Chicago Filmmakers – Saturday, 8pm
Following in the tradition
of Western authors such as Wallace Stegner and Gretel Ehrlich,
filmmaker Lee Anne Schmitt is obsessed with the landscape of possibility
that led the first industrialists to California, and the legacy they
left behind. Mining, logging, farming, oil and steel towns that were
established as a means to keep workers on a short leash have now been
all but abandoned by their original owners. Some are entirely vacant,
while others have lived on, but all are reminders of the environmental
impact that industry and then the military has left on the landscape.
Using voice-over narration, clips from contemporary radio—of the
religious and political variety—and found footage, Schmitt gives us a
history of and comment on 14 such places, and their demise. A timely
lesson in the current economic climate. Filmmaker Lee Anne Schmitt in
person. (2008, 77 min, 16mm) JH - Cine-File.info
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