Ha Hughes

Humans, sharks and the shared environment in the contemporary eco-doc

Focussing on the film Sharkwater directed by Rob Stewart (2006), this article discusses formal interpretive aspects of recent environmental documentaries which are intended to raise awareness about environmental issues. It is argued that contemporary environmental documentaries seek to persuade audiences to protect the shared physical environment by increasing the amount of information and imagery available to a shared cognitive environment. An integral part of this process is the conscious awareness of attitudes towards information presented. In the case of recent environmental films about threatened species it is argued that the inclusion of the human and the wild animal in the frame is a technique used to raise awareness of the complex questions concerning human attitudes towards other animals as well as towards other human beings. It is argued in particular that activist films are concerned to make visible the necessity for human cooperation in the protection of endangered species.

Introduction: The Bricolage of Documentary and Disability

This is an edited collection of essays exploring the intersection between documentary film and disability studies. It is intended to fill a gap in both disciplines: on the one hand, documentary studies need to discuss contemporary portrayals of disability, practices of disabled filmmakers and industry policies that determine access, inclusion and representation; on the other hand, disability studies need to adopt more explicit methodologies that explore film texts, authorship and spectatorship in order to assess the current situation of disability in the television and independent documentary sector. On a more social level, the purpose of this volume is to address the medial construction of disability and reduce ‘otherness’ as a phenomenon of cultural stigmatisation.

Documentary and Disability

This edited collection of contributions from media scholars, film practitioners and film historians connects the vibrant fields of documentary and disability studies. Documentary film has not only played an historical role in the social construction of disability but continues to be a strong force for expression, inclusion and activism. Offering essays on the interpretation and conception of a wide variety of documentary formats, Documentary and Disability reveals a rich set of resources on subjects as diverse as Thomas Quasthoff’s opera performances, Tourette syndrome in the developing world, queer approaches to sexual functionality, Channel 4 disability sports broadcasting, the political meaning of cochlear implant activation, and Christoph’s Schlingensief’s celebrated Freakstars 3000.

On Andrew Kötting’s Mapping Perception

In this chapter Hughes identifies Andrew Kotting’s collaborative film Mapping Perception (1998–2002) as an innovative experimental documentary about disability that is still worth viewing today. She develops an interpretation of the film that focuses on the performance of Andrew Kotting’s daughter Eden, who was diagnosed with Joubert syndrome as a baby. The collaboration between the scientists and the artistically gifted Kotting family is viewed as the kind of investigation into dis/ability proposed by Michael Schillmeier in his book Rethinking Disability. The complex manipulation of the aesthetics of filmmaking becomes meaningful through the representation of Eden reflecting on her own life, her articulation of the words that describe her condition and her own agency as a disabled person responding to the demands of the filming process.

Michael Haneke’s cinema: the ethic of the image

emotion, the subject experiences a bodily sensation, but the significance of emotion arises from without the subject, in the context of social life’ (121). Looking at various films by Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Laine goes on to show how ‘cinema could be seen as a means of relating to the world, and how cinematic emotions arise from the intersubjective conditions of human existence’ (121). In conclusion, Shame and Desire is a relevant book not only in terms of enriching our understanding of works by various European filmmakers, some the subject of more academic attention than others up until now. It is also a sophisticated reworking of theories of spectatorship, taking them away from the traditional understanding of the film viewer as detached voyeur, and towards the more ‘holistic’ understanding of the film viewer (and the human in general) as not just social, but also enworlded. One does wonder whether Laine might negotiate the possibility of humans being shameless from time to time – and what this might mean; but on the whole, Shame and Desire is a significant contribution to our understanding of the emotional response to film.