Jean Painlevé: Thinking with Tentacles

Abstract

Art and science are in constant dialogue in the work of Jean Painlevé, a French scientist and film-maker whose films are devoted to depicting underwater creatures in their aquatic environments. His 1928 movie The Octopus portrays a tentacular creature as a seductive protagonist that becomes an effective tool for scientific research and the dissemination of its results to a broader public. By inviting the viewers to participate in wonderous journeys into the ocean, the octopus functions as an epistemic object and fictional character alike. As this article shows, it is through the intermingling of entertaining effects – with scenes that negotiate the role of the octopus as an object of environmental study – that the question of how human beings can relate to nature in a non-hierarchical way arises.