Film-Philosophy (Jun 2024)

When the Wind Is Gently Rustling: Film and the Aesthetics of Natural Beauty

  • Julian Hanich

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3366/film.2024.0264
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 28, no. 2
pp. 153 – 180

Abstract

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While experiencing natural beauty is a key appeal of the cinema and other moving-image media, academic film scholarship has rarely paid attention to it. In this article I will use the widespread motif of the gently rustling wind as a pars pro toto to make some general remarks about the experience of natural beauty in film. I will first note the firm place of the motif of the rustling wind in film theoretical debates from the late 19th century until today. Then, I will propose three modes of how viewers can experience this beautiful motif in film. In the following section I will discuss how film's mediation modifies the experience of natural beauty. And in a final step I will explore the reciprocal relation between nature and film, and how one can enhance the appreciation of the other. Ultimately, I follow two – mutually imbricated – goals. On the one hand, I aim to (re)connect the film theoretical discourse about the wind in the trees to natural beauty. On the other hand, I use the motif of the gently rustling wind to say something more general about the aesthetic experience of natural beauty in film.

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