Humans Becoming Animals

Abstract

This chapter attempts to explain the fascination that animals have long exerted upon the motion picture medium. It explores some of the differences among the human gaze, the animal gaze, and the cinematic gaze. Utilizing examples ranging from the philosophies of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Jean-Paul Sartre to films by Edward Dmytryk, Jacques Tourneur, and Paul Schrader, the author explicates affect, identification, and the status of the face in cinematic representations of nonhuman species.