spiderwort
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@spiderwort
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Post by spiderwort on Apr 22, 2020 14:07:28 GMT
HAPPY 50TH EARTH DAY!!
What are some films you like that celebrate the earth in some way, even if that is not a major component of the story.
I'll start with Terence Malick's Days of Heaven (1978), the landscape of which is masterfully explored in its prairie ecosystem, both as friend and as enemy to humans. (The prairie ecosystem being, without question, Malick's artistic muse.)
And Carroll Ballard's Never Cry Wolf (1983), which beautifully captures the arctic ecosystem and one of the keystone species that inhabits it (wolves, not man).
And another from the arctic: Robert Flaherty's documentary, Nanook of the North (1922), in which the arctic is the antagonist, a landscape against which humans struggle in order to survive. A landscape now seriously endangered, sadly.
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Post by wmcclain on Apr 22, 2020 15:37:02 GMT
Silent Running (1972)
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Post by cynthiagreen on Apr 22, 2020 16:18:44 GMT
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Post by Rufus-T on Apr 22, 2020 17:45:49 GMT
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Post by teleadm on Apr 22, 2020 17:49:22 GMT
The Good Earth 1937:
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Post by President Ackbar™ on Apr 22, 2020 17:49:33 GMT
Looking At 'Avatar' On Earth Day April 22, 2010 7:27 AM ET THOMAS S. HIBBS The National Review
James Cameron's record-shattering film Avatar is being released on DVD today. Today is not a Tuesday, the day DVDs normally hit the stores, but a Thursday, to coincide with the 40th annual Earth Day: Avatar highlights the threats posed by an advanced, war-mongering, and artificial society to a primitive, pacific, and organic culture.
Ironically, the film has received accolades for both this ideological vision of a pristine world untouched by industrial man and the high-powered technology evident in its mesmerizing 3-D visuals. The contradiction here is deeper and more instructive than the inconsistencies involved in Earth Day celebrations that leave tons of rubbish behind, or in the hypocrisy of Hollywood stars' cavorting about the globe in private jets to lecture the rest of us on conservation.
The visual quality of the film is indeed stunning, but mere artistry would have proven tiresome were the world of the Na'vi not such a fascinating one. In the journal Image, Jeffrey Overstreet aptly comments, "Pandora is a whole new world of breathtaking beauty, exploding with wild new life forms that soar, spark, prowl, pounce, gallop, and graze. Borrowing heavily, and brilliantly, from what he's seen in deep-sea exploration, Cameron has built the most enchanting magic kingdom since Dorothy first stepped into Technicolor Oz."
In some ways, the film is not so much a departure as a continuation of a trend in recent film making. In the last decade, in the annual ranking of box-office success, large-scale, mythic quest stories have most often dominated: Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord Of the Rings, and now -- one mythic blockbuster to rule them all -- Avatar.
The hero of the story, and the vehicle through which the audience comes to experience the world of Pandora, is a partially paralyzed marine named Jake Sullivan -- who takes on an avatar, an artificial body of the Na'vi, in the Avatar Project. His goal is to infiltrate a tight-knit community, uncover information about it, and perhaps even persuade its people to relocate so that the military can secure a desirable natural resource called "unobtainium." When Sullivan's efforts aren't as successful as hoped, the military commander threatens "shock and awe" and promises to fight "terror with terror."
The connection of the inhabitants of Pandora to one another is woven into their biological constitution; they possess ponytail tendrils that enable them to bond with each other. They are also intimately bound, in this life and beyond, to the Tree of Souls, wherein dwells the goddess Eywa. The malevolent pursuers of unobtainium are nothing more than caricatures of evil, but the plight of the Na'vi is a sympathetic one, and the Na'vi characters are engaging and even admirable.
The threat of irrevocable loss is quite credible. Here the film taps into a sentiment that has often been at the heart of conservatism: the worry that gambling on cosmopolitan forces of progress not only carries with it unintended consequences but also exacts a cost in the erosion of traditional customs and the destruction of intermediate institutions.
Despite its ideological ambitions, however, the film has little time for Tocqueville-like reflections on the dangers of modernity, let alone its blessings. For a film that was many years in the making, it is remarkably void of self-awareness. It never faces squarely the way in which technology is necessary to allow viewers to experience and come to know this primitive world.
The word avatar has religious origins (it's a Hindu term referring to the descent of a deity), but its more common contemporary use has to do with artificial or second lives and role playing in social media. From its title and from the fact that its main character takes on an artificial body and identity through the use of highly developed technology, then, one might have expected the film to probe this issue.
This lack of clarity about technology is palpable in the course of the final battle, during which the Na'vi, in collaboration with their earthling defenders, seem willing to use whatever technology is available to them to defeat the bad guys. Consider furthermore that the film has sparked lengthy online discussions on how to cope with post-Pandora depression, including suicidal thoughts. Many viewers, in other words, retreat into the very technology the film decries.
Our world is unlikely to become any less complex, the questions about technology any more tractable, in the near future. On the left, there is fear and trembling about the exploitation of natural resources and ecological devastation; on the right, there is a concern about cloning -- the brave new world of genetic manipulation. These two crises may well arise from the same source: a conception of the external world and the body itself as mere property, raw material to be manipulated to satisfy untrammeled human desire.
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Post by bravomailer on Apr 22, 2020 18:04:48 GMT
The Thin Red Line at times is a National Geographic photoshoot
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Post by bravomailer on Apr 22, 2020 19:06:43 GMT
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Post by Prime etc. on Apr 22, 2020 20:10:03 GMT
I haven't seen it myself but I plan to watch NO BLADE OF GRASS sometime this year.
THE MAN IN THE WILDERNESS
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Post by manfromplanetx on Apr 22, 2020 22:22:30 GMT
A very special hello and Happy Earth Day to you spiderwort from the other side of... I will start off with a short feature, winner of the Academy Award (1988) for Best Animated Short Film The Man Who Planted Trees (1989) An incredibly inspiring Canadian short animated film crafted & directed by Frédéric Back The main feature Morning of the Earth (1971) Australia, Dir.Albert Falzon A visual poem a celebration of our Earth, living in spiritual harmony with nature, a mesmerizing artistic movie about the counter-culture era, of an alternate lifestyle of simplicity and self-sufficiency of respect... those halcyon days !! With no spoken dialogue the song lyrics and music are timeless & soul stirring. Morning Of The Earth, G. Wayne Thomas first verse intro... The forces of the universe And the elements of space Conjured up your being Your size, your time, your shape You were created With all the beau-eauty they could call And earth, you surely are The measure of them all (Hal-le-lu-jah, hal-le-lu-jah)
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spiderwort
Junior Member
@spiderwort
Posts: 2,544
Likes: 9,340
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Post by spiderwort on Apr 22, 2020 22:57:33 GMT
A very special hello and Happy Earth Day to you spiderwort from the other side of... I will start off with a short feature, winner of the Academy Award (1988) for Best Animated Short Film The Man Who Planted Trees (1989) An incredibly inspiring Canadian short animated film crafted & directed by Frédéric Back The main feature Morning of the Earth (1971) Australia, Dir.Albert Falzon
Thank you, and Happy Earth Day to you, too, planet. You know that I cherish The Man Who Planted Trees (thanks to you). But I haven't seen Morning of the Earth, though I would love to. I really appreciate your inspired presentation of it here, and I will search for it. If by chance you happen to have a recommended link, I'd be grateful to know it.
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Post by petrolino on Apr 22, 2020 23:23:31 GMT
Alexander Dovzhenko's 'Ukraine Trilogy' ... industrialisation, war and nature.
'Zvenigora' (1928)
'Arsenal' (1929)
'Earth' (1930)
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Post by petrolino on Apr 23, 2020 1:26:32 GMT
Thanks for your wonderful contributions, everyone. I've seen most of the films and fully understand the reasons for your posts. I'm so glad to know this medium that we all love can, does, and always will contribute to our connection to the earth when it so desires. I hope that despite the difficulties in the world right now honoring the earth has made each person's life just a bit brighter on this special day. Just launched my own little tribute on the Music Board (i feel it's a psychedelic milestone that shows historic cooperation between some of the traditional timber / farming / agricultural industry states in the American midwest (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois) where there's a lot of scientific advancement and ingenuity and the west coast progressive movements). Thanks so much!
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Post by bravomailer on Apr 23, 2020 1:35:42 GMT
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spiderwort
Junior Member
@spiderwort
Posts: 2,544
Likes: 9,340
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Post by spiderwort on Apr 23, 2020 3:16:12 GMT
Just launched my own little tribute on the Music Board (i feel it's a psychedelic milestone that shows historic cooperation between some of the traditional timber / farming / agricultural industry states in the American midwest (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois) where there's a lot of scientific advancement and ingenuity and the west coast progressive movements). Thanks so much!
You are so welcome, and thank you! I never go to the music board, but tomorrow I'll have to visit to see your tribute, which I'm sure is inspired. Btw, the only Dovzhenko film on your list above that I've seen is Earth, which I love. Now I need to see the others.
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Post by petrolino on Apr 23, 2020 3:26:27 GMT
Just launched my own little tribute on the Music Board (i feel it's a psychedelic milestone that shows historic cooperation between some of the traditional timber / farming / agricultural industry states in the American midwest (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois) where there's a lot of scientific advancement and ingenuity and the west coast progressive movements). Thanks so much!
You are so welcome, and thank you! I never go to the music board, but tomorrow I'll have to visit to see your tribute, which I'm sure is inspired. Btw, the only Dovzhenko film on your list above that I've seen is Earth, which I love. Now I need to see the others.
Awesome, stay safe please, we need you.
My post on the Music board is a bit hidden, spiderwort - me and cypher are posting there mainly now, on a thread celebrating psychedelic music. We're currently celebrating national healthcare systems and their tireless work during this global pandemic by posting the psychedelic rainbow, which is currently being shared worldwide. Everybody is free to join us (cyber also has threads going on there on disco & funk music I like to listen to).
Take care everybody, here's to nature, and to everybody's efforts, and hopefully sustained health of many.
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Post by Rufus-T on Apr 23, 2020 16:48:44 GMT
Not a movie, but a Ken Burn documentary series. If we talk about earth natural scenery and the preservation of nature, this is one of the best.
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spiderwort
Junior Member
@spiderwort
Posts: 2,544
Likes: 9,340
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Post by spiderwort on Apr 23, 2020 17:27:59 GMT
Not a movie, but a Ken Burn documentary series. If we talk about earth natural scenery and the preservation of nature, this is one of the best. Oh, yes, this was wonderful. The perfect exploration of America's incredibly beautiful, hopefully forever to be maintained, sacred landscapes.
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Post by petrolino on Apr 23, 2020 19:18:15 GMT
My post on the Music board is a bit hidden, spiderwort - me and cypher are posting there mainly now, on a thread celebrating psychedelic music. We're currently celebrating national healthcare systems and their tireless work during this global pandemic by posting the psychedelic rainbow, which is currently being shared worldwide. Everybody is free to join us (cyber also has threads going on there on disco & funk music I like to listen to).
Take care everybody, here's to nature, and to everybody's efforts, and hopefully sustained health of many.
Bless you, bless you, petrolino! And bless you for your wonderful posts on the music board. There's so much there, and I only got through a few. I'll have to return again. You're sure bringing back a lot of memories for me there.
Thanks so much. Most of the music I've been sharing from youtube is from the years, 1966 - 1972, or thereabouts. Take care everybody.
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Post by bravomailer on Apr 23, 2020 20:00:26 GMT
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