Film Ecology Opening

Film Ecology: Simulated Construction and Destruction in Hooper

The idea of film ecology raises issues related to environmentally friendly approaches to filmmaking like carbon-neutral production, as with The Day After Tomorrow, or set recycling, as with The Matrix 2 and 3. Yet films and filmmaking have impacted on the environment since at least 1896 when Oil Wells of Baku was shot. Deliberate manipulation of the environment during the filmmaking process has also been a part of film history since the inception of the film industry, as in The Life of an American Fireman (1903), directed by Edwin S. Porter, where a fireman, played by Arthur White, battles flames and saves a girl from a burning building. The fury of fires on-screen entertains audiences in films from San Francisco (1936) and In Old Chicago (1938) to City on Fire (1979), Daylight(1996), and Wild Hogs (2007).

Such spectacular effects have their own impact on the screen, but they also damage the ecology involved in each film’s production, causing environmental destruction with spectacular effects that is sometimes used to publicize the film. Gone With the Wind(1939), for example, was promoted before and during its production before the epic spectacle made it to the screen. The success of the novel, Gone With the Wind, a highly publicized talent search for the film’s stars, and the burning of the Atlanta Depot scene as the first scene shot in the film, were meant to impress potential audiences. The film gained notoriety in part because it resulted in so much actual ecological destruction, destruction used as part of the promotion package for the film. The Atlanta Constitution, for example, states, “Ranking with the greatest spectacle scenes in motion picture history is the burning of the ammunition trains” (quoted in Haver 303). The New York Times asserts that “the siege of Atlanta was splendid and the fire that followed magnificently pyrotechnic” (quoted in Haver 305). The destruction was massive, with the burning of the Atlanta Depot standing out as the most integral and damaging scene in the film. This was the first scene to be shot, a scene in which scores of old sets on the studio backlot were burned, including the “Great Gate” from King Kong(1933). For this scene, 113 minutes of footage were shot, with costs of less than $25,000 accumulated, “just $323 more than the allotted budget” according to David Selznick’s Hollywood (Haver 258).  During filming of the scene, all seven of the Technicolor cameras in Hollywood were used to capture flames that shot up 500 feet from a set that covered forty acres. To protect the studio and its stars, production manager Raymond Klune made sure the area was ringed with fire trucks from both the Culver City Fire Department and the Los Angeles Fire Department (Haver 254).

Yet, according to Haver, the fire was seen as a real eco-disaster by the residents in the area: “As the inferno raged, the low-hanging clouds spread the reflection of the flames over most of Culver City, and for the hour and a half that the fire continued, the phone lines in Los Angeles were jammed with anxious callers, all of whom seemed convinced that MGM was on fire” (258). To one witness, “it was just suddenly the holocaust…it scared all of us…it was like a whole town suddenly going up in flames…. Just as this ferocious thing happened, up comes Myron with these two people… all three seemed to be a few sheets to the wind and Myron said something to Mr. Selznick but he just shook him off, he was so engrossed in the fire” (257-8). Such destruction was meant to heighten audience interest, but its potential for damage to the film’s stars meant that stunt men and women doubled for the stars. Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) was doubled by Aileen Goodwin, Dorothy Fargo, and Lila Finn, and Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) was doubled by Yakima Canutt (arguably the greatest stuntman that ever lived) and Jay Wilsey. Canutt (one of Butler’s doubles) led the wagon carrying Dorothy Fargo (one of O’Hara’s doubles) through the fire, for example. Construction and destruction of both the stunt men and women, who serve as “doubles” to the star, and of the environment provide spectacle on the screen and in the tabloids of the time.