The film documentary “Common Ground” was filmed and directed by Alexandria Bombach. This ground-breaking film shows an overlooked part of America, the Rocky Mountain Front. In Montana, this public and unprotected wilderness causes uneasy tension for those who value and make a living off the natural land. The community fights for adding more areas of protected wilderness, by establishing the Heritage Act. Many oppose this act, and even those in favor of protecting the wilderness are against it as well. As discussed in the film, the wilderness is a touchy subject—the trees, the rivers, nor the fawns can speak for their home. Thus, people must speak for them, and the Rocky Mountain Front community does. Bombach’s film is not just a linear documentary, …show more content…
going from point A to point B, the site itself is interactive. The website allows the viewer to watch them film, scroll down, and become interactive with this topic. With photographs changing as you scroll down the page, the viewer has options to click through links, such as “get involved”, “learn more”, and links to explore the subjects of the film individually. This linear and interactive documentary combination is important, when it comes to documenting something about reform. This film is meant to inform the audience on the issue at hand, and by creating an interactive website, the viewer can get involved with solving the issue if it had an impact on them. Moreover, as discussed in Ellis’ article Seeing Things, everyone in today’s society is a witness—globally. Today’s society has expanded knowledge to places and people that are not usually accessible to information. Without films and interactive websites, such as the “Common Ground” film, then witnesses would be lost and the Rocky Mountain Frontier could be in dangerous jeopardy. Another important aspect about this reformative film is that is drew in the viewer. With every scene filled with mountainous horizons of sunrises and sunsets, the viewer was pulled closer and their jaw dropping further. Seeing and hearing the interviews with Chuck & his deep canyon ranch, Maggie & her hiking expeditions, and a family’s life on a farm has allowed the viewer to understand life in the Rocky Mountain Frontier. This understanding of Rocky Mountain life allows the viewer to connect with the subjects and the issue, even if they were not directly involved in it. The viewer is allowed to witness this lifestyle, and as discussed in Ellis’ article, whether they pay attention, tune out, talk about it with friends/family, or make a conscious choice to do something about the issue—they are still witnessing. This documentary allows the viewer to be in awe at the beauty of the unprotected land of the Rocky Mountain Frontier, and not have a choice but to make a conscious decision by getting involved ( I immediately click on the “get involved” link after watching). This film has a strong reformative impact. In contrast this film is still missing an important element—what about those who are anti-Heritage Act? This film can only be free of bias and credible, if both sides are shown.
Regardless of what is being discussed, this film needs to provide both sides of the issue, in order for the audience to fully agree with what the film is trying to shape or persuade the audience to think. A way to go about doing this is by picking more creative and unique subjects—instead of the rancher and the farmer—like Susan Orlean and her story The American Man, Age Ten. Orlean’s topic was to give the essence of the average american man, and did it uniquely through the life of a ten-year-old boy. This story changes the whole perspective, and if this film incorporated the views of a child on the ranch or the wife of the farmer, it would also have a changing perspective. The viewer expects the subjects to be ranchers, farmer, and hikers—not the views of children, spouses, or even the animals affected. The expected subjects should be used for the side the film is persuading against, then the anti-Heritage side would also be expected and the film would create a lasting perspective on the …show more content…
audience. With films such as “Common Ground”, documentary becomes a vital asset in our society today.
Today’s society is able to turn on the radio, tv, open social media apps, open news apps, read a newspaper, and talk to others to learn the latest events/news happening currently. It is the films such as “Common Ground” that contributes to “an enormous number of associations leading to the same event”, as discussed in Berger’s article. “Common Ground” contributes to other films that are trying to reform the protection of the wilderness, was inspired by other films already doing so, and/or inspiring other filmmakers to produce a film in light of this event. Films are not the only ones allowing the world to witness events and issues. Photography, audio, archival material, writing, moreover, diaries, interviews, cave paintings, and oral histories allow for events and issues to be known throughout the world. Whether someone was involved in an event/reformative movement or not, they are able to listen and view as if they were there. Documentary takes a role of informing the public, creating awareness, and is a catalyst for change in our society today. Documentary allows for major change, as stated by Ellis, “The development of such large populations is not simply a quantitative change: it is a qualitative change”. Moreover, the the population growth, has created a direct increase in communication developments—social media. I agree with Ellis, more people means more needs and more ideas
being developed, and more ideas means more people like Alexandria Bombach to reform society through documentary film.
Chandler Cook November 5th, 2015 HIST3417 Book Review Embodying agriculture in Gender Systems Dreaming of Sheep in Navajo Country gives readers a look into the federal government’s failed policy to preserve grazing lands by slaughtering hundreds of thousands of livestock with a particular focus on women. Centering around women because they are the primary owners and caretakers of livestock in Navajo reservations. Weisiger’s narrative explains the relationship of “livestock grazing, environmental change, cultural identity, gender, and memory during the New Deal era of the 1930s and its aftermath” (p xv). Weisiger relies on oral histories, environmental science, and government documents.
Abbey and McCandless experience different degrees of separation from industrial living, but neither wholly rejects it. Abbey, a National Park Service employee in Utah, states “I am here not only to evade for a while the clamor and filth and confusion of the cultural apparatus but also to confront immediately and directly if it’s possible, the bare bones of existence” (6). While Abbey surround...
Lives for Native Americans on reservations have never quite been easy. There are many struggles that most outsiders are completely oblivious about. In her book The Roundhouse, Louise Erdrich brings those problems to light. She gives her readers a feel of what it is like to be Native American by illustrating the struggles through the life of Joe, a 13-year-old Native American boy living on a North Dakota reservation. This book explores an avenue of advocacy against social injustices. The most observable plight Joe suffers is figuring out how to deal with the injustice acted against his mother, which has caused strife within his entire family and within himself.
The United States may be glamor of hope and prosperity for many nations still undergoing democratic maturity and development; however, her story is one that combines deadly struggles and an array of governmental decisions that defined the path to freedom of now the world’s most powerful country. One of the ways to understand the history of the United States is through revisiting the Trail of Tears, which is documented in the film. We Shall Remain: Trail of Tears. Notably, the film documentary with five parts in total highlighting the history of Native Americans from the 17th
The depiction of Native Americans to the current day youth in the United States is a colorful fantasy used to cover up an unwarranted past. Native people are dressed from head to toe in feathers and paint while dancing around fires. They attempt to make good relations with European settlers but were then taken advantage of their “hippie” ways. However, this dramatized view is particularly portrayed through media and mainstream culture. It is also the one perspective every person remembers because they grew up being taught these views. Yet, Colin Calloway the author of First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History, wishes to bring forth contradicting ideas. He doesn’t wish to disprove history; he only wishes to rewrite it.
In Sherman Alexie’s “This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” and “Dead Men’s Path”, the reader is given a glimpse into two different stories but share many similar characteristics of traditions. Tradition is the handing down of statements, beliefs, legends, customs, information and cultures within a group of people from generation to generation. However, these two stories will reveal that the protagonists in these stories, Michael from “Dead Men’s Path” and Victor from “This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona,” will ignore their own traditions that they face throughout the story. In other words, the protagonists are westernized and have forgotten their own culture, which reflects the theory of the melting pot. The ignorance of ancestry and traditions brings the worst fates into the lives of the protagonists in each story.
Robbins, Jim. Last Refuge: The Environmental Showdown in Yellowstone and the American West. New York: Morrow, 1993. Print.
Louise Erdrich’s short story “American horse” is a literary piece written by an author whose works emphasize the American experience for a multitude of different people from a plethora of various ethnic backgrounds. While Erdrich utilizes a full arsenal of literary elements to better convey this particular story to the reader, perhaps the two most prominent are theme and point of view. At first glance this story seems to portray the struggle of a mother who has her son ripped from her arms by government authorities; however, if the reader simply steps back to analyze the larger picture, the theme becomes clear. It is important to understand the backgrounds of both the protagonist and antagonists when analyzing theme of this short story. Albetrine, who is the short story’s protagonist, is a Native American woman who characterizes her son Buddy as “the best thing that has ever happened to me”. The antagonist, are westerners who work on behalf of the United States Government. Given this dynamic, the stage is set for a clash between the two forces. The struggle between these two can be viewed as a microcosm for what has occurred throughout history between Native Americans and Caucasians. With all this in mind, the reader can see that the theme of this piece is the battle of Native Americans to maintain their culture and way of life as their homeland is invaded by Caucasians. In addition to the theme, Erdrich’s usage of the third person limited point of view helps the reader understand the short story from several different perspectives while allowing the story to maintain the ambiguity and mysteriousness that was felt by many Natives Americans as they endured similar struggles. These two literary elements help set an underlying atmos...
As a result, both films represent Native Americans from the point of view of non-Native directors. Despite the fact that they made use of the fabricated stereotypes in their illustrations of the indigenous people, their portrayal was revolutionary in its own times. Each of the films adds in their own way a new approach to the representation of indigenous people, their stories unfolding in a different way. These differences make one look at the indigenous not only as one dimensional beings but as multifaceted beings, as Dunbar says, “they are just like us.” This is finally a sense of fairness and respect by the non-native populations to the Native Indians.
In this chapter the author Bill Nichols reflects on how documentary filmmaking found its voice. He points out that no one set out to invent this voice or build a documentary tradition. In the present day, it comes with an aspiration of filmmakers to understand how things got to be the way they are. The goals of those before them were to make a film that answered their needs and intuitions about how to represent the subject of their choice. This tradition of experimentation continues to this day but in relation to new forms and new techniques from animation to reenactments. This is what allows documentary to remain a lively and vital genre. The rise of documentary involves the story of the cinema’s love for the surface of things with its distinctive ability to capture life as it is. This distinctive ability served
There have been, in recent years, a number of media depictions of mountaintop removal, the affected communities, and activists standing in opposition to the prac...
Oftentimes accounts are told in only one perspective, such as the struggle between Native Americans and white Anglo-Saxon Americans. Through utilizing texts like “This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” and “Evolution” by Sherman Alexie, “Ellis Island” by Joseph Bruchac-III, and “Don’t Drink the Water” by The Dave Matthews Band, authors can convey multiple perspectives to the audience. By contrasting the different viewpoints between Native Americans and white Anglo-Saxon Americans, the authors are able to present a more complete picture of the story and establish the theme, purpose, and style of the work.
Once Buffalo Bill seized all the properties and belongings of the Native Americans such as land and traditional garments, he established a museum and demanded that the Indians pay five dollars per head for their visit to the museum (Alexie, 1992). This picture represents the numerous occasions when the Native Americans’ way of life has been illegitimately depicted by the non-Native American communities. These cultures are often depicted by individuals or communities that bear no decency or connection to the Native Americans. In fact, they do this with an interest in financial benefits without any advantage to the Native Indians. Similarly, the Museum of Native American Culture also illustrates the methodical deprivation and oppression of the Native Americans. This is an uncommon, however, a strong type of oppression. The mass media and the government are the present central force of the subjugation and quieting of the Native American communities. It can be concluded that it is the contemporary Buffalo Bill and whereas it is not evident what preventions should be put in place to stop this, it is important for the Native American people to repossess their identity and demonstrate to the universe who they actually
A nation formed from the blood of an entire culture. The Revisionist Western Film, Geronimo: An American Legend, (1993) directed by Walter Hill, sheds light on the events that transpired as the Whites migrated and expanded towards the West. The theme of this movie revolves around the oppression and injustices committed on the “inferior” Apache race by the “superior” Whites, and the conflicts that ensued from it. In the face of oppression and injustice, one will go to great lengths to protect and preserve one’s liberty, and likewise, it can also alter the conviction of an outsider.
Crimes against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation, focuses primarily on the role of conservation in America’s national park system from the 19th-20th century and conservation’s consequences on the rural people of the parks. Specifically, he analyzes the connections between laws and social relations, giving the reader a different interpretation of this heavily scrutinized time period. Jacoby divides his analysis into three sections, Forest, Mountain, and Desert, and visits three case studies: Yellowstone, the Adirondacks, and the Grand Canyon. During the push for conservationism and preservationism, you mainly hear about the heroics behind the movement, but you rarely hear about the other side of the story. Jacoby does a good job of presenting the shadowed side of this historical period and the injustices experienced by the frontiersmen living in the area for many generations, suddenly being labeled as criminals and poachers. Societal transitions are always a messy process, with little thought of the minority, change can and must hap...