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.
