Animals in FilmFrom Salvador Dalí to Walt Disney, animals have been a constant yet little-considered presence in film. Indeed, it may come as a surprise to learn that animals were a central inspiration to the development of moving pictures themselves. In Animals in Film, Jonathan Burt points out that the mobility of animals presented technical and conceptual challenges to early film-makers, the solutions of which were an important factor in advancing photographic technology, accelerating the speed of both film and camera. The early filming of animals also marked one of the most significant and far-reaching changes in the history of animal representation, and has largely determined the way animals have been visualized in the twentieth century. Burt looks at the extraordinary relation-ship between animals, cinema and photography (including the pioneering work of Eadweard Muybridge and Jules-Etienne Marey) and the technological developments and challenges posed by the animal as a specific kind of moving object. Animals in Film is a shrewd account of the politics of animals in cinema, of how movies and video have developed as weapons for animal rights activists, and of the roles that animals have played in film, from the avant-garde to Hollywood. |
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aesthetic Ahab’s American Humane Association Amores Perros animal body animal film imagery animal films animal image animal imagery animal rights animal welfare animal’s animals in film animatronics audience BBFC Berger birds Blade Runner Bousé camera Charles Urban Cherry Kearton Cinema Cinematograph concerning cruelty cultural depiction Disney Equus ethics example fact family films figure film’s filmmaking Films Animals footage Franju gaze horse Horse Whisperer horse’s human and animal human–animal relations hunting idea important insects instance issues Jean Painlevé killing kinds Lassie lions Lippit London look Marey Moby Dick modernity Monkeys moral motifs movie moving film Muybridge narrative natural history films nature documentaries nature films particularly photographic play produced reflects scenes screen seen sense sentimental sequence shot significance Strongheart structure symbolic television themes timelapse Trader Horn treatment of animals Twelve Monkeys violence visible visual animal whale whilst Wildlife Films