Contemporary Eco-Food Films: The Documentary Tradition
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Contemporary Eco-Food Films: The Documentary Tradition
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Robin Murray and Joseph Heumann discuss the recent popularity growth of food oriented documentaries in their article Contemporary Eco-Food Films: the Documentary Tradition. Murray and Heumann observe that many recent food documentaries have focused on the negative ecological impact of industrial food production techniques and they argue that these films can be categorized by their different aesthetic approaches to arouse social reform, each with varying degrees of effectiveness. Murray and Heumann claim that documentaries such as Morgan Spurlock's Supersize Me rely on the narrator's performance to show one individual's emotional response to modern industrialization. Other recent documentaries such as Food Inc. and King Corn attempt to invoke environmental nostalgia in order to inspire viewers to embrace the golden days of local family-owned farms as opposed to corporate factory farms. They go on to say that “the film’s assertions are weakened, however, not only because of an over-reliance on the authority of a narrator, but also because the film argues its points from single examples”.
Ultimately Murray and Heumann prefer the minimalist visual rhetoric employed by Nikolaus Geyrhalter in Our Daily Bread, another documentary targeting industrial food factories. They note that Geyrhalter does not rely on emotional narration or interviews to express his message. Rather he takes an objective, visual approach, displaying the progressing stages of industrial food production for a multitude of plants and animals, climaxing with the harvest and slaughter at the end of the line. Murray and Heumann conclude that this simple approach of visual documentation without moral pronouncement is superior compared to explicit emotional appeals because it “provides ample room for audiences to interpret the actions documented to invent and engage in acts of their own”.
Murray, Robin L., and Joseph K. Heumann. "Contemporary Eco-Food Films: The Documentary Tradition." Studies In Documentary Film 6.1 (2012): 43-59. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 12 Dec. 2013.
Ultimately Murray and Heumann prefer the minimalist visual rhetoric employed by Nikolaus Geyrhalter in Our Daily Bread, another documentary targeting industrial food factories. They note that Geyrhalter does not rely on emotional narration or interviews to express his message. Rather he takes an objective, visual approach, displaying the progressing stages of industrial food production for a multitude of plants and animals, climaxing with the harvest and slaughter at the end of the line. Murray and Heumann conclude that this simple approach of visual documentation without moral pronouncement is superior compared to explicit emotional appeals because it “provides ample room for audiences to interpret the actions documented to invent and engage in acts of their own”.
Murray, Robin L., and Joseph K. Heumann. "Contemporary Eco-Food Films: The Documentary Tradition." Studies In Documentary Film 6.1 (2012): 43-59. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 12 Dec. 2013.
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http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy2.library.illinois.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=6de94731-a198-499a-8f6b-fd66b065efa7%40sessionmgr4005&vid=2&hid=4107
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“Contemporary Eco-Food Films: The Documentary Tradition,” My Omeka, accessed May 5, 2024, https://engl104cuddihy.omeka.net/items/show/25.