Cinematic Arkitecture: Silent Running and the Spaceship Earth metaphor

Abstract

ABSTRACT The film Silent Running (1972) transforms the popular environmental figuration of Spaceship Earth into a science fiction narrative. The film is set on the Valley Forge, a spaceship that contains within biodomes the last of certain Earth ecosystems. By creating a literal equivalent to the metaphor of the earth as spaceship, Silent Running allows for a reading of the trope that exposes contradictions within the environmental politics of the 1960s and 70s. Through an exploration of the relationship between the figure of metaphor and environmentalism, this paper asserts the important role that language serves in the shaping of our relationships with the nonhuman world. A close analysis of examples of Spaceship Earth from photography, discourse, and film reveals the complicated ways in which the trope shapes environmental thinking. In the 1970s the metaphor of Spaceship Earth became synonymous with the images of the earth brought back from space by the Apollo missions. The metaphor and the images combine to emphasize the uniqueness, fragility, and beauty of our planetary environment. When Silent Running takes the figure of Spaceship Earth and re-visualizes it as the Valley Forge, however, the trope’s utopian character is called into question.