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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Down To Earth

Tuesday Video: Paul’s analysis of “Gulf Coast Blues: Oil in Our Veins” trailer

*This is part two of a two-part DTE analysis of the trailer for local filmmaker Marc Gauthier’s upcoming oil spill documentary titled “Gulf Coast Blues: Oil in Our Veins”  Today is DTE blogger Paul’s take on the trailer.  DTE blogger Bart’s take appeared here on DTE over the weekend.  The trailer is embedded below as our weekly Tuesday Video: (Warning — foul/coarse/mature language at 4:05, 5:50 and 8:10)




So, a guy from Spokane spends two weeks in Louisiana poking his nose around and filming, and if he knows more than the President of the United States about what’s really happening down here on the beaches, in the marshes, if the administration doesn’t have what I have learned in two weeks, then we are in big trouble. We are screwed.” - Marc Gauthier to Paul Haeder

That quote from the frontlines might sound familiar. If you followed Dispatches From A Disaster as voraciously as we did, it didn’t take long to realize it was one of the most real and unfiltered reports from the Gulf. Now comes Gulf Coast Blues: Oil In Our Veins, a documentary from that project by Spokane filmmaker Marc Gauthier. This is as real as it gets with up close and personal of coverage of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindahl, his sleeves rolled up - the sign a politician is serious - spouting empty doublespeak from the lectern. You suffer the embarrassing boxed-in bureaucracy when Gauthier volunteers to help with the clean-up. And there are the sublime and hypnotic shots of pelicans soaring above waves on the gorgeous coast line before the oil hits the beaches - fast-forward a month and witness the harrowing juxtaposition of death as an economy is destroyed and dead shrimp wash up on the beach, covered in blackspotted goop. “How can we fly to the moon in the 60’s and we can’t stop an oil leak?” a fishermen asks Gauthier. “It doesn’t make sense.”

 

 

 

Gauthier was able to do a very rare thing - put himself in the action while maintaining the clarity and judgment of an honest journalist. What he accomplished is even more courageous when you consider media covering spill clean-up efforts without permission could face a $40,000 fine or even one to five years in prison under a rule instituted by the Coast Guard.

The question remains: Will we learn from the Gulf? The skeptic in me says no but wants more than anything to be proven wrong. The horrors of Vietnam didn’t deter us from invading Iraq; Three Mile Island didn’t stop nuclear power; and there will be offshore drilling as Gov. Jindahl hypocritically fights President Obama against a moratorium in his state. Not to get in grumpy ol’ man mode but the half-baked commentary and politically slanted coverage of this issue creates a generation unable to make reasonable, informed decisions about the big issues facing them which stem from this disaster. It’s no easy task to get people to believe the truth. In an era when politicians whip up fear and hysteria with falsehoods to shoot down clean energy proposals with a U.N. takeover, the truth does not win out on its own; it must have champions. Gauthier is one of those champions. For a debut feature, he belongs in the same club with a documentarian like Werner Herzog who understands the damage humans can cause the Earth. They can chat at the same innovative bar and trade war stories. But unlike Herzog's cult following and studio budget, we have Gauthier from Spokane, the former Natural Start bakery owner, making a lonely journey in the search for truth and exposing a country gone mad. Fortunately, the rest of us can can find it in documentaries like Gulf Coast Blues: Oil In Our Veins.

 



Down To Earth

The DTE blog is committed to reporting and sharing environmental news and sustainability information from across the Inland Northwest.