The document discusses key concepts in ecofeminist film theory and analysis. It provides definitions of ecology, eco-politics, and ecofilm theory from various scholars. It examines how ecofilm theory analyzes how the natural world is reflected and imagined in films. The document also discusses feminist approaches to analyzing representations of women and nature in films, including Laura Mulvey's concept of the "male gaze." Finally, it discusses how an ecofeminist film should lead audiences through an "eco-gaze" and "ecofeminist gaze" to identify with female characters' connection to nature.

1. Sherry Mathews
Guest Lecturer
Department of English
St: Mary’s College
Manarcad
Towards an Ecofeminist Film Study:
Nature, Gender and Nation in Lemon Tree

2. Ecology/Eco-politics
‘ a set of beliefs and a concomitant life style that stress the
importance of respect for the earth and all its inhabitants ,
using only what are necessary and appropriate ,acknowledged
the rights of all forms of life and recognizing that all that exists
is part of one interconnected whole’
- John Button
Dictionary of Green Terms. London: Routledge.

3.  ‘the study of biological themes and relationships which
appears in literary works. It is simultaneously an
attempt to discover what roles have been played by
literature in the ecology of human species’
Joseph W Meeker
The Comedy of Survival; Studies in Literary Ecology
(New York; Scribner’s , 1972)

4.  Ruckert advocated that ‘reading teaching
and critical discourse – all release the energy
and power stored in poetry that it may flow
through the human community’
 Ecofilm theory is in a way an extended
application of Ruckert’s “Poems as green
plants” vision to films, considering films as a
creative force/ source that can release an
eco- aesthetic decorum among spectators.


5. Stephen Rust, Salma Monani, and Sean
Cubitt ed. Ecocinema Theory and Practice.
NY: Routledge, 2013.

6.  All films are unequivocally, culturally and
materially embedded.
 Ecofilm theory analyses how this world is
reflected/recreated and imagined in film.
 “Though many films are predictably bound to
common ideologies of nature, many are far
richer in contradictions and more ethically,
emotionally and intellectually satisfying than
much of what passes of eco-politics”
- Sean Cubitt

7.  Address itself to the growing canon of ecofilms
and documentaries, which are made as a self-
conscious reaction to environmental issues and
critical discourses related to ecology.
 A prodigious task of making an atavistic
journey through all the existing films and
analysis it through the ecofilms’ theoretical
terms.

8.  “practically everybody knows that today the
two most immediate threats to survival are
overpopulation and the destruction of our
resources ; fewer recognizes the complete
responsibility of the male system, in so far as
it is male (and not capitalistic or socialistic )
in these two dangers; but even fewer still
have discovered that each of the two threats
is the logical outcome of one of the two
parallel discoveries which gave men their
power over fifty centuries ago; their ability
to plant the seed in the earth as in women ,
and their participation in the act of
reproduction” - Francoise d’Eaubonne

9. Salma Zidane (Hiam Abbass) Abu Hussam (Tarik Copti)
Ali Sulaimani(Ziad Daud)

10. Sigi Navon(Hili Yalan)
Defense Minister Israel Navon(Doron Tavory)

11. “…..In order to give sufficient response to the security demands, we decided it
would be suffice to prune, (not uproot), fifty percent of these trees to 30
cms….This would allow a clear view into the grove neighbouring with the
defense minister’s house….[in] the event that having taken the above action
the respondent will conclude that , security demands are not being met all the
full measure, that is , uprooting of the tree is required”.

12.  Feminist first investigated women from a
sociological perspective considering –
‘woman’ in film as a reflection of woman in
‘nature’.
 The images in film appear coded and
social/gender construct with male lineage.
This disguised and displaced images need to
be decoded(Claire Johnston , Women cinema
as counter-cinema).

13.  Cinema is created fully under ‘male gaze’. In
such representations women takes the role of a
‘spectacle ’ – as an object of desire .Structured in
such a way , main stream films , under ’male
gaze’, female becomes an object for male
fantasies and pleasure.

14.  Mulvey traces “’three looks”: (i) How the
male characters on screen look /perceive the
female characters (ii) perspective of the
male spectator , of female characters on
screen (iii) the third look joins together the
previous two looks . The male audience of
the film identifies himself with the male
character. This leads to; male audiences
consider the female character as his own
object of pleasure. (The visual pleasure and
narrative cinema’ (1975) : Laura Mulvey )

15.  In an ecofeministic film the audience as a whole
should be led through a two stage of self
identification, thus creating an ‘eco-gaze’ and
‘Ecofeminist gaze’ .
 One, the entire spectator should identify with the
female character who considers nature as solace.
This is essence of an ‘eco-gaze’.
 Every woman’s identification with Salma. Salma’s
relentless fight for protecting her Lemon Grove is
every woman’s struggle to create a room/garden of
one’s own, not only for an aesthetic expressions but
also to maintain her umbilical relation with mother
earth and financial independence.

16.  “When you lay siege to a city for a long time,
fighting against it to capture it, do not
destroy its trees by putting an axe to them,
because you can eat their fruit. Do not cut
them down. Are the trees people, that you
should besiege them?”Deuteronomy 20:19,
(New International Version).