True/False Films

Earth Days

In person: director Robert Stone

Before the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 1962, America's relationship to nature would be best categorized as one of fear and contempt. But the nearly half-century since has witnessed an enormous ideological shift, with most citizens now grasping the need to protect our natural environment. Robert Stone's poignant, contemplative film combines gorgeous footage with compelling oral histories to trace American environmentalism from conception to coming-out party: April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day. His subjects include biologist Paul Erlich, Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall and astronaut Rusty Schweickart, all of whom found ways to convey the urgency of the environmental mission. As in his previous T/F hit Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst, Stone turns a single event into a deep study of evolving American consciousness. Earth Day reveals how, amidst explosive scientific progress and massive economic expansion, a society began to understand its interconnectedness with nature and asserting its power to preserve it. (JS)