage Restaurant because “they can’t eat everything they grow.” The Barbers are a middle-class couple, but they too face challenges when the city health department declares restaurants can no longer get food from backyard farms, and the foraging program shut down. To address this problem, though, the Barbers learned how to become a certified grower and share their food with chefs around the city. Together, these urban farmers are contributing to the goals of sustainable development. Although historian Mike Davis suggests interest in community farming grows in times of crisis, he stresses the multiple benefits they provide for cities and their residents. As Vandana Shiva declares, they are helping to make L.A. “a livable, lovable city where nature thrives” and human and nonhuman nature can build ecological relationships while promoting sustainable development. In Growing Cities, Omaha, Nebraska filmmakers Dan Susman and Andrew Monbouquette travel throughout the U.S. in search of sustainable urban farming methods like those in Voices of Transition; New Farms, Big Success; The Edible City; and Urban Fruit. In Growing Cities, however, Dan and Andrew emphasize environmental consequences of these sustainable practices that move beyond providing food: vibrant

Urban Farming on Film  155 biotic communities that encourage biophilic urbanism. According to the filmmakers, 80 percent of people now live in cities and are there to be fed. Ideally, unused land would be used to grow food. In fact, the 35 million acres of lawns throughout cities could be transformed into urban farms. What Dan and Andrew needed to discover was how many urban farms already existed in the U.S., even as close as their hometown of Omaha, a city surrounded by an ocean of monoculture crops like soy and corn. With so much land devoted to feed and ethanol, it comes as no surprise that Omaha is one of the fattest cities in the country. To discover how to promote local foods and farming, the two hit the road to find what they called “growing cities.” They first travel west to L.A. where they highlight beekeepers saving bees to pollinate crops and citrus trees. According to beekeeper John Jacobs, bees can reproduce anywhere and are ideal for urban environments. In San Francisco, the two document a long history of urban gardening that began during WWI when over five million vegetable gardens around the country supported national security and taught school-age children about growing locally. The Free Farm in San Francisco grew out of this tradition and provides food for people in need by helping to fill the food desert areas of low-income neighborhoods. Volunteers grow a variety of vegetables there not only to revolutionize the food industry and unify cultural groups, but also to serve the earth, enhancing a message of one country for all living things and citizens. According to these volunteers, their goal is to heal the planet together. In the Bay area, the filmmakers explore the Little City Gardens, farms that encourage urban homesteading. Green Faerie Farm in Berkeley follows a process like that of the farmers in New Farms, Big Success. In Portland, Oregon, urban farmers respond to the WWII Victory Garden model. According to the film, by 1942, fifteen million farms around the country produced 7.5 billion pounds of food so 40 percent of vegetables in the U.S. were produced in community gardens during this era. Community gardens in Seattle serve immigrants and refugees without food and augment food deserts with fresh vegetables. According to the filmmakers, five languages are represented in the gardens. Together they learn skills and cultures, building unity like that found in San Francisco. In the Midwest, too, the filmmakers discover diverse approaches to urban farming. In Milwaukee, urban farms feed ten thousand people. Both traditional organic farms and hydroponic vertical farms are highlighted here. The question in Milwaukee is how they can scale up to feed all 600,000 residents. In Chicago, residents transform abandoned buildings and vacant lots into the City Farm where they grow food and improve property, providing 125 jobs and feeding thousands. Here, homeless people learn new jobs and gain employment. Interns sell at farmers markets. In Detroit, vacant lots transform into community gardens like the

156  The Sustainable City Earthworks Farm. Here, the majority of city residents live in food deserts, since grocery chains left for the suburbs in the 1960s. With an ailing economy, there are 103,000 vacant lots where residents can grow their own food, providing access to food and what the filmmakers call food justice. The goal here is to encourage African Americans to work together to grow crops and build a strong community, not with the help of outsiders, but as an empowered community. Here, the gardens move beyond assuaging hunger to contribute to a biotic community of multiple cultures and nonhuman nature. On the East Coast, more traditional organic farms serve residents in Boston and New York. In Boston, these farms also grew out of the ­Victory Garden movement. In fact, Fenway Gardens in downtown Boston is one of the oldest urban Victory Gardens in the U.S., with seven acres gardened by 300 farmers. This segment leads to a discussion of how nitrogen leftover from WWII bomb production was transformed into fertilizer for large-scale monoculture crops. By the 1970s when Earth Day and the EPA originated, organic urban gardens were encouraged, but because they were not rooted in the mainstream, they declined in the 1980s. The filmmakers wonder how today differs before shifting to urban farms in New York. Here, the emphasis is on individual hydroponic gardens, rooftop gardens, and vacant lots. The Garden of Happiness, for example, facilitates urban gardening in vacant lots around the city, growing food on the 596 acres available and empowering residents. In Washington, D.C., a brief memory of pigs roaming the city before the nineteenth-century hog riots and sheep mowing the White House lawn leads to a discussion of a compost cab picking up food scraps and composting them around the city. South of Washington, D.C. in Atlanta, the suburbs provide plenty of land for farming organically. And in Birmingham, Alabama, Jones ­Valley Urban Farm provides food for the city. In New Orleans, farming becomes part of school and GED programs, providing jobs for teens and food security. By combining education and food production, these farms highlight the move toward a biotic community, biophilic urbanism, and sustainable development. Boggy Creek Farm in Austin also provides both food and community. Finally back in Omaha, they discover more farming than expected—Big Muddy Urban Farms and bees they sustain for pollination. The conclusion they come to is that they must grow where they are—even if it means growing a garden space they create in the back of their pickup truck.

Growing Benefits of Urban Farming Although representing multiple perspectives and addressing ­diverse challenges, all of these films highlight the benefits of urban agriculture.

Urban Farming on Film  157 Voices of Transition introduces a model for wide spread urban farming: Havana, Cuba. A necessity for self-sufficiency that grew out of the Cold War has brought Havana residents multiple benefits. ­A rchitect Carey Clouse states, “emphasizing local food, plant, and fuel production” in Havana “strengthens communities, reduces carbon emissions, and increases biodiversity” (24), while “growing 90 percent of its fresh produce within city limits” (Thompson 7). According to Laura Lawson, such a drive for self-sufficiency “has been a part of American cities since the 1890s…. promoting vacant-lot cultivation associations to provide land and technical assistance to unemployed laborers in cities including Detroit, New York, and Philadelphia” (1). During this era, school vegetable gardens taught students good work ethics, as well (1). Lawson asserts such urban farms and community gardens grow in popularity during times of social and economic change and are “often built as acts of resistance to urban abandonment as well as to provide resources to address inflation, express a new environmental ethic, and reconnect neighbors during a time of social unrest” (2). The recent wave of interest may represent a response to such changes, but urban farmer and author Edwin Marty suggests “the diversity of projects thriving across the country points to deeper roots and perhaps a profound transformation in the way America views urban development and food systems” (15). These films provide evidence for both hypotheses. The example of Havana cited in Voices of Transition evidences Laura Lawson’s claims that urban gardening increases during times of social and economic change. And the South Central Garden documented in The Garden temporarily served as a positive response to the 1992 L.A. riots. The farms showcased in other documentaries, however, may support Edwin Marty’s arguments. The passion for sustainable agriculture documented in New Farms, Big Success; Urban Fruit; and Growing Cities support Sarah C. Rich’s claim: “urban farming is a uniquely powerful tool for change, in that it can simultaneously reshape the places where we live and the way we eat” (13). As science and environment writer Elizabeth Royte notes, The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations ­reports that 800 million people worldwide grow vegetables or fruits or raise animals in cities, producing what the Worldwatch Institute reports to be an astonishing 15 to 20 percent of the world’s food. Whether driven by a need for self-sufficiency or a need for economic, social, and environmental sustainability, urban farming is on the rise, and documentaries and fictional films illustrate its benefits.

158  The Sustainable City

Figure 8.2  Growing Cities.

Note 1 One of the successes of sustainable development has been its ability to serve as a grand compromise between those who are principally concerned with nature and environment, those who value economic development, and those who are dedicated to improving the human condition (Robert W. Kates, Thomas M. Parris, and Anthony A. Leiserowitz).

9 Lives Worth Living and the Sustainable (and Accessible) City

Although urban farming highlights one aspect of the sustainable city, accommodations and urban planning also serve as important components of sustainable “transition towns” like those explored in Voices of Transition. As activist and former Special Advisor on International Disability Rights for the U.S. Department of State, Judith Heumann declares in the opening of Lives Worth Living (2011), “We have the right!” to access, highlighting a sustainable city that accommodates all human and nonhuman nature. An image of courthouse stairs blocking out wheelchair-bound persons with disabilities like Heumann reinforces the power of her message to “let the walls of exclusion finally come tumbling down.” Lives Worth Living both argues for inclusion and disability rights and exposes the long history of the U.S. disability rights movement’s battle to break down those walls. Winning disability rights also moves urban environments closer to more inclusive visions of economic, social, and environmental sustainability. Heumann has fought vehemently for the accommodations such a sustainable city would provide since childhood when she contracted polio. Her experiences taught her that communal approaches to change work best. According to Heumann, I think what I learned from my mother and my father around this individual approach, my mother never just approached things for me. I mean, she did in the beginning because her first experience was me not getting to school, so the first thing she had to do was get me into a school. But once I started going to P.S. 219, she started working with other parents. When they found out that if kids were in wheelchairs they were going back onto home instruction, she worked with other parents to work with the Board of Education. I mean, I very much believe there’s strength in numbers, and I think my mother believes very much there’s strength in numbers. There’s also something about protection in numbers when you’re not out there by yourself. It’s a reassuring factor I think, to have other people who share similar goals, to reassure you that what you’re trying to do is a good thing to do, or at least the right thing to do, not necessarily the good thing, but the right thing.

160  The Sustainable City

Figure 9.1  Lives Worth Living.

Lives Worth Living and the disability rights movement it documents demonstrate the power of numbers. Together, people can build a sustainable city that accommodates all human and nonhuman nature. According to Claire Tresgakis, society “reward[s] those who most closely conform to socially prescribed models of appearance and behavior” (quoted in Cella 578) and excludes those who do not. Instead of demonstrating this need for social, economic, and environmental adaptation, most cinematic portrayals of people with disabilities either construct them as weak monsters or highlight them as individuals (usually played by an able-bodied actor) who overcome adversity to become a productive member of society. What these films do not address, however, are the architectural barriers that promote exclusion both of human and nonhuman nature. Documentaries such as Lives Worth Living move beyond the individual to reveal the importance of crossability coalitions to transform the city from an inhospitable setting for people with disabilities to a well-planned sustainable home.

Disability Studies and Environmentalism: An Inclusive View of Sustainability The tenets of disability studies overlap with those of environmentalism and ecocriticism in multiple ways. Some feminist theorists, for example, explore constructions of “the body” as both natural and constructed space. According to Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, for example, the able-bodied have become defined as normal figures with authority and power who are “outlined by an array of deviant others whose marked

Lives Worth Living and the Sustainable (and Accessible) City  161 bodies shore up the norm’s boundaries” (8). Other feminist readings of the body focus on the cyborg, cyberpunk, and cyberculture in science fiction film and literature. Celan Ertung’s “Bodies that [don’t] Matter: Feminist Cyberpunk and Transgressions of Bodily Boundaries” asserts that despite “its revolutionary promise as a gender free space, cyberculture, in its actual manifestation and literary representations, duplicates the power dynamics of sexist and racist practices perpetuating inequality” (77). In “Bodies that Matter: Science Fiction, Technoculture, and the Gendered Body,” Kaye Mitchell explores questions like the following: Will technology render us posthuman in its blurring of the boundaries of human and machine? Will the practical and theoretical ‘fluidity’ of sex and gender (from gender reassignment surgery to drag performance to theories of a ‘last sex’) bring about a world that is properly or positively post-gender? (109) According to Mitchell’s study of a variety of science fiction narratives, “bodies really do (and are) matter—but the meaning(s) of ‘matter’ may be endlessly deferred and re-negotiated” (126). Other theorists draw on social-model theory to examine the forces that construct representations of disability. In her exploration of disabled lives as lives “worth living,” for instance, Kim Q. Hall argues that the question is “what makes possible a life that can be lived. Moving toward that insight involves identifying and critiquing those historical, social, cultural, and political forces that have declared disabled life to be unlivable” (6). This focus on social-model theory provides an inroad for ecocritical studies. According to Matthew J.C. Cella, “the social model places great emphasis on contexts which create disability; that is, it moves the focus away from viewing the impaired mind-body as an isolated phenomenon and instead highlights the mind-body’s relationship to the places it occupies” (578). Cella sees this shared spatial or environmental concern as “tenuous” because “the environmental contexts that disability scholars are most concerned with are, after all, predominantly social ones: the built environments and socio-political transformations of space into places that create disability” (578). Cella thus defines nonhuman community in relation to a wild nature that excludes people with disabilities instead of a sustainable city that includes both human and nonhuman nature. Such a definition, however, misses the opportunity to build alliances between these two movements in relation to new “built environments and socio-political transformations of space” that sustain us all. Instead, a sustainable city has goals that align well with both environmental and disability rights. According to Timothy Beatley and ­Peter Newman, such a view of urban development seeks “to reduce their ecological footprints and resource needs, to deepen connections to

162  The Sustainable City landscape and place and to enhance livability and quality of life while expanding economic opportunities for the least-advantaged, among others.” An accessible sustainable city enhances livability and quality of life for all, including people with disabilities who account for some of the “least-advantaged” Beatley and Newman describe. To meet the needs of all human and nonhuman nature, urban planning, design, and governance are necessary. McCormick et al. argues that problems with urban sustainability are the result “of poor governance and planning (Rode & Burdett, 2011)” rather than urbanization itself. As McCormick explains, “the design of cities plays a significant role in relation to the (positive and negative) impacts of urban development as well as how urban citizens interact and live together.” Designing a fully accessible city provides opportunities for more inclusive visions of economic, social, and environmental sustainability.

Disability in Fictional Films: A World without Access Although disability studies scholars such as Simi Linton stress the need to redefine disability as a social construction, most films highlighting people with disabilities present them as weak and sometimes monstrous “others.” As Sarah Jaquette Ray avers, they are seen as an “ecological other.” According to Mascha N. Gemein, social constructs of disability “emerged alongside the eugenics movement and is now reflected in the idealizing of the able, enduring body as the means for an environmental experience unachievable by an allegedly disabled, environmentally alienated body” (Gemein 215). Angela M. Smith demonstrates the connections between classic horror, eugenics, and disability, highlighting how movies such as The Phantom of the Opera (1925), Frankenstein (1931), and Freaks (1932) both perpetuate and subvert monstrous constructions of disability. But these negative representations of disability are not limited to the horror genre. Films as diverse as Million Dollar Baby (2004) and 300 (2007) illustrate such idealizing of the able. In Million Dollar Baby, female boxer Maggie (Hillary Swank) chooses death over paralysis. And in 300, Spartans dispose of infants they consider disabled. Even Gattaca (1997) and Avatar (2009) construct people with disabilities in negative ways, suggesting that the wheelchair bound Jerome (Jude Law) and Jake (Sam Worthington) must either share their DNA with the able-bodied (as in Gattica) or regain their able bodies through ­avatars (as in Avatar). Other films such as The Machine Girl (2009), RoboGeisha (2009), and Tokyo Gore Police (2008) explore transformation into cyborgs, suggesting that women gain power when they merge with machines (2008). Noboru Iguchi’s The Machine Girl and RoboGeisha, and Yoshihiro Nishimura’s Tokyo Gore Police highlight how women take “basic tools”

Lives Worth Living and the Sustainable (and Accessible) City  163 and gain power when they are transformed into cyborgs. As Donna ­Haraway explains in her “Cyborg Manifesto,” “A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction” (291). For Haraway, cyborg fiction offers a space in which women can deconstruct binaries that construct nature and the feminine as inferior to their binary opposites, the masculine and culture. Contemporary Japanese cyborg horror demonstrates that “a cyborg world might be about lived social and bodily realities in which people are not afraid of their joint kinship with animals and machines, not afraid of permanently partial identities and contradictory standpoints” (295). In The Machine Girl, RoboGeisha, and Tokyo Gore Police, women, nature, and the machine merge creating new organisms with the ability to modify themselves from within. Films examining the reintegration of veterans returning from WWII, Vietnam, and Iraq, on the other hand, primarily highlight personal stories of hope and transformation that draw on what Colin Barnes describes as “individualistic medical definitions” of disability and “bio-physical assumptions of ‘normality’” (16). Fred Zinnemann’s The Men (1950), for example, exposes the battles wounded WWII veterans must fight at home with what the opening scroll calls “raw courage.” After point man Ken (Marlon Brando) is wounded in Europe by a sniper, he enters the Birmingham Veterans Administration (VA) Hospital where he claims he is “afraid [he’s] going to live.” The bullet has entered his spine, leaving Ken a paraplegic, and he struggles with the uselessness he feels, even wishing to cut off relations with his fiancé Eileen (Teresa Wright). Eileen has remained loyal despite Ken’s coldness, following him to three hospitals. We also see her attending a meeting for relatives of paraplegics where the diversity in the audience of relatives and their candid responses are marked. Although all those in attendance are female, some are African American and Asian American. Paraplegia expert Dr. Brock (Everett Sloan) informs them about limitations and hopes for injured vets, and the women in the audience ask explicit questions about bladder and bowel function and reproduction. We see some of this same diversity back in the injured vets’ ward. Although they do not have large roles, actual wounded vets roll in wheelchairs or sit up in their hospital beds. A Latino American patient, Angel (Arthur Jurado), demonstrates the strengthening exercises he practices daily, so he can quickly return to his family and their need for a new home. And marriage and sex play a role in the men’s lives, as they did for the women they left behind. Norm (Jack Webb) scoffs at marriage after a divorce shattered him but falls for Laverne (Patricia Joiner), a woman who steals some of his veterans’ benefits. Norm represents the intellectual veteran, not only because he was a Captain, but also because he reads and recites Emerson and serves on the board for the Paralyzed Veterans of America.

164  The Sustainable City This ward of multiple classes and races provides the support Ken needs when Dr. Brock moves him out of his private room. Eventually, Norm and Eileen pull Ken out of his depression. And Angel shows him how to build the strength he needs to move into a wheelchair and gain independence. When Eileen provides him with a modified car and an accessible house, Ken begins to see social interaction and marriage as options and grows strong enough to stand at his own wedding. Ken and Eileen continue to hope he will regain the use of his legs, however, until Dr. Brock tests him for feelings in his lower extremities and explains, “Before you can change the world, you must accept it.” Ken and Eileen seem to accept the change and marry in spite of Eileen’s parents’ objections. In an odd twist, Eileen grows awkward around Ken in his wheelchair on their wedding night, however, and admits she is sorry they married. Ken returns to the hospital angry and ready for a fight. Cited for drunk driving, he is evicted from the hospital. Dr. Brock tells him his wife is “a human being” and recounts the story of his own wife’s fatal accident. Ken is transformed and returns to his wife, now hanging curtains at her parents’ house. He rolls up the walk and is stopped by a step before he can reach the door, so Eileen must come out to help him. He asks her for a date, and she helps him up the steps, but the scene cries out as an argument for total accessibility. The Men most clearly articulates the post-WWII social issue of access for men confined to wheelchairs. Other contemporaneous films such as Pride of the Marines (1945) and Bright Victory (1951) focus on blind veterans learning to cope with their new disability but never facing architectural barriers once they decide to reintegrate. The Best Years of Their Lives (1946) provides more powerful images. In one scene, the handless Homer Parrish (Harold Russell) must explain his helplessness to his fiancé when he takes off his prosthetic arms to sleep. He also faces architectural problems that can only be solved by leaving his door open or depending on others to help him reattach his prosthetics. These problems of disabled veterans are only brought up again years later with Coming Home (1978) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). Each film follows a pattern similar to that of The Men, starting the examination of the hero’s dilemma in a VA hospital setting. In Coming Home, Luke (Jon Voight) falls in love with Sally (Jane Fonda), who inspires him to get a hand operated Ford Cobra 500 GT. But once their love affair begins in earnest, they spend time building an accessible wooden ramp into Sally’s beachfront home. Love has forced Luke to deal with leaving the shelter of the VA prison-like experience and make the world accessible for himself. Born on the Fourth of July spends even more time developing its hero Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise), showing him playing war games as a child and celebrating the Fourth of July with his friends. His actual July 4th birthday and his military-centered Catholic family accentuate his patriotism.

Lives Worth Living and the Sustainable (and Accessible) City  165 And a romance with childhood friend Donna (Kyra Sedgwick) reinforces his youthful boy-next-door appeal. These stereotypical all-American ideals help explain his quick choice to join the Marines and fight in the Vietnam War. When Ron is shot in the foot and spine during a firefight killing both Vietcong and innocent civilians, he is sent to a VA Hospital for recovery and rehabilitation, just as Ken was in The Men. But unlike Ken’s experiences in the Birmingham VA Hospital, Ron endures horrific conditions that include inexperienced staff, rats, and lack of funding for adequate equipment. Despite these terrible conditions, Ron works hard to recover, building strength in his arms, so he can drag his legs behind him as he “walks” on crutches. When his leg breaks, he refuses to let them amputate and begs to be treated “like a human being.” Ultimately, Ron does keep his leg and goes home where his large family has provided him with a ramp to an accessible bedroom and bath. Ron’s experiences back home differ from Ken’s for multiple reasons, but most of them align with the lack of support for the Vietnam War. The disgusting VA Hospital begins to illustrate this difference from WWII. But some family members and friends oppose the Vietnam War, as well, and look at Ron not as a hero but a victim and fool. They even see the disability payments Ron receives from the government as charity. This ambivalence toward the war shows even during the first Fourth of July parade Ron experiences when he returns from combat. Crowds give him the finger as he rolls by in a convertible. A child points a flag at him as if it were a gun. And during Ron’s first attempt at a speech, he has his first obvious PTSD attack and must be taken offstage. Only his friend and fellow veteran Timmy (Frank Whaley) understands. His girlfriend Donna has joined an ­anti-war movement, but when he goes to see her in Syracuse, she won’t help him up a curb or up the stairs to a meeting. She doesn’t seem to notice the lack of access. Police treat him with disrespect, taking him out of his chair and beating him during a demonstration. As with The Men, Born on the Fourth of July highlights Ron’s evolution from victim to survivor. Like Ken, Ron turns to alcohol. But unlike Ken, he gets no support from either his family or professionals at the hospital. When he gets drunk once too many times, in fact, his mother (Caroline Kava) kicks him out. Donna and every other woman Ron encounters rejects him too, so he goes to Mexico to what looks like a resort for disabled Vietnam veterans. Although the setting is constructed as a house of sinful excess, it is also more wheelchair accessible than the home, town, and country Ron left behind. Prostitutes treat him with respect, and he commiserates with other vets, including a new friend, Charlie (Willem Dafoe). Yet true to form, the film provides an epiphany for Ron when, as they say, he hits bottom and pulls himself back up toward hope. A bus ride takes him to the family of the victim of his friendly fire, William

166  The Sustainable City Charles Wilson (Michael Compotaro). And they offer him the forgiveness he needs to combat his guilt and the PTSD that accompanies it. To stop the needless killing of American soldiers and Vietnamese civilians, Ron joins the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and joins a march outside the 1972 Republican Convention. When they enter the Convention arena, security throw them out, but not before reporters get their story. And when they throw Ron out of his wheelchair and try to drag him to a car, other veterans save him, carrying him away. When they return him to his wheelchair, Ron exclaims, we’ll “take the hall back!” And four years later at the Democratic National Convention they do. Ron speaks to the crowd, fulfilling his mother’s dream that he would speak to a large crowd and say great things. Born on the Fourth of July condemns the war and the treatment of its disabled veterans. It rarely, however, addresses accessibility for all. Instead, the film takes viewers on a journey of hope and protest. Films highlighting disabled veterans of the Iraq War are predominantly documentaries, but these also tend to promote individual battles over physical and psychological disabilities while also promoting anti-war stances. Body of War (2007), for example, documents more than two years in the life of Iraq veteran Tomas Young who joined the army two days after the 9/11 attacks on NYC and Washington, D.C. Like Ron in Born on the Fourth of July, Tomas serves in the military because of his patriotic love of country. When a bullet leaves him paralyzed from the chest down, he faces obstacles similar to those found in feature films showcasing veterans with disabilities. Tomas returns home after only a few months of rehabilitation, unprepared for a new life with disabilities. He is unable to control his body temperature and urinary and sexual functions. His relationship with his wife Brie disintegrates. His experiences with the Iraq Veterans Against the War group uplift him, giving his life purpose, but the care he received after the war seems inadequate. When working for President of Veterans for America Bobby Muller, a disabled Vietnam veteran, for example, Tomas discovers that his rehabilitation got short shrift. Bobby was in the hospital for a year and stayed on as an outpatient for nine more months instead of the only six-month hospital care Tomas received. Despite these setbacks, Tomas works tirelessly for the anti-Iraq War movement and fights for more stem cell research funding. Although his marriage to Brie disintegrates within months, Tomas gains independence and hope by the documentary’s end. In an ending scene, Tomas meets with one of the twenty-two Senators who voted against authorizing the Iraq War, Senator Robert Byrd, and Tomas’s wheelchair helps support an ailing Byrd as they move down a long hallway. Tomas’s inability to reach the office without help, however, provides a more telling image of the lack of accessibility even in the U.S. Capital building.

Lives Worth Living and the Sustainable (and Accessible) City  167 To meet with Byrd, four men must carry Tomas and his wheelchair up the Capital stairs. Docudramas also showcase an individual with disability overcoming obstacles, with help from friends and family rather than a sustainable and accessible city, as in The Other Side of the Mountain (1975) and My Left Foot (1989). The Other Side of the Mountain recounts the story of Jill Kinmont (Marilyn Hassett), an Olympic-level downhill skier who suffers a horrific fall from a mountain while training to qualify for with the U.S. Olympic team. Now paralyzed from the shoulders down, Kinmont must cope with her injuries and the loss of her fiancée. With help from family and a new love, Dick Bueck (Beau Bridges), Kinmont builds a new life after recovering through rehab and studying to become a teacher. As Vincent Canby asserts, “The movie also contains a couple of moments of genuine feeling—all set in a Los Angeles center for the rehabilitation of the handicapped—that raise the over-all tone.” Despite these scenes, however, the focus is on an individual climbing a metaphorical mountain and gaining independence without communal and environmental changes. My Left Foot follows a similar pattern. Paralyzed by his cerebral palsy, Christy Brown (Daniel Day-Lewis) highlights the film’s title by using his left foot to place an opera LP on a record player. The diegetic music grows non-diegetic as Christy is transported to a country estate where he will speak at a benefit for cerebral palsy. His wait with Nurse Mary (Ruth McCabe) in the estate’s library serves as the catalyst for the film’s narrative when she begins reading his autobiography. As she reads each section, the film flashes back to reveal the story. The first section is titled M.O.T.H.E.R. and illustrated with a portrait Christy painted of his mom (Brenda Fricker). This first flashback shows the effect Christy’s cerebral palsy had on his family from his birth through his early childhood. Dad (Ray McAnally) drinks at a bar and laments his son’s disability. Mom makes a place for him under the stairs. His siblings treat him as an equal, riding him around in a wagon and hiding dirty magazines under him. They even dress him as a ghost for All Hallow’s Eve. Yet Christy is denied an education, and is thought a “dunce” incapable of learning. When he finally picks up a stick of chalk with his foot and begins to write “mother,” however, even the father rejoices, taking Christy to his pub to share his good news. Christy’s writing becomes a turning point in the film’s second flashback for the autobiography’s next section, “h.e.l.l.” Christy is a young adult who just turned seventeen, and he has assimilated into the neighborhood games. He plays soccer, saving the ball with his head, biting an ankle, and kicking for a goal. But none of the girls want to date him, even returning the artwork he paints for them. The film emphasizes Christy’s adolescent loneliness by developing his relationship with

168  The Sustainable City a cerebral palsy specialist, Dr. Eileen Cole (Fiona Shaw). She personally visits his home, helps him with ability to speak, and promotes an exhibition of his artwork, so it comes as no surprise that he falls in love with her. And when she too rejects him, he tries to kill himself. Christy’s depression serves as the catalyst for the third flashback when Mom helps him build his own room. Now unemployed, Dad takes on the labor and completes the project. Ultimately, his father passes away, but Christy has begun to write and gives his mother eight hundred pounds from the sales of My Left Foot. With his self-respect restored, Christy agrees to help Eileen by speaking at the benefit that opened the film. With a little coaxing, Nurse Mary Carr agrees to date him, and a postscript reveals their marriage. Although the film romanticizes Christy’s life as a person with cerebral palsy, Daniel Day-Lewis captures his struggles and demonstrates his strength as an individual who overcame familial, social, and institutional adversity.

Arguing for Accessibility in Documentary Films: Individual Stories of Hope Other documentary films about people with disabilities focus on the individual in similar ways. For example, My Country (1997) is framed by a narrator’s voice and his own history of conquering disability. James Dupriest is the wheelchair bound nephew of world famous contralto Marian Anderson. Using her story of overcoming racial prejudice in the 1930s and 1940s provided Dupriest with the inspiration to become a successful symphony conductor. Dupriest’s own experiences of shattering preconceived notions of the abilities of the physically disabled gives him the credibility to narrate the stories of three people with disabilities and their struggles and successes: Kathy Martinez, Hughey Walker, and J.J. Monroe. The documentary provides three brief profiles that illustrate the diversity of disabilities faced by the 49 million people with disabilities here in the U.S. With an introduction that focuses on Anderson’s struggles against racial exclusions, however, the documentary begins to move toward communal approaches to change. The first segment focuses on Kathy Martinez, who was born blind, perhaps due to chemical poisoning from landfill dumping. As a child, she was represented as a “super kid,” performing a role in the television series Lassie and excelling in public school. Kathy grew sick of playing to low expectations that displayed her normal achievements. When she went to an orientation center for the blind to learn cooking, braille, and mobility skills, she also learned about civil rights and participated in the movements’ takeover of federal buildings that encouraged President Carter to sign Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act in 1977. She continued her activism by working with women with HIV/AIDS, serving

Lives Worth Living and the Sustainable (and Accessible) City  169 as a mobility coach, and helping with the administration of the World Institute of Disability in Berkeley, CA that grew out of the Center for Independent Living. According to Kathy, accommodations are either free or inexpensive and should be provided. The second segment profiles Hughey Walker, who grew up in segregated Alabama as the son of sharecropping parents. Since whites only were allowed to work in a mill that served as the main employer in his community, Hughey joined the army in 1966 and served in the infantry. After eight months of combat, seven of his buddies were killed, and he too was finally wounded and paralyzed from the waist down. He and his daughter from his first marriage, Jackie, are close, so he fought for access to her activities and encouraged the school to put in a ramp. He became a Georgetown County Council Member, was elected chair, and then was appointed judge. Now he fights against all discrimination. The segment ends with his marriage to a high school sweetheart. The last segment highlights the life and work of self-advocacy coordinator T.J. Monroe who spent years as a resident in the Fairview State Hospital for people with developmental disabilities. His parents mistreated him because of his I.Q. of 60 and sent him to the training school, telling him it was a camp. Instead, close to two thousand children and young adults were warehoused and suffered physical and sexual abuse from staff. At least two patients killed themselves on “the hanging tree.” He wasn’t released until he was nineteen and was scared because he would be back if he got in any trouble. He was placed in a group home and a sheltered workshop where he earned only $35.00/week and had to give even that back to the owners of the group home. Then, he learned about his rights. He found a job as a kitchen manager at a nursing home and moved into an apartment in the building. As a self-advocacy coordinator for People First, he helps others with developmental disabilities gain the independence he enjoys. On a Roll (2005) documents former talk show host Greg Smith and his successful struggles to cope with his muscular dystrophy and the stigmas surrounding it. The documentary shows him hosting the On a Roll radio show from a home studio in Yellow Springs, Ohio while writer and producer Mike Ervin listens from his wheelchair in Chicago. Greg is an inspiring host and broaches current issues that affect people with disabilities—from Clint Eastwood’s restaurant’s lack of accessible bathrooms to an extra-fast wheelchair. The film shows the personal history that moved Greg to this position when he faced bigotry in the industry. Becky Ogle, former director of the White House Disability Task Force, and Judy Heumann, the then Disability Advisor for the World Bank, highlight the bigotry people in wheelchairs face around the country despite statistics that show one in five Americans is disabled. Ogle and Heumann draw on their experiences in other countries, highlighting how the emphasis is on interdependent living in countries like Japan. In

170  The Sustainable City the U.S., on the other hand, the focus is on personal independence, even though no one (whether able-bodied or disabled) can do it all. Greg faced discrimination not only because of this ideology that ­eschews seeking help but also because of his African American heritage. For Greg, racial discrimination is based on hate, but disability discrimination is based on fear, awkwardness, and stigma. His father Jim faced discrimination when he was accepted into medical school in Mississippi only to be rejected when they saw he was black. His own family members were fired from their jobs because they were part of a voters’ ­registration movement during the Civil Rights era. Because Jim and his wife Adelia gained strength from their battles for equality, they were able to raise two disabled children for successful lives: Greg and his blind sister Tonya. The film focuses primarily on Greg’s successful ability to overcome discrimination and limitations. His parents fought for his attendance at public school, in spite of continuing harassment, including FBI interrogations because the family owned a boat. Greg thrived in the school, playing in the band and transforming his wheelchair with a footrest control, so he could march with them. Girls found him charming and took him out for dates. After high school, Greg went to Arizona State University and worked in the campus radio station. Like The Men and Coming Home, On a Roll talks about how people with disabilities too have sex, even if it means facilitating it with help from an attendant. As proof of this, Greg married Terri and fathered three children with her. The documentary also illustrates the problems people with disabilities have ambulating in major cities, including Washington, D.C. Ten years after passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Greg explains that Las Vegas has the most accessible cab system. In Washington, D.C., though, he usually takes the Metro subway system. When he wants to attend events celebrating the tenth anniversary of ADA, however, he has trouble. Only cabs from Virginia are accessible for people with disabilities, and Washington, D.C.’s restrictive taxi regulations limit using them for rides anywhere but the airport. The anniversary provides a space in which to outline the history of the ADA. For Greg, disability is part of a beautiful diversity that is human life. Ultimately, despite struggles including an abusive wife and loss of his radio show, Greg gained custody of his three children and started a new Strength Coach program and radio show to reach a new and larger audience. He continues helping others gain the inner strength that supports him in 2015. Murderball (2005) begins to move beyond this focus on the individual. Although this documentary also profiles individuals with disabilities, the portraits cohere because together these quadriplegics build the U.S. Paralympic level wheelchair rugby team whose success depends on teamwork, collaboration, and cooperation. Wheelchair rugby also becomes a source of support and hope for disabled Iraq War veterans.

Lives Worth Living and the Sustainable (and Accessible) City  171 In  one scene, the team demonstrates wheelchair rugby strategies for veterans in Alexandria, Virginia, dividing men and women into two teams and offering them a source of pride and fun they thought they had lost. One team member in particular, Mark Zupan, becomes the spokesman for the team, meeting with a recently paralyzed young man, Christopher Igoe, and testifying about the sport for various media outlets. Wheelchair rugby builds team pride and spirit. The multiple portraits also showcase the similarities between the lives of these athletes and our own.

Lives Worth Living and the Communal Evolutionary Narrative of Hope Lives Worth Living, on the other hand, emphasizes the need for communal action and a well-planned sustainable city for all instead of suggesting individuals must overcome the obstacles found in urban spaces. According to Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, feminist disability studies “uncovers communities and identities that the bodies we consider disabled have produced.” Feminist disability studies seek to illuminate how our culture constructs definitions of disability and “questions our assumptions that disability is a flaw, lack, or excess” (1557). Instead, the disability may help build communities that may be disrupted when the so-called “flaw” is addressed by institutions such as the medical community. For example, a recent study by Sujata Gupta in Matter suggests that cochlear implants are destroying a subculture and devaluing the identities of persons who are hearing impaired. This focus on community found in feminist disability studies is explored in unique ways in Lives Worth Living. Lives Worth Living offers the opportunity to move beyond visions of built environments as spaces of privilege to examine them in relation to evolutionary adaptation and definitions of sustainability that include accessibility. In Lives Worth Living, director Eric Neudel and the multiple voices of the disability rights movement construct a comic narrative of environmental adaptation with a clear and cohesive structure that follows an evolutionary pattern focused on place. By following this evolutionary pattern, Lives Worth Living adheres to a narrative that is embedded in the comic and communal, rather than tragic and individualized, notions of species preservation found in the tragic evolutionary narrative of The Odyssey and of “early Darwinism” (Meeker “The Comic Mode” 164). Instead of supporting the extermination and warfare of tragic narratives, the activists in Lives Worth Living embrace a focus on a comic evolutionary path focusing on “adapting themselves to their circumstances in every possible way.” To build this narrative, the film follows a three-act structure grounded in ecology like that found in Children Underground. But unlike this earlier documentary, Lives Worth Living provides a

172  The Sustainable City ­ oving towards comic evolutionary narrative with a three-act structure m sustainability for all: • • •

Establishing modern America as an inhospitable setting for people with disabilities. Leaving mainstream America to build a restorative community of crossability coalitions. Returning to mainstream American institutions for the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The first segment of the film highlights the inaccessible environments people with disabilities must ambulate. According to Fred Fay, PhD, the disability rights movement began after WWII in the U.S. when the only option for people with disabilities were workshops where they made baskets instead of contributing to society. Disability rights pioneer Judith Heumann recounts her fight to attend school. March of Dimes spokesperson Ann Ford recalls her own experiences as a display tool to raise funds from parents who didn’t want her predicament to happen to their kids. Fears about people who were different isolated people with disabilities. Archival footage of children with physical disabilities in the 1950s amplifies these stories. Wounded soldiers returning from WWII began to legitimize the disability rights movement. Despite physical disabilities, these soldiers returned as heroes to hospitals where they received rehabilitation and benefits that provided schooling. Others with disabilities saw this positive reaction and believed it should be this way for all with disabilities.1 Before these changes, the 1984 MacArthur Genius Award Winner Ed Roberts was rejected by the University of California, Berkeley, until they found housing for him in the infirmary in the early 1960s. Others with disabilities were abused in overcrowded state institutions, mental hospitals, and nursing homes with no rights and untrained aides. Archival photographs of these hospitals underpin the horrific and inappropriate conditions where everyone was controlled with sedatives, whether they needed them or not. These pictures reveal wasted lives. When Robert F. Kennedy toured one these institutions, Willowbrook Hospital, he declared them snake pits and condemned conditions. Children lived in filth. Dr. William Bronston spearheaded changes when he came to work there and came home in tears each night smelling of the hospital. There were no training programs. The question was should they close them all or fix them. Successful “fixes” depend on these disability activists building communities of restorative crossability coalitions. For example, Bob Kafka explains how the movement grew after these horrific conditions were revealed. The movement began with people separated by disability, but when they joined together, change became more possible. Ed Roberts pioneered the Independent Living movement with the Center for Independent Living (CIK). Pat Wright

Lives Worth Living and the Sustainable (and Accessible) City  173 fought for disability rights education. Fred Fay sought urban accessibility. And the Architectural Barriers Act of 1968 required all federal buildings become accessible. Although the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 only applied to federally funded projects, President Richard Nixon vetoed it two times. These experiences taught them they needed to work together with solidarity. As Judith Heumann explains, they learned from the Women’s Rights Movement and the Civil Rights Movement. They began working together to articulate a vision. And their outrage over the vetoes of the Rehabilitation Act worked, despite the fact that Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Joseph Califano mulled over the act for several years before signing it. Califano claimed he needed more time to determine how best to implement Section 504, because one of the five provisions required any entity receiving money from the federal government to stop discriminating against anyone with a disability. So, when the 1977 hearings failed, Heumann notes that they took over government buildings in San Francisco and refused to leave until Califano signed the regulations and ensured they would be enforced. The momentum demonstrated their strength as a coalition and moved them closer to equal rights. Once these coalitions gained strength, they could be applied to universal changes through the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. When Republican Justin Dart joined their fight in the 1980s, their group, as well as Lex Friedan’s National Academy of the Handicapped, began educating the public, especially those with disabilities. As Dart explained, each human being has an inalienable right and responsibility to be maximally productive. Some argued for access to buildings. Others highlighted the lack of access on public transportation. Access became seen as a civil right. All public buildings and transportation must become accessible for everyone, including people with disabilities. The Americans with Disability Act (ADA) sought to address this lack of universal access. Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) recounts the work toward a bill they could defend. Again, an act of solidarity forces the government’s hand. To demonstrate what full access meant, members of the disability rights movement made a visual statement by painstakingly climbing or crawling up the steps to the capital. On July 26, 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the ADA into law, moving the U.S. “from the last stages of barbarism to a new age of service and Democracy.” Ultimately, with help from a diversity of disability rights voices, the ADA became Bush’s signature compassionate conservative program.

Sustainable (Accessible) Cities, Lasting Goals The ADA also provided the catalyst for changes in urban environments that encourage the urban planning and governance necessary for a truly sustainable city. As Nilay Evcil reminds us, accessibility is “a guiding principle of design in the United Nations (UN) conventions.” According

174  The Sustainable City

Figure 9.2  Lives Worth Living.

to Evcil, “accessibility is a significant achievement in urban design, not just for disabled people but also for society at large” (1864). A June 2015 report from the UN Forum on Accessible and Inclusive Urban Development expands on these goals, asserting, “The New Urban Agenda needs to ensure that future cities, towns and basic urban infrastructures and services are more environmentally accessible, user-friendly and inclusive of all people’s needs, including those with disabilities.” Despite this new urban agenda, people with disabilities are conspicuously absent in documentaries addressing sustainable urban practices. The short-lived PBS series, Design E 2 (2007–2009) profiles a variety of sustainable urban programs around the world, but people with disabilities are excluded from each. Urbanized (2011) showcases multiple ways to create livable and environmentally friendly cities, but again, none of the portraits highlight the lives and needs of people with disabilities. Beginning in 2016, however, the UN will implement a fifteen-year global development plan with sustainable development goals that address the educational, economic, and transportation needs of disabilities while nurturing the environment that sustains us all. These goals give new meaning to Judith Heumann’s declaration in Lives Worth Living: “We have the right” to a new inclusive sustainable city that tears down walls of exclusion and preserves the natural world.

Note 1 See, for example, the post-WWII documentary Let There Be Light (1946), which chronicles the experiences of seventy-five U.S. soldiers who have sustained debilitating emotional trauma and depression.

Conclusion The “Absent City” of the Future

As the films explored in this text suggest, both human and nonhuman nature “have the right” to live in inclusive sustainable cities. Such a vision takes us back to the essay that opened our book, Jenny Price’s “Remaking Environmentalism: on the Banks of the L.A. River” and its argument that the Los Angeles River could serve as a viable symbol of an environmental movement that includes us all. As Price asserts, “the campaign to bring it back to life has quickly become the most ambitious, well-funded, and widely supported vision to revitalize the quality and equality of life in Los Angeles” (542). As both an artificial spillway and natural “year-round supply of above-ground water” (542–543), the Los Angeles River effectively illustrates Price’s definition of environmentalism, which calls us to “see the connections to the environment in our everyday lives” (538), to conceive the heart and soul of environmentalism “less as a passion to save the environment than as a passion to use and inhabit the environment wisely” (539). But what do notions of the sustainable city mean for future urban living and filmmaking? Ecocinema and the City begins to examine representations of urban nature in films from the silent era forward. But its scope is limited not only by our own experiences and constraints, but also by media interpretations of the city and its future. Our work strives to highlight depictions of nature in the city that stress interdependence and sustainability. But as our previous chapter suggests, a sustainable city only works if it meets the needs of all its inhabitants, including nonhuman animals and plants, or what Aldo Leopold calls “the land.” As Price declares, “the quality and equality of life in places we make our homes depend fundamentally on how sustainably and equitably we use, move, change, manage and preserve nature inside and outside of cities” (553, emphasis Price’s). A sustainable city thus moves toward Jon Christensen and Ursula K. Heise’s notion of the biocity which “embrace[s] the city as at once a human and more than human creation” (453) and Michael J. Lynch’s concept of an ecocity. According to Lynch,

176  Conclusion

Figure c.1  Under the Dome.

An ecocity is an urban space planned to promote ecological sustainability through the wise use of local resources, integrated urban planning that minimizes the use of automobiles, and sustainable local farming practices that include urban farming. In doing so, ecocity designs endeavor to enhance the ecological sustainability of urban areas while at the same time improving the conditions for human life. An ecocity addresses issues associated with the Anthropocene, our current epoch according to experts like atmospheric chemist and Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen. According to Smithsonian Magazine author Joseph Stromberg, many scientists argue that we have entered this Anthropocene age “because human-kind has caused mass extinctions of plant and animal species, polluted the oceans and altered the atmosphere.” Our conclusion strives to reveal how documentary and feature films in the Anthropocentric Age begin to address the possibility of ecocities not only in the U.S. and Europe but also in the developing world. Chai Jing’s documentary Under the Dome (2015) provides a sustainable vision of cities in China that illustrates this possibility using an eco-friendly, low budget production process that may also point to the future of film.

Film and the Ecocity Crutzman and his colleagues provide an historical overview of the ­A nthropocene and its environmental consequences in a 2007 Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Ambio piece that warns readers that we

Conclusion  177 may be “overwhelming the great forces of nature” (614). But even they suggest that a disastrous environmental future can be mitigated. According to Will Steffen and his colleagues, An alternative pathway into the future is based on the recognition that the threat of further global change is serious enough that it must be dealt with proactively. The mitigation pathway attempts to take the human pressure off of the Earth System by vastly improved technology and management, wise use of Earth’s resources, control of human and domestic animal population, and overall careful use and restoration of the natural environment. The documentary The Absent House (2013) provides the source for our chapter title, while offering one way to mitigate our possible dire future and move toward a sustainable ecocity. The Absent House highlights how urban architecture can strive for “absence” by building structures whose ecological footprint moves toward a zero output. This view of the ecocity strives to integrate sustainable architecture with biophilic urbanism. As Timothy Beatley suggests, a biophilic city is more than simply a biodiverse city. It is a place that learns from nature and emulates natural systems, incorporates natural forms and images into its buildings and cityscapes, and designs and plans in conjunction with nature. A biophilic city cherishes the natural features that already exist but also works to restore and repair what has been lost or degraded. Such an idealized vision of future cities underpins the architecture showcased in The Absent House. The Absent House documents the efforts of architect Fernando Abruna Charneco to build a sustainable home in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Charneco names his design the Absent House not only because it is close to 100 percent sustainable, but also because much of the house is roofless. The environmental architect works to make Earth habitable without threatening its survival. Sustainable development is possible when simplicity is the goal and helps rather than destroys the Earth.1 The home’s six pavilions allow the architect to eliminate many of the internal walls and provide natural ventilation. Solar panels provide energy. Rainfall is harvested through a green roof and collected in cisterns. Once filtered, the water is used for bathing, watering plants, and cleaning. A solar distiller filters water for human consumption. The location of the house was analyzed to take advantage of the tropical breezes and sunlight. The house gets plenty of power from nature without being connected to the grid, so hurricanes do not affect electricity or access to water. Charneco also teaches green architectural design courses, so the documentary showcases student projects that also apply sustainable development practices that are minimal, ecological, and as affordable as possible. Their projects include small homes, compostable toilets, and

178  Conclusion even schools. In conjunction with Charneco’s philosophy, the goal is to work with the natural environment, making it integral, so that nature is protected. Intelligent architectural design practices lead to sustainable buildings. The Absent House illustrates such design. Walls that are tall enough to block out streetlights surround the house’s patio. The Absent House is a sustainable house and a livable house. Other homes can do similar things at more reasonable prices, the documentary asserts. If all building takes this green approach, our cities will be “absent” too. 2 The Absent House makes sustainable architecture and ecocities built on green principles seem attainable, while also offering images of what a future city might look like. The UK Government’s Foresight Future of Cities Project outlines and illustrates multiple and (sometimes) contradictory visions of future cities from literature, film, and other media, as well as architects and urban planners (Dunn et al.). One of these visions is the “Garden City.” An ecocity in some ways grows out of this “Garden City” postulated by urban planner Ebenezer Howard in the 1898 monograph To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform and its 1902 revision Garden Cities of To-Morrow. According to the UK’s Project authors, Professor Nick Dunn and his colleagues, Howard’s Garden City “contained various zones of activity intersected with green routes” (16). But an ecocity aligns best with a biocity “that is thoroughly hybrid, a product of nature and humanity, and a habitat for such hybrids and their odd, evolving, and adapting assemblages” (Christensen and Heise 459). The Absent House also suggests other urban visions cited in the Future of Cities Project, including a Waste City that functions through recycling and waste energy capture and a Desert City adapted for an arid desert climate. But because of its Puerto Rican and Caribbean context, it speaks primarily to a Western audience that doesn’t face the explosive growth and enormous density of Chinese urban areas. Jing Chai’s Under the Dome provides an alternative view.

Under the Dome and the Future of Global Cities Jing Chai’s Internet sensation Under the Dome is universally heralded by reviewers in the U.S. and Europe. Each reviewer first notes how the online sensational feature-length “Ted”-like talk drew more than 200 million views from Chinese audiences in the few days before being taken down by Chinese government censors. According to Yan Ren of The Guardian, “For three days straight, it was the only topic on China’s social media platforms.” But as Steven Mufson of The Washington Post notes, the documentary also “alters the way we see the world around us.” As a high tech Silent Spring, according to the Wilson Center’s Jennifer Turner, Under the Dome applies a rhetoric and structure similar to that of Davis ­Guggenheim and Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (2006) with one major difference, its exclusive focus on pollution in the cities of China (Mufson).

Conclusion  179 Like An Inconvenient Truth, Under the Dome succeeds not because of its predictions but because of the eco-memories it evokes. And like Gore’s film, Chai’s documentary draws on environmental nostalgia we share for a better, cleaner world. Although environmental nostalgia is by definition limited, since a pure, untouched, and unpolluted past projected onto a now lost wilderness cannot recover its history, as in An Inconvenient Truth, Chai’s message gains rhetorical force when the emotional appeal of environmental nostalgia is evoked within a comparison and contrast mode. But Chai’s film also makes the ecocity global and attainable by defining and illustrating practical solutions everyone can apply.3 Chai frames her film with a personal eco-trauma that gains strength when amplified by nostalgia for a less polluted past. Mufson asserts, “Chai combines personal heart-tugging narrative, investigative reporting and explanatory skills to dissect the reasons for the dire air pollution that plagues Chinese cities.” Although much of the film “draws on some aspects of what Bill Nichols calls the ‘expository mode’” (Edwards), by documenting a slideshow lecture on the stage of a large hall, Chai’s stories transform academic lists of facts into personal portraits. With references to her own personal journey from childhood to motherhood and photographs documenting changes to her own hometown, Chai draws on both individual and collective environmental nostalgia to encourage ecologically sound change. The most effective example of individual nostalgia revolves around her own pregnancy. By talking about the sore throat she had during her pregnancy, Chai connects pollution with individual trauma. Chai thought nothing of her symptom until her unborn daughter was diagnosed with a benign tumor. The infant had surgery right after her birth, so Chai had to quit her job to take care of her. Because Chai connected the smoke and air pollution with both her cough and her child’s tumor, she only took her daughter outside on clear days, covering her mouth even then. Before her daughter’s birth, Chai had not noticed the toxic air, even though facemask filters looked black after spending only a day outside. Now she yearns for the clean air and water she enjoyed as a child not only for herself, but also for her daughter. To amplify the emotional appeals of such personal nostalgia, the film continually cuts to the audience watching the narrator with grave attention. This nostalgic memory ties in with Beijing’s twenty-five days of severe smog alerts in 2013, but her research reveals an ongoing battle with coal smoke from at least the 1970s in China and the 1800s around the world. What make the litany of facts documented by the film palatable are the touches of environmental nostalgia. When discussing the increased amounts of carcinogenic toxins at mining sites, Chai shows us graphs and videos of smog, but these images gain resonance when accompanied by a 2004 portrait of a young child, who had never seen blue sky and

180  Conclusion white clouds. The girl’s sense of loss broaches the possible future of her own daughter but also draws on both individual and collective environmental nostalgia. We must clean up the air so all of us can see clear blue skies again, Chai asserts through these images. Chai’s powerful introduction juxtaposes graphs and photographs of cities suffering more polluted days each year with these personal portraits of children unable to remember the clear skies Chai and her audience long for. As in Stephen King’s series, Under the Dome, a series she acknowledges in her film’s title, toxic air has left them feeling trapped and isolated in their homes and businesses, cut off from the outside world of nature. Chai amplifies this trope with images of a child staring outside and the words of her daughter asking, “Mama, why do you keep me shut inside?” As Diana S. Powers explains in a Journal of Public Health review, “Each morning she consults the air quality index to decide if the air is clean enough to take her daughter outdoors, and about half the time it isn’t” (98). According to Chai, all her research this year “is to answer the questions her daughter will ask her in the future. What is smog? Where does it come from? What can we do with it?” These three questions provide the organizational structure for Chai’s documentary, but they also reinforce the environmental nostalgia underpinning its rhetoric. Chai answers these three questions for her child, highlighting how the problem that darkened China’s urban skyline can be solved. But Chai also seeks answers, so she and her daughter can go outside and enjoy clean air and natural wonders Chai enjoyed as a child. Chai’s solutions draw on both individual and collective environmental nostalgia, since clearing the air will allow not only Chai and her daughter but also the large audience watching her lecture to see the blue skies and white clouds Chai remembers so fondly. To answer the first question, what is smog, Chai incorporates an animated video depicting how pollution affects humans, breaking down immune systems and sometimes causing cancer and heart attacks. Graphs illustrating increases in deaths caused by air pollution substantiate the cartoon’s claims. Although this segment is primarily evidence-based, it also recalls Chai’s daughter and the environmental nostalgia connected with her. Of the 500,000 deaths per year caused by air pollution, for example, infants and children are the most susceptible, Chai explains. To reinforce the emotional appeal a child’s welfare broaches, Chai spends time focused on how parents attempt to address the dangers children face when subjected to smog. She discredits arguments that children can cope better with smog if exposed to it with evidence from an American scientist showing clear evidence that children do not adapt to air pollution. Yet, we still see children playing basketball outside on smoggy days. Chai shows a video of a woman with lung cancer, nodes blackened from inhaling coal dust, to illustrate the extensive damage caused by breathing such toxic air.

Conclusion  181 Chai’s slideshow also documents evidence that smog produced by coal has polluted China’s cities since at least 1976, increasing lung cancer by 46.5 percent. But environmental nostalgia again adds weight to the data on display. Instead of only highlighting smog and its causes, Chai remembers spring breezes and sunshine, winter snows, nature, and the beauty of life as both memories and goals underpinning the Air Pollution Prevention plan of 2012 and the solutions broached in the documentary. The documentary emphasizes these goals by universalizing the causes of smog and illustrating how other cultures overcame it. For example, London’s great smog of 1952 killed twelve thousand people but also led to the Coalition for Clean Air. By the 1960s, the UK had their smog problem under control. Developing countries like China and India face similar problems, Chai explains, but can solve them by enforcing environmental laws and moving away from coal and oil. Chai provides multiple images and videos to substantiate the lack of compliance with environmental rules by government-controlled heavy industries. These images also point to answers to Chai’s third question, what can we do about it, and the most effective motivation for implementing the answers: environmental nostalgia. The desire to enjoy nature rather than just watching it through the window again is broached as the chief reason for sustainable urbanization. And a video montage of solutions to environmental degradation is reinforced by nostalgic images of the greenery surrounding the Forbidden City. Experts who substantiated evidence for smog and its causes remember the clean cities of their past. We can return there by cutting pollutants, getting back to blue skies, they claim. Although Chai does note that the low carbon path can transform an economy and increase employment, as it did in the U.S. and the UK, environmental nostalgia serves as the most powerful reason to embrace the Environmental Protection Bureau and decrease fossil fuel use. As Chai explains, she will do whatever it takes to protect her child. Her daughter loves nature and animals but cannot enjoy them outdoors. Now she can only offer her a flowerpot and pet snail to assuage this need. For Chai, the rivers, skies, and land belong to them and must be protected. As in An Inconvenient Truth, Chai ends her documentary with a view of Earth from space to universalize her argument. For Chai, we must protect the rivers, skies, and land for all children, enjoying the clean nature of individual and collective memory. But to restore these memories, all of us must act, Chai declares. Steven Mufson asserts, Chai’s conclusion “does something few Chinese ever do publicly: She calls for action, urging her fellow citizens to ‘stand up,’ report violations of environmental laws and demand change.” Although Senses of Cinema critic Dan Edwards asserts Under the Dome responds to Chinese documentary traditions that include “address from a Chinese citizen (the filmmaker) to a wider public of fellow citizens (the audience)” and “an

182  Conclusion overtly expository approach,” Chai’s call to action gains strength because of its roots in nostalgia. What makes this call reach such a large audience so quickly, however, is its medium and distribution model, a model that also may be inherently more “green.” Instead of taking a more traditional route to the production, distribution, and viewing options for her documentary, Chai used her own money— “more than 1 million RMB ($159, 000…) to fund the film,” according to Celia Hatton’s BBC China Blog—and posted the film online rather than distributing through DVDs or in theatres. These choices increase both the ethos and green footprint of the documentary. Chai Jing’s expertise remains unquestioned in reviews and critical responses to Under the Dome. BBC News reporter Celia Hatton praises Chai as a “renowned investigative journalist.” History professor Daniel K. Gardner also notes Chai’s success as “a former investigative reporter at CCTV, China’s national television network.” It is because of the respect Chai has earned as a reporter that she “manage[s] to film so much raw truth. Everyone seems, if not eager, at least willing to answer her questions. In some cases her Western counterparts wouldn’t have managed to get through the door or past the ‘no comment’” asserts Diana S. Powers. And even though critic Dan Edwards suggests Chai draws on Chinese documentary’s focus on the filmmaker as ordinary citizen, he too states Chai “requires no introduction, since she is one of China’s best known and most trusted investigative journalists, and was a constant presence on local television screens until her pregnancy in 2013.” The conclusion of Edwards’ review also highlights some of the ways Under the Dome moves filmmaking towards a greener future. Although he ties Chai’s film production and distribution to Chinese documentary tradition, Edwards emphasizes the rhetorical power Chai’s work gains by “bypassing of traditional broadcasting and film exhibition by rapidly disseminating her work on the Internet to generate online public commentary and debate.” In Ecology and Popular Film: Cinema on the Edge (2009) and Film and Everyday Eco-Disasters (2014), we highlight how the turn to digital has helped move the film industry toward “green.” As we note in the conclusion of Film and Everyday Eco-Disasters, Computer-generated video production and exhibition … ends the chemical links of producing film prints, eliminates the need to create and deliver thousands of prints for exhibition, and obviates the need to destroy the prints after their theatrical runs. This transformation also means millions of dollars will be saved on every major release, while also substantially reducing the carbon footprint that creating, delivering, and exhibiting films has caused since their invention in the late nineteenth century. (187)

Conclusion  183 The changeover to digital eliminates production of celluloid, chemical processing, and the physical delivery of thousands of film prints per major feature release, according to ecocritics and film scholars Richard Maxwell and Toby Miller, authors of Greening the Media (71–75). But theatre exhibition still remains a huge contributor to energy consumption and CO2 emission levels in the U.S. and around the world. Because it was almost exclusively experienced online, Chai’s Under the Dome eliminates the environmental problems associated with maintaining theatres for film viewing. Early studies suggest Internet streaming requires less energy and emits fewer greenhouse gases than DVD manufacturing and transportation, as well. After examining U.S. DVD and streaming outputs in 2011, environmental engineer Arman Shehabi and his colleagues found that “video streaming is somewhat more efficient than DVD viewing in the basecase” (8). Although they note CO2 emissions depend on variations in the electrical grid, they also suggest that end-user streaming devices have improved since 2011 (and continue to demand less energy) (9). They conclude that “designers and policy makers should focus on the efficiency of end-user devices and network transmission energy to curb the energy use from future increases in video streaming” (10). But their study excludes other externalities associated with video streaming and other media production, including e-waste. Stephen Rust provides a useful overview of research and media examining e-waste in his Ecomedia: Key Issues chapter “Overview: Flow—an Ecocritical Perspective on Broadcast Media,” which concludes that “the media content we enjoy … is not immaterial” (95). Although more research is needed to determine the energy and other environmental costs of streaming media, Shehabi’s goal aligns with that of the ecocity—“becoming a more environmentally sustainable service” (10).

Fictional Urban Futures Representations of future cities in fictional films, however, usually emphasize spectacle, power, and divisions rather than interdependent relationships with the natural world and each other. Fictional films released after 2010, six years after Day After Tomorrow (2004) and ten years after the Age of the Anthropocene was popularized primarily highlight dystopic visions of the future. What struck us, however, is how little these films addressed environmental issues, including climate change. Although we explored cli-fi (climate fiction) films in our Monstrous Nature: Film, Environment, Horror (2016),4 few films addressing the future ramifications of climate change are set in future cites, for example. Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) moves beyond dystopic views of the city of the future without referencing environmental issues. Of the Hollywood films we explored, only Tomorrowland (2015) and Zootopia (2016)

184  Conclusion both explicitly examine urban nature and offer an optimistic perspective on the future of cities. Although most of the films we viewed continue themes we explored in our book’s first two sections—­Evolutionary Myths Under the City and Urban Eco-Trauma—Tomorrowland and Zootopia align with our last two categories—Urban Nature and Interdependence and the Sustainable City. Fictional films may provide a space in which to explore utopian possibilities, yet documentaries like Under the Dome and The Absent House offer the most optimistic view of our future in and with the natural world. In many fictional films, the utopian city is available only for the affluent and powerful few. In The Hunger Games (2012) and its sequels (2013, 2014, 2015), the twelve districts outside of the Capitol of Panem struggle to meet their own survival needs after providing resources for the greedy citizens of the Capitol. The brief CGI-enhanced establishing shots of the Capitol reveal a technologically advanced utopia for the chosen few. District Twelve, home of the films’ protagonist Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), however, gives so much coal to the Capitol that it can’t adequately heat its homes. Food is so scarce that Katniss and her family can only survive by illegally hunting outside the district’s fence. District Thirteen fares even worse, since after they rebelled, their village was destroyed, forcing survivors into an underground bunker where they must ration food and share living space. 5 Divergent (2014) also stresses divisions established to resolve conflicts that nearly destroyed humanity. After a great war, society was divided into five separate areas called factions to maintain order in a future ­Chicago: Erudite, Amity, Candor, Dauntless, and Abnegation. Those who do not fit any of the five categories are labeled divergent and may be exiled from the community. Although the factions seem balanced at the beginning of the film, the Erudite faction seeks the same power and privilege of the Capitol citizens of The Hunger Games. Both of these series also illustrate evolutionary myths under the city and urban eco-trauma. The underworld of District Thirteen in Hunger Games and The Pit, home of the Dauntless faction, in Divergent highlight how the underground city evolves in post-apocalyptic film. Eco-traumas are played out in the Hunger Games themselves, as well as in the Districts outside of the Capitol in The Hunger Games films. In Divergent, the Erudite faction forces Dauntless soldiers to attack Abnegation and slaughter divergent citizens who can’t be as easily controlled. While Divergent shows us a post-apocalyptic Chicago where overhead shots reveal paved streets and parking lots broken by weeds, Star Trek Into Darkness offers more utopian views of London and San ­Francisco. According to Visual Effects Supervisor Roger Guyett, “Our philosophy about doing cities, and respecting the canon of how the work is described by Gene Roddenberry, is that you’re only a few 100 years in the future.” Instead of depicting a post-apocalyptic future, Guyett

Conclusion  185 highlights how technological advancements may enhance the landmarks and architecture of San Francisco and London, including landmarks such as St. Paul’s Cathedral and the River Thames. ­According to Guyett, We even went to London and took a lot of pictures from different angles, to try to maintain the real geography of it. But, at the same time, we want to elaborate on that and use our imagination on how that might have changed. Star Trek Into Darkness promotes a more utopian vision of the city that suggests humanity can adapt and live more sustainably 100 years from now. Although the film does not explicitly address environmental issues, it demonstrates how technology might allow humanity to live interdependently with the natural world.6 Tomorrowland (2015) more explicitly addresses both more utopian urban visions and sustainable views of the city that promote interdependent relationships between humanity and the natural world. Offering a futuristic city constructed for the New York City 1964 Worlds Fair as an alternative to dystopic predictions of environmental and nuclear disasters that may end life on Earth, Tomorrowland does suggest humans are responsible for their possible dire future. Images of environmental destruction highlight the possible consequences of the Anthropocentric Age. But the film also suggests the probability of an eco-apocalyptic end has been exacerbated by media images streaming from a device in the utopian city meant to encourage humanity to change the future on display. Instead of galvanizing viewers, the terrifying visions of destruction have paralyzed them. To facilitate activism, Tomorrowland replaces apathy with optimism by eliminating negative media and promoting innovations that improve the world. Although the solution is rather pat, Tomorrowland does interrogate environmental degradation and does propose a future city with sustainable principles. The Disney animated wonder Zootopia (2016) offers a more utopian urban vision where anthropomorphized animals interact interdependently and sustainably with the natural world. To create a city where predator and prey gain equal status, Zootopia confronts its own prejudices, but it must also eliminate humans. As a future animal city, Zootopia highlights its connections with nature by including artificial climate zones to accommodate the environmental needs of its various species. Several zones featured in the film highlight the conflicts bunny police officer Judy (Ginnifer Goodwin) and fox con artist Nick (Jason Bateman) must overcome to transform Zootopia into a sustainable and interdependent paradise, including downtown, Tundratown, Little Rodentia, and the Rainforest District. In Zootopia, the move to a more sustainable and interdependent city requires accommodating difference, recognizing

186  Conclusion similarities, and changing ourselves. As Judy explains during a Police Academy speech, No matter what type of animal you are, from the biggest elephant to our first fox, I implore you: Try. Try to make a difference. Try to make the world better. Try to look inside yourself and recognize that change starts with you. It starts with me. It starts with all of us. In a world without humans, foxes and bunnies can be friends, and predator and prey become allies. Tomorrowland and Zootopia provide more optimistic visions of urban nature than most films depicting future cities, but they both also base their solutions on fantastic premises rather than the reality of the places we live. In Ecocinema and the City, we look at how both fictional and documentary films sometimes provide attainable solutions to environmental injustice and racism. The Absent House and Under the Dome highlight pathways to a more livable world not just for the elite, but also for those living in what Mike Davis calls the planet of slums. All the films explored in Ecocinema and the City, whether they emphasize toxicity or life, demonstrate the power of urban nature. The best of the films we explore bring Jenny Price’s definition of urban environmentalism to life. The environmentalism embraced by at least some of these films “locates its heart and soul in sustainable and equitable economic and social systems—and in sound and equitable public policies and investments—as much as, or much more than, in individual personal virtue” (553). That means, “It does not leave other people facing the worst consequences of how we use nature. It … makes clear the essential connections between socioeconomic and environmental inequities, and between using nature equitably and using sustainably” (Price  553). They combine conservation with preservation to, as Price declares, “take [] joy in wild nature…. [and] take [] joy in our everyday connections to nature” (553). In Ecocinema in the City, we explore only a sampling of urban ecocinema highlighting nature in the city, documentaries and fictional films stressing underground evolutionary narratives, urban eco-traumas, and interdependent or sustainable cities. We end this book with confidence that ecocinema and media studies will continue and complicate this conversation, demonstrating how film and video reveal nature in the cities where we live and work and play.

Notes 1 This perspective on sustainable architecture stresses the need to conserve resources throughout the urban development process, avoiding the exploitation showcased in documentaries such as Sand Wars (2013). Written and directed by Denis Delestrac and released by Green Planet Films, Sand Wars

Conclusion  187 travels around the globe to examine the vital issue of the exploitation of sand. While many of us think of beach erosion when we consider the vital nature of sand, Delestrac makes clear that the need for silica drives the world's construction industries and has led to the planet's reserves of sand being dangerously depleted. 2 Such a green architectural vision is explored in earlier documentaries, as well. See, for example, Sustainable Architecture (2004), which begins by providing a history of resource use around the world. To move towards efficiency, the documentary argues that we must plan better, decrease embodied energy use, decrease energy and resources used during construction, and take a holistic approach that is fair and equitable. 3 Changing Nature (2005) also highlights repercussions and responses to climate change around the globe. In Morocco, for example, woman-centered organizations help stop forest depletion and encourage education, family planning, and sustainable farming techniques. Sustainable development and family planning are stressed as solutions to environmental problems in the Ukraine, Mexico, and Vietnam. 4 See, for example, The Thaw (2009), Snowpiercer (2013), The Colony (2013), Into the Storm (2014), and Noah (2014) as cli-fi films exploring climate change primarily outside urban areas. Day After Tomorrow, Half-Life (2008), and Godzilla (2014), however, do integrate the city in their discussions of climate change. 5 Like The Hunger Games, Elysium (2013) separates rich and powerful from the poor providing their resources, but in Elysium a population explosion has created a global slum on Earth, forcing the privileged to build their utopian city above ground in a sky city. The Congress (2013) offers utopian urban visions only in an animated world that drug-addicted residents create for themselves. In the non-animated “real” world, animated heroes are revealed to be homeless and despairing victims. Only those living in large airships above the slums below provide hope in this dystopic future. The Neo-Seoul segment of Cloud Atlas (2012) highlights technology and genetic engineering in a Vice City. The Zero Theorem (2013) offers a dystopian Terry Gilliam vision like that of Brazil (1985). 6 Big Hero 6 (2014) also suggests technology can address racial, economic, and, perhaps, environmental conflicts in a Disneyfied fictional and animated San Fransokyo.

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Filmography

28 Days. Dir. Betty Thomas. Perf. Sandra Bullock, Viggo Mortenson. ­Columbia Pictures, 2000. 101 Dalmatians. Dir. Wolfgang Reitherman, Hamilton Luske, and Clyde Geronimi. Perf. Rod Taylor, Betty Lou Gerson, Lisa Davis, Ben Wright, and Cate Bauer. Walt Disney Pictures, 1961. 101 Dalmatians. Dir. Stephen Herek. Perf. Glenn Close, Jeff Daniels, and Joely Richardson. Walt Disney Pictures, 1996. 300. Dir. Zack Snyder. Perf. Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, and David Wenham. Warner Bros., 2006. The Absent House. Dir. Rubén Abruña. Icarus Films, 2013. Las Acacias. Dir. Pablo Giorgelli. Perf. Germán de Silva, Hebe Duarte, and Nayra Calle Mamani. Airecine, 2011. All That Glitters. Dir. Hervé Mimran, Géraldine Nakache. Perf. Leïla Bekhti, Géraldine Nakache, and Virginie Ledoyen. Vertigo, 2010. American Gigolo. Dir. Paul Schrader. Perf. Richard Gere, Lauren Hutton. Paramount Picture, 1980. Amores Perros. Dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu. Perf. Emilio Echevarría, Gael García Bernal, and Goya Toledo. Altavista Films, 2000. Angels with Dirty Faces. Dir. Michael Curtiz. Perf. James Cagney, Pat O’Brien, and Humphrey Bogart. Warner Bros., 1938. The Ant Bully. Dir. John A. Davis. Perf. Paul Giamatti, Nicolas Cage, and Julia Roberts. Warner Bros., 2006. Attack the Block. Dir. Joe Cornish. Perf. John Boyega, Jodie Whittaker, and Alex Esmail. StudioCanal, 2011. Avatar. Dir. James Cameron. Perf. Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, and Sigourney Weaver. Twentieth Century Fox Films, 2009. Babe: Pig in the City. Dir. George Miller. Perf. Magda Szubanski, Elizabeth Daily, and Mickey Rooney. Kennedy Miller Productions, 1998. Basic Training. Dir. Frederick Wiseman. Basic Training Company, 1971. Beethoven. Dir. Brian Levant. Perf. Charles Grodin, Bonnie Hunt. Universal, 1992. Being There. Dir. Hal Ashby. Perf. Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, and Melvyn Douglas. BSSB, 1979. Ben-Hur. Dir. William Wyler. Perf. Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins, and Stephen Boyd. Warner Bros., 1959. The Best Years of Their Lives. Dir. William Wyler. Perf. Fredric March, Dana Andrews, and Myrna Loy. Samuel Goldwyn Company, 1946.

190 Filmography Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Dir. Raja Gosnell. Perf. Drew Barrymore, George Lopez, and Piper Perabo. Mandeville Films, 2008. The Big Year. Dir. David Franke. Perf. Owen Wilson, Jack Black, and Steve Martin. Fox 2000 Pictures, 2011. Birders: The Central Park Effect. Dir. Jeffrey Kimball. Perf. Regina Alvarez, Anya Auerbach, and Mike Bryant. Other Noises, 2012. The Birders’ Guide to Everything. Dir. Rob Meyer. Perf. Kodi Smit-McPhee, James Le Gros, and Daniela Lavender. Dreamfly Productions, 2013. The Birds. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Perf. Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, and Suzanne Pleshette. Alfred J. Hitchcock Productions, 1963. “Birds of the Gods.” Nature. Dir. Harvey Jones. Perf. David Attenborough. Thirteen, 2011. Birdy. Dir. Allan Parker. Perf. Matthew Modine, Nicolas Cage, John Harkins. A&M Films, 1984. The Blackboard Jungle. Dir. Richard Brooks. Perf. Glenn Ford, Anne Francis, and Louis Calhern. MGM, 1955. Blackfish. Dir. Gabriela Cowperthwaite. Perf. Tilikum, Dave Duffus, and Samantha Berg. Manny O Productions, 2013. The Blue Bird. Dir. Maurice Tourneur. Perf. Tula Belle, Robin Macdougall, and Edwin E. Reed. Paramount Pictures, 1918. Blue Collar. Dir. Paul Schrader. Perf. Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, Yaphet Kotto. TAT Communications Company, 1978. Blue Vinyl. Dir. Daniel B. Gold, Judith Helfand. Perf. Judith Helfand. Working Films, 2002. Body of War. Dir. Phil Donahue, Ellen Spiro. Mobilus Media, 2007. Bold Eagles. Dir. Rasmus A. Sivertsen. Perf. Shannon Setlemyre, Matthew Warzel. Kaboom! Entertainment, 2014. Border Street. Dir. Aleksander Ford. Perf. Mieczyslawa Cwiklinska, Jerzy Leszczynski, and Wladyslaw Godik. P.P. Film Polsky, 1948. Born into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids. Dir. Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman. Red Light Films, 2004. Born on the Fourth of July. Dir. Oliver Stone. Perf. Tom Cruise, Raymond J. Barry, and Caroline Kava. Ixtlan, 1989. Bright Victory. Dir. Mark Robson. Perf. Arthur Kennedy, Peggy Dow, and Julie Adams. Universal International Pictures, 1951. Bring ‘em Back Alive. Dir. Clyde E. Elliott. Perf. Frank Buck. Van Beuren Studios, 1932. Bringing Out the Dead. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Perf. Nicolas Cage, Patricia Arquette, and John Goodman. Paramount Pictures, 1999. Broken Blossoms. Dir. D.W. Griffith. Perf. Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, and Donald Crisp. D.W. Griffith Productions, 1919. Bye Bye, Brasil. Dir. Carlose Diegues. Perf. Jose Wilker, Betty Faria, and Fabio Jr. Luiz Carlos. Barreto Producoes, 1980. Cat People. Dir. Jacques Tourneur. Perf. Simone Simon, Tom Conway. RKO Pictures, 1942. Cat People. Dir. Paul Schrader. Perf. Natassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell, and Tom Heard. RKO Pictures, 1982. Central Park. Dir. Frederick Wiseman. Zipporah Films, 1990.

Filmography  191 Central Station. Dir. Walter Salles. Perf. Fernanda Montenegro, Vinícius de Oliveira, and Marília Pêra. Audiovisual Development Bureau, 1998. Chang. Dir. Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack. Paramount Pictures, 1927. Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness. Dir. Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. ­S choedsack. Perf. Kru, Chantui, and Nah. Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, 1927. Chicken Run. Dir. Peter Lord, Nick Park. Perf. Mel Gibson, Julia Sawalha, and Phil Daniels. DreamWorks Animation, 2000. A Child of the Ghetto. Dir. D.W. Griffith. Perf. Dorothy West, Kate Bruce, and Dell Henderson. D.W. Griffith Productions, 1910. The Children of Leningradsky. Dir. Andrzej Celinski, Hanna Polak. Forte Andrzej Celinski Hanna Polak, 2005. Children Underground. Dir. Edet Belzberg. Belzberg Films, 2001. Chinatown. Dir. Roman Polanski. Perf. Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, and John Huston. Paramount Pictures, 1974. City of Dogs. Dir. Rob Farquhar. Perf. Louis Theroux. Louis Theroux’s LA Stories, BBC, 2014. City of God. Dir. Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund. Perf. Alexandre Rodrigues, Matheus Nachtergaele, and Leandro Firmino. O2 Filmes, 2002. Cleopatra. Dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Perf. Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and Rex Harrison. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 1963. Clockers. Dir. Spike Lee. Perf. Harvey Keitel, John Turturro, Delroi Lindo. Universal Pictures, 1995. Coming Home. Dir. Hal Ashby. Perf. Jane Fonda, Jon Voight, Bruce Dern. Jerome Hellman Productions, 1978. Congorilla. Dir. Martin E. Johnson and Osa Johnson. Fox Film Corporation, 1932. The Constant Gardener. Dir. Fernando Meirelles. Perf. Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, and Hubert Koundé. Focus Features, 2005. The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos. Dir. Matthew Aeberhard, Leander Ward. Perf. Zabou Breitman, Mariella Frostrup, and Karoline Herfurth. Natural Light Films, 2008. Dark City. Dir. Alex Proyas. Perf. Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland, and Jennifer Connelly. Mystery Clock Cinema, 1998. Dark Days. Dir. Marc Singer. Wide Angle Pictures and Palm Pictures, 2000. The Day After Tomorrow. Dir. Roland Emmerich. Perf. Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Emmy Rossum. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 2004. The Day My God Died. Dir. Andrew Levine. Andrew Levine Productions, 2003. Dead End. Dir. William Wyler. Perf. Sylvia Sidney, Joel McCrea, and Humphrey Bogart. Samuel Goldwyn Company, 1937. Design E 2 . Dir. Tad Fettig. Perf. Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman. PBS, 2007–2009. District 9. Dir. Neil Blomkamp. Perf. Sharlto Copley, David James, and Jason Cope. TriStar Pictures, 2009. Divergent. Dir. Neil Burger. Perf. Shailene Woodley, Theo James, and Kate Winslet. Summit Entertainment, 2014.

192 Filmography A Dog’s Life. Dir. Charles Chaplin. Perf. Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, and Dave Anderson. First National Pictures, 1918. The Dogs of New York. Dir. Carole Langer. Soapbxprod, 2011. Dogs on the Inside. Dir. Brean Cunningham, Douglas Seirup. Bond360, 2014. Dogtown and Z-Boys. Dir. Stacy Peralta. Sony Pictures Classics, 2001. Double Indemnity. Dir. Billy Wilder. Perf. Fred MacMurray, Barbara ­Stanwyck, and Edward G. Robinson. Paramount Pictures, 1944. Drive. Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn. Perf. Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston. FilmDistrict, 2011. The Edible City: Grow the Revolution. Dir. Edward Hasse. Collective Eye Films, 2014. Enchanted. Dir. Kevin Lima. Perf. Amy Adams, Susan Sarandon, and James Marsden. Disney, 2007. Fang and Claw. Dir. Frank Buck. Perf. Frank Buck. Van Beuren Studios, 1935. The Fast and the Furious. Dir. Rob Cohen. Perf. Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez. Universal Pictures, 2001. Fish Tank. Dir. Andrea Arnold. Perf. Katie Jarvis, Michael Fassbender, and Kierston Wareing. BBC Films, 2009. Fog Line. Dir. Larry Gottheim. National Film Board of Canada, 1970. Foreign Land. Dir. Walter Salles, Daniela Thomas. Perf. Fernanda Torres, Fernando Alves Pinto, and Alexandre Borges. VideoFilmes, 1996. Frankenstein. Dir. James Whale. Perf. Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, and Boris Karloff. Universal Pictures, 1931. Frankenweenie. Dir. Tim Burton. Perf. Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, and Martin Short. Walt Disney Pictures, 2012. Freaks. Dir. Tod Browning. Perf. Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, and Olga Baclanova. MGM, 1932. The Garden. Dir. Scott Hamilton Kennedy. Black Valley Films, 2008. Gattaca. Dir. Andrew Niccol. Perf. Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, and Jude Law. Columbia Pictures, 1997. Get Together Girls. Dir. Vanessa Crocini. GTOG Group, 2012. The Ghost and the Darkness. Dir. Stephen Hopkins. Perf. Michael Douglas, Val Kilmer. Constellation Entertainment, 1996. Ghost Bird. Dir. Scott Crocker. Perf. Katie Jacques, Sandra Kemmer, and Billy Clay. Small Change Productions Inc., 2009. Girlhood. Dir. Liz Garbus. Wellspring Media, 2003. Girlhood. Dir. Céline Sciamma. Perf. Karidja Touré, Assa Sylla, and Lindsay Karamoh. Hold Up Films, 2014. Gladiator. Dir. Ridley Scott. Perf. Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, and Connie Nielson. DreamWorks SKG, 2000. Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life. Dir. Merian C. Cooper, Ernest Schoedsack. Paramount Pictures, 1925. Grave of the Fireflies. Dir. Isao Takahata. Perf. Tsutomu Tatsumi, Ayano Shiraishi, and Akemi Yamaguchi. Studio Ghibli, 1988. Grease. Dir. Randall Kleiser. Perf. John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, and Stockard Channing. Paramount Pictures, 1978. Green Card. Dir. Peter Weir. Perf. Gérard Depardieu, Andie MacDowell, and Bebe Neuwirth. Touchstone Pictures, 1990. Growing Cities. Dir. Dan Susman. Elmwood Motion Picture Company, 2013.

Filmography  193 The Gumball Rally. Dir. Charles Bail. Perf. Michael Sarrazin, Tim McIntire, and Raul Julia. Warner Bros., 1976. Hachi: A Dog’s Tale. Dir. Lasse Hallström. Perf. Richard Gere, Joan Allen, and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. Stage 6 Films, 2009. La Haine. Dir. Mathieu Kassovitz. Perf. Vincent Cassel, Hubert Koundé, and Saïd Taghmaoui. Canal+, 1995. Happy Feet. Dir. George Miller, Warren Coleman. Perf. Elijah Wood, Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman. Warner Bros., 2006. Happy Feet Two. Dir. George Miller, Garry Eck. Perf. Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, and Pink. Warner Bros., 2011. Hardcore. Dir. Paul Schrader. Perf. George C. Scott, Peter Boyle, and Season Hubley. Columbia Pictures, 1979. Harry Brown. Dir. Daniel Barber. Perf. Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, and David Bradley. Marv Films, 2009. Hatari. Dir. Howard Hawks. Perf. John Wayne, Elsa Martinelli. Malabar, 1962. The Hawk is Dying. Dir. Julian Goldberger. Perf. Paul Giamatti, Michelle Williams, and Michael Pitt. Antidote Films (I), 2006. He Walked By Night. Dir. Alfred L. Werker. Perf. Richard Basehart, Scott Brady, and Roy Roberts. Bryan Foy Productions, 1948. The Hide. Dir. Marek Losey. Perf. Alex Macqueen, Phil Campbell, and Laura Hopwood. Poisson Rouge Pictures, 2008. The Host. Dir. Andrew Niccol. Perf. Saoirse Ronan, Max Irons, Jake Abel. Chockstone Pictures, 2006. The Hunger Games. Dir. Gary Ross. Perf. Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, and Liam Hemsworth. Lionsgate, 2012. “Hunters in the Sky.” Mutual Of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. Dir. Don Meier. Perf. Marlin Perkins, Jim Fowler, and Joe Slattery. Don Meier Productions, 1952. I am Legend. Dir. Francis Lawrence. Perf. Will Smith, Alice Braga, and Charlie Tahan. Warner Bros., 2007. An Inconvenient Truth. Dir. Davis Guggenheim. Perf. Al Gore. Lawrence Bender Productions, 2006. ­ ürmann, In Darkness. Dir. Agnieszka Holland. Perf. Robert Wieckiewicz, Benno F and Agnieszka Grochowska. Schmidtz Katze Filmkollektiv, 2011. In Time. Dir. Andrew Niccol. Perf. Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, and Cillian Murphy. Regency Enterprises, 2011. Indochina Youth Chasing Coins and Rice. Dir. Lumiere Brothers. Kino, 1896. The Italian Job. Dir. F. Gary Gray. Perf. Donald Sutherland, Mark Wahlberg, and Edward Norton. Paramount Pictures, 2003. “Jenny.” The Betty Hutton Show. Season 1, Episode 11. Creator. Stanley Roberts. Perf. Betty Hutton, Candy Briskin, and Peter Miles, 1959. Jungle Cavalcade. Dir. William C. Ament, Armand Denis. Perf. Frank Buck. RKO Radio Pictures, 1941. Kes. Dir. Ken Loach. Perf. David Bradley, Brian Glover, and Freddie Fletcher. Kestrel Films, 1969. Kestrel’s Eye. Dir. Mikael Kristersson. Perf. Caisa Persson. First Run Features, 1998. The Kid. Dir. Charles Chaplin. Perf. Charles Chaplin. Charles Chaplin Productions, 1921.

194 Filmography Kiss Me Deadly. Dir. Robert Aldrich. Perf. Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, and Paul Stewart. Parklane Pictures, 1955. Lady and the Tramp. Dir. Hamilton Luske, Clyde Geronimi, and Wilfred Jackson. Perf. Barbara Luddy, Larry Roberts, and Peggy Lee. Walt Disney Pictures, 1955. The Ladykillers. Dir. Alexander Mackendrick. Perf. Alec Guinness, Peter ­Sellers, and Cecil Parker. Rank Organisation, 1955. Last Action Hero. Dir. John McTiernan. Perf. Arnold Schwarzenegger, F. Murray Abraham, and Art Carney. Columbia Pictures, 1993. The Legend of Pale Male. Dir. Frederic Lilien. Birdjail Productions, 2009. The Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole. Dir. Zack Snyder. Perf. Jim Sturges, Hugo Weaving. Warner Bros., 2010. The Life of Birds. Dir. Joanna Sarsby. Perf. David Attenborough. BBC, 1998. Light Sleeper. Dir. Paul Schrader. Perf. Willem Dafoe, Susan Sarandon, and Dana Delany. Carolco Pictures, 1992. The Lily of the Tenements. Dir. D.W. Griffith. Perf. Dorothy West, Clara T. Bracy, and W. Chrystie Miller. D.W. Griffith Productions, 1911. Lives Worth Living. Dir. Eric Neudel. Independent Television Service, 2011. Los Olvidados. Dir. Luis Buñuel. Perf. Alfonso Mejía, Roberto Cobo, and Estela Inda. Ultramar Films, 1950. The Machine Girl. Dir. Noboru Iguchi. Perf. Minase Yashiro, Asami, Kentarô Shimazu. Fever Dreams, 2009. The March of the Penguins. Dir. Luc Jacquet. Perf. Morgan Freeman, Charles Berling, and Romane Bohringer. Bonne Pioche, 2005. Maquilapolis: City of Factories. Dir. Vicky Funari, Sergio de la Torre. California Newsreel, 2006. The Men. Dir. Fred Zinnemann. Perf. Marlon Brando, Teresa Wright, Everett Sloane. Stanley Kramer Productions, 1950. Men in Black. Dir. Barry Sonnenfeld. Perf. Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, and Linda Fiorentino. Columbia Pictures, 1997. Metropolis. Dir. Fritz Lang. Perf. Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel, and Gustav Fröhlich. UFA, 1927. The Milk of Sorrow. Dir. Claudia Llosa. Perf. Magaly Solier, Susi Sánchez, and Efraín Solís. ICIC, 2009. Milking the Rhino. Dir. David E. Simpson. Kartemquin Films, 2009. Million Dollar Baby. Dir. Clint Eastwood. Perf. Hilary Swank, Clint Eastwood, and Morgan Freeman. Warner Bros., 2004. Miracle of Milan. Dir. Vittorio De Sica. Perf. Emma Gramatica, Francesco Golisano, and Paolo Stoppa. Produzioni De Sica, 1951. Moonlight. Dir. Barry Jenkins. Perf. Mahershala Ali, Shariff Earp, and Duan Sanderson. A24, 2016. Monsters, Inc. Dir. Pete Docter, David Silverman. Perf. Billy Crystal, John Goodman, and Mary Gibbs. Disney/Pixar, 2001. Mr. Bug Goes to Town. Dir. Dave Fleischer. Perf. Kenny Gardner, Gwen ­Williams, and Jack Mercer. Fleischer Brothers, 1941. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Dir. Frank Capra. Perf. Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, and George Bancroft. Columbia Pictures, 1936. Murder By Contract. Dir. Irving Lerner. Perf. Vince Edwards, Philip Pine. Columbia Pictures, 1958.

Filmography  195 Murderball. Dir. Henry Alex Rubin, Dana Adam Shapiro. Paramount Pictures, 2005. Musketeers of Pig Alley. Dir. D.W. Griffith. Perf. Elmer Booth, Lillian Gish, and Clara T. Bracy. D.W. Griffith Productions, 1912. My Country. Dir. Cheryl Green. PBS, 1997. My Left Foot. Dir. Jim Sheridan. Perf. Daniel Day-Lewis, Brenda Fricker, and Alison Whelan. Ferndale Films, 1989. Nanook of the North. Dir. Robert Flaherty. Royal Pictures, 1922. Nenette. Dir. Nicholas Philibert. Les Films d’Ici, 2010. New Farms, Big Success: With Three Rock Star Farmers. Dir. Jocelyn Demers. Green Planet Films, 2015. Odds Against Tomorrow. Dir. Robert Wise. Perf. Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, Shelley Winters, and Ed Begley. United Artists, 1959. The Olmsted Legacy: America’s Urban Parks. Dir. Rebecca Messner. Perf. Kevin Kline, Kerry Washington. PBS, 2010. On a Roll. Dir. Joanne Caputo. PBS, 2005. On Dangerous Ground. Dir. Nicholas Ray. Perf. Robert Ryan, Ida Lupino. RKO Pictures, 1952. Once Were Warriors. Dir. Lee Tamahori. Perf. Rena Owen, Temuera Morrison, and Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell. Communicado Productions, 1994. One Nation Under Dog. Dir. Jenny Carchman, Ellen Goosenberg Kent. HBO, 2012. Opposable Chums: Guts and Glory at the World Series of Birding. Dir. Jason Kessler. Perf. David Allen Sibley, Kenn Kaufman, and Pete Dunne. BoulderOak Films, 2008. The Organization. Dir. Don Medford. Perf. Sydney Poitier, Barbara McNair. United Artists, 1971. Orpheus. Dir. Jean Cocteau. Perf. Jean Marais, François Périer, and María Casares. Andre Paulve Film, 1950. The Other Side of the Mountain. Dir. Larry Peerce. Perf. Marilyn Hassett, Beau Bridges, and Belinda Montgomery. Universal Pictures, 1975. Out of Africa. Dir. Sydney Pollack. Perf. Meryl Streep, Robert Redford. Universal Pictures, 1985. Out of the Pit. Dir. Monika Krumova. Perf. Lori Dobson, Andrew Flegler, and Curlee Holton. Vimeo, 2013. Over the Hedge. Dir. Tim Johnson, Karey Kirkpatrick. Perf. Bruce Willis, Garry Shandling, and Steve Carell. Dreamworks, 2006. Paisan. Dir. Roberto Rosselini. Perf. Carmela Sazio, Gar Moore, and William Tubbs. Organizzazione Film Internazionali (OFI), 1946. Pale Male. Dir. Frederic Lilien. Perf. Alexander Fisher, Lincoln Karim, and Charles Kennedy. DeVillier Donegan Enterprizes, 2002. Paulie. Dir. John Roberts. Perf. Gena Rowlands, Tony Shalhoub, and Cheech Marin. DreamWorks SKG, 1998. Pelican Blood. Dir. Karl Golden. Perf. Oona Chaplin, Harry Treadaway, and Arthur Darvill. EM Media, 2010. Pelican Dreams. Dir. Judy Irving. Perf. Mark Bittner, Laura Corsiglia, and Jacky Douglas. Pelican Media, 2014. The Phantom of the Opera. Dir. Rupert Julian, Lon Chaney. Perf. Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, and Norman Kerry. Universal Pictures, 1925.

196 Filmography Pick-up on South Street. Dir. Samuel Fuller. Perf. Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, and Thelma Ritter. Twentieth Century Fox Film, 1953. Pixote. Dir. Hector Babenco. Perf. Fernando Ramos da Silva, Jorge Julião, and Gilberto Moura. Embrafilme, 1981. Point Blank. Dir. John Boorman. Perf. Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, and Keenan Wynn. MGM, 1967. Pride of the Marines. Dir. Delmer Daves. Perf. John Garfield, Eleanor Parker, and Dane Clark. Warner Bros., 1945. Pursuit of Happyness. Dir. Gabriele Muccino. Perf. Will Smith, Thandie Newton, and Jaden Smith. Sony Pictures, 2006. Rare Birds. Dir. Sturla Gunnarsson. Perf. William Hurt, Andy Jones, and Molly Parker. Big Pictures Entertainment, 2001. The Real Macaw. Dir. Mario Andreacchio. Perf. Jamie Croft, Deborra-Lee Furness, and Joe Petruzzi. Adelaide Motion Picture Company, 1997. Recycled Life. Dir. Leslie Iwerks. Leslie Iwerks Production, 2006. Red Desert. Dir. Michaelangelo Antonioni. Perf. Monica Vitti, Richard Harris, and Carlo Chionetti. Film Duemilla, 1964. Repo Man. Dir. Alex Cox. Perf. Harry Dean Stanton, Emilio Estevez, and Tracey Walter. Edge City, 1984. The Rescuers Down Under. Dir. Hendel Butoy, Mike Gabriel. Perf. Bob N ­ ewhart, Eva Gabor, and John Candy. Silver Screen Partners IV, 1990. Return to Me. Dir. Bonnie Hunt. Perf. David Duchovny, Minnie Driver, and Carroll O’Connor. MGM, 2000. Riding Giants. Dir. Stacy P eralta. Sony Pictures, 2004. Rio. Dir. Carlos Saldanha. Perf. Jese Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, and George Lopez. Twentieth Century Fox Animations, 2011. Rio 2. Dir. Carlos Saldanha. Perf. Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, and Jemaine Clement. Twentieth Century Fox Animations, 2014. RoboGeisha. Dir. Noboru Iguchi. Perf. Asami, Naoto Takenaka, and Yoshihiro Nishimura. Kadokawa Eiga KK, 2009. Rosetta. Dir. Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne. Perf. Émilie Dequenne, Fabrizio Rongione, and Anne Yernaux. Canal+, 1999. Sacrifice. Dir. Ellen Bruno. Ellen Bruno Films, 1999. Salaam Bombay. Dir. Mira Nair. Perf. Shafiq Syed, Hansa Vithal, and Chanda Sharma. Cadrage, 1988. Salesman. Dir. Albert Maysles, David Maylses, and Charlotte Mitchell Zwerin. Maysles Films, 1969. The Scent of Green Papaya. Dir. Tran Anh Hung. Perf. Tran Nu Yên-Khê, Man San Lu, and Thi Loc Truong. Lazennec Films, 1993. Shadow of a Doubt. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Perf. Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, and Macdonald Carey. Universal Pictures, 1943. To Sir, with Love. Dir. James Clavell. Perf. Sidney Poitier, Judy Geeson, and Christian Roberts. Columbia Pictures, 1967. Slumdog Millionaire. Dir. Danny Boyle, Loveleen Tandan. Perf. Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, and Saurabh Shukla. Warner Bros., 2008. Song of Arizona. Dir. Frank McDonald. Perf. Roy Rogers, Trigger, and George ‘Gabby’ Hayes. Republic Pictures, 1946. Spartacus. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, and Jean Simmons. Bryna Productions, 1960.

Filmography  197 Star Trek Into Darkness. Dir. J. J. Abrams. Perf. Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Zoe Saldana. Paramount Pictures, 2013. Storks. Dir. Nicholas Stoller. Perf. Andy Samberg, Katie Crown, and Kelsey Grammer. Warner Bros., 2016. Taken 3. Dir. Olivier Megaton. Perf. Liam Neeson, Forest Whitaker, and ­Maggie Grace. EuropaCorp, 2014. Taxi Driver. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Perf. Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, and ­Cybill Shepherd. Columbia Pictures, 1976. Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Dir. James Cameron. Perf. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, and Edward Furlong. Carolco Pictures, 1991. Them!. Dir. Gordon Douglas. Perf. James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, and Joan Weldon. Warner Bros., 1954. The Third Man. Dir. Carol Reed. Perf. Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton, Trevor Howard, and Alida Valli. London Films, 1949. Thoroughly Modern Millie. Dir. George Roy Hill. Perf. Julie Andrews, James Fox, and Mary Tyler Moore. Universal Pictures, 1967. Tokyo Gore Police. Dir. Yoshihiro Nishimura. Perf. Eihi Shiina, Itsuji Itao, and Yukihide Benny. Fever Dreams, 2008. Tomorrowland. Dir. Brad Bird. Perf. George Clooney, Britt Robertson, Hugh Laurie. Walt Disney Pictures, 2015. Touch of Evil. Dir. Orson Welles. Perf. Charlton Heston, Orson Welles, and Janet Leigh. Universal Pictures, 1958. Transformers. Dir. Michael Bay. Perf. Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, and Josh Duhamel. DreamWorks, 2007. Tsotsi. Dir. Gavin Hood. Perf. Presley Chweneyagae, Mothusi Magano, and Israel Makoe. UK Film & TV Production Company PLC, 2005. Umberto D. Dir. Vittorio De Sica. Perf. Carlo Battisti, Maria Pia Casilio, and Lina Gennari. Rizzoli Film, 1952. Under the Dome. Dir. Jing Chai. Perf. Jing Chai. Youtube, 2015. The Unholy Three. Dir. Tod Browning. Perf. Lon Chaney, Mae Busch, and Matt Moore. MGM. 1925. Up the Down Staircase. Dir. Robert Mulligan. Perf. Patrick Bedford, Sandy Dennis, and Eileen Heckart. Park Place Productions, 1967. Urban Fruit. Dir. Roman Zenz. FilmBuff, 2013. Urbanized. Dir. Gary Hustwit. Swiss Dots, 2011. Vagabond. Dir. Agnes Varda. Perf. Sandrine Bonnaire, Macha Méril, and Stéphane Freiss. Films A2, 1985. Vinyan. Dir. Fabrice Du Welz. Perf. Emmanuelle Béart, Rufus Sewell, and Petch Osathanugrah. uFilm, 2008. Voices of Transition. Dir. Nils Aguilar. Green Planet Films, 2012. Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Dir. Steve Box and Nick Park. Perf. Peter Sallis, Helena Bonham Carter, and Ralph Fiennes. Aardman Animation, 2005. WALL-E. Dir. Andrew Stanton. Perf. Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, and Jeff Garlin. Disney/Pixar, 2008. “Water Birds.” True-Life Adventures. Dir. Ben Sharpsteen. Perf. Winston Hibler. Walt Disney Productions, 1963. We Bought a Zoo. Dir. Cameron Crowe. Perf. Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson. Twentieth Century Fox Films, 2011.

198 Filmography Wendy and Lucy. Dir. Kelly Reichardt. Perf. Michelle Williams, Lucy. Field Guide Films, 2008. Werewolf of London. Dir. Stuart Walker. Perf. Henry Hull, Warner Oland and Valerie Hobson. Universal Pictures, 1935. When Harry Met Sally. Dir. Rob Reiner. Perf. Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, and Carrie Fisher. Castle Rock Pictures, 1989. White God. Dir. Kornél Mundruczó. Perf. Zsófia Psotta, Sándor Zsótér, and Lili Horváth. Proton Cinema, 2014. White Hunter/Black Heart. Dir. Clint Eastwood. Perf. Clint Eastwood, Jeff Fahey and Charlotte Cornwell. Warner Bros., 1990. The Wild. Dir. Steve “Spaz” Williams. Perf. Kiefer Sutherland, James Belushi and Eddie Izzard. Disney, 2006. Wild Boys of the Road. Dir. William A. Wellman. Perf. Frankie Darro, Rochelle Hudson, and Edwin Phillips. First National Pictures, 1933. Wild Cargo. Dir. Armand Denis. Perf. Frank Buck. Van Beuren Studios, 1934. The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. Dir. Judy Irving. Perf. Mark Bittner, Judy Irving. Pelican Media, 2003. Wild Rio. Dir. Christian Baumeister. Parthenon Entertainment, 2005. Winged Migration. Dir. Jacques Perrin. Perf. Jacques Perrin, Philippe Labro. Bac Films, 2001. Wolfpack. Dir. Crystal Moselle. Candescent Films, 2015. The Wooden Camera. Dir. Ntshaveni Wa Luruli. Perf. Junior Singo, Dana de Agrella, and Innocent Msimango. Odelion, 2003. You’ve Got Mail. Dir. Nora Ephron. Perf. Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, and Greg Kinnear. Warner Bros., 1998. Zambezia. Dir. Wayne Thornley. Perf. Leonard Nimoy, Jeremy Suarez, and Abigail Breslin. Cinema Management Group, 2012. Zoo. Dir. Frederick Wiseman. Zipporah Films, 1993. Zoo Baby. Dir. David Eady. Perf. Angela Baddeley, Gerard Lohan and Maurice Kaufmann. Penington Eady Productions, 1960. Zoo Quest. Dir. Nancy Thomas. Perf. David Attenborough, Jack Lester, and Brian Branston. BBC, 1954–1964. Zoo Quest: Paraguay. Dir. David Attenborough. BBC, 1955. Zookeeper. Dir. Frank Coraci. Kevin James, Rosario Dawson and Leslie Bibb. Columbia Pictures, 2011. Zootopia. Dir. Byron Howard. Perf. Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, and Idris Elba. Walt Disney Pictures, 2016.

Works Cited

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Index

Absent House, The 177–8, 186, 189 Las Acacias 6, 189 Acampora, Ralph R. 87, 199 Adamson, Joni 199; and garden ideal 13, 124; and garden as metaphor 131–3; and a middle place 133, 135, 136, 139 All That Glitters 12, 49–50, 62, 66–7, 189 American Gigolo 24, 189 Amores Perros 78–9, 81, 83, 189 Amorok, Tina 12, 59, 66, 80, 136, 199 animal studies: and animal rights 70–2, 96–7; and anthropomorphism 70; and Zookeeper 98–100 Ant Bully, The 138, 189 Anthropocene 9; and birdwatching 108, 116, 118–19, 120, 122; and the eco-city 176, 183, 185; and zoos 87 Attack the Block 54–7, 63, 189 Avatar 162, 184 Babe: Pig in the City 81, 189 Barnes, Simon 115, 121, 199 Basic Training 137, 189 Beatley, Timothy 13, 199; and biophilic urbanism 123, 177; and sustainable city 161, 162 Beethoven 70, 189 Being There 125, 189 Bekoff, Marc 70, 199 Ben-Ari, Elia 98, 199 Ben-Hur 90, 189 Bennet, Michael Dana 9, 199 Best Years of Their Lives, The 164, 189 Beverly Hills Chihuahua 71–3, 190 Big Year, The 109, 190

biophilia 12, 87; and birding 119; and gardens 123 biophilic urbanism 12, 13; and eco-city 177; and gardens 123–4, 127, 131, 139; and urban farming 155–6 Birders: The Central Park Effect 13, 106–8, 110, 122, 190; and the Anthropocene 116–21 Birders’ Guide to Everything, The 190, 109 Birds, The 108, 190 Birds of the Gods 108, 190 Birdy 109, 190 Blackboard Jungle, The 50, 190 Blackfish 13, 190 Blue Bird, The 108, 190 Blue Collar 24, 190 Blue Vinyl 10, 190 Body of War 166, 190 Bold Eagles 109, 190 Border Street 32, 190 Born into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids vii, 33, 37–8, 45, 190 Born on the Fourth of July 165–6, 190 Brereton, Pat 9, 200 Bright Victory 164, 190 Bring ‘em Back Alive 92, 94, 190 Bringing Out the Dead 24, 190 Broken Blossoms 49, 190 Bye Bye, Brasil vii, 2, 4–6, 190 Callicott, J. Baird 71, 200 Campbell, Heather 13, 200 Carmichael, Deborah 9, 200 Cat People 91, 190 Catsoulis, Jeannette; and Las Acacias 6–7; and The Legend of Pale Male 114; and The Milk of Sorrow 135 Central Park 123, 190

210 Index Central Station 33, 191 Chicken Run 109, 191 Child of the Ghetto, A 49, 191 Childhood: and Born on the Fourth of July 165; and Children Underground 40; and City of God 51; and Girlhood 59; and Lives Worth Living 159; and My Left Foot 167; and Slumdog Millionaire 52; and the Scent of Green Papaya 134; and Under the Dome 179 Children of Leningradsky, The 34, 191 Children Underground i, vii, 11, 30, 31, 32; and ethnographic cinema verite 35–8; and environmental adaptation 34–5; and narrative; 38–45; and three-act structure 171 Chinatown 10, 21–2, 191 Christensen, Jon 175, 178, 200, 203 Christopher, Nicholas 25, 200 City of Dogs 12, 68, 191; and ecotrauma 73, 74, 76–7, 81 City of God 51, 191 Cleopatra 90, 191 climate change; and birdwatching 119, 122; and the eco-city 183; and urban farming 148, 149 Clockers 54, 191 Clouse, Carey 157, 200 Cohn, Jeffrey P. 96–8, 200 Coming Home 164, 170, 191 Congorilla 92, 191 Constant Gardener, The 125, 191 Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos, The 108, 191 Cronon, William 128, 200 Dark City 10, 23, 191 Dark Days 10, 34, 191 Darwin, Charles 201; and Children Underground 43; and Joseph Meeker 35, 171 Daston, Loraine 70, 201 Davis, Mike 201; and planet of slums 49, 51, 66, 186; and urban gardening 154 Dawkins, Richard 28, 119, 201 Day After Tomorrow, The 183, 191 Denby, David 61, 201 Design E2 174, 191 Dimendberg, Edward 22–3, 24, 201 disability studies 160–2, 171 District 9 9, 67, 188

Divergent 184, 191 Documentary 14, 30, 33–4; and ethnographic cinema verite 35–8; and dogs 72–8; and eco-trauma 53, and environmental racism 54, 88; and eco-trauma 53, and zoos 102–5 Dog’s Life, A 12, 192 Dogs of New York, The 72–3, 74, 192 Dogs on the Inside 72, 73, 74, 192 Dogtown and Z-Boys 37, 192 Double Indemnity 17, 192 Drive 21, 192 ecocinema i, 1, 4; and scholars 9–11 ecocriticism 44, 55; and disability studies 160–1 ecofeminism; and disability studies 160–1; and eco-trauma 50, 57, 66 ecology i, 1, 4, 7–10, 11; and animation 138; and home 32, 57, 59; and society 49; and trauma 68; and underground 25, 30, 32; and urban nature 17, 145, 171 eco-trauma i, v, 10–12, 47; and boys 54–7; and dogs 68–83; and ecorecovery 66; and girlhood 49, 50, 53; and post-apocalyptic film 184; and Under the Dome 179, 184 Edible City: Grow the Revolution, The 14, 144, 146, 152–4, 192 Enchanted 124, 192 environmental adaptation 10, 11; and Children Underground 34, 43–5; and film noir 23; and Lives Worth Living 160, 171 environmental justice 4, 43 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 12, 156 environmental racism 4, 5, 12, 49; and Attack the Block 57; and The Garden 150, 152; Girlhood (2014), 63; and Slumdog Millionaire 52; and Urban Fruit 153 evolutionary narratives 11; and Los Angeles River 17, 186; and comic; 35, 43, 49 Fang and Claw 94, 192 Fast and the Furious, The 10, 192 Ferdowsian, Hope 74, 75, 81, 201 film noir v, 7, 10, 11; and He Walked by Night 25–9; and Los Angeles 17; and On Dangerous Ground

Index  211 1–2, 17; and the underground 22–5 Fish Tank 49, 50, 59–62, 66, 67, 192 Fog Line 126, 192 Foreign Land 2–3, 192 Frankenstein 162, 192 Frankenweenie 12, 72, 192 Freaks 162, 192 Gaard, Greta 66, 68, 202 Garden, The 14, 144, 146; and environmental justice 150–2, 153, 157, 192 Gardner, Catherine Villaneuva 57–8, 66, 202 Gardner, Daniel K. 182, 202 Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie 160, 171, 202 Gattaca 162, 192 Gemein, Mascha N. 162, 202 Get Together Girls 12; and ecotrauma 49–50, 53–4, 66; and ecorecovery 67, 192 Ghost and the Darkness, The 92, 192 Ghost Bird 116, 192 Girlhood (2003) 12, 49–50, 58–9, 66–7, 192 Girlhood (2014) 12, 49–50, 63–5, 66–7, 67, 192 Gladiator 90, 192 Golding, Arthur 20, 202 Gottlieb, Joanne 27–8, 202 Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life 36, 192 Grave of the Fireflies 32, 192 Grease 21, 192 Green Card 124, 192 Grindal Patel, Grete 12, 123, 202 Grinde, Bjorn 12, 123, 202 Growing Cities 144, 146, 152, 158, 192; and sustainability 154–6, 157 Gumball Rally, The 21, 193 Gumprecht, Blake 19–20, 202 Gupta, Sujata 171, 202 Hachi: A Dog’s Tale 70, 193 La Haine 54, 193 Hanson, Elizabeth 90, 104, 202 Happy Feet 138, 193 Happy Feet Two 138, 193 Haraway, Donna 163, 202; and dogs 70, 73, 79, 83 Hardcore 24, 193

Harry Brown 54, 193 Hatari 89, 92–4, 96, 193 Hawk is Dying, The 109, 193 He Walked By Night vii, 11, 17, 18, 25–7, 29, 29, 193 Heider, Karl 36–7, 203 Heise, Ursula K. 9, 175, 178, 200, 203 Herman, Judith L. 53, 203 Heumann, Judith 159, 169, 172, 173–4, 203 Hide, The 109, 193 homelessness 11, 30–1; and bird watching 113; and Children Underground 34–44; and film 32–4; and Lady and the Tramp 71, 76, 81; and urban farming 155 Horowitz, Alexandra C. 70, 203 Hosey, Geoff 90–1, 203 Host, The 9, 10, 193 human ecology 4, 13, 43–4 Hunger Games, The 184, 193 “Hunters in the Sky.” Mutual Of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom 108, 193 I am Legend 70, 193 Inconvenient Truth, An 14, 178, 179, 181, 193 In Darkness 33, 193 In Time 21, 193 Indochina Youth Chasing Coins and Rice 32, 193 Ingram, David 9, 203 Italian Job, The 21, 193 Jenkins, Virginia Scott 146, 203 Jungle Cavalcade 94, 96, 193 Kates, Robert W. 143, 145, 203 Kes 109, 193 Kestrel’s Eye 108, 193 Kid, The 32, 193 Kiss Me Deadly 17, 194 Krutnik, Frank 24, 203 Lady and the Tramp 71, 72, 79, 194 Ladykillers, The 8, 194 Lane, Anthony 82, 203 Last Action Hero 21, 194 Lawson, Laura 146, 157, 203 Legend of Pale Male, The vii, 13, 106–7, 108, 114–15, 121, 122, 194

212 Index Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, The 109, 194 LeGreco, Marianne 150, 203 Leonard, Dawn 150, 203 Leopold, Aldo 43, 175, 204; and dogs 70–1; and gardens 128–9; and zoos 100 Life of Birds, The 108, 194 Light Sleeper 24–194 Lily of the Tenements, The 49, 194 Lives Worth Living i, 14 159–60, 160, 171, 174, 194 Los Angeles River 17–21; and film 1, 21–2, 28, 175 McCormick, K. 162, 204 Macdonald, Scott 9, 125–6, 204 Machine Girl, The 162–3, 194 Macy, Joanna 122, 204 March of the Penguins, The 108, 194 Maquilapolis: City of Factories 10, 194 Marx, Leo 10, 124, 125, 204 Maxwell, Richard 183, 204 Mee, Benjamin 100, 2043 Meeker, Joseph W. 204; and Children Underground 34–5; and Lives Worth Living 171 Meister, Dick 27, 204 Men, The 163–4, 165, 170, 194 Men in Black 9, 194 Merchant, Carolyn 13, 66, 124, 126–7, 131, 204 Merskin, Debra 74, 75, 81, 201 Metropolis 9, 194 Midgley, Mary 71, 205 Milk of Sorrow, The 13, 124, 125, 127, 140, 194; and post-colonial 131; and the middle place 135–9 Milking the Rhino 97, 194 Miller, Toby 183, 204 Million Dollar Baby 162, 194 Miracle of Milan 32, 194 Mitman, Gregg 70, 201 Mr. Bug Goes to Town 13, 124, 124–5, 194; and the garden 127–31, 138, 139 Mr. Deeds Goes to Town 129, 194 Monsters, Inc. 138, 194 Moore, Sarah A. 116, 206 Mumford, Lewis 31, 205 Murder By Contract 23, 194 Murderball 170, 195

Musketeers of Pig Alley 49, 195 My Country 168, 195 My Left Foot 167–8, 195 Nanook of the North 35, 36, 195 Narine, Anil 10, 49, 68, 80, 205 Nenette 13, 88–9, 102–5, 195 New Farms, Big Success: With Three Rock Star Farmers 14, 144, 146, 148, 154, 155, 157, 195 Newman, Peter 161–2, 199 Nhanenge, Jytte 66, 205 Odds Against Tomorrow 24, 195 Olmsted, Frederick Law 123, 205 Olmsted Legacy: America’s Urban Parks, The 123, 195 Olsen, Glenn H. 96, 98, 205 On a Roll 169–70, 195 On Dangerous Ground 2–3, 23–4, 195 Once Were Warriors 50, 195 One Nation Under Dog 73, 74, 76, 78, 81, 195 Opposable Chums: Guts and Glory at the World Series of Birding 116, 195 organismic approaches to ecology 43, 70, 96, 100, 126 Organization, The 28, 195 Orpheus 28, 195 Other Side of the Mountain, The 167, 195 Out of Africa 92, 195 Out of the Pit 12, 68, 195; and ecotrauma 73, 74, 76, 77–8, 79, 81 Over the Hedge 138, 195 Paisan 32, 195 Pale Male 13, 106, 107, 108; and synthetic nature documentary 110–14, 116, 121, 122, 195 Paulie 109, 195 Pelican Blood 109, 195 Pelican Dreams 109, 195 Phantom of the Opera, The 162, 195 Phelps, Norm 99, 205 Pick-up on South Street 23, 196 Pierce, Jessica 70, 199 Pike, David L. 28, 205 Pixote 32, 196 Point Blank 21, 196 Powers, Diana S. 180, 182, 205

Index  213 Price, Jenny 1, 4, 10, 205; and eco-city 175, 186; and underground 17, 18, 28 Pride of the Marines 164, 196 Pursuit of Happyness 33, 196 Rare Birds 109, 196 Ray, Sarah Jaquette 162, 205 Real Macaw, The 109, 196 Recycled Life 33, 196 Red Desert 10, 196 Repo Man 21, 196 Rescuers Down Under, The 108, 196 Return to Me 124–5, 196 Rich, Sarah C. 157, 206 Riding Giants 37, 196 Rio 109, 196 Rio 2 109, 196 Robbins, Paul 116, 206 RoboGeisha 162–3, 196 Rosetta 6, 196 Ross, Andrew 27, 28, 43, 55, 206 Rothman, Hal K. 128, 206 Rust, Stephen 9, 103, 206 Salaam Bombay 32, 50, 196 Salesman 37, 196 Sanders, James 8, 206 Scent of Green Papaya, The 13, 124, 125, 127, 138–9, 196; and postcolonial gardens, 131–5 Schliephake, Christopher i, 9–10, 30, 44, 49, 206 Schrader, Paul 24, 91, 206 Shabecoff, Phillip 128, 206 Shadow of a Doubt 125, 196 Shiel, Mark 3–4, 206 Shiva, Vandana 50, 147, 153, 154, 206 Shumway, David R. 68, 206 Siegle, Lucy 87–9, 207 Singer, Peter 71, 99, 207 Slumdog Millionaire 52–3, 196 Smith, Angela 162, 207 Song of Arizona 32, 196 Spartacus 82, 196 Star Trek Into Darkness 183, 184, 185, 197 Storks 109, 197 Sustainability 10, 13, 14; and disability 159, 160, 162, 171–2; and eco-city 175, 176; and slums 49;

and urban gardens 144, 145, 146, 149–50, 153, 157 Teague, David W. 9, 199 Thiele, Leslie Paul 44, 207 Thompson, Tamara 146, 157, 207 Taken 3 21, 197 Taxi Driver 24, 197 Terminator 2: Judgment Day 21, 197 Them! 21, 197 Thoroughly Modern Millie 124, 197 Tokyo Gore Police 162–3, 197 Tomorrowland 183, 197 To Sir, with Love 50, 196 Touch of Evil 24, 197 Transformers 21, 197 Tsotsi 51–2, 197 Umberto D. 12, 70, 197 Under the Dome 14, 176, 178–82, 184, 186, 197 Unholy Three, The 108, 197 Up the Down Staircase 50, 197 Urban Fruit 14, 144, 146, 152, 153–4, 197 Urbanized 174, 197 Vagabond 6, 197 Vinyan 10, 197 Vogt, Naomi 62, 207 Voices of Transition 14, 144, 146, 147–8, 154, 157, 159, 197 Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit 143, 197 WALL-E 10, 138, 197 “Water Birds.” True-Life Adventures 108, 197 We Bought a Zoo 13, 88, 89, 104, 197; and animals as human salvation 96, 98; and conservation ethic 100–1 Webber, Andrew 7, 207 Weil, Kari 69, 207 Wendy and Lucy 6, 198 Werewolf of London 91, 198 When Harry Met Sally 124, 198 White God 12, 68, 69, 70, 72, 74, 198; and eco-trauma 79–83, 87 White Hunter/Black Heart 92, 198 Wild Boys of the Road 32, 198

214 Index Wild Cargo 94, 198 Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, The 109, 198 Wild Rio 110, 198 Willoquet-Maricondi, Paula 9, 207 Wilson, Edward O. 12, 119, 123, 207 Wilson, Emma 7, 207 Winged Migration 108, 198 Wolfpack 54, 198 Wooden Camera, The 51, 198 Worster, Donald 133, 210

Yan, Shu Guo 121, 207 You’ve Got Mail 115, 198 Yu, Tong Lei 121, 207 Zambezia 109, 198 Zoo 13, 88, 88–9, 102–3, 105, 198 Zoo Baby 91–2, 198 Zoo Quest 108, 198 Zoo Quest: Paraguay 94–5, 198 Zookeeper 13, 88–9, 95–6, 98–100, 101, 105, 198 Zootopia 183, 184, 185–6, 198