Seen from above, in photographs and films by Edward Burtynsky or Peter Mettler, the Alberta tar sands appear as Earth-scale inkblots, their forests cut clear and soil scraped clean, their ink spilled into smooth tailing ponds carved out in straight lines and graceful curves. They are at once beautiful and terrifying, geometric and enigmatic, lyrical and…
Brian Jacobson
Brian Jacobson is an assistant professor of cinema studies and history at the University of Toronto. His writing about media, energy, and the environment has appeared in The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Film Quarterly, and other places.