This presentation draws on Professor Martin-Jones' current research into how a world of cinemas is negotiating world history in a number of different ways. It analyses a recent trend of films which has engaged, with examples from very different parts of the world, that explores the nonhuman history of our ecosystem. These films about the Earth's memory, as it were, relativize humanity’s existence on the planet in relation to those of animals (living and extinct), plants, rocks, (mythological) monsters, spirits, ghosts, and so on. The two films discussed in this paper, indicative of this trend, are both from 2010: Uncle Boonmee who can Recall his Past Lives (by Weerasethakul Apichatpong), and Nostalgia de la Luz (by Patricio Guzmán), although many such others could be mentioned. Engaging the theory of Gilles Deleuze, Enrique Dussel and Michel Serres, the film analysis will advance anunderstanding of how cinematic archiving of a nonhuman memory relates to the often traumatic histories and environments onscreen.

 

David Martin-Jones is Professor of Film Studies, University of Glasgow, UK. He specialises in film-philosophy, and his research engages with world cinemas. He is the author of several books, including most recently Deleuze and World Cinemas (2011), and has published in numerous journals including Cinema Journal, Screen and Third Text. He is co-editor of various anthologies and special editions of journals, along with the Bloomsbury monograph series Thinking Cinema and the online research resource deleuzecinema.com.