MLR, ., I Suffer, erefore I Am is a stimulating, innovative, and insightful discussion of empathy and the reading process in relation to narratives of suffering. Furthermore, as well as considering the limits of empathy, Robson also challenges the limits of the reader by compelling him/her to engage with and reflect on difficult narrative themes such as parental grief and filicide. is study will appeal to a wide range of readers and researchers from diverse areas such as French Studies, Women’s Writing, Affect Studies, Trauma Writing, and Feminist eory. M U J R Italian Ecocinema: Beyond the Human. By E P. (New Directions in National Cinemas) Bloomington: Indiana University Press. . xi+ pp. $ (ebk $.). ISBN –––– (ebk ––––). Among the myriad challenges facing the world today, arguably the greatest and most pressing is climate and ecological breakdown, a crisis that is now both political and existential in nature. Yet it is only comparatively recently that film studies has begun to engage seriously with environmental issues through pioneering works such as Ecocinema: eory and Practice, ed. by Stephen Rust, Salma Monai, and Sean Cubitt (London: Routledge, ). Ecocritical approaches to film and the moving image fall broadly into two camps: those addressing the environmental impacts of film practice and those examining the representational practices through which films depict the natural world and environmental issues. e most comprehensive works attempt to do both, and to link the two. Elena Past’s Italian Ecocinema: Beyond the Human is one such book. It is also one of the first to apply an ecocritical framework to a specific national tradition and, as the author notes in her Introduction , Italy constitutes a particularly rich and pertinent case study, both because Italy was one of the first countries to make the protection of the landscape part of its constitution and because abuses of these laws have had a particularly dramatic effect on the country’s landscapes and environment. In addressing such a broad topic, the author sensibly opts for a case-study approach, focusing on five films, all bar one of which were produced in the new millennium, when environmental issues finally became central to political discourse. e case studies range from established classics (Michelangelo Antonioni’s Deserto rosso/Red Desert, ) to some of the most internationally successful and critically acclaimed recent Italian films (Matteo Garrone’s Gomorra/Gomorrah, , and Michele Frammartino’s Le quattro volte, ), but also include one title little known outside Italy (Giorgio Dritti’s Il vento fa il suo giro/e Wind Blows Round, ) and one documentary (Giovanna Taviani’s Fughe e approdi/Return to the Aeolian Islands, ). is choice of case studies is exemplary, not solely for its range but also because it allows the author to approach the subject from a multitude of perspectives. us, the book embraces a variety of topics such as: ‘cinematic sound, nonhuman actors, cinematic waste, the toxic elements of filmmaking, and cinematic and volcanic “recycling” of archival material’ (p. ). One of the most striking and effective methodological choices underpinning this Reviews analysis is the decision to use first-hand interviews with ‘ordinary’ crew members as a primary resource. Eschewing the usual focus on directors, scriptwriters, and producers , the author instead draws on first-hand interviews with location managers, set designers, sound recordists, production secretaries, etc. is rare perspective results in some original and highly revealing insights into contemporary (Italian) production practices. A second strength of the project is that it ‘reaches across disciplinary boundaries to draw on insights from fields as diverse as Italian screen studies, volcanology, animal studies, philosophical ethnology, and acoustic ecology’ (p. ). Past is at her best here, bringing a wide-ranging intellectual enquiry to bear on her insightful and convincing textual analysis of the films themselves. e final, and perhaps most unusual, facet of her approach is the way in which she integrates her own experience and research process into the account, mirroring the imbrication of production practices and representational strategies within her analysis. is makes for a highly provocative and readable account of the way in which Italian cinema has interacted with the natural world and with environmental issues, while making it clear that such an...
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May 1, 2022
Aleks Wansbrough 
Open Access