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An Inquiry Into America’s Divorce From Nature

 

Many of us Americans share a vision of the past, which goes something like this…

Once upon a time, we lived in close proximity to what biologist E. O. Wilson and many others refer to as the Creation or, alternatively, as the natural world.  Food was grown in nearby fields, hunted in nearby woods, or fished from nearby waters. bte-landscape-grassChildren played outdoors.  A rich bounty of birds, mammals, plants, fish, and insects invited curious minds to observe, organize, and understand what life is.  The open landscape inspired dreams of what our own lives, and those of our descendents, could be.

Today, many Americans share unease about our relationship to the natural world.  Our children, and us, seem to spend less time outside and more time with indoor virtual amusements.  We look about and within our own day-to-day activities and feel distress about the food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the accelerating pace required just to get by.  We’re disturbed by the degraded bounty of life on earth, a result of imbalances that we fear we’ve introduced.  Understandably, much attention is focused on SNAPSHOTS of these degradations.  This film takes a different tack resting equally on the following three ingredients.bte-landscape-kids

1. BIG QUESTIONS. Behold The Earth provides an opportunity to hold steady within the BIG PICTURE of American identity and the natural world.  It asks the big questions of thought leaders like E. O. Wilson, Cal Dewitt, Richard Louv, Theo Colborn, and others.  Where have we come from?  Where are we going?  How do we know what we know?  Rather quickly, these questions cut to the core of what Americans believe and know about the natural world. At this core are the two most powerful forces in the world today; religion and science.  Often they co-exist in a distrustful incompatibility.  Indeed, in several core areas, I believe the respective worldviews will certainly continue to disagree.  But not all core areas. In light of addressing the earth’s most pressing degradations, this film explores those areas of common cause.  Parents, educators, scientists, Christians, environmentalists, and any combination of the above are invited to join the inquiry. 

2. “WOW” SEQUENCES OF NATURE. Capturing the spectacular wonders of the natural world, -sunrise to sunset and beyond- is central to the project. For the past several years, I’ve kept an ongoing (and closely guarded!) shotlist of unrecorded creature behaviors within stunning landscapes. I believe each is guaranteed to deliver an eye-opening reaction of “Wow!” To successfully capture the shots on the list, we’re drawing on some of the same talented field staff and technical expertise found in the massive successful Planet Earth series, as well as our own series Sunrise Earth. What makes that elusive “wow” factor? The answer is what that word “Behold” is all about.

3. AMERICAN ROOT MUSIC. For a couple of hundred years, people in my part of the world have expressed their connection to these wonders through music. This tradition is rich and -as far as our inquiry goes- untapped. It varies region to region, habitat to habitat, across America. Often, the wonders are so immense, the music they inspire draw on our most deeply held beliefs, knowledge, and identity. A talented core of both established and emerging musical talent is being assembled by our song composer Dirk Powell. These minstrels wander throughout our production.

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