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Accepted Paper
The western, or a film history of narratives about nature
Carlos Tabernero
(Autonomous University of Barcelona)
This paper will offer a historical reading of a range of western film narratives, from the US and beyond, focusing on their narrative and aesthetic conventions and subversions concerning the construction of visual socio-cultural spaces for natural history and the environment.
Paper long abstract
Film history is rich in conceptualizations of nature and the environment. Among different genres, westerns have been largely overlooked as sources of information for historical and socio-cultural scrutiny concerning processes of production, circulation, and management of narratives about nature. However, this film and literary genre has been and arguably still is providing scenographies of nature that have been extremely influential as unequivocally rooted in a wide range of historically contingent constructions and interrogations of narratives about the environment, broadly understood.
This paper will offer a historical reading of a range of western film narratives, from the US as well as from the genre’s multiple connections and offshoots mainly made in South America, Europe and East Asia, focusing on their narrative and aesthetic conventions and subversions, and paying attention to concurrent socio-political and scientific ideas and concerns regarding the environment. I will situate these narratives in specific historical contexts of film (and, later on, television) production, establishing significant links with processes of construction of visual socio-cultural spaces for natural history and, in parallel, with our multidimensional views and debates about nature and the environment.