As a medium of modernity, film has always been entwined with the energy regime sustaining it. This thesis is interested in the interrelation between film and oil, and approached as a piece of petro-fiction, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s film The Wages of Fear (1953) is subject to a close, ecocritical analysis. A selection of four additional oil-films are used as points of comparison. By looking at a variety of representational and aesthetic aspects, the study explores how the film visualises the Anthropocene and negotiates the oil culture in which it exists. By reading the film in terms of oil, this thesis finds that the film in various ways expresses an entanglement with oil culture, while also criticising the same dependency. From the five oil films that have been analysed, catastrophe is an inherent motif, and part of the attraction of oil as subject matter, mirrored in broader culture of exuberance. In contrast to the other films, The Wages of Fear plays less into spectacle but opens to a critical examination of the various exploitations involved at the hands of the oil industry.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-182340 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Helgesson Ralevic, Sonya |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Filmvetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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