Movies
What better way to start Earth Month than with this review about a new film that is already being considered to be in the same league as Al Gore's award-winning An Inconvenient Truth. This comprehensive documentary that spans the conservation movement from its birth in the early 1900s until the present day -- with an eye toward the future -- should be required watching in all schools and for young people and adults alike.
From Mark Kitchell, director of the Academy Award nominated Berkeley in the Sixties, A Fierce Green Fire - The Battle for the Planet, this film is as eye-opening as it is entertaining. It is also equally disturbing, yet at the same time inspiring to us all to take action and do more to live greener.
A Fierce Green Fire is based on the book by the same name from author Philip Shabecoff. A low budget project with a larger than life message, this epic by First Run Features with a run time of approximately 110 minutes is narrated by a cast of Oscar-winning talent including Robert Redford and Meryl Streep, along with other A-list actors such as Ashley Judd, Van Jones, and Isabel Allende.
Unfolding chronologically, the movie intersperses a wide range of nostalgic and powerful iconic black and white and color stills and news footage with then and now interviews with some of the world's greatest green activists that have ever lived. At the same time you are seeing history repeat itself before your eyes, viewers gain access not only to windows into the eco political issues that matter, but to the music, people and mores that shaped the culture depicted in each of the decades covered by this picture.
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| Muybridge Buffalo Galloping, Wikipedia Image |
The film focuses largely on the last 50 years of eco history, awareness, responsibility and action. However, the first part of this film briefly touches upon related earlier historic events and associated public outrages in the later half of the 1800s against such things as the near extinction of the wild buffalo -- the Great American Bison herd -- across the plains of America and the use of plumage in women's hats and other luxury items.
The introduction then moves on to President Ulysses S. Grant who in 1892 named Yellowstone as our country's first National Park and to John Muir who founded the Sierra Club in 1892. The National Parks and Sierra Club often had the same goals, just different ways of achieving them, and this government - private organization rivalry resulted in plenty of conflict.
Also spotlighted is President Theodore Roosevelt and his passion for conservation and preservation of both wildlife and public land that led to the creation of the U.S. Forest Service and the establishment of approximately 230 million acres of protected land that was set aside during his presidency from 1901-1909.
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| Image provided by A Fierce Green Fire |
Fast forwarding to the 1960s, the film then is presented in five acts or chapters each with a central story and character, including
• David Brower and the Sierra Club’s battle to halt dams in the Grand Canyon in the 60s
• Lois Gibbs and Love Canal residents’ struggle in the 1970s against tons of toxic chemicals
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| Lois Gibbs yells to press at Love Canal, Image provided by A Fierce Green Fire |
• Paul Watson and Greenpeace’s campaigns beginning in 1976 to save whales and baby harp seals
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| Paul Watson attempts to save a baby harp seal, Image provided by A Fierce Green Fire |
• Chico Mendes and Brazilian rubbertappers’ fight is launched in the 80s to save the Amazon rainforest
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| Image provided by A Fierce Green Fire |
• Bill McKibben and the 25-year effort to address the impossible issue of climate change
According to this movie's website:
A Fierce Green Fire tells stories about four successful movements, then takes up the biggest cause of all, still in suspense. It gives us reason to believe change can come.
The film offers a deeper view of environmentalism as civilizational change, bringing our industrial society into sustainable balance with nature. It’s the battle for a living planet. It arrives at a moment of promise: 25 years after Dr. James Hansen first warned of global warming; 8 years after Katrina; 3 years after the Gulf oil disaster; 2 years after meltdown at Fukushima; a year and a half since stopping the Keystone Pipeline; and half a year since the wakeup call that was Hurricane Sandy, the capper to the hottest year on record.
As Obama begins a second term more people than ever are active -- descending on Washington, DC on Presidents Day and launching a broad alliance to Stop Oil. 2013 may be the year that grassroots pressure finally forces action to halt climate change.
Here's a preview of the movie to pique your interest
This film premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2012 and has already won acclaim at dozens of festivals around the world. Debuting to the public on March 1 in New York, it is currently being shown at a very select group of U.S. theaters and venues through 2013. Bookings are being added constantly so check the website AFierceGreenFire.com for the latest information on showings.
FTC Disclosure: I received a DVD screener to facilitate this review. However I did not receive any payment or other compensation. Thoughts are my own. See complete FTC Disclosure information that appears at the bottom of MommyBlogExpert's main page and at the bottom of every individual post on this blog, including this one.
