"The "auscultation" of nature in slow cinema: mobilising the sensible for ecological awareness"

Résumé En

If, nowadays, the word "auscultate" is almost exclusively dedicated to the medical field, the original meaning of the term comes from the Latin auscultare which means "to listen attentively". Then, we propose to theorise auscultation as an active hearing, an attentive and meticulous listening to sounds, which would resonate even in our own body, as already conceived by Empedocles in his theory of hearing.To illustrate our proposal, we will study how slow cinema stages a singular relationship with nature via its soundtrack. In our opinion, these films, often described as "contemplative", could be considered as much, or even more, as "auscultatory" films, insofar as they urge the viewer to exercise his hearing in an original way with regard to the natural elements.Via an approach mixing aesthetics and phenomenology, we will then demonstrate in what way the experience of nature proposed by this type of cinema would be based on a state of perception capable of "welcoming" the sounds of nature. Through a "new sphere of lived experience", these films initiate a primordial and original knowledge, a "substantial knowledge" as Kenneth White defines it: "that intuition of things which arises when we passed ourselves, as one with the whole". The sensory shaking that the viewer experiences then urges him to rethink his relationship with nature and allows for an unprecedented awareness of current environmental issues.