The Land
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Adjustment Administration United States Film Service
Industrial and advertising
Clips are not offered for this film: the US renewal records do not settle it.
Parts
About
1942, 43 minutes
Documentary showing the poor state that American agriculture had fallen into during the Great Depression. Flaherty made this documentary about the dire consequences of 100 years of over-production of cotton just as the USA was entering World War2, & it wasn't shown then, because it might give the enemy a propaganda advantage. In fact the musical score, which fills the entire 45 minutes of the film is as striking as the poetic imagery of the dust bowl, the indigent farmers, the extreme poverty of a family living & reproducing in a shack and the mass migration to California where so few would find work. The upbeat ending, where wonderful threshing machines swiftly harvest the land, has the irony that still more labourers would be out of work. The only pity is that Flaherty, at heart a silent film director, wouldn't let his subjects speak
Director: Robert J. Flaherty
Writers: Frances H. Flaherty (collaborating writer), Robert J. Flaherty, 2 more credits »
Stars: Robert J. Flaherty |
- Archive
- Internet Archive, in Ephemeral films
- Licence or status
- Public Domain Mark 1.0, as the Internet Archive states it.
- Credit
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Adjustment Administration United States Film Service
- Who can watch
- The archive gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Teens profiles and older, judged from its collection and subjects. How films are placed