9 - Ideologies Clashing

By: Tyler, Cheyenne, and Bianca

Understanding our World:

The documentaries viewed this week were “If a Tree Falls” and “L’Erreur Boréale”. These documentaries acted as tools to present the diversity of points of view. They allow arguments and ideas to be developed at length. To have a sharing of beliefs and values that shape the way we understand the world. As a myth, they ask the viewer to take a position and to take action. It provides us with the concept of Democracy and Media where; the elements of deliberation, diversity and accountability which are the political, social economic and cultural functions in todays modern democracies. Where a wide range of opinions and analysis is provided as well to observe the diversity of citizens present and to ask who is to be held accountable.  

If a Tree Falls:

“If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front” is a 1 hour and 25 minute long documentary produced and directed by Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman in 2011 in USA. The documentary tells the remarkable story of the rise and fall of the Earth Liberation Front, by focusing on the transformation and radicalization of one of its own members. This member is a man named Daniel McGowan. He is an eager young activist who fell down a slippery slope which led to property destruction and violence who ended up later on being a defendant in a publicized federal terrorism case. 

If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front

Democracy and Media: 

Deliberation is the concept of providing people with a wide range of opinion, analysis and debate on important issues. This concept is present in the documentary which also allows for the viewers to adapt this principle. This documentary provides numerous view points from many different people including Daniel McGowan, Daniel’s father, Daniel’s girlfriend, Daniel’s ex-girlfriend Suzanne Savoie, the assistant United States attorney Kirk Engdall, Eugene police detective Greg Harvey, Jim Flynn,  Leslie James Pickering and many other activists. Daniel’s father is someone who does not believe in Daniel’s philosophies but will always love him. Leslie James Pickering viewed the actions of property destruction as an economic sabotage. Bill Berton believes that what is radical is logging 95% of the trees. These examples are all people that are somehow involved with Daniel McGowan and his case or the Earth Liberation Front. They are all different people in different positions, with different views and beliefs of what is happening and the consequences that are coming out of it.

The following situations all have people that are to be held accountable for what was done.  People created a blockade at the Warner Creek that turned into an all out assault that lasted a full year before being arrested by the Forest Service Law Enforcement. Knocking down their wall created a lot of bitterness towards the service. Jake Ferguson and three others burnt down a ski resort and a horse slaughter house. The Oakridge Ranger Station was set in flames which was viewed as a public relations disaster. By these specific events, a myth is being given to us.  A myth that offers a reflection on the values we live by as a society

Visually Seen and/or Unseen: 

This documentary was the platform that all the ideas were placed on and a democratic discussion about competing world-views could be developed at length due to how the film was laid out and what technical characteristics are involved. The film was made of interviews of many different people that develops  different points of view. There is a lot of live footage that captions the damage that is being done to the environment as property damage. The footage shows reality and makes the viewer feel like they are there as well. Another technique used to make the film is the use of animation. The documentary reveals pictures of property damage as a cartoon or drawing. This technique was used to show what happened and how the conditions were at one point as their was no live footage for the event. For when an office was sent in flames, a drawing or animation like image was shown to show the conditions of the office. The use of architectural like drawings had the same purpose. Another technique is present when Furguesson wore a wire. The dialogue of what was being recorded would be shown in white with a completely black background. This was another indication that their was no footage available. 

Ideas with or without answers:

This is a story about really impassioned people like the activists who were so outraged and then you have the government who were certain of them being terrorists. The story of “If a Tree Falls” does not provide answers. The documentary is asking the questions. How do we define terrorism? When does vandalism or sabotage become terrorism? What is activism? What is effective? What is ethical? The creators of the film say that in some ways it is a cautionary film because it does not provide the answers.

Ideologies are the set of beliefs and values that shape our understanding of the world. This documentary provides the viewers the diversity of these beliefs and values through the story of Daniel McGowan. The lay out of how the documentary film was produced tells and shows what consequences came out of Daniel’s actions and why they did. Peoples reasons and beliefs are what created the rise and fall of the Earth Liberation Front which is displayed to the viewers through this truly fascinating, shocking, disturbing but most of all, revealing documentary. 

Hearing from the directors Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman

  

L'Erreur Boréale:

Richard Desjardins, the director of the film who is a singer-songwriter born and raised in Quebec, focuses this documentary on the importance and impacts that clear cutting has on our forests. It opens the audience’s eyes to the true roles that politicians and those within the logging industry play in destroying nature within our province. During the 70 minute long film, we are shown the laws put in place by the government which protect the logging industry and promote their ideas of consumption. This ideology, in summary, is that as long as profit is being brought in, the consumption of the raw material would continue. The problem, though, is that the percentage of people who were actually aware of these casualties was ridiculously low. 

L'Erreur Boréale (Documentary by Richard Desjardins)

Being the first film of it’s kind on the subject, the public was finally exposed to facts that Desjardins exploited from this industry and became aware of the corruption and elimination of our land that was being allowed by the Quebec government in exchange for mass profit. 

Desjardins presents the facts boldly and shockingly, putting those related in the destruction directly on blast with hard facts which are supported by interviews, quotations and images. He makes the politicians and loggers out to look sinister and selfish, forcing us as viewers to want to share his passion on the topic at hand.  As an environmentalist, Desjardins achieves his objective of informing his viewers and making them think about the topic. 

This film is special because not only did it expose the flaws of the industry and it’s concepts to the general public, but also to the government that had been instilling and allowing the majority of the destruction to pass. After the creation of the film and it’s heightened exposure throughout the media, politicians were forced to review their actions, and change took pursuit. Upon hearing out the outcries from the uproar and awareness created by the film in 1999, the government recognized the validity of the points presented within the documentary and made a change. On March 22, 2005, Bill 71 was instilled. This bill created a more solid basis for responsible forest management. 

Unlike mainstream media, the filmmaker at hand shows us nothing filtered, but only the blatant truth of the matter. News sources often only show us half of the story and can lead us to believe a situation is something different than what it is in actuality. L’Erreur Boréale digs deep into the subject and delivers us answers to a topic that isn’t discussed on a daily basis. Among awry politicians and natural disasters, dilemmas as severe as our own forests being cut down and driven away by a million truckloads a year tend to get swept under the rug. 

The reason being that this film was so successful and effective was the manner in which the filmmaker executed it. We are led out of the realm of ignorant bystander and into the world which is being destroyed. What Desjardins does is snap us into the actuality that that world is ours, and as citizens of the province where it is unfolding, it becomes even more of an intimate experience. An example of this is blatantly present in one scene, where we are introduced to the side of a freeway that appears to be bustling with forestation, but are then presented with the fact that it is only feigned density. Beyond the wall of these trees is a vast, empty desert of where a forest had once been. As an audience, it makes us question what we see as truth. It is the overwhelming storm of images and quotations like these that hit us continuously throughout the piece, pushing us further and further into becoming more conscientious and concerned; exactly what the filmmaker strives for. 

A personal reflection of the two films:

The documentaries portray diversity in points of view which are presented through interviews. Numerous positions are depicted because of the different situations each person is encountered with. The effectiveness of the interviews is what produces the ideas and arguments and is what the filmmakers use to communicate their ideas. Reconstructed architectural like drafts were used to explain what was not recorded and captioned live but it imagines what happened through memory in the documentary “If a Tree Falls”.  In both documentaries, things that are being done to the environment are shown to not only express an idea of the filmmaker but to try and have the viewer be more conscientious and concerned. When people are given different orders, are in different positions in terms of occupation or have different motives, we can see from “If a Tree Falls” how these can result to conflict.

What does the government stand for? 

In the documentary “If a Tree Falls”, the ideas were greatly portrayed to the viewers by showing the consequences and acts taken place towards their motives, beliefs, and their overall positional stance. Activists who engaged in time-honored tactics as lockdowns or tree-sits were victims of beatings, pepper-spray and brutal violent acts. This footage is very powerful as it can easily be related to the viewers as civilians receiving brutal punishment. A consequence that anyone would rather live without. These punishments results in people becoming more radicalized which then led to property damage.

There are two laws that govern Quebec’s forests. One that says that forest is public so we should have a say about it. The second is that the government granted and guaranteed the entire forest resource exclusively to business. “These laws are fundamentally contradictory” (L’Erreur Boréal). As for the public, they have been kept as far as possible from what is going on in the forests. The deforestation has an impact on more than what we are aware of. As electors, they voted for a government to serve the interests of the public. If the government is not listening, what radicalized measures will be made? 

How high can you go before the only way is down?

The documentaries challenge our understanding of the world by showing a speed at which the foresters are now working at. In Quebec, the foresters are working at a speed at which they are running out of stuff to cut in the North while what has been replanted in the South has not fully grown and is not all prepared to be cut down. The public does not know the reality. The reality is shown by supplying facts of the deforestation and the impact it is having on the environment. Lakes are heating up and water is running into them more easily because the water is no longer being absorbed and controlled by tree roots. The truth simply lies in the visual change in our environment demonstrated through these documentaries.

In the documentary “If a Tree Falls”, how much brutal punishment and abuse could the police officers ordered by the government or the civilians involved in the tree-sits take? So much punishment and violence was thrown around to the point where the situation could only go downhill. This led to a collapse where a slippery slope to property damage and destruction took place. If I was at the tree-sits myself and started seeing the force and limits the police force were going to take it to, I would leave the area. But then again, if I was there to begin with, it is because, like everyone else that was there, I have a collection of views and beliefs that I am willing to stand for and I want them to come across. A very difficult situation for me to consider myself which is why describing the life of Daniel McGowan in the documentary “If a Tree Falls” is very eye opening for me. I realize the severity by having such a hard time imagining me in the same situation of the activists.      

In the documentary film “L’Erreur Boréale”, many are witnessing the state of forestry for the first time. In “If a Tree Falls”, Daniel McGowan is an eager activist that was involved with the ELF and committing arson attacks and property damage. In both documentaries, these are seen as disasters. Seeing what the foresters had managed to do is disturbing, shocking and creates creates a bad image towards forestry engineers and organizations. The idea of reforestation appears almost nonexistent to the viewer. Forestry engineers speak of forest regeneration though plantations and calculations for the forest regeneration in the future. As a viewer we wonder if these means are up to an appropriate standard in comparison to the deforestation.

Rise Against- Ready to Fall Music Video

As viewers watching the documentaries, we witness live footage and photographs taken in our world. We see whale hunts, deforestations, slaughter houses, logging industries, oil spills present in open water, detonations for mining sites. All of which consists of the removal or destruction of something natural from our world. The footage is shocking to many as for in our society, we are unaware to the extents that these actions have been brought to. Each and every one of us are an individual that make up our society. We are the public. I myself am an individual who never thought about the construction sites and all the natural resources that are being removed from our society. In the documentary “L’Erreur Boréale”, they mention the mass percentage of trees that are used to produce paper. I am a student and never acknowledge the fact. Am I the only one? Am I the only one that did not know the severity of it? When I look around my household I see wood everywhere. It is used for the structure of my house and for a decorative aspect as well. I realize the importance the natural resources have to the urbanization and development of our society where I see a inverse relationship between the two. Less natural resources so we can have more of something else. I feel we have now reached a point where natural resources play a personal gain such as in my personal life where I myself buy a new Christmas tree and burn fire wood in the winter every year without ever concerning myself on the background of where this wood is coming from and what impact it might have on the environment. 

Conclusion

The documentaries “If a Tree Falls” and “L’Erreur Boréale” are documentaries with a design to raise awareness. The documentaries use live footage of the past as well as a reconstruction or animation of what had happened in the past told from memory and personal experience. This is explained and expressed in many different opinions from different positional stances. The perspectives of the public, the forestry industry and the government presents the different views and looks on the situation of deforestation and reforestation allowing the viewer to become more aware of deforestation. It allows for the viewer to have a personal connection to a topic that is relevant to everyones lives.