There was a time a few years ago when photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s work seemed ubiquitous. In city after city his amazing huge aerial photographs of the natural world were displayed in main squares for tourists and inhabitants to wonder at. In 2000, his “Earth from Above” free exhibition was set up on numerous big posters on the gates of Jardins du Luxembourg in Paris. It then travelled worldwide from London to Reykavik, to 110 cities and was visited by 120 million people.
His film Home is another example of global reach. Extraordinarily for a feature length film it is available on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU) and by early 2011 had received over 14 million hits out of the 400 million who are thought to have seen it to date.
As Yann says, the film is ‘A little bit of propaganda from the perspective of a view of the earth from the sky.’ And what a perspective you get from the huge logistical effort to undertake aerial filming in over 50 countries.
The film starts slowly with a brief history of the planet…..the Glenn Close narration commences ‘Listen to me please, listen carefully to this extraordinary story, which is yours, and decide what you want to do with it.’
There follows a gradual picking up of pace and a sucking in of the viewer as the extraordinary film, world music soundtrack and the story of the state of the planet today as seen from the air is revealed.
The making of this film was an amazing achievement, the watching of it is just reward. As the commentary ends with ‘It’s up to us to write what happens next, together.’ We are left in no doubt about the call to individual and global action.
Yann says his main interest is in entertaining the audience and in their reaction. His hope is that people see the film and say ‘I want to do something’.
He adds ‘I hope this film will spread a lot of love.’
I suspect that depends where you stand on climate change. The deniers will deny but for the rest of us we leave astonished by a never before seen view of our world and re-energised to do more to prevent its destruction.
Recordings of the concert in 1970 that launched Greenpeace
The concert was established to raise funds for the first Greenpeace mission to stop nuclear bomb testing on the Island of Amchitka, Alaska.
Amchitka, the 1970 concert that launched Greenpeace, has been remastered and is now available as a two-disc set and 48-page booklet of never-before-seen concert photos exclusively on line at www.amchitka-concert.com with all proceeds going to Greenpeace.
A single PDF print-out can require an entire tree’s worth of paper. So rather than print a PDF, a piece of software blocks you and forces you to save to “WWF.” Which in turn can save the life of a tree.
Save a tree, download the WWF software, save your docs as .wwf and protect the environment.
The thing that first strikes you when you watch “The Age of Stupid” is that Pete Postlethwaite is doing remarkably well for someone who would have just hit the ripe old age of 110 in 2055. But setting that aside, this is a very well put together film. And it is a film. You can argue this is an “environocumentary”, or whatever you’d call it, but essentially this a powerful story, with good characters that is well shot and produced. What makes the film so poignant is the fact that it is both global and local, and focuses on specifics as well as bigger time frames. It therefore goes some way to achieving that ever elusive ambition of art, which let’s not forget film is, of being both timely and timeless.
When you’re looking at a protest film I don’t think you have to get too caught up in the protest. Obviously it’s an important part, but just as you don’t have to believe in a galaxy far far away to like star wars, you don’t have to have a definite opinion on climate change to get to grips with this film. Franny Armstrong wants to challenge you, and to do so, you don’t need to bring any preconceived opinions to the table. For the record though I’ll give my two pennies worth.
The Age of Stupid cuts through all the legal paraphernalia, political drivel and media hogwash to provide a polished message which is there for you should you choose to take it. The giant super-tanker that is the usual climate change debate (as was seen in Copenhagen) is condensed, rightly or wrongly, into an inshore pleasure craft. This Riva-esque boat is either the cold hard facts or the idealistic, irrational, stereotypical hippy message. Sadly, I suspect it’s the first.
The title sequence of the film really works which perhaps is not surprising given that the film was produced by John Battsek, who worked as a producer on the award winning documentary ‘One Day in September’. Leo Murrary and Bill Porter’s work isn’t quite on a par with that of Kyle Cooper (Seven) or Garson Yu (American Gangster). It does, however, avoid the pitfall of outshining the subsequent film as was seen in recent years with Hostage and Mr Margorium’s Wonder Emporium. Other animations in the film are sadly less polished. You could argue that these help the younger audience engage with the material, but the 12A certificate suggests that the intended target audience has nothing to do with the sub-standard animations.
Above all though, The Age of Stupid, is a champion of metaphor and montage. You can’t help but smile during the training clip for Jeh Wadia’s new airline when the fire is extinguished and only for it to relight. Sure, it’s more Monty Python than Private Eye, but that’s what works in here. In between all the excerpts the message is clear: our own little stories can have powerful, often tragic impacts on people’s lives who are on the other side of the world and the choice is ours, not our governments. The six stories are woven together to form an unmistakably clear message. This message is exemplified by Postlethwaite and the archive overview which was a late, but necessary, addition.
What I liked most though about The Age of Stupid was that it was “crowd-funded” with the required budget being mustered together by 223 generous individuals so as to maintain editorial independence. This is a pretty cool idea for film and could perhaps pave the way for a new generation of fresh, independent films created free from the gaze of Hollywood’s juggernauts.
While most of us love the social experience of going to the cinema and the impact of seeing films on the big screen, watching films at home does cut down on our need to travel.
There are a number of green films on the web and we have brought some of them together here. Why not let us know when you see or launch new green film sites by commenting below?
Another full house for an environmental film at the ICA last night. Into Eternity is a trimuph of film making. The photography and soundtrack immerse you in the stark beauty of a Finnish (and mankind’s) winter. This is a thought provoking, rather than preaching, documentary. Inevitably it risks the accusation of superficiality but in 75 minutes it lays out the key concepts in readily understandable language.
If it takes 100,000 years for nuclear waste to become safe, and mankind has only existed for 30,000 years, how can we guarantee the safety of our nuclear waste depositaries?
Onkalo in Finland is the home of a tunnel which, when complete, will be 4km long and drop 500m below the surface through the Finnish bedrock. When full, of just a fraction of the world’s nuclear waste, in 100 years time, it will be backfilled and sealed off.
Will it survive future generations’ curiousity (as the Pyramids failed to do) or the risks of direct nuclear strike or terrorism or meteorite hit or ice age or any other threat that we have not yet experienced and cannot therefore imagine.
Designed to be free of any requirement for human intervention in management, monitoring or security the over-riding impression from the film is that this is one immense gamble with the lives of future generations.
A powerful film for policy makers and citizens alike.
