The Longest Ride (2015)

A beautiful story set in the hills of rural North Carolina.  The characters make full use of the beauty around them.  They pause to note the mountains with light fog settling among the trees.  The swim in the mountains ponds,  They drive down the tree lined roads.  They appreciate the open porch as a place to sit and contemplate it all.  The camera is actively laying the ruralness of North Carolina before you.  The heavy thunderstorm plays important roles in meaningful places. The urban-rural contrast forms a crucial factor in the plot.  In all a movie and story intimately connected to the landscape.

The plot involves a young couple, she attending Wake-Forest University and he a bull riding champion.  He loves the farm and the rural life while she is of art galleries, which are of the urban place.  He lives on a farm set in the middle of all this rural beauty, yet facing loss by financial pressures.  She is ready to move to New York City with a position assured her in the art gallery field selling painting he finds silly to people with full wallets.

According to IMDb, he filming locations were Generally in North Carolina, with the bull riding be done in Winston-Salem and Jacksonville, North Carolina.  There is one flashback sequence on Caswell Beach, North Carolina.  This area is part of the Piedmont stretching west to the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Of special note is Black Mountain College which flourished from 1933 until closure in 1957.  Black Mountain College was an experimental college that was faculty owned and run.  It followed a full participation model of education as all worked on the campus and maintained it.  Art was seen as an important part of campus life and the movie takes advantage of that theme.  A number of important modern artists stayed at the college.  It was supported as part of the WPA system in the Depression.

Sources
Black Mountain College.  2015.  Black Mountain College Museum and Art Center.  Online. http://www.blackmountaincollege.org/history

IMDb.  2015.  The Longest Ride.  Online.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2726560/locations?ref_=ttfc_sa_5

The Sundowners (1960)

 

In this Turner Classic Movie regular film, Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr portray early 20th Century itinerant ranch workers in the “Outback” of Australia.  They travel taking temporary positions in the sheep industry playing out a plot sub context of being free to move and take positions like they do versus settling down and raising their own sheep.  This is played against the setting of the wide open landscape of the massive open space that is central Australia.

The importance of the sheep industry and its nature in Australia is the first obvious geographic element to notice.  Sheep are raised, moved and loaded much as one found in the early cattle business of the United States; as shown in many western movies.  As Americans drove in cattle drives, so do we see Australians driving sheep to rail heads and/or shearing stations.  You get to observe sheep shearing as a major segment is at one of these stations.

The landscape shown is vast and very arid.  The same sorts of hazards present themselves in Australia, as in the United States, with the exception of native community attacks.  We see the distances and time to cross them.  We see the danger of fires.  The kangaroos are a fun element as we cross these areas, but dangerous animals do exist.

The vastness of the landscape is obvious to the careful and casual  viewer.  Scene after scene has unlimited perspective.  That vastness is dry.  One gets thirsty watching.  The ground looks dry.  The plants look dry.  The vegetation is sparse. 

…

The actual shooting sites varied widely.  IMDb lists the following Australian sites as those used in making The Sundowners:

Carriewerloo Station, South Australia, Australia

Cooma, New South Wales, Australia

Corrabera Station, South Australia, Australia

Corunna Station, South Australia, Australia

Flinders Ranges, South Australia, Australia

Hawker, South Australia, Australia

Nimmitabel, New South Wales, Australia

Iron Knob, South Australia, Australia

Port Augusta, South Australia, Australia

Quorn, South Australia, Australia

Saltia Creek, South Australia, Australia

Snowy Mountains, New South Wales, Australia

South Australia, Australia

Whyalla, South Australia, Australia

 

IMDb.  2015.  The Sundowners.  Internet.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054353/locations?ref_=tt_dt_dt

South Pacific(1958)

 

South Pacific [1958]. A tragic story with postmodern social implication, ahead of its times. The songs are the story. We all long for a Bali Hai. The geographic view is of Hawaii. IMDb identifies Kaua'i, Hawaii, USA as the spot, unless in the studio. They di try to look real and they are in the Pacific.

The deeper theme of South Pacific is one of racial mixing. Lt. Cable has adjustment troubles facing the fact that he loves Liat, who is Tonkinese. In the out of the world joy of BaliHai, he loses track of his background and falls for her. Faced with the reality of his social world, he cannot bring himself at first to marry her. So to Nellie has troubles facing the fact that Emile married a Polynesian woman and had two children. Her social bak ground faces adjusting to this fact. Cable sings “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught” to reveal his findings of this conflict in himself, and Nellie. Our view of others is “carefully taught” to us by our society. It is not born in us.

South Pacific islands have had this place in American culture of being where the outside world is put aside. One might see the British sailors react and change in any version of Mutiny on the Bounty to see this.

The physical world is the standard one of Warmth with broad open views of the ocean. Volcanic peaks dominate the sky. The distance this world is from the larger world of America is pronounced.  The islands are a refuge from the industrial age, though damaged by it as Gauguin clearly saw in his art from here.A beautiful picture of it all.

All the Fine Young Cannibals [1960].

 

All the Fine Young Cannibals [1960]. Natalie Wood and her future husband Robert Wagner team for this angst-filled melodrama of coming of age and finding what it all means in the shadow of parents and the conditions of life. George Hamilton and Susan Kohner ably assist moving the drama with the singing and bitter angst of Pearl Bailey coming along. The blues is the issue and what to do with them. A hard to find movie, but worth the search.

The geography is that of a bit older rural South. One finds the elements of poverty and race, and the associated elements of unhappiness. Chad (Robert Wagner) can play the trumpet very well. He picks up on local African-American blues and finds his way via a twisted path to wealth and fame blowing the blues in the North. He keeps touch with his roots and marries Sally Mae (Natalie Wood). She has trouble living with the torments within Chad as he both profits from the music and yet is tormented by the blues in his own life.

The visual elements shown are that warm, rural South and its poverty, as well as urban living and it finery. Both are places of angst with the South offering home and a place of comfort and forgiveness.

Mrs. Miniver (1942)

 

A classic film, often on Turner Classic Movies (TCM), Mrs. Miniver gives a view of rural England that is hard to beat. Made in 1942, it put American in empathy with British people suffering the Nazi Blitz or Battle of Britain. A major element of World War II, Hitler’s mazing and unexplained abandonment of the Battle gave the British a breather and allowed the move toward victory. Some historians see Hitler as winning this battle had only he continued it.

The Miniver family lives in Belham. Belham is fictional as none exists, but it is clearly on the River Thames and in southeast England. The armada of small ships and the heaviness of the Nazi air attacks yield a conclusion that Belham, though fictional, is a model of many places in rural southeastern England. An airbase is nearby and the bombing begins early after the war begins. That bombing is very heavy. This eliminates the North. Their easiness and regularity of travel l to London further indicates a site near London. One can make an assumption that British travel is so superior at this time that sites further out could have been created, but nearness to London is just the natural assumption one wants to make.

The geographic elements shown of British life then and now are numerous.

1. Note that gardening is important. You will find it here, and in many of the British comedies shown on American public television. People are very involved in this in England.

2. Rural roads will tend to be tree lined. While modern highways exist and look like those here in basic respects, the rural roads often are tree lined and would seem compact to Americans.

3. Class system tension existed and still is present. Early in the film, young Vincent Miniver and Carol Belham argue slightly over the role of class in society. The older system of nobility has been in decline and the fading elements of it that remain are a subject for discussion. Should a mere stationmaster be allowed to enter, much less win, a contest on roses? His winning would upset the local lady.

4. The nature of the Thames River is shown. Boats 30 feet and longer are called into service. Note how many show up. A 30 foot boat would be hard to find in Minnesota or most states. But that the river can handle them and allow them ocean access is clearly presented.

Mrs. Miniver is a classic film. Watch for it in the regular schedule around Oscar time. For the historian it has numerous elements of the war period. For the geographer it has a quaint slice of pre-war and wartime British life.

Exodus (1960)

 

Exodus (1960) is a classic film depicting the establishment of Israel and the immediate collapse of the area into Israeli-Arab fighting. It begins on Cyprus where the British are trying to hold Jews from Europe from entering Palestine, as it was known. The British are stretched at the end of their Empire Period. World War II has exhausted them. They are left in control of Palestine by the Sykes-Picot Agreement and seizures made at the end of World War I. All they really want is out of this situation. They no longer have the resources to continue their World role.

On Cyprus, Ari Ben Canaan (Paul Newman) meets American nurse Kitty Fremont (Eva Marie Saint), and then engineers the takeover of a ship of immigrants. Slyly leading their escape from an internment camp, the Jewish group boards the ship only to find the British will not allow them to leave port. Following a hunger strike to embarrass the British into letting them go to Israel, they are so released. Arriving in Israel one views a typical Kibbutz setting. The Kibbutz is a settlement form intended to place Jewish immigrants in farm settings where those with skills and no funds could work with others in creating a farm community. As the United Nations debates the fate of Palestine and the new Israeli state, you get to observe the fighting of the three sides over this area.

IMDb lists the filming sites as Acre, Israel; Famagusta, Cyprus; and Jerusalem, Israel. It is not a studio set film, it uses the real sites. This authenticity is important in making it a geographically significant film. It would have been easy to use Southern California locations which share the Mediterranean climate zone’s features.

The view of Cyprus is limited. The ship and dock area dominates, but some driving around by the characters gives you some sense of the Mediterranean nature of Cyprus.

As the action shifts to Israel, Jerusalem and Acre alternate as sites. The city has old buildings. This is its nature at this time. The viewer is given a clear picture of older stone building. The area is crowded and an odd interconnectivity of buildings is presented. For example, one can escape capture running from roof top to roof top and up and down.

Acre is the site of the kibbutz and school. It is dry with scrub forest and plantings. The landscape is rough hills. A great deal of exposed stone is shown. It has the just off the desert sense to it.

Crops will grow here. Barack Ben Canaan (Leo J. Cobb) talks to the migrants of oranges so large that “five make a dozen.” These are still a part of international markets as Haifa oranges.

While not emphasized, the famous social structure of the kibbutz is hinted at. The large number of children are herded together. Older children and all Israel’s are ready to do their part in the settlement effort. Note how the children are always in a group. This was for protection, even if they had parents. Questions have arisen over the years as to whether this communalism resulted in some toughing of the personalities resulting in some lingering person damage to some.

A great film that brings the Israeli side to the forefront. The readiness of some to bring all this in peace is met by the unwillingness of others to join that effort. We all know how this has gone.

Trailer

Sources

IMDb. 1990-2015. Exodus (1960) Filming Sites. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053804/locations?ref_=tt_dt_dt

The Elvis Atlas

 

The Elvis Atlas: A Journey Through Elvis Presley's America (Henry Holt Reference Book) by Michael Gray and Roger Osborne

Michael Gray and Roger Osborne follow the career of Elvis documenting the geography of the world of the king, the geographic basis of the influences on him and his music, and the places where Elvis played and made his career. A detailed history accompanies the maps and charts.

The first chapters begin with the musical roots of his music and family. We get to see mapped and discussed the places he was known to frequent. Elvis is a product of those things that influence d him. His music is not a creation of itself.

The influence of the South is vividly made in the book. Tennessee is the hub for those concerts making Elvis a musician and then a star. Gray and Osborne map out the concerts of Elvis to show the locations and the size of the crowds. The South is also the melting pot for the country, blues, gospel, and African components that combine in early Rock and in the music which begins his career. Elvis sang a combination of Country as it was based in Appalachian music, Blues as sung by African-Americans, Gospel as sung by both Whites and African-Americans, and the rhythms of earlier African-American and African music.

Interesting is that Elvis venturing north was not an automatic success. Early concerts in the North do not have filled auditoriums. One does not expect this. It is possible that anti-Rock and Roll movements or the cost of tickets held these audiences down. The eventual fan base for Elvis is not reflected well in his early concerts outside the South.

The move to Hollywood for movie making takes his music west, but also spreads it around the country. This period would include his time in the Army and Germany. Rather than Elvis in concert, you get Elvis as movie star.

The sorrow of the later post-military movie period is shown as putting weight on Elvis as it was his managers will and not his. The early films and their locations were films Elvis wanted to make, but his later career’s films were formularized to maximize Colonel Parker’s sense of what would market Elvis. There is some expansion of his geographic world to Hawaii, but this is not his favored part of the world.

The fall of Elvis is shown in his being pulled away from the places his early and middle career took him. Graceland becomes an escape His spiritual comfort is in his youthful locations and work. Pulled to Hollywood and places not to his suiting, stages where he is not singing his work, deprive him of reward.

In this wonderful work, one flaw that should be noted, is in the attempt to place the Presley family in its historic perspective. This also extends into the historic development of Country Music itself. If going into this history at all, the specific history of the Scot-Irish people should have correctly noted. Country Music develops from a Scot-Irish musical tradition. The sense of sadness, gloom, hurt, loss, and the tough nature of life in early Country Music—or first called “Hillbilly” music-- reflects the history of the Scot-Irish people.

The Scot-Irish title denotes a group of people who began as Scot crofters or farmers who were expelled from their land in favor of sheep herding by the land owners. These Scots were offered land in Northern Ireland as the British consolidated their control of the Irish in the North just after 1600. Later their Presbyterian faith was not regarded as acceptable and they faced some persecution in Ireland. Those who left for America were called the Scot-Irish after their previous dual locations.

In America they moved to the hills to escape the governmental control they regarded as mean and unsafe. Life in the hills was not pleasant or easy. It was a tough life with many hardships. The sense of death, loss of love, hard conditions of Country Music comes from their songs into the mid-1900s. Rock then takes an African set of rhythms, blues, and instruments and Rock was created. Elvis develops his music out of this heritage.

The Elvis fan can follow the career of the king in this book, noting the geography of his life and music had great impact on him and the music many like.