Artists Light the Path

Since my post on, "5 Flights Up," I have been ruminating on whether artists really make a difference in our world today. 

In a addition to enriching and inspiring our lives, artists make a difference by casting light on humanity. In, “The Salt of the Earth,” Win Wenders trains his camera on the Brazilian social photographer Sabastiao Salgado and his art.  

“A photographer is literally someone drawing with light. A man (or woman) writing and rewriting the work with light and shadows.”

Wenders took up this project because he was profoundly moved by Sabastiao’s haunting photographs and how they capture the light and shadows of humanity.  Sabastiao Salgado felt called to shine a light on the human faces of some of the most extreme historical tragedies (famine, genocide, slavery) of the last 40 years. Supported by his wife Lélia, he dedicated his life to traveling the globe as a witness to the slave conditions in Brazil’s Serra Pelada gold mines, famine in Ethiopia, and genocide in Rwanda (among others.)  His harrowingly beautiful photographs called worldwide attention to some of the most horrific atrocities of mankind.

What makes this documentary even more poignant is that it was co-directed by Sabastiao Salgado’s son, Juliano Salgado.  While Sabastiao’s wife encouraged him to follow his path, his son was left without a father.  By working on this film, Juliano grew to understand the importance of his father’s work.

But witnessing all that suffering eventually took its toll on Sabastiao.  Deeply wounded by the degree of human cruelty and bloodshed in Rwanda, Sabastiao was forced to give up his mission. But instead of defeating this courageous man; it inspired a revolutionary new path.  Returning to his family farm, he found that drought had savaged the land. What had once been a lush rain-forest, had become a stark desert.

His wife Lélia suggested that they try to replant the paradise that he had known as a child.  They cultivated a new way to reinvigorate the barren land. They successfully planted 100,000 native trees and other vegetation and eventually brought back the rain-forest!

Sabastiao Salgado journeyed the world – just to find his mission in his own back yard.

 Lélia and Sabastiao Salgado's farm today.

Another social photographer, Lisa Kristine, has taken up the lantern and is casting light on the human face of slavery.  Working with Free the Slaves, Lisa braved hell on earth to witness and document the lives of modern day slaves. At TEDx Maui, she shared her devastating photos and stories.  I was shocked to find that there are currently over 27 million people enslaved – double the number of people taken from Africa during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.  Families have been enslaved for generations for debts as low as $18. Many have been enslaved so long that they don’t know they are slaves. It was all they have ever known.

In the brick kilns of India and Nepal, whole families work 16 hours in scorching heat without water or restroom breaks. They essentially live in ovens. While photographing the kilns, Lisa’s camera stopped working. To revive it, she had to give it air-conditioned breaks. She recognized the sad irony that her camera was treated better than these people. In another part of India, families are enslaved in the silk trade. It is their job to dip their hands into the toxic dye. One father said that they hoped to someday to have their own silk business, so they could get paid for “dyeing.” In the Himalayas, children carry huge slates of stone on their backs. On Lake Volta, children are forced to work all night untangling heavy fishing nets petrified that they will topple their little fishing boats and drown because they can’t swim.  In Ghana, mothers carry their babies as they pan for gold while wading in water poisoned with mercury.  In Kathmandu, women and children experience violent abuse as sex slaves. In our own backyard, as many as 300,000 American children have been sold into the sex industry.

As a representative of Free the Slaves, Lisa descended a narrow mine shaft alongside men with tuberculosis and mercury poisoning forced to work 72 hours in the dark.  In addition to the torturous conditions, she found hope piercing the darkness like mine lanterns. Manuru, who had inherited his uncle’s debt, valiantly worked with tuberculosis and an infected leg. Free the Slaves has given him hope that one day he will be freed and receive an education.

Lisa felt humbled by these people’s quiet dignity and endurance.  “This sort of determination in the face of unimaginable odds fills me with complete awe. I want to shine a light on slavery.  I told the workers that I wanted to illuminate their stories and their plight. (That) we will be bearing witness to them. We will do whatever we can to make a difference in their lives. If we can see each other as fellow human beings, then it becomes very difficult to tolerate atrocities like slavery. I hope these images awaken a force in those who view them, people like you, and I hope that force will ignite a fire and that fire will shine a light on slavery. For without that light the beast of bondage will continue to live in the shadows.”

Dorothea Lange lit the way for these social photographers.

"Migrant Mother" by Dorothea Lange

From 1935-39, Dorothea Lange's photographs brought the plight of the poor and forgotten (sharecroppers, displaced farm families, and migrant workers) to public attention.

These courageous artists light a path through the darkness. Do they make a difference? That depends on whether we take up the lantern.

Movie blessings! 

Jana Segal

www.reelinspiration.blogspot.com

Note: On the day after Thanksgiving in 1960, CBS News aired the Edward R. Morrow documentary, "Harvest of Shame" showing the deplorable conditions our migrant farm workers faced. Recently, I watched the documentary, "Food Chains" and was shocked to find that those desperate conditions still prevail today. But I was also inspired by the tomato pickers courageous fight for fair wages and treatment.

On the Wrong End of the FOOD CHAIN

I have attended the Arizona International Film Festival for ten years now. I've seen it grow into a world class festival by screening excellent independent films from Tucson and around the world. After watching several fascinating films in 2014, my ever-inquisitive fiancée, Dan Stormont, insisted that we get passes again this year. Thursday we attended the opening night screening of the enthusiastically received local documentary, "Many Bones, One Heart" (by Leslie Ann Epperson) about Tucson's All Souls Procession. Leslie really does Tucson proud! We have already gotten our money's worth in the first weekend of this two week fest.

Dan and I attend numerous films and lectures on the importance of creating a sustainable food system as research for Dan's blog on THE PINEAPPLE PROJECT (a humanitarian project to get agricultural information, such as what grows best in their area, to subsistence farmers so they can be more successful.) So we were glad to see the documentary Food Chains on the festival program.

We were deeply moved by this powerful documentary on how our farm workers are treated in this country. We were shocked to see how little things have changed since 1960 when CBS aired Edward R Murrow's documentary, Harvest of Shame. In this country that Murrow calls "the best fed country in the world," the people who harvest our food are working a brutal 13 hour day, and still aren't making enough to adequately feed and house their families.

This movie shows the courageous efforts of a group of farm workers who are rallying support for "Fair Food." This organization is standing up to grocery store chains demanding that they pay enough to provide workers a living wage and refuse to buy produce from farmers who abuse their workers. What struck me was how easy it would be to correct this problem. If we pay just one cent (one cent!) more per pound for fruits and vegetables, it would double the pay of farm workers from $10,000 to a living wage of $20,000 a year. We just need to create more awareness of the problem. Food Chains does an admirable job explaining one of the most important humanitarian issues of our time. Watch this film to see how you can help. This is doable, folks!  This is one problem we can solve. 

We want to thank the Arizona International Film Festival for creating more awareness. 

Please, help us get the word out by sharing this with your friends! 

Movie blessings! 

Jana Segal 

Dan was inspired to write about it on his blog too! 

"We used to own our slaves. Now we just rent them."

by Dan Stormont

www.thepineappleproject.org

On the day after Thanksgiving in 1960, CBS News aired a documentary by Edward R Murrow entitled Harvest of Shame.

It documented the plight of a crew of migrant farm workers in the United States as they worked their way up the east coast from Florida to New Jersey. It showed in painful detail the long hours, hard working conditions, desolate housing, lack of education, and meager incomes earned by the farm workers brought in to harvest the crops. They often went hungry while harvesting the food that graced American families' Thanksgiving tables.

The documentary also addressed some of the causes of the farm workers' situation, like farmers who were being squeezed themselves by the large food producers and distributors who were controlling the price of crops. Farm workers had difficulty organizing to demand better working conditions. The law was rarely on the side of the farm workers. As Murrow noted, "The people you have seen have the strength to harvest your fruit and vegetables. They do not have the strength to influence legislation. Maybe we do."

Nearly 55 years later, things must be better right? In some ways they have improved slightly and there have been some gains (often followed by comparable losses). However, as the recent documentary Food Chains demonstrates, many farm workers are toiling in the fields for long hours while still not earning enough to own a home, save for the future, and care for their children. Far too many are still going hungry while picking the produce we eat. The big food producers, wholesalers, and retailers are still controlling the markets and exploiting farmers and farm workers alike.

Nothing is more important than a sustainable food chain. We all rely on it. But, right now, the food we buy at the supermarket is being harvested by people who are earning below poverty wages. Surely, we can afford one cent more per pound of produce to improve the lives of the people who harvest our food? That's how much it would cost to double the wages of farm workers..one cent a pound.

Seek Food Chains out. Watch it. Think about what it is saying and about the human stories being told. Then, take action! Don't buy food at stores that refuse to pay enough for farm workers to make a living. Demand action from your representatives. This isn't politics...it's just humanity. And it is ensuring a viable, sustainable food chain for all of us!

"McFarland USA" Cultivating a New Kind of American Dream

After watching the trailer for “McFarland USA,” I wasn't in a hurry to see the film since it was so similar to, “Spare Parts,” a movie I had recently reviewed. Until… I discovered that it was directed by Niki Caro, who helmed one of my all-time favorite inspiring films, “Whale Rider.”

I couldn't help wondering how a film so different in style and tone reflected Niki’s vision as a filmmaker. What was the common thread between “Whale Rider,” the re-imagining of a Maori legend about a teenage girl challenging the tribe’s patriarchal traditions and, “McFarland USA,” a seemingly formulaic sports flick about a coach encouraging a group of poor migrant Mexican-American farm workers to become champion runners? 

I settled into my theater seat and sighed as, “McFarland USA,” opened with a familiar plot device. The star football player defies the coach’s authority. Coach White loses it and hurls a cleat at the locker near the teen - only it bounces off and hits the teen in the face. The coach’s weakness is set up very economically to prepare for the inevitable character arc (growth). When the coach and his family drive into the poverty-stricken Mexican-American farming town of McFarland, it is clear that this is his last chance. As his daughter looks out of the window, she thinks they got off at the wrong exit: “Are we in Mexico?” I caught myself rolling my eyes when the Idaho family becomes unhinged by the idea of eating the foreign Mexican food. (Really? Lol. This is America!)

Director Niki Caro 

At school, a fellow teacher tries to recruit Coach White (Kevin Costner) for a community project by delivering the obligatory speech about how these poor farming kids are invisible and live in a state of constant hopelessness (reminiscent of the “they are invisible” speech in, “Spare Parts.”) That hopelessness is symbolized by the prison across the street from the school. I wondered to myself, is there really a prison there or was that yet another contrived plot device?

Around the time the coach first notices a student dashing home, a miracle happens. We are introduced into the world of the migrant farm workers. Immersed in their culture, home life, and community, we (like the coach) start really caring about these kids.

While researching for this review, I read that director Niki Caro had been looking for a project with the same qualities as, “Whale Rider,” when Disney approached her about, “McFarland.” In an interview with Bryan Abrams she recalled, “Here was a story that was true, based in a real community, based on real people, and it offered me a way I could work as I had on,” Whale Rider,” which is to work with the community and with the people. Basically, all I do is light up what I think is beautiful.”

The part that interests this New Zealand-born director is working with communities unlike her own. “The way I work when it’s not my own culture is I try to be very accurate and faithful to the way lives are lived and not impose my will. I was very keen to portray the Mexican-American culture, but I realized that we made a very American movie, a profoundly American movie that happens to have a lot of Mexicans in it.”

The migrant workers in McFarland epitomize the American Dream in their struggle to make a better life for their children. But they create their own version by balancing work, family and community. The opening set-up pays off as Coach White and his kin grow as a family and become a part of the community. The coach joins three of his runners for dinner to explain the advantage of running. But he ends up learning from them. Their mother gives him some enchiladas to take home and a lesson on being a family man. “How are you going to be a family if you don’t eat together?” She points out how her husband works hard for long hours, but is present every night at dinner with his family. Family is a priority.

The original McFarland track team with Kevin Costner 

The team learns something too. As coach and team gain a mutual respect, they also learn to respect themselves. Using the incredible strength it takes to work long hours in the fields, go to school, and then run 8-10 miles a day, they can accomplish anything. Inspired by their determination and heart, we root for them to win while we, in turn, learn the value of hard work.

It is clear in both, "Whale Rider," and, "McFarland USA," that Niki Caro's vision is cultivating community. By casting light on the customs and traditions of each community and its people, Niki cultivates a rich, fertile film experience that grows understanding.

Movie blessings!
Jana Segal
reelinspiration.blogspot.com

Watch, the complete movie, "Whale Rider."