1. Introduction: Stepping into the Play Frame—Cinema as Mammalian Communication.- 2. Janus’s Celluloid and Digital Faces: The Existential Cyborg—Autopoiēsis in Christopher Nolan’s Memento.- 3. Documentary Intertext: Robert Gardner’s Dead Birds 1964.- 4. Cinema’s Historical Incarnations: Traveling the Möbius Strip of Biotime in Cloud Atlas.- 5. Documentary Intertext: John Marshall, The Hunters 1957.- 6. Janus East and West: Multicultural Polyvocality—Trinh Minh-ha’s The Fourth Dimension and The Digital Film.- 7. Documentary Intertext: Trance and Dance in Bali 1951.- 8. Janus’s Interspecies Faces: Biomorphic Transformations in the Ecology of Mind in James Cameron’s Avatar.- 9. Documentary Intertext: André Singer’s and J. Stephen Lansing’s The Goddess and the Computer 1988.- 10. Conclusion: Toward a Transdisciplinary Critical Theory of Film.

This book provides an interdisciplinary analysis of film in the context of the Anthropocene: the new geological era in which human beings have collectively become a force of nature. Daniel White draws on perspectives in philosophy, ecology, and cybernetics (the science of communication and control in animals and machines) to explore human self-understanding through film in the new era. The classical figure of Janus, looking both to the future and the past, serves as a guide throughout the study. Both feature and documentary films are considered.  

Offers an original perspective on film in light of cross-cultural, environmental, postcolonial, and scientific-technological source. One of the first books to deal with Film in the Anthropocene. Includes studies of classic documentary films as well as feature films.

GPSR Compliance The European Union's (EU) General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) is a set of rules that requires consumer products to be safe and our obligations to ensure this. If you have any concerns about our products you can contact us on ProductSafety@springernature.com. In case Publisher is established outside the EU, the EU authorized representative is: Springer Nature Customer Service Center GmbH Europaplatz 3 69115 Heidelberg, Germany ProductSafety@springernature.com