What Does It Mean to Be an Ecological Filmmaker?
Knut Erik Jensen’s Work as Eco-Auteur
in Projections
Abstract
Norwegian filmmaker Knut Erik Jensen claims to be an ecological filmmaker. This article explores what this means. Selected examples of filmmakers’ unsound attitudes toward nature are discussed to provide a context for the proposed definition of ecological filmmaking. The latter, it is claimed, goes beyond green filmmaking, by both exemplifying and cueing pro-environmental attitudes. The proposal is to understand ecological filmmaking in terms of a cluster of intentions targeting appropriate attitudes toward the natural environment; the intention, for example, to appreciate nature on its own terms. Intentions alone, however, do not suffice, as the filmmaker’s ecologically appropriate goals must be realized in practice. A consideration of recurring features of Jensen’s cinematic style offers examples of how ecological intentions may be expressed in audiovisual works. It further raises questions about the extent to which a distinct ecological style would be the likely outcome of filmmakers’ widely acting on ecological intentions.
Contributor Notes
Mette Hjort is professor of Film Studies at the Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, University of Copenhagen; honorary professor of Visual Studies at Lingnan University; and affiliate professor of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. She is the author of four monographs, including Small Nation, Global Cinema, and Lone Scherfig’s Italian for Beginners. She has edited a number of volumes, most recently (with Ursula Lindqvist) A Companion to Nordic Cinema. Her current research focuses on transnational capacity building initiatives in the area of moving image production, and on nature-based filmmaking and its possible contributions to the health and well-being of viewers.
Projections
The Journal for Movies and Mind
