ABSTRACT

This essay introduces the descent as a critical vantage point that broadens the mountain film genre and reconsiders modernist debates with an eye towards cinema’s socio-ecological substance. I analyze three films—Philipp Stölzl’s Nordwand (2008), Nils Gaup’s Ofelaš (1987), and Jeff Orlowski’s Chasing Ice (2012)—for how they highlight social connectivity and environmental sustainability in their accounts of national tragedy, Indigenous legend, and eco-catastrophe. Central to this inquiry are the multiperspectival and self-reflective qualities of cinema and the ways in which its immersive qualities dovetail into cinematic world-building and global decolonization. By bringing media ecology together with postcolonial scholarship on alpinist control and film historical reflections on descent, I argue that cinematic cultures of descent reveal the hidden stakes of alpinism and challenge established ideas of the perception of self and Other in modern mountaineering. This, in turn, prompts fresh registers of thinking mountains and mountaineering in ways that invite cultural renegotiations of gender roles, power, and individualism among mountaineers. Ultimately, it highlights the special role film plays in facilitating a change of perspective, thus affecting behavior in the human and non-human world.

摘要

这篇文章介绍了下降作为一个关键的有利点，它拓宽了山地电影类型，并重新考虑了现代主义辩论，着眼于电影的社会生态实质。我分析了三部电影——Philipp Stölzl 的Nordwand (2008)、Nils Gaup 的Ofelaš (1987) 和 Jeff Orlowski 的Chasing Ice(2012)——因为他们如何在他们对国家悲剧、土著传说和生态灾难的描述中强调社会联系和环境可持续性。这一探究的核心是电影的多视角和自我反思的品质，以及其身临其境的品质与电影世界建设和全球非殖民化相吻合的方式。通过将媒体生态学与关于阿尔卑斯登山者控制的后殖民学术研究以及对下降的电影历史反思相结合，我认为下降的电影文化揭示了阿尔卑斯主义的隐藏利害关系，并挑战了现代登山中自我和他人感知的既定观念。这反过来又促使人们对登山和登山进行新的思考，从而引发登山者之间对性别角色、权力和个人主义的文化重新协商。