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Abstract: How does the Anthropocene, the recognition that we live in an age of human-caused geological and climate change, alter our reading of early cinema? In this paper I will revisit the dominant ‘cinema of attractions’ accounts of early films (Gunning 1990), which were formulated in the 1980s and were rooted in theories of modernity. In the 21st century the ‘Anthropocene’ (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000; Crutzen 2002) has emerged as an influential geological and cultural periodisation superseding or challenging accounts of modernity, prompting a need to reevaluate prevailing interpretations of early film history.

Animated trick films about motor vehicles are especially resonant with Anthropocene concerns, as their dependence on petroleum signals the mass adoption of that fossil fuel as an energy source, which is now recognised as one of the primary contributors to carbon emissions resulting in climate change. I will argue that earlier accounts of these films as modern emphasise and dwell upon the effects of technology on the human body. In contrast, Anthropocene readings reorient our focus on technology’s relationship with landscapes and non-human bodies. The resulting readings of these automobile films hold wider implications for our histories of the stylistic assessment and periodisation of early cinema, the placement of animation within it, and the part they can play in our response to environmental crisis.

 

Malcolm Cook is Associate Professor of Film at the University of Southampton. He is the author of Early British Animation: From Page and Stage to Cinema Screens (2018) and co-editor (with Kirsten Moana Thompson) of the collection Animation and Advertising (2019). His current research focuses on useful animation, especially in relation to petroleum industries, with recent articles on this published in Media+Environment (2024) and Open Screens (2024).