Animal Deaths on Screen: Film & Ethics

Abstract

Do animals understand death? How does the cinema represent death? The concept of death has played a crucial role in anthropocentric discussions of the representation of human/animal relationships in cultural practices. This paper will explore the representation of animals and death in the cinema from its beginnings to the present in relation to questions of ethics, and the cinematic representation of human/animal intersubjectivity. It will argue that while some individual filmmakers have attempted to represent animal death ethically, this topic remains largely unexamined in theoretical writings on the cinema. This paper will suggest that the spectator frequently seeks ways to displace fears about the death process onto the animal and images of animal death. Finally, I will argue that the space created between spectator and the image of actual animal death on screen is an ethical space that gives rise to a creaturely gaze with the potential to break down boundaries, and to affirm communicability between human and non-human animals in a non-anthropocentric context.

Keywords

• animals
• death
• cruelty
• film
• documentary
• creaturely
• gaze
• vulnerability
• ethics
• anthropocentrism
• emotions