How Do Ecological Emotions Emerge? An Analysis of Contemporary Swiss Eco-documentaries

Abstract

Confronted by the multiscaled ecological crisis, many experience so-called ecological emotions such as ecological grief and eco-anxiety. Visual media can channel and contribute to creating and nurturing ecological emotions. Specifically, eco-documentaries are one of the triggers of ecological emotions. This paper explores the role of images in the generation of emotions regarding the environmental crisis through a case study of five contemporary Swiss eco-documentaries: It All Begins, Citizen Nobel, Lynx, Taming the Garden and The Mushroom Speaks. It analyses the ecological emotions expressed by the characters or the filmmakers, or the expected emotions of the viewers, with regard to the types of images and their framing, editing, narrative and attractiveness. Finally, drawing on interdisciplinary literature from environmental humanities, this paper discusses the variety and intertwinement of ecological emotions and their interrelations to knowledge of the ecological crisis and pro-environmental actions.

Keywords:

• Documentaries
• Ecological Emotions
• Environmental Ethics
• Swiss Films

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Acknowledgements

We thank the teams of the Swiss Films database and of the Film-documentaire.fr database; and the teams of Dreampixies for Citizen Nobel (Citoyen Nobel, Stéphane Goël, Switzerland, 2020, 89 min), Close Up Films for It All Begins (Tout commence, Frédéric Choffat, Switzerland, 2022, 92 min), JMH & FILO Films for Lynx (Laurent Geslin, Switzerland/France, 2021, 82 min), Mira Film for Taming the Garden (Salomé Jashi, Switzerland/Georgia/Germany, 2021, 90 min) and Intermezzo Films for The Mushroom Speaks (Marion Neumann, Switzerland, 2021, 90 min).

Notes

1 Throughout this paper, the word ‘representation’ is used in its literal sense, namely referring to the description or portrayal of someone or something in a particular way.

2 Weronika Kałwak and Vanessa Weihgold, ‘The Relationality of Ecological Emotions: An Interdisciplinary Critique of Individual Resilience as Psychology’s Response to the Climate Crisis’, Frontiers in Psychology 13 (2022): 2, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.823620; Laÿna Droz, ‘What Ethical Responsibilities Emerge from Our Relation with the Milieu?’, in Human and Nature, ed. Arto Mutanen et al. (Turku: Turku University of Applied Sciences, 2020), 15–29.

3 Lindsay P. Galway et al., ‘Mapping the Solastalgia Literature: A Scoping Review Study’, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 16, no. 15 (January 2019): 2662, https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16152662.

4 Linda Goldman, Climate Change and Youth: Turning Grief and Anxiety into Activism (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2022); Elizabeth Marks et al., ‘Young People’s Voices on Climate Anxiety, Government Betrayal and Moral Injury: A Global Phenomenon’, SSRN Scholarly Paper (Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network, 7 September 2021), https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3918955; Tosin Thompson, ‘Young People’s Climate Anxiety Revealed in Landmark Survey’, Nature 597, no. 7878 (22 September 2021): 605, https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02582-8.

5 Allen Carlson, Aesthetics and the Environment: The Appreciation of Nature, Art and Architecture (London: Psychology Press, 2002); Peter Railton, ‘Aesthetic Value, Moral Value, and the Ambitions of Naturalism’, in Aesthetics and Ethics: Essays at the Intersection, ed. Jerrold Levinson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 59–105; Celia Lowe, ‘The Magic of Place: Sama at Sea and on Land in Sulawesi, Indonesia’, Bijdragen Tot de Taal-, Land- En Volkenkunde 159, no. 1 (2003): 109–33.

6 Random House, Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, Revised edition (New York: Random House Reference, 2005).

7 John Grierson, ‘First Principles of Documentary’, Cinema Quarterly 1, no. 2 (1932): 67-72.

8 Carl Plantinga, ‘What a Documentary Is, After All’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 63, no. 2 (2005): 114–15.

9 Steve Blandford, Barry Keith Grant, and Jim Hillier, The Film Studies Dictionary (London; New York: Bloomsbury USA Academic, 2001).

10 Laura Lindenfeld, ‘Can Documentary Food Films Like Food Inc. Achieve Their Promise?’, Environmental Communication 4, no. 3 (2010): 378; Andy Opel, ‘Structural Change? Environmental Documentary and Globalization’, Environmental Communication 1, no. 1 (1 May 2007): 111–18, https://doi.org/10.1080/17524030701340703.

11 Bill Nichols, Introduction to Documentary, 3rd ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017).

12 Rachel Webb Jekanowski, ‘Green Documentary: Environmental Documentary in the 21st Century’, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 22, no. 1 (1 June 2015): 187–8, https://doi.org/10.1093/isle/isv017.

13 Matthew Nisbet and Patricia Aufderheide, ‘Documentary Film: Towards a Research Agenda on Forms, Functions, and Impacts’, Mass Communication and Society 12 (1 October 2009): 450–6, https://doi.org/10.1080/15205430903276863.

14 Jennifer Males and Peter Van Aelst, ‘Did the Blue Planet Set the Agenda for Plastic Pollution? An Explorative Study on the Influence of a Documentary on the Public, Media and Political Agendas’, Environmental Communication 15, no. 1 (2 January 2021): 40–54, https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2020.1780458.

15 Jialing Huang and Janet Z. Yang, ‘Beyond Under the Dome: An Environmental Documentary Amplified Public Risk Perception about Air Pollution in China’, Journal of Risk Research 23, no. 2 (1 February 2020): 227–41, https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2019.1569090.

16 Helen Hughes, Green Documentary: Environmental Documentary in the Twenty-First Century (Chicago: Intellect L & DEFAE, 2014).

17 Ibid., 118.

18 L.B. Bondebjerg, Engaging With Reality: Documentary & Globalization (Bristol, UK and Chicago, IL: Intellect L & DEFAE, 2014).

19 Henry L. Janpol and Rachel Dilts, ‘Does Viewing Documentary Films Affect Environmental Perceptions and Behaviors?’, Applied Environmental Education & Communication 15, no. 1 (2016): 90.

20 Sapar et al., ‘The Application of Documentary Film in Improving Student Interest: An Alternative for Environmental Education’, IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science 343 (6 November 2019): 012156, https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/343/1/012156.

21 Jacques Aumont and Jean-Louis Leutrat, La théorie du film, Centre d’études et de recherches théâtrales et cinématographiques, Ça-cinéma (Paris: Albatros, 1980), https://www.bibliotheque.nat.tn/BNTK/doc/SYRACUSE/1716330/la-theorie-du-film.

22 James M. Jasper, The Art of Moral Protest: Culture, Biography, and Creativity in Social Movements (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).

23 See, for instance, articles in the analytical and research journal Traverses, 2022, no. 2, ‘L’éco-documentaire à l'épreuve de l'Anthropocène’ http://www.film-documentaire.fr/4DACTION/w_fiche_traverse/4 (accessed April 30, 2023).

24 John A. Duvall, The Environmental Documentary: Cinema Activism in the 21st Century (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017).

25 Laÿna Droz, ‘Challenging Harmony to Save Nature? Environmental Activism and Ethics in Taiwan and Japan’, International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy 10, no. 1 (24 May 2021): 66, https://doi.org/10.5204/ijcjsd.1969.

26 https://www.swissfilms.ch/en-swiss-films-portal/ (accessed April 27, 2023).

27 https://www.film-documentaire.fr/ (accessed April 27, 2023).

28 Citizen Nobel and Lynx are freely available on the Play Suisse platform: https://www.playsuisse.ch/fr (accessed April 17, 2023).

29 https://www.festivaldufilmvert.fr/fr/le-festival/presentation (accessed April 17, 2023).

30 Beth Karlin and John Johnson, ‘Measuring Impact: The Importance of Evaluation for Documentary Film Campaigns’, M/C Journal 14 (18 November 2011), https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.444.

31 Nadia Bozak, The Cinematic Footprint: Lights, Camera, Natural Resources (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2012), https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5hjf37.

32 https://www.swissfilms.ch/en/movie/tout-commence/5E40801F4F6E4E3B9E98BE65BE277FD6 (accessed April 30, 2023).

33 All citations from the films, from the notes of intent of the filmmakers and from the film critiques are translated from French by the authors.

34 For example: Serge Molla, ‘Critique: Tout commence’, Ciné-Feuilles (March 2022), https://www.cine-feuilles.ch/film/7107-tout-commence (accessed April 27, 2023).

35 https://www.swissfilms.ch/en/movie/citoyen-nobel/530D147DB2984720A15B1D1E33D23C31 (accessed April 30, 2023).

36 The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2017 was awarded to Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson.

37 https://www.swissfilms.ch/en/movie/lynx/62F5E0784AA341669187234539B6711B (accessed April 30, 2023).

38 Laurent Geslin, Lynx (Ornans: La Salamandre, 2021).

39 https://www.swissfilms.ch/en/movie/grosser-baum-auf-reise/314F64FFA4724B6DA0D8A5F89569AD97 (accessed April 30, 2023).

40 Céline Leclère, ‘L’homme qui déplantait des arbres’, Images de la culture – CNC (October 2021), https://imagesdelaculture.cnc.fr/web/guest/-/l-homme-qui-deplantait-des-arbres?inheritRedirect=true.

41 Amandine Gachnang, ‘Critique : La Balade des grands arbres’, Ciné-Feuilles (December 2021), https://www.cine-feuilles.ch/film/7038-taming-the-garden.

42 Mehdi Balamissa, ‘Entretien avec Salomé Jashi, réalisatrice de Taming the Garden’, Mediapart (March 2021), https://blogs.mediapart.fr/cinema-du-reel/blog/140321/entretien-avec-salome-jashi-realisatrice-de-taming-garden (accessed December 1, 2023).

43 Leclère, ‘L’homme qui déplantait des arbres Taming the Garden’.

44 https://www.swissfilms.ch/en/movie/the-mushroom-speaks/BB8DF5E8AD384F17BD99065620A0E22E (accessed April 30, 2023).

45 Blaise Petitpierre, ‘Critique: The Mushroom Speaks’, Ciné-Feuilles (June 2022), https://www.cine-feuilles.ch/film/7184-the-mushroom-speaks (accessed December 1, 2023).

46 Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015).

47 Peter McCoy, Radical Mycology: A Treatise on Seeing & Working With Fungi, 1st ed. (Portland, OR: Chthaeus Press, 2016).

48 Christoph D.D. Rupprecht et al., ‘Multispecies Sustainability’, Global Sustainability, vol. 3 (2020 ed.), https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2020.28; Rosi Braidotti, Nomadic Theory: The Portable Rosi Braidotti (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011); Laÿna Droz, ‘Anthropocentrism as the Scapegoat of the Environmental Crisis: A Review’, Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics 22 (2022): 25–49, https://doi.org/10.3354/esep00200.

49 Masashi Soga and Kevin J. Gaston, ‘Extinction of Experience: The Loss of Human–Nature Interactions’, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 14, no. 2 (2016): 94–101, https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.1225.

50 This represents a fascinating avenue for future research.

51 Maria Ojala, ‘Facing Anxiety in Climate Change Education: From Therapeutic Practice to Hopeful Transgressive Learning’, Canadian Journal of Environmental Education 21 (2016): 41–56.

52 Ashlee Cunsolo and Neville R. Ellis, ‘Ecological Grief as a Mental Health Response to Climate Change-Related Loss’, Nature Climate Change 8, no. 4 (April 2018): 275–81, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0092-2.

53 Maria Ojala et al., ‘Anxiety, Worry, and Grief in a Time of Environmental and Climate Crisis: A Narrative Review’, Annual Review of Environment and Resources 46 (2021): 39; Kari Marie Norgaard, Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life, 1st edition (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2011).

54 ‘Species are disappearing, glaciers are melting, the weather is changing. Scientists alert, produce statistics and figures. The catastrophic reports follow one another. The countdown started a long time ago, without any real reactions from political and economic members. What I do not understand is that this emergency is still not the reality. So what to do? Retreat to the woods? Cultivate your carrots? Believe in technology to save us? Close eyes? Block ears?'. Quote from the voice-off of Frédéric Choffat, the filmmaker of It All Begins, translated from French by the authors.

55 Annamaria Di Fabio and Marc A. Rosen, ‘An Exploratory Study of a New Psychological Instrument for Evaluating Sustainability: The Sustainable Development Goals Psychological Inventory’, Sustainability 12, no. 18 (January 2020): 7617, https://doi.org/10.3390/su12187617.

56 Massimiliano Scopelliti et al., ‘What Makes You a “Hero” for Nature? Socio-Psychological Profiling of Leaders Committed to Nature and Biodiversity Protection across Seven EU Countries’, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 61, no. 5–6 (12 May 2018): 970–93, https://doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2017.1421526.

57 Rahul Mitra and Patrice Buzzanell, ‘Communicative Tensions of Meaningful Work: The Case of Sustainability Practitioners’, Human Relations 70, no. 5 (2016): 613, https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726716663288.

58 Ojala et al., ‘Anxiety, Worry, and Grief’, 43; Kendall Cotton Bronk et al., ‘Purpose, Hope, and Life Satisfaction in Three Age Groups’, The Journal of Positive Psychology 4, no. 6 (1 November 2009): 500–10, https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760903271439.

59 N. Kaida and K. Kaida, ‘Facilitating Pro-Environmental Behavior: The Role of Pessimism and Anthropocentric Environmental Values’, Social Indicators Research 126 (2016): 1243–60, https://doi.org/10.1007/S11205-015-0943-4.

60 Ib Bondebjerg, ‘Éco-Documentaires: Cognition, Émotion et Narration’, Traverses – La Revue de Film-Documentaire.Fr, L’éco-documentaire à l’épreuve de l’anthropocène, no. 2 (2022), https://www.film-documentaire-ecrits.fr/traverses2-ecodocumentaires (accessed December 1, 2023).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Laÿna Droz

LAŸNA DROZ holds a doctorate in ethics and environmental policy from Kyoto University. She is the author of the book The Concept of Milieu in Environmental Ethics: Individual Responsibility within an Interconnected World. Her recent work relates to the meta-ethics of biodiversity knowledge. After postdoctoral work at the Basque Climate Change Research Centre and the Rachel Carson Center in Germany, she is currently working at the University of Tokyo, in the Faculty of Frontier Sciences.

Justine Baudet

JUSTINE BAUDET obtained a bachelor's degree in Cinéma from HEAD in Geneva in 2014 and a master's degree in the University of Lausanne in 2019. She worked at several Swiss film festivals, including GIFF, NIFFF and Visions du Réel. Since 2017, she has been a committee member of the Coopérative Audio-Visuelle d'Entraide ‘La CAVE’ and, since 2019, an active member of the ‘Doc'it Yourself’ association. In 2020, she became the Cultural Action Officer for the Territoire de Belfort department, while writing film reviews and supporting contemporary creative documentaries.