Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life (1925) A film review by Steve Lipson
In categorizing "Grass" (1925), the Merian Cooper-Ernest Schoedsack documentary on the annual migration of the Bakhtiari people of Iran, most modern assessments identify it as an example of realism, a movement counter to the conventions of classical Hollywood cinema. This review will analyze the extent to which "Grass" can be considered a realist, anti-Hollywood motion picture. But perhaps I should state at the outset that I really enjoyed this film, especially once it actually started following the migration of the Iranian tribe. I found the last half of the movie suspenseful, engrossing, and fascinating in its depiction of an unfamiliar culture.
In terms of its realist content, the most obvious difference between "Grass" and the films of classical Hollywood is that "Grass" is a documentary--it purports to tell a true story, not a fictional or fictionalized account. As a documentary, it does not adhere to many of the cinematic conventions we've grown accustomed to in Hollywood films. Most notably for me, it does not keep consistent screen direction. Characters or the migratory band often enter the frame from the same location they left in the previous scene, going in opposite directions. Nevertheless, this did not hinder my understanding of the movie and is probably not something I would normally have noticed; after all, it was obvious from the context of the movie that the tribes were headed in the same steady direction throughout their migration. But this lack of following this convention can even be forgiven the film-makers in any event: they were filming real life, far outside the comfortable confines of a studio set, so they had to set up the camera wherever they could find a good place.
Another aspect of the filming that I observed was the relatively limited camera movement. There were no tracking shots at all that I can remember; panning and tilting were limited to the purposes of highlighting a landscape or slighting moving the camera to follow the action. Of course, filming on the move and in hazardous or unfamiliar conditions hinders one's ability to employ elaborate camera movement; nevertheless, I found myself wishing for a shot taken from the back of a cow or a camel. But even if this were technologically possible, I can see why the film-makers might have chosen not to use it. Their purpose in this movie was to film real life, to capture the intrinsic interest of the true story of the Bakhtiari, not to show off the kind of cute shots that can be done using the camera.
In the absence of camera movement, the film-makers had to employ other techniques to keep the film visually interesting. In this goal, they admirably succeeded. There was constant movement through the screen: the migrating of people, the rushing of waters, etc. Also, the film-makers knew how to employ editing techniques like analytical editing to keep the story interesting; for example, they showed several close-ups of the hunter loading his gun to complement the hunting sequence. But the shots that I most enjoyed were the many shots that employed the entire screen space, those that showed the 50,000 migrators and a half-million animals stretched from the foreground all the way to the edge of the horizon in the background. In many of these scenes, all the people appeared to stay in focus no matter how far they were from the camera. The grandeur of these scenes, and how they conveyed so well the enormity of the migration these tribes were attempting, constantly left me awe-struck as my eyes following the seemingly-endless line of people all the way back until they were but specks in a far-distant horizon. But even here, the interest of these scenes lies in part in the sheer impressive nature of the true events they are depicting. The film-makers have succeeded admirably in their main realist goal: to show how fascinating are the real lives of these people.
Nevertheless, the film-makers don't fully succeed in making a truly naturalistic movie. The story they craft and the intertitles they employ follow very closely the narrative conventions established by Hollywood. Instead of having confidence in the innate interest of the events they depict, the film-makers believe they have to fit their narrative into the familiar conventions of a Hollywood fiction story. For example, they feel the need to include recognizable heroes who the audience can identify with and root for: the chief of the tribe and his son. They decide via the intertitles to artificially inject humor that doesn't come naturally from the events on screen, like for example the crack about the cow not raising her calf to be a sailor. They even choose to artificially inject suspense, not realizing the events on screen are suspenseful enough, by stopping a shot to show a rather long intertitle before we get back to the visuals to see the result. One time this occurs is in the river-crossing scene, where an intertitle warns of danger, waits for a rather long time, then finally shows the young animals going under the water.
Most conspicuous of all, though, is how the film-makers try to create interest by addressing the audience and invoking in them uncertainty that would not have been felt by any of the participants. For example, when the tribe reaches a sheer rock face, an intertitle implies that this is the end of their journey, as they have reached a mountain "impossible to climb." The film-makers pause to show us the tribe and the mountain again before revealing an intertitle: "Impossible? Never!"; this is followed by shots showing how the Bakhtiari succeed in scaling the sheer rock face. The problem with these narrative conventions that the film-makers employ is that the tribes have presumably made this migration many times. They have seen this mountain and have scaled it before, and while they may regard it as difficult, it wouldn't generate in the tribesmen the fear and hesitation the film-makers try to convey. Instead of trying to realistically depict the true thoughts and feelings of the subjects of their documentary, the film-makers decide to manipulate the audience by telling the story of the Bakhtiari as if it were a Hollywood fiction story. They try to artificially build up suspense for the viewers, not allowing themselves to accept that the actual events portrayed on screen are nerve-wracking enough.
Don't get me wrong; I still like this movie for its visuals and the innate interest of the story. But what I am trying to show is that while the film-makers are willing to set aside certain cinematic conventions in order to make a documentary, they did not succeed in achieving a realism that is independent of the Hollywood style or in accomplishing what was presumably their goal of truly depicting the Bakhtiari as they really are. Like in the Hollywood movie, the film-makers' ultimate aim was to shape the events to cater to the supposed desires of their intended audience. But this should not be surprising. After all, the first title screen of the movie reveals that "Grass" is a Zukor/ Lasky production, distributed by Paramount Pictures. No matter what may have been the film-maker's realist intentions, "Grass" ultimately is a studio picture!
Postscript: As stated in my original review, there appears to be a tension between "Grass"'s realist intentions and the classical Hollywood framework in which the story is told. But Cooper and Schoedsack should not be blamed for the film's seemingly-contradictory aims. Originally, the two directors edited their movie in France without intertitles, for the purposes of taking it on the illustrated lecture circuit. But Cooper and Schoedsack's traveling around presenting their movie to public audiences proved so popular that Lasky picked it up for Paramount Pictures. Only then did Terry Ramsaye, a title writer for Paramount, compose the intertitles that dominate the final print and in so doing cheapen the documentary's realism.
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