ABSTRACT When Bertrand Tavernier claims that the Lumière Brothers' “Oil Wells of Baku: Close View” “may be the first ecological film ever made,” he seems to be reading the spectacular footage of burning oil wells from an eco-critical perspective. This article examines oil well fire films from 1896 to the present, asking how and why environmental disaster becomes spectacle.

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© 2006 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
2006
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