Films make pitch for the planet
DUSTY Crary is everything you’d expect a cowboy to be. The subject of the documentary Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman is a fourth-generation rancher, and he’s a rugged dude with a big hat who trots around on a horse wearing fringed chaps and a bandanna around his neck. He’s also a conservationist. “When you got more shingles than grass, it’s too late, partner,” he says in the movie, just before we see him surveying the pristine Montana plains and mountains around his home. “You’re not gonna get that back.”
In an era when environmentalism seems exclusively the Democrats’ purview, it’s surprising to see a movie about conservation starring a tough guy from Trump country. But it’s also a good reminder that the issue wasn’t always so politicised.
On Tuesday, the 25th Environmental Film Festival gets underway in Washington, and with movies like Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman, the fest is hoping to appeal to both sides of the aisle.
Perhaps that’s why, in her welcome statement, the festival’s new executive director, Maryanne Culpepper, leads with a quote from none other than Ronald Reagan: “Preservation of our environment is not a liberal or conservative challenge, it’s common sense.”
How we got to a place where saving the planet is viewed as a job for hippies and liberals is a long story – “I mean environ- mentalists did not invent the word tree-hugger,” Culpepper said during a recent sit-down. But in the meantime, conservationists are trying to remind everyone that taking care of the planet should be a nobrainer for people of all political affiliations.
And yet, President Donald Trump has proposed to cut the EPA staff by one-fifth and eliminate dozens of programs dedicated to cleaning up the nation’s air and water. Instead, he wants to “prioritize rebuilding the military and making critical investments in the nation’s security,” according to a March 2 report in the Washington Post.
In that case, the White Rancher,Farmer,Fisherman. House may want to look into another surprising film at the festival.
The documentary The Age of Consequences examines how climate change influences – what do you know? – national security. Through interviews with military personnel, intelligence officials and security experts, the film unravels, for example, how historic droughts in the Middle East led to migration, which led to destabilisation, which led, in part, to the Arab Spring.
The movie’s director, Jared P Scott, intentionally shied away from politics. He used neither high-ranking Democrats nor Republicans as talking heads in the final cut.
The Age of Consequences was practically reverse-engineered to appeal to an audience beyond progressives. “We started this process by trying to figure out how we could talk to people that might not consider themselves to be in the climate choir,” Scott said. “That was the starting point. From there we tried to figure out, okay, what’s the story?”
The movie has the feel of a thriller, with suspenseful music and military characters warning of the butterfly effects of natural disasters around the world. There are no heartstringtugging images of child refugees. Instead, the film frames the issue in a systematic way, showing how extreme weather breeds chaos, resource scarcity and political turmoil.
According to Culpepper, Consequences is part of a larger trend of documentaries embracing the characteristics of feature films, focusing on main characters with story arcs instead of broad topics. Before heading up the festival she was a filmmaker and president of National Geographic Studios.
Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman director John Hoffman sees his film as more than a movie about three unlikely conservationists in the heartland.
“Our power as a nation, and the power of any country, so much depends on sovereignty, and sovereignty depends on the ability of a country to feed itself,” he said. “If these landscapes are not productive, if we deplete the soil and aren’t able to grow the food to feed this country, if we deplete our oceans so that we can’t fish them to feed the US population, then we put ourselves and our sovereignty at risk.”
Culpepper knows there will be people with preconceived notions.
“I sometimes wish we could call it the ‘Natural World Film Festival’ or something else, because I think the name does ring certain bells for people,” she admitted.
“Sometimes it sounds like we’re earnest do-gooders. It doesn’t sound fun,” her colleague Helen Strong, the festival’s public relations director, chimed in. “It’s more fun than it sounds,” Culpepper said with a laugh. “We’ll use that as our tag line.”