The Psychoanalysis of Environmental Crisis: Progress of Eco-Cinema

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The Psychoanalysis of Environmental Crisis: Progress of Eco-Cinema in Dersu Uzala, Medicine Man and Take Shelter Written by Martin Mares

Published: 23 January 2017

This paper analyses three different films representing attempts of the film industry to portray people in the process of re-establishment of the healthy relationship with the nature and their quest for “ecological self” juxtaposing it with a Freudian definition of civilisation as a defence against nature. It is crucial to mention that movies such as Dersu Uzala, Medicine Man and Take Shelter serve as an explication of cultural myths related to eras of the 1970s, 1990s and 2000s in relation with corresponding real-life worsening of environmental crisis and reflecting psychological impacts of climate change. The analysis demonstrates how this marginal genre as opposes to various apocalyptic and dystopian movies develops from a dialogue of opposing forces of the civilisation and the nature into a sphere of an intimate dialogue within our minds to overcome psychological defence mechanisms and recognise the reality of environmental crisis1. We can observe highly romanticised and fetishized depiction of nature in the 1970s “eco-friendly” movies typically following either hippie-style hero on a green crusade to save the nature such as Silent Running (1972) or nonconformist rebel discovering the conspiracy to cover up an ecological disaster. Akiro Kurosawa's celebration of aging taiga tribesman Dersu and his harmonious relationship with Siberian nature in Dersu Uzala (1975) undoubtedly stands for an influential depiction of a man, who throughout the movie treats plants, trees and animals as his equals and therefore he sees himself as being only a part of larger and functional ecosystem. Despite the fact, that Dersu befriends Captain Arseniev, who leads several topographic expeditions to investigate possibilities of industrial expansion for Russian Tzar and later for the Soviet Union. Dersu recognises expedition from the city Khabarovsk as

Marshall George. The Lecture: Strategies of evasion and denial in social attitudes to climate change. September 23. 2014 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u73e0TA_84k 1



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outsiders that cannot live in nature, which is further emphasised by Arseniev's accidents in wilderness and Dersu's ability to save Arseniev's life twice. The turning point of the movie seems to be the moment, when Dersu is forced to shoot the tiger to protect Arseniev’s expedition and this unfortunate event results in Dersu’s feeling of loss over the tiger as if the tiger would be Dersu’s family member2. Moreover, Dersu blames the expedition for bringing instability to the habitat and indirectly causing the death of the tiger, which can be juxtaposed with Arseniev’s failure to understand Dersu’s non-anthropocentric point of view3. We might even argue that Dersu’s ecocentrism makes him the ego ideal of our environmental goals4. Conversely, Dersu is not depicted as a romantic archetype of an indigenous person, who "loves" nature and nature "loves" him back, but he is rather portrayed as an individual, who reaches the level of a sustainable and more responsible way of life from a practical, ideological and moral point of view. Hence, Dersu's relationship with nature is indeed ethical and reciprocal, but it is not ideological. The movie reveals quite clearly that Dersu chops wood, fishes and hunts though he does it only when he needs to satisfy his vital needs, which is fundamentally a different kind of interaction with the nature compared to standards of Arseniev’s expedition or people of Khabarovsk5. The main difference is in Dersu’s ability to establish deeper bond not only with humans like in Areseniev’s case, but he also manages to experience as Wilson calls it “biophilia" or in other words intrinsic love for the entire nature and other forms of life that are surrounding him6. Furthermore, Dersu’s rejection of “superior” form of city life experienced during his stay in Arseniev’s household and his following decision to continue living in nature, since he does not see a human being as being superior compared to other species or even outside the realm of nature. Dersu's "the world" is interconnected with the nature and various plants, trees and species within taiga are presented by Dersu as living beings with their interests such as human beings7. For this reason, Dersu explicitly refuses to acknowledge “myth of the progress” and superiority of civilisation by telling Arseniev during the fierce blizzard that

Naess, Arne. "Self-realization." Ruth Chadwick & Doris Schroeder (eds.), Applied Ethics: Critical Concepts in Philosophy 4 (2002): 195-196. See also - Naess, Arne. "The shallow and the deep, long‐range ecology movement. A summary∗." Inquiry 16.1-4 (1973): 95-100. 3 Naess, Arne, and Satish Kumar. Deep ecology. Phil Shepherd Production, 1992, 116 4 Leopold, A.Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation, Ballantine Books, NewYork. 1949. 5 Naess, Arne. "The shallow and the deep, long‐range ecology movement. A summary∗." Inquiry 16.1-4 (1973): 95-100 6 Wilson E O. Biophilia. Harvard University Press, 1984, p. 4-16, 31, 360 7 Dersu Urzala (1975): “Fire angry, forest burn for many days. Fire get angry, frightful. Water get angry, frightful. The Wind get angry, frightful. Fire, water, wind. Three mighty men." 2



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“man is very small before the face of nature”. We can argue that Dersu apparently developed the mature level of dependency to nature and therefore he feels sad during his visit in Khabarovsk because his attachments to non-human elements of his home in taiga have been breached such as the case of migrants and their attachments to homeland discussed by Martin Jordan8. In other words, Dersu feels extremely disconnected during his stay in Arseniev’s house in Khabarovsk due to the absence of more than human experiences. Hence it completely makes sense, why Dersu expresses his disillusionment with city life by a rhetoric question "how can men live in a box”. Dersu’s inability to survive without the nature in relatively comfortable Arseniev’s household and being separated from nature contrasts with his enthusiasm for life in the unpredictable environment of Siberian taiga. Unpredictability and wildness of nature are simply recognised by Dersu as "the way how it is - the ways of the forest", while Arseniev's topographic mission aims to measure and define borders to symbolically tame uncharted places of taiga to defend humans from nature’s inscrutability. Moreover, Arseniev is shocked and absorbed by the vastness of unknown territory lacking any signs of civilisation. Arseniev’s production of maps stands for Freudian defence of civilisation against nature and particularly the defence against the fear of getting lost in the wilderness and simultaneously being exposed to the sheer power of the nature9. At the same time, Dersu feels connected with the nature in “the heart” of taiga, and he rather enjoys experiencing the nature in its spontaneous form. Furthermore, Arseniev differentiates himself from Dersu by stating that that Dersu saved his life because “he knows how to live with nature”. In other words, Arseniev’s personal experiences in wilderness and Dersu’s enlightening commentaries fail to shake Arseniev’s beliefs in “Myth of the Progress” and necessity for industrial expansion of The Soviet Union10. However, Dersu still serves as a representation of establishing the connection, link and bond with the nature in deeper form. Unfortunately, Kurosawa's movie possibly fails to deconstruct certain amount of pathos linked with putting the nature on the pedestal like an exceptionally wild and beautiful woman, who is introduced to spectators as an object of admiration for a while, though with a promise to be tamed by future generations such as Arseniev’s teenage son, called jokingly “a young captain” by Dersu. Kurosawa’s movie captures abovementioned topics during the era of transformation from Tzar Russia into the Soviet Union in

Jordan, Martin. "Nature and Self-An Ambivalent Attachment?." Ecopsychology 1.1 (2009): 26-31. Freud, Sigmund. Civilisation and its discontents. Broadview Press, 2015.p. 15-16 10 Tarnas R. Cosmos and Psyche. NY: Penguin 2007, p. 12, see also Rust, Mary‐Jayne. "Climate on the Couch: Unconscious processes in relation to our environmental crisis." Psychotherapy and Politics International 6.3 (2008), p. 160-161 8 9



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1920s, though the movie was released in 1975 and therefore we might see the entire story of Dersu and Arseniev as an expression of nostalgia for the "good old times" of Siberian frontier before the nature started to be massively exploited by Soviet heavy industry for minerals and fossil fuels, which in fact coincide with the release of Kurosawa’s movie11. Conversely, Kurosawa's aesthetical depiction of Siberian Taiga fits into Romantic representation of the nature influenced by human phantasy of Nature as it is described by Timothy Morton12. It is quite clear that Kurosawa's movie implies an anticipatory loss of Siberian Taiga due to pollution and deforestation that is likely to come because of industrial expansion of the Soviet Union. Consequently, Kurosawa brings us a dialogue between the civilisation and nature – between the past and the present, and since Carl Jung argued that the trial of humanity is to withstand friction between ancient and modern part of our self, we might discover the possibility of such discourse by focusing on Arseniev and Dersu in the dyad. Moving forward to 1980s, it is possible to identify significant lack of movies focusing on environmental themes, with an exception of rising number of apocalyptic movies dealing less with fear of global nuclear conflict and playing with the idea of techno god represented by wild phantasies about computers, artificial intelligence and cyborgs becoming mad and turning against humans. Since movies like Terminator turned to be box office hits, it was understandable why film industry decided to follow these footsteps throughout the 1990s. Additionally, a continual influx of apocalyptic and dystopian films had delivered rather anthropocentric motifs and grand visual effects of entertaining destruction sitting on the fence between narcissism and perversion, though such movies rarely depicted the nature differently from “raped” victim inflicting oedipal guilt or vicious and vindictive mother nature threatening to destroy civilisation. Even though the idea of castrating mother nature was already coined in 1995 by Gomes and Kanner, film industry had not responded successfully to its core message and the duality of the loss until Peter Jackson's brought movie versions of J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of Rings trilogy (2001-2003) to the silver screen and mainstream film production. Joseph Dodds described how it evoked feeling of mourning after watching scenes, where Ents rise against Saruman's industrial expansion in LOTR: Two Towers (2002) and therefore trigger mourning for both loss of physical nature and romantic phantasy of Nature13. Alongside company of 1990s blockbusters, John McTiernan’s Medicine Man

DeLoughrey, Elizabeth, and George B. Handley, eds. Postcolonial ecologies: Literatures of the environment. Oxford University Press, 2011. 12 Timothy Morton (2007), p. 5, 13 13 Dodds, Joseph. Psychoanalysis and ecology at the edge of chaos: Complexity theory, Deleuze| Guattari and psychoanalysis for a climate in crisis. Routledge, 2012, p. 107 11



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introducing the main protagonist by statement that “He turn his back on civilisation, only to discover, he had the power to save it" appears to be a rather exceptional piece of filmmaking compared its contemporary rivals14. The story follows biochemist Dr Robert Campbell, who lives in a deep rainforest in Amazonia among the indigenous tribe and tries to cultivate serum against cancer from the healing potion of previous tribal shaman. The pharmaceutic company sends female doctor Rae Crane to locate Cambell, who has not been responding for several months, only to discover that Cambell is in possession of one remaining phial of the serum, without notion how to cultivate and reproduce it. The movie itself is very much product of its time, placing Dr Campbell into a position of disillusioned, frustrated and depressed scientist, who finds his refuge in deep Amazonian rainforest among indigenous people. However, his presence and ability to introduce “professional” medicaments to indigenous people forced original tribal shaman to leave the village with his knowledge of healing serum due to his injured pride. At the beginning of the movie, Campbell appears to be highly misogynistic towards Dr Crane, which later unfolds to be his deep sadness, when his wife abandoned him. Subsequently, Campbell's appreciation of nature seems to be ambivalent and highly selfcentred from an emotional and practical point of view because he is an archetypal scientist after all. In other words, in the beginning, he treats nature as primarily serving to his needs, though as he begins to develop a relationship with Crane and re-establish positive attachments to women in general sense, he simultaneously develops healthier attachments to the nature surrounding his field laboratory in the village. At the same time, Campbell is not in denial or state of eco-apathy, since he is often critical of logging companies and civilisation in general sense, though he uses them as scapegoats to blame for the current state of the nature and future destruction of the indigenous village. As the story progresses, Campbell is frustrated due to his inability to cultivate additional serum, though equally important is his frustration from inevitable loss of forest and his refuge among indigenous people, which at the beginning of the film serves him as displacement for his eco-anxiety by participating in various eco-pagan customs and tradition with indigenous people. Moreover, Campbell’s willingness to embody the role of village’s new shaman or medicine man seems to be explicit displacement of incoming deforestation by inhabiting eco-shamanistic phantasies. Furthermore, Campbell’s

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See Medicine Man (1992) posters - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104839/mediaviewer/rm2977696256

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evident adherence to likeable new age beliefs as a form of defence mechanisms described by George Marshall is perfectly expressed by film’s dialogue between Crane and Campbell:15 Crane: “They obviously worship you..” Campbell: "It is the another way around"16. However, Campbell slowly recognises a necessity to convince logging company to stop their expansion because of the destruction of the large amount of forest and exposure of indigenous people to modern civilisation diseases, which is in contrast with his former motivation to stop deforestation due to his belief that some plants around in that area may contain the cancer-healing substance. Meanwhile, he slowly detaches himself from false shamanistic identity and tries to find the true medicine man deep in the jungle, only to realise that medicine man's plants are not the source of healing serum. He experiences loss, mourning and ultimately he can overcome his anger and sadness. Henceforth, Campbell manages to progress from the depressive position through sublimation with a promising prospect of reparation17. By the end of the movie, he decides to use the last phial to cure indigenous boy instead of sending it to a specialised laboratory, while Crane accidently discovers that healing compound is some kind mutation caused by the rare type of ants and their connection to local flora. Nevertheless, conflict with loggers accidently sets the vast area of forest on fire along the entire village and forces Campbell and Crane to leave with indigenous people. McTiernan used footage from documentaries for scenes of burnt acres of rainforest and incorporated them into his film, which adds a welcoming flavour of realism, which places the real loss of rainforest into the foreground. The conclusion of the film remains open, even though Campbell decides to continue his research with Crane in the rainforest and implies that he plans to convince pharmaceutics corporation to negotiate with loggers to stop further deforestation using arguments about cancer healing compound. However, Campbell clearly bluffs and intends to protect the forest per se, since he already knows that rare ants contain the raw compound, which can be multiplied in the laboratory. Hence, we can witness Campbell’s progress from disgusted man, escaping from civilisation and finding refuge in idealised eco-phantasies, while the nature is 15

Marshall George. The Lecture: Strategies of evasion and denial in social attitudes to climate change. September 23. 2014 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u73e0TA_84k 16 Medicine Man (1992) dir. John McTiernan 17 Klein, Melanie. Love, guilt and reparation: and other works 1921-1945. Vol. 1. Simon and Schuster, 2002, p. 352 – 360, 405, 435-437



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being destroyed around the corner and ultimate transformation into a man, who identifies his defences, recognizes his unconscious needs and choose to direct his actions towards the fight against deforestation18. Medicine Man was lambasted by film critics, though a large amount of criticism was bolstered by arguments accusing the movie of worshipping primitivism, backwardness and an awakening myth of the noble savage, while the film simultaneously exaggerated negative traits of post-modern civilisation. Perhaps, it is possible to identify negative rhetoric of the early 1990s in connection with the environmental crisis, since many people had been in denial or projected their anxieties and hatred into eco-activist such as Greenpeace. Nevertheless, most recent research conducted by Journal of Environmental Education in 2011 shows us that participants watching Medicine Man enjoyed the movie and become more favourable toward rainforest preservation, which indicates that real-life people could identify with Campbell’s story and overall attitude of the movie as oppose to people from early 1990s19. As result of this comparison, it can be understood that real-life people and their attitudes toward environmental crisis shifts from primitive defences such as denial to more promising such as sublimation20. The third and last movie, which should be discussed is Jeff Nichol’s haunting drama Take Shelter (2011). Unlike Dersu Urzala or Medicine Man, Take Shelter deals with the environmental crisis without placing the main protagonist into aesthetically appealing Romantic depiction of nature or wilderness to re-inhabit his ecological body. Take Shelter rather follows the psychological struggle of middle-class construction worker Curtis LaForche, who suffers from eco-disaster visions. Apocalyptic visions disrupt Curtis’ relationship with his wife, daughter and town’s community. The vision of Curtis’ nature becomes terrifying even more after his dream, which shows Curtis’ dog biting his arm and subsequent somatic feeling of pain in his arm in real-life. Additional visions contain aggressive flocks of birds, which later forces Curtis to treat animals as potentially dangerous and removes family’s dog from the house. This problem suggests that Curtis starts to perceive animals as horror like creatures



Koger, Susan M., and Deborah DuNann Winter. The psychology of environmental problems: Psychology for sustainability. Psychology press, 2011, p. 26 – 52, 197 - 216 19 Bahk. C.M.Environmental education through narrative films: Impact of Medicine Man on attitudes toward forest preservation. Journal of Environmental Education 42, no. 1: 1-13. 2011. 20 Dodds, Joseph. Psychoanalysis and ecology at the edge of chaos: Complexity theory, Deleuze| Guattari and psychoanalysis for a climate in crisis. Routledge, 2012, p. 54-55 18



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constantly threatening his safety as the nature itself including, e.g., sounds of the thunder increasingly nightmarish21. Blurred lines between Curtis' environmental phantasies and real-life events can be noticed in scenes when calm water suddenly becomes chaotic water sprout; breeze turns into a dusty twister, and regular rain appears to be oily and sticky. Such scenes as juxtaposed with a relatively common depiction of Ohio landscape, Curtis’ town and construction sites – a type of gaze, which might be precisely appealing for Morton, who calls for the “dark ecology”22. Take Shelter indeed refuses to show us idealised or fetishized images of nature and rather focused on "manufactured landscape" including roads, trash and construction sites as well23. It is evident that Curtis starts to recognise a threat of climate change by identifying his psychological defences, which in turn brings all fear and despair into the foreground and therefore makes it almost unboreable for Curtis. Moreover, mortality salience comes in play because deadlier and deadlier visions lead Curtis to adhere closely to symbolic values such as the idea of construction of the bunker to regain former feeling if invulnerability24. Meanwhile, Curtis collapses and seeks the help of a local psychologist to discuss his problems since Curtis links them with possible schizophrenic symptoms, but "self-diagnosis" is swiftly rejected by the specialist. Hence, next phase leads Curtis to compulsive behaviour involving expansion of underground shelter situated near family’s house, buying a ridiculous amount of canned food, pharmaceutics or gas masks while simultaneously separates himself from town’s community due to an increasing number of conflicts over Curtis’ spreading of alarming “prophecies” about incoming environmental disaster. Because of such tension, Curtis is labelled as the troublemaker and lunatic, since he betrays peaceful life of others by spreading exaggerated eco-anxiety. However, Curtis seems to be working through environmental guilt rather painfully, which indicates that such guilt according to Annalee Newitz overwhelms us with a sense of hopelessness25. Curtis's final vision of green apocalypse leaves Curtis calm and not frightened by chaotic and unpredictability of nature, while he is being reassured by his wife that “it is ok”. Henceforth, Curtis’ capacity for further progression through depressive position remains

For further explanation of the connection between animals and horror see also - Dodds, Joseph. "Animal totems and taboos: an ecopsychoanalytic perspective." PsyArt (2012). 22 Morton, Timothy. The ecological thought. Harvard University Press, 2010. 23 Morton, Timothy. Ecology without nature: Rethinking environmental aesthetics. Harvard University Press, 2007, p. 5 24 Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T. & Solomon, S. (1986). "The causes and consequences of a need for self-esteem: A terror management theory". In R.F. Baumeister (ed.), Public Self and Private Self (pp. 189-212). SpringerVerlag (New York). 25 Newitz, Annalee. "Virtual worlds are becoming more like the real world." New Scientist 195.2620 (2007): 3031 21



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to be seen, but it looks like that Curtis’ to overwhelming emotions of fear, grief and losses too much and therefore might be experienced through the safety of “holding environment” of loving relationship described by Nicholsen26. Take Shelter is another step in screening contemporary anxieties to repair our bond with the nature in the era of climate change and rapid changes in the climate change. Curtis is depicted as an average middle-class man, husband and father, who presumably does not care about ecology, but his phantasies perpetuate journey to re-establish Curtis' relation with the "Mother Nature", even though Curtis' progress seems to be slow and complicated. Overall comparison of all three movies that were discussed in this paper shows the significant difference in the way how they deal with the element of the time. Dersu Uzala in the 1970s clearly aims to nostalgic past, Medicine Man addresses its contemporary environmental issues and Take Shelter offers us synthesis of contemporary despair in front of eco-anxiety, while it also warns us that phantasies of green apocalypse might quickly turn into reality in not so distant future if we do not adjust our psyche and unsustainable lifestyle now. In conclusion, it is necessary to produce more films such as Dersu Urzala, Medicine Man or Take Shelter that present the nature and environmental crisis in complex and interconnected relations to our mind.

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Nicholson, Sherry W. "The Love of Nature and the End of the World." (2002

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References: Bahk. C.M.Environmental education through narrative films: Impact of Medicine Man on attitudes toward forest preservation. Journal of Environmental Education 42, no. 1: 1-13. 2011. DeLoughrey, Elizabeth, and George B. Handley, eds. Postcolonial ecologies: Literatures of the environment. Oxford University Press, 2011. Dodds, Joseph. Psychoanalysis and ecology at the edge of chaos: Complexity theory, Deleuze| Guattari and psychoanalysis for a climate in crisis. Routledge, 2012. Dodds, Joseph. "Animal totems and taboos: an ecopsychoanalytic perspective." PsyArt (2012). Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and its discontents. Broadview Press, 2015. Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T. & Solomon, S. (1986). "The causes and consequences of a need for self-esteem: A terror management theory". In R.F. Baumeister (ed.), Public Self and Private Self (pp. 189-212). Springer-Verlag (New York). Jordan, Martin. "Nature and Self-An Ambivalent Attachment?." Ecopsychology 1.1 (2009): 26-31. Leopold, A. Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation, Ballantine Books, NewYork. 1949 Klein, Melanie. Love, guilt and reparation: and other works 1921-1945. Vol. 1. Simon and Schuster, 2002. Koger, Susan M., and Deborah DuNann Winter. The psychology of environmental problems: Psychology for sustainability. Psychology press, 2011. Marshall George. The Lecture: Strategies of evasion and denial in social attitudes to climate change change. Morton, Timothy. Ecology without nature: Rethinking environmental aesthetics. Harvard University Press, 2007. Morton, Timothy. The ecological thought. Harvard University Press, 2010. Naess, Arne, and Satish Kumar. Deep ecology. Phil Shepherd Production, 1992. Naess, Arne. "The shallow and the deep, long‐range ecology movement. A summary∗." Inquiry 16.1-4 (1973): 95-100. Naess, Arne. "Self-realization." Ruth Chadwick & Doris schroeder (eds.), Applied Ethics: Critical concepts in Philosophy 4 (2002): 195-196. Newitz, Annalee. "Virtual worlds are becoming more like the real world." New Scientist 195.2620 (2007): 30-31. Nicholson, Sherry W. "The Love of Nature and the End of the World." (2002). Searles Harold. The Non-Human Environment in Normal Development and in Schizophrenia. NY: International Universities Press, 1960. Randall, Rosemary. "Loss and climate change: The cost of parallel narratives." Ecopsychology 1.3 (2009): 118129. Rust, Mary‐Jayne. "Climate on the couch: Unconscious processes in relation to our environmental crisis." Psychotherapy and Politics International 6.3 (2008): 157-170. Tarnas R. Cosmos and Psyche. NY: Penguin 2007 Wilson E O. Biophilia. Harvard University Press, 1984.



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