Icebreakers - Visionary men and the visualization of climate change

Abstract

When summing up the current state of affairs when it comes climate change awareness, author Eugene Linden stated that climate warnings are ‘heard, but not listened to’ (Linden 2015). In this article we discuss how, and to what extent, cinematic depictions of climate change can help remedy this issue. We base our discussion on the two documentaries, La glace et le ciel (2015) and Chasing Ice (2012). These films focus the lives of their respective protagonists, a glaciologist and a photographer, and the efforts they have gone to in researching and documenting climate change in the worlds polar regions.

Our aim is to discuss how the scientific discourse can be «translated» into film, and the consequences of such transmediations. In particular, our discussions are centred upon the role visualization plays as scientific proof in these films, and the phenomenological influence such documentation can have on viewers.