Grass (1925 film)

Grass ( Subtitle: A Nation 's Battle for Life or The Epic of a Lost Tribe ) is an American documentary directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack from 1925 he is considered the first documentary about Iran..

Action

The journey from Cooper, Schoedsack, and Harrison begins in Angora and through Asia Minor. In the second month, when crossing a salt desert they learn in a caravanserai of an almost forgotten nomadic people. Weeks later they are in the Taurus mountains and meet in an abandoned fort on game hunter. They travel up to the Southwest Persia, where they encounter a tribe of nomads Bakhtiari, which is led by Haidar Khan. His nine year old son Lufta learns from him to lead the tribe. As the land is parched and the herds no longer find enough fresh grass, they decide to leave for the East. The next morning, the tents are packed. On -laden donkeys and horses, it goes for days through the mountains until they have to cross with their 50,000 animals the river Karun. They build rafts of inflated goatskins on which they fix some goats, sheep and calves, and paddle across the current. All other animals must swim through the water, a few drown in the rapids. The compilation of all takes six days. The following is an arduous journey barefoot through rocky mountains and snowy highlands to Zardeh cow where they shovel their way through the snow. Beyond the mountain they meet on grassland and pitched their tents near Isfahan again.

Background

The filmmakers Cooper and Schoedsack and journalist Harrison attended the 48 - day hike of the Baba - Akhmadi tribal part of the Bakhtiari early 1924 and crossed them with the Zard-Kuh Pass. As usual in his time documentaries Grass contains some set scenes, such as a stage dance.

Harrison was not only the singer, but financed the film with. The film was produced by Paramount Pictures and had on March 20, 1925 premiere.

In Iran, the film was not shown over two decades until 1964, when Reza Shah Pahlavi had abdicated because he was anxious that contain free and self-determined nomadism and modernist promote urbanization. The 1964 version shown was provided with additional comments to curb negative effects.

1997 Grass was inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.

Reviews

Despite orientalistischem glance, this is not looking down, as in later orientalistischem films.

The river crossing was named one of the most spectacular ever filmed scenes from the film historian Erik Barnouw ( "one of the most spectacluar sequences ever put on film .") Kevin Brownlow has described the train over the Zard-Kuh Pass as memorable epic scene of the documentary.