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.

 

Daniel White is Professor Emeritus and founding faculty member of the Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University. 

1. Introduction: Stepping into the Play FrameCinema as Mammalian Communication.- 2. Januss Celluloid and Digital Faces: The Existential CyborgAutopoiesis in Christopher NolansMemento.- 3. Documentary Intertext: Robert GardnersDead Birds 1964.- 4. Cinemas Historical Incarnations: Traveling the Möbius Strip of Biotime inCloud Atlas.- 5. Documentary Intertext: John Marshall,The Hunters 1957.- 6. Janus East and West: Multicultural PolyvocalityTrinh Minh-has The Fourth Dimension andThe Digital Film.- 7. Documentary Intertext:Trance and Dance in Bali 1951.- 8. Januss Interspecies Faces: Biomorphic Transformations in the Ecology of Mind in James CameronsAvatar.- 9. Documentary Intertext: André Singers and J. Stephen LansingsThe Goddess and the Computer 1988.- 10. Conclusion: Toward a Transdisciplinary Critical Theory of Film.