Abstract/Summary

An important theme in current studies of environmental representation is the inadequacy of many narratological and stylistic techniques for registering ecological complexity. This article argues that, in the case of cinema, water constitutes an especially vivid example of an allusive natural subject, and it examines the means by which one film, The Bay (Barry Levinson, 2012), manages to confront that challenge. It pays particular attention to The Bay’s treatment of animal life, and its acknowledgement of water’s infrastructural currency. The article draws on the writings of ecocritical literary theorist Timothy Morton and media historian and theorist John Durham Peters