Wind and Film: Representations of Wind Energy in the On-Screen Anthropocene
Abstract
Drawing on scholarship in energy humanities, this project uncovers the significance behind film portrayals of wind energy as a way of expanding knowledge of our relationship to alternative energy and its viability through the theoretical frame of object-oriented ontology. The thesis argues that the feature films The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019), Le Vent Tourne (2018), and Turbines (2019) explore relations between human and nonhuman actors through narratives about wind and wind energy. These films challenge the traditional understanding of the active humans vs. passive nature binary by allowing nonhuman components of wind energy a degree of agency within the film narrative. Each film portrays on-screen “energy anxiety” that negatively affects a character’s well-being based on fears of energetic instability, heightened by the implementation of wind. Overall, these representations communicate attitudes towards wind energy that challenge traditional belief in its potential as a sustainable alternative energy source.
Subject
wind energywind power
turbines
renewable energy sources
energy humanities
climate change
global cinema
foreign film
anxiety
object oriented ontology
agency
Glasscock Summer Scholar
Citation
Curtis, Lauren A (2021). Wind and Film: Representations of Wind Energy in the On-Screen Anthropocene. Undergraduate Research Scholars Program. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /194326.