| DVD Roundup December 2005
 High
Plains Films -- Bucking the Hollywood System
A bored husband and wife learn that they are both assassins
and have been hired to kill each other.
Where has this happened? Only in the movies, specifically Mr.
& Mrs. Smith, which stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as the married killers.
Hollywood churns out such ridiculous fare; Mr. & Mrs. Smith is
more like a marketing plan brought to the screen than a movie, and it's complete with an
off-screen love affair ready-made for TV and tabloid coverage.
Who watches this stuff?
I suspect that Doug Hawes-Davis and Drury Gunn Carr wonder
the same thing. In the early '90s, these two amateur filmmakers created their own "no
budget" documentaries independent of each other. They later met, commiserated about
making films, and decided to make a go of it professionally, founding High Plains Films,
which makes documentaries and licenses stock footage for TV and film. If you need footage
of a National Park or National Forest in the Western US, they probably have it, along with
a growing catalog of documentary films whose subjects are carefully chosen and whose
points of view are unique.
What is most interesting about High Plains Films as a
business is not that it's located in Missoula, Montana. It's a non-profit corporation,
albeit one that currently derives most of its revenue from DVD sales, broadcast-license
fees, stock-footage sales, and contract work for other producers. "Regarding the
non-profit status, it was a decision we made early," Doug Hawes-Davis told me.
"I think it's sort of a toss-up really. There's nothing that we really can't do as a
non-profit…. So, unless we start selling films to huge distributors for big advances,
operating as a non-profit only enhances what we're able to do."
High Plains Films is about as non-Hollywood as an
organization that makes movies can be, and its documentaries reflect this. In her
entertaining article, "DVD Rental -- Is Life Too Short for
Netflix?," Charlotte Meyer mentioned This is Nowhere (***1/2), "about
oldsters in mobile homes who go from Wal-Mart to Wal-Mart because they can park overnight
for free." Who could resist? I checked it out at my local public library (a great
resource for educational and offbeat movies, in case you didn't know) and loved it. Told
mostly through interview, it is a film of words and images set to an edgy soundtrack. What
begins as a celebration of personal freedom turns into a discussion of political ideals,
the social effects of big business, and a desire to escape from both. A feature of High
Plains Films work, the filmmakers present many perspectives through deftly edited
interviews and let viewers make of them what they will. By the end of This is Nowhere,
I thought that some of the "oldsters" were quaint and compelling, and others
were insufferable, especially as they trumpeted the virtues of Wal-Mart. In one important
scene, an RVer joy-rides a four-wheeler around the Wal-Mart parking lot -- an expression
of freedom with the Wal-Mart sign, the symbol of corporate America, looming in the
background. Great stuff.
This is Nowhere is the exception in the High Plains
Film catalog, which emphasizes nature and wildlife subjects, and man's effect on them,
often with a Western slant. Varmints (***1/2) and Killing Coyote (***1/2)
are similar films in many ways. Both are about animals that some people consider pests --
prairie dogs and coyotes. They are condemned as harming cattle, which leads to the
poisoning, trapping, and killing of them purely for pleasure, although both are important
parts of their respective ecosystems. As with This is Nowhere, the filmmakers allow
people with varied opinions to express themselves, showing in the process the complexity
of the issues and that man's interaction with the natural world is usually predicated on
intolerance and greed, and consistently makes matters worse. These films aren't for
squeamish viewers, but they are powerful statements about our inability to manage, or even
appreciate, wildlife. They will outrage some viewers and sadden others.
Short films discuss water rights (Wind River,
***1/2) and natural-gas development (Powder River Country, ***) in the West. The
Naturalist (***) follows introverted outdoorsman and wanderer Kent Bonar, who spends
his days trekking through the Ozarks and filling notebooks with drawings of native plants.
The inspiring and beautifully filmed American Values, American Wilderness (***1/2)
collects the thoughts of a diverse group of people on America's wild areas and is narrated
by the late Christopher Reeve.
The masterpiece of the High Plains Films catalog is also
the most recent full-length movie, Libby, Montana (****), which documents the
effects of an asbestos mine on the small Montana town in which it was headquartered.
Instead of pointing fingers and taking the easiest road to resolution, the filmmakers
decided to let the story tell itself. And quite a story it is, a tragedy whose power to
anger is enhanced by the filmmakers' desire for fair and thorough coverage. Doug
Hawes-Davis: "We don't believe that folks learn very well if they feel they've been
spoon-fed or that other important perspectives have been left out of a story. People like
to feel like they've come to conclusions on their own, so we try to let them do
that." Libby, Montana reminded me of Centralia, Pennsylvania, a near ghost town where
underground mine fires have been burning since 1961. One is left to wonder how such places
can exist in modern-day America.
Common threads of High Plains Films documentaries are a
journalistic approach that honors research and facts expressed by the people who know
them; a respect for the natural world, which underscores our need to protect it; the
willingness to let people look petty and misinformed, even as their beliefs are
passionately held; and the discussion of issues from all points of view so as to present a
deep and lasting understanding of them. While they make documentaries, Doug Hawes-Davis
and Drury Gunn Carr are not from the Michael Moore School of filmmakers, who seek
controversy for its value as publicity. It is clear that their films are too personal for
such an approach.
Missoula, Montana is not very far from Hollywood in
geographical terms, but the movies that come from there are about as different as they can
be from what Hollywood peddles to the public. Your public library may have some High
Plains Films DVDs in its collection, and if you live in the Western US, you may be able to
see a few of the documentaries commercial-free on PBS. You can also purchase DVDs directly from High Plains Films.
We need more movies like these, and more people who
appreciate movies like these.
…Marc Mickelson
marc@hometheatersound.com |
