The Oscars For Earth Day

The language of nature has been steadily draining from our pop culture, from songs to books to movies. This erosion is both a product of the decline in people’s everyday connection to nature and a cultural driver that exacerbates that decline. And this negative feedback loop of nature and cultural connections is just a mirror held up to the actual decline of nature, a real-life disaster movie with a dissonant soundtrack.

This week marks the first time that the Academy Awards and Earth Day find themselves as next-door neighbors on the calendar. As a conservation scientist, and someone troubled by our culture’s nature deficit, this convergence struck me as an opportunity to celebrate those movies that do put nature front and center.  Rivers, in particular, feature prominently in cinema – heck, there are two Kevin Bacon movies about white water rafting!

Perhaps this focus reflects personal bias, as I am a river scientist, but without further ado, here is my Earth Day take on the Academy Awards — the 2021 Aquati-Me Awards (water-themed cinematic awards given by me):

Best river in a starring role: Mississippi River in Mud. Commentators have noted that a dramatic physical transformation—of weight or appearance—has been a surefire path to a Best Actor nod. The Mississippi must have been listening because, preparing for its role in Mud, the river underwent unprecedented weight fluctuations. For one scene (where a flood deposits a boat high up in a tree) the river had to gain 500 billion gallons—in a week!—and then lose them for the rest of the movie.  Throughout, the river’s performance paints a tangled and brooding landscape that the other characters must navigate to find each other.

Best river in a supporting role: Amazon River in El Abrazo de la Serpiente (Embrace of the Serpent). Dramatically shot in black and white and with dialogue primarily in Ocaina and other indigenous languages, Embrace of the Serpent stars two indigenous actors who play the same character in connected stories set in the Colombian Amazon 30 years apart. The film explores themes of mortality and faith set against the steady waves of assaults on the people of the Amazon. And just as the Amazon River—its productivity and connectivity—supports the communities and ecosystems of the region, the mighty river and its tributaries are always there in the film, supporting the stories by serving as the sets, scenes, and soundtrack.

Best Animated Feature Film: Frozen II.  As in many animated films, some malevolent force looms over a kingdom. In Frozen II, that malevolent force is a dam built under false pretenses (i.e., it lacked proper permits and stakeholder consultation process). Anna realizes that, to restore peace to the kingdom of Arendelle, the dam must go.  Perhaps due to her youthful inexperience, she selects a somewhat obscure contractor, Gigantic Earth Spirits, Ltd. Rather than careful removal with excavators, the contractors simply hurl boulders at the dam, and the resulting sudden flood nearly destroys Arendelle. I think this delightful film makes two main points: (1) dam removal is one of the most dramatic ways to restore vitality to a river, and (2) dam removal projects should be planned carefully. I just have a few questions: for a movie about river restoration and dam removal, why are the characters always breaking out in song? And if they insist on singing, why isn’t one of those songs, “Let It Flow?”

Best Writing (original screenplay/adapted screenplay): Chinatown. The linear nature of time precludes this 1974 film from being an adaptation of the 1986 book Cadillac Desert, the classic history of water in the western U.S.  But it sure feels like one as the original screenplay by Robert Townes tapped the same source material as Marc Reisner’s book: how Los Angeles manipulated its way into legally claiming nearly all the water of the Owens River, diverting it from its terminus in Owens Lake (its dried-up lakebed is today the largest source of dust pollution in the country) and piping it across the state to the thirsty and growing city. Money flowed alongside the water, and Chinatown imagined how the flood of money spawned crime and corruption, drenched in the moody light of film noir.

Best Score: Apocalypse Now. Among a star-studded cast, the real star of this film is the Mekong River (under the screen name Nung River). Several iconic scenes are forever linked to pieces from the score –  the helicopters and Flight of the Valkyries; water skiing behind a PT Boat to Satisfaction.  And at the end, Captain Willard rises out of the river, wreathed in fog, with the Doors’ The End tracking his descent into madness and violence. It’s a stunning amalgamation of music, plot, and imagery – all of it literally drenched in river water.

Best Song: Dueling Banjos (Deliverance). This bluegrass standard is now inextricably linked to the movie; the scene where a “city boy” plays Dueling Banjos with a 15-year old local boy is one of the only upbeat moments in the movie, a brief stretch of calm water before the out-of-town men plunge into the rapids and their own heart of darkness.

Best Documentary: Fresh Water episode of Our Planet. There are so many great options that if this were an actual awards show, Fresh Water would breathlessly exclaim, “Oh my gosh, you’re all winners! You should all be up here with me! I mean, DamNation, A River Reborn, The River and The Wall, Changing Currents, it’s just an honor to be nominated alongside you!”  Indeed, there are so many great documentaries about rivers and water, they merit their own awards show (and blog post). But as these are the Aquati-Me Awards, forgive my bias for selecting the breathtaking Fresh Water episode from the Our Planet series, for which my employer, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), served as a scientific consultant.

Best International Feature Film: The Rocket. Filmed in Laos, with dialogue nearly entirely in Lao, this quirky film weaves serious river issues into a somewhat madcap road movie featuring a James Brown impersonator and climatic rocket contest. The movie opens with the main character, a young boy, swimming down to the depths of a lake to visit his old village, now inundated beneath a reservoir created by a hydropower dam. Soon, his relocated village must move once again to make way for yet another reservoir; a character in a temporary encampment laments that the country is selling electricity to “all of bloody Asia” with none left for them. Optimistically, if The Rocket had a sequel, it could feature how the renewable revolution reduced the environmental and social disruption from hydropower in the Mekong River basin.  

Best Costume Design: The Peanut Butter Falcon. This heartwarming movie evokes Huck Finn as it follows an unlikely duo floating downriver on a raft.  While one might have expected a river to star in this movie, that role is actually played by…the ocean! The characters keep referring to a river (e.g,. “if we’re going to make it 70 miles downriver”) but, other than a few moments among cypress trees, the cinematography features coastlines, bays and beaches. In other words, the ocean. Two-thirds through the movie my daughter said, “They keep mentioning the river, but…isn’t that the ocean?” It was as if I’d been holding my breath for 45 minutes… “YES!!!”, I shouted, “THANK YOU, it’s the OCEAN!!!” You see, I’d been holding my breath because my family has told me, on a semi-regular basis, that I can be a tad annoying as a movie-watching companion with my steady observations such as, “You know, they say the town is in Georgia, but that’s clearly a live oak from the coastal oak woodlands of central California.” So, I had resolved to not mar our Peanut Butter Falcon experience with my penchant for noting ecoregional errors. And was secretly quite pleased (and relieved) that my daughter had her limits.  But, kudos to the costume design team, because working with the ocean as an actor they managed to get reviewers to see a river (as evidence, the titles and plot synopses of reviews consistently reference rivers: “A river runs through it,” “Going downriver with the Peanut Butter Falcon” “cruising downriver on a janky homemade raft.”) And, setting aside the cranky observations of a freshwater scientist and his daughter, the cinematography is beautiful and the story flows.

Best film: A River Runs Through It. This is the essence of what culture can do: tell stories of people—their emotions, their relationships—intertwined with nature. With its serene and lyrical beauty – and bounty of trout – the Blackfoot River provides the language and landscape for the characters to connect with each.