Cli-Fi and Human Approaches to Ecology

Some contemporary monstrous cli-fi films embrace human approaches to ecology. The human ecology movement grew out of the work of Ellen Swallow Richards, who translated Haeckel’s work from its original German and, according to Robert Clarke, introduced the concept of ecology in the United States. Richards, an MIT chemist, defined human ecology as "the study of the surroundings of human beings and the effects they produce on the lives of men" (1910). Since she viewed humans as part of nature, she considered urban problems like air and water pollution as products of human activity imposed on the environment and, subsequently, best resolved by humans.

Although they also highlight a masculine action hero, both The Road (2009) and The Book of Eli stress recovery from Anthropocene apocalypses and the cannibalism at first associated with survival. Directed by Darren Aronofsky, Noah (2014) continues the human focus found in films such as No Blade of Grass. In this rewriting of the Biblical Genesis story, Noah (Russell Crowe) gains the trust of God and his “Watchers” by contesting the environmental disasters caused by Tubal-cain (Ray Winstone), a descendent of Cain. According to the film’s opening, Cain and his offspring “build a great industrial civilization” that “devoured the world.” Instead of exploiting the earth’s resources, Noah teaches his family to live sustainably, protecting nature as a steward rather than a figurative rapist. As a descendent of Seth, he “defend[s] and protect[s] what is left of creation,” according to the opening narration.

But Noah also serves as a super-masculine action hero protecting his family and the Earth at any cost. In this reboot of the Biblical story, Noah decisively revises God’s plan to rebuild all life, including humans, by eliminating wives and children from the Ark. In this version, Noah believes that because “everything that was beautiful, everything that was good we shattered, mankind must end.” After the flood ends, Noah tells his family, when his adopted infertile daughter Ila (Emma Watson) and the last of his sons Japheth (Leo McHugh Carroll) die, so will humanity. In Noah’s mind, humans will only repeat their mistakes and destroy creation if given the chance.

Instead, Noah’s grandfather Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins) has miraculously restored Ila’s fertility. When she gives birth to twins girls, Noah cannot kill his granddaughters, so human ecology prevails. In Noah as in the Bible, however, it is a higher power that intervenes to cleanse the world and provide the space for a new beginning after the great flood. As the narrator explains, Noah and his family must “be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth.” Most of humanity is destroyed, but the remaining extended family serves as a curious genesis for the rise of human populations around the world.

           

Winter's Bone and EcoRegionalism

Ecoregionalism Themes in Winter’s Bone

According to Chester Foster at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, “there is a growing trend to approach land use, natural resources and environmental problems on a regional basis. Since existing government agencies often lack broad authority, local and environmental leaders are increasingly taking the initiative to address the social, economic and environmental issues of a particular place by reaching across conventional political and jurisdictional boundaries, sectors and disciplines.”

As Foster notes, “At the turn of the twenty-first century, prompted by dissatisfaction with the growing numbers, scale and complexity of governmental functions, and coincident with the public commitment to civic forms of environmentalism, the stage was set for the current revival of interest in regionalism.”

Foster notes multiple characteristics of a region that could range in size from a neighborhood to a larger multi-state area like the Midwest or Appalachia. Foster outlines seven attributes associated with a “region” that inform approaches to environmental concerns:

·       a special place that people care about and identify with;

·       a named area that "stirs the blood and arouses passion";

·       a place with a unity or homogeneity of some sort;

·       an area defined by common system functions;

·       a place with a similar context and culture;

·       an area with a psychic identity (a "region of the mind"); and/or

·       a place with a history ("story") around which people can convene, organize and plan for what they want and need (C. Foster 2002a).

Winter’s Bone as both novel and film adaptation fulfills all of these criteria, illustrating the power of place as both identity marker and source of conflict. The environmental connections serve as both positive and negative markers of the Ozark Mountain place identity.

Group I’s presentation notes ways the novel addresses many of these concerns, noting several connected with unity and common system functions:

“There is the acknowledgement of outsiders, the law that demands Jessup from the community despite the community having ‘taken care of’ Jessup. 

“There is the internal power structure of the Ozark valleys that have been settled by the original families, which state law does not recognize but by which Ree and her kin must abide. 

“The resolution at the end of the novel involves Ree appeasing the community’s internal system of justice and the external system of state law.  The ending hints that Ree may become a go-between for the state and county law officers and her community, as she ponders a possible future with the bond office in the way of making peace between them and her own people.”

The novel and film also broach environmental concerns specific to the region that highlight a people’s connections with their ecology. The obvious one noted in the PPT are the family trees Ree refuses to sell:

“The sun was taller though light had not yet broken through to the ground. The path was narrow and iced on the north slope. These rough acres were Bromont acres and they’d never been razed for timber, so the biggest old trees in the area stood on this ground. Magically fat and towering oak trees with limbs grown into pleasingly akimbo swirls were common. Hickory, sycamore, and all the rest prospered as well. The last stretch of native pine in the county grew up the way, and all the old-growth timber was much coveted by sneaking men with saws. If sold, the timber could fetch a fair pile of dollars, probably, but it was understood by the first Bromont and passed down to the rest that the true price of such a sale would be the ruination of home, and despite lean years of hardship no generation yet wanted to be the one who wrought that upon the family land. Grandad Bromont had famously chased timber-snakers away at gunpoint many, many times, and though Dad had never been eager to wave his gun about in defense of trees, he’d loaded up and done it whenever required.” Woodrell, Daniel. Winter's Bone (p. 104). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

One could also argue that environmental injustices contribute to the meth epidemic afflicting the interconnected Ozark families. Although missing from the plot of either novel or film, lead and zinc mining have negatively affected resources including water and soil, on which rural families rely.

The novel especially highlights the conflicting relationships with the natural environment shared by characters in the work.  Their survival relies on resources like the potatoes they grow and the venison and squirrel they “harvest.” But Ree also battles the elements in the winter setting of the novel, especially because in the novel’s context, she stomps through snow with bare legs below cotton dresses and a shared winter coat. The film glosses over some of this but still emphasizes this dual relationship with the natural world with Ree’s march across the hills and search for help, in small ways via shared supplies and boarding for a horse, as well as the central search for her father’s bones.