Description
Book SynopsisExamines how wildlife filmmaking changed in reaction to the struggle between portraying good science and gaining a popular audience.
Trade Review"Mitman's research, nuanced and satisfying, contributes to both film theory and ecocritical theory and explores the ways in which they should not be separated."
-- Stephanie Lyells * Journal of Ecocriticism *
"How the wildlife documentary got from Roosevelt to Disneyworld is a story of charlatans, hucksters, crooks, imaginative cameramen, brilliant zoology and shameless appeal to the sex and violence of life as cinema audiences have grown to expect it to be. Mitman . . . tells the American version of this lurid celluloid safari."
-- Tim Radford * The Guardian *
"American wildlife film-makers . . . abandoned truth in favor of more alluring lode stars. Reel Nature is an admirable history of why they did so. . . . Very well told."
-- Stephen Mills * Times Literary Supplement *
"While nature films have had a positive impact on our understanding of nature, the whole truth about our place in the web of life has been left on the cutting-room floor."
* Booklist *
Table of ContentsPrologue
1 / Hunting with the Camera
2 / Science versus Showmanship on the Silent Screen
3 / Zooming In on Animals' Private Lives
4 / Wildlife Conservation through a Wide-Angle Lens
5 / Disney's True-Life Adventures
6 / Domesticating Nature on the Television Set
7 / A Ringside Seat in the Making of a Pet Star
8 / Global Visions, Tourist Dreams
Epilogue
Notes
Credits
Index
