Animals in Film (LOCATIONS)

Animals have been an inspiration to moving pictures. The mobility of animals presented technical and conceptual challenges, the solutions of which were important in advancing photographic technology, accelerating the speed of both film and camera.

In approaching the relationship between animals, photography, and cinema, Jonathan Burt draws on the work of Eadweard Muybridge and Jules-Etienne Marey, early safari films, the political context of animals in cinema, how movies and video have developed as weapons for animal rights activists, and the roles that animals have played in film from the avant-garde to Disney. He shows that animal imagery has effected shifts in contemporary attitudes to animals.

Jonathan Burt is a freelance writer and lives in Cambridge, U.K.