Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life
About Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life
Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, and Marguerite Harrison travel from Angora, now Ankara, into the Bakhtiari country of Persia. They follow chief Haidar Khan as he moves about 50,000 people and their herds. The migration crosses the Karun River and goes over Zard Kuh, in the Zagros, toward summer pasture.
Cast & crew
More about Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life
Cooper and Schoedsack directed and produced, and Harrison appears as herself. Cooper’s father and brother lent $5,000, and Harrison put in another $5,000. Schoedsack did the camera work. Terry Ramsaye and Richard P. Carver edited the film and wrote the titles. Hugo Riesenfeld wrote the music. It was first shown on January 24, 1925, at the Explorers Club dinner in the Hotel McAlpin in New York. Famous Players-Lasky bought it, and the New York theatrical opening was March 30, 1925, at the Criterion Theatre. Paramount distributed it.
Themes
Making
Cooper had been gathering material with the American Geographical Society in mind. The three of them walked with the migration instead of staging it. They had hoped to film the return journey and never did.
Reviews
Mordaunt Hall, in the New York Times, called it an unusual picture that instructs and is not a story. He wrote that the audience applauded photographic passages and laughed at the animals.
Look
Ernest B. Schoedsack shot the migration, including the Karun crossing and the climb over Zard Kuh. Merian C. Cooper is also credited with photography.
Music
Silent, with titles by Terry Ramsaye and Richard P. Carver. Hugo Riesenfeld wrote the score.
Preservation
Milestone Film & Video issued it on DVD, including a 2000 Image/Milestone disc. A WebM is on Wikimedia Commons, and the Criterion Channel streams it.
Notes
- The people in the film are a branch of the Bakhtiari, a Lur people, in what is now western Iran. Lufta, Haidar Khan’s son, is also in the picture.
- Cooper, Schoedsack, and Harrison were the first Westerners to make the migration with the tribe. Cooper said they had not heard of Nanook of the North until they got back to New York.
- Schoedsack later said Harrison had not done a damn thing on the trip.
- In 1947 Cooper called the film a damned half picture and wanted to remake it around one family. Schoedsack told him a rail line had changed the route.
- Bahman Maghsoudlou’s book Grass: Untold Stories came out in 2009.
Awards
- National Film Registry (1997)
Scenes
- The filmmakers leave Angora and pick up the Bakhtiari route.
- Haidar Khan’s people and animals cross the Karun.
- The caravan goes over Zard Kuh.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Grass (1925).webm)
- Milestone Film & Video DVD
- Criterion Channel
