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Crude Aesthetics: The Politics of Oil Documentaries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 May 2012

IMRE SZEMAN
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Abstract

How does the problem of oil appear in documentary film? I provide an answer to this question by examining the narrative and aesthetic choices through which the problem of oil is framed in three recent “feature” documentaries: Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack's A Crude Awakening (2006), Joe Berlinger’s Crude: The Real Price of Oil (2009), and Shannon Walsh's H2Oil (2009). My aim is to understand not only the specific politics enacted through the formal and aesthetic choices made in each film, but to map out what these documentaries tell us about the social life of oil today, and the capacity for films such as these to meaningfully intervene in the looming consequences of our dependence on oil. The essay proceeds in three parts. First, by offering readings of the discursive, narrative and aesthetic strategies of these documentaries, I draw out the ways in which each comes to understand the problem of oil. In the second part, I identify the key insights that these films offer regarding the specific social contradictions and political blockages that emerge from their attempt to name and understand oil. Finally, I conclude with an exploration of the insights these films provide for addressing the antinomies that define and separate the anticapitalist and environmental movements.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 2: Special Issue on Oil Cultures , May 2012 , pp. 423 - 439
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

1 Crude: The Real Price of Oil, dir. Joe Berlinger (DVD; Red Envelope Entertainment, 2009); A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash, dir. Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack (DVD; Lava Productions AG, 2006); and, H2Oil, dir. Shannon Walsh (DVD; Loaded Pictures, 2009).

2 See Jane M. Gaines, “Political Mimesis,” in Jane M. Gaines and Michael Renov, eds., Collecting Visible Evidence (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 84–102.

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13 See Cazdyn, Eric and Szeman, Imre, After Globalization (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 134–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Mark Shenk, “Oil Drops below $100, Gasoline Tumbles, on U. S. Supply Surge,” Bloomberg Businessweek, 11 May 2011, available at www.bloomberg.com/news/2011_05_11/crude-oil-falls-for-first-day-in-three-on-projected-gain-in-u-s-supplies.html, accessed 2 Dec. 2011.

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18 One notable instance of the documentary use of scale is Peter Mettler's Petropolis, which consists entirely of aerial shots emphasizing the size and scope of Northern Alberta oil extraction. Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands, dir. Peter Mettler (DVD, Greenpeace Canada, 2009).

19 Hardt, 271.

20 Ibid., 272–3.

21 Ibid., 273.

22 Mitchell, Timothy, Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil (New York: Verso, 2011)Google Scholar, 1.