Stray aesthetic in the cinema of Andrea Arnold

This paper seeks to contribute to the scholarly examination of the nonhuman in the cinema of Andrea Arnold by reading her work through the figure of the stray, proposed by Julia Kristeva and developed by Barbara Creed in her exploration of stray ethics in the Anthropocene. Through a close analysis of Arnold's three films, Dog (2001), Wasp (2003) and Fish Tank (2009), I argue that Arnold's sensory-driven cinema transcends the focus on the human body and its phenomenological rhythms through which it is commonly read by offering instances of what I dub non-anthropocentric stray visuality, realised through her treatment of the environment (both built and natural) and the nonhuman beings that inhabit it. I assert that Arnold's filmmaking confounds these overlapping binary oppositions in complex ways that are deeply implicated in current philosophical debates about the ecological.

Automated summary

This paper aims to contribute to the study of nonhuman in Andrea Arnold's cinema. Through analyzing Arnold's three films, the author argues that her sensory-driven cinema offers instances of non-anthropocentric stray visuality by focusing on the environment and nonhuman beings. The author asserts that Arnold's filmmaking challenges binary oppositions and is deeply involved in current ecological debates.