The Botany of Desire

Name: The Botany of Desire
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2009-10-28
Duration: 2 h
Rating: 7.6
Cast: Frances McDormand, Michael Pollan

TV Movie
2009
TV-14
2h

IMDb RATING

7.6/10

613

YOUR RATING

Documentary

Michael Pollan, a professor of journalism and a student of food, presents the history of four plants, each of which found a way to make itself essential to humans, thus ensuring widespread p... Read allMichael Pollan, a professor of journalism and a student of food, presents the history of four plants, each of which found a way to make itself essential to humans, thus ensuring widespread propagation. Apples, for sweetness; tulips, for beauty; marijuana, for pleasure; and, potat... Read allMichael Pollan, a professor of journalism and a student of food, presents the history of four plants, each of which found a way to make itself essential to humans, thus ensuring widespread propagation. Apples, for sweetness; tulips, for beauty; marijuana, for pleasure; and, potatoes, for sustenance. Each has a story of discovery and adaptation; each has a symbiotic re... Read all

Directors
- Michael Schwarz
- Edward Gray
Stars
- Frances McDormand
- Michael Pollan

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.6/10

613

YOUR RATING

Directors
- Michael Schwarz
- Edward Gray
Stars
- Frances McDormand
- Michael Pollan

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 nomination total

Photos

Top cast2

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Frances McDormand

Narrator

Michael Pollan

Self

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Quotes
[last lines]
Michael Pollan: For me the most important lessons to take away from these tales is that we are not simply standing outside the web of life, but that we are part of that web of life, and that everything we do, what we choose to eat, what flowers we choose to - to put on our tables, what drugs we choose to take, these are evolutionary votes we are casting every day in - in many, many different ways.
[pause]
Michael Pollan: When we use these metaphors when we talk about plants having a strategy to do this, or wanting this, or desiring this, we're being metaphorical obviously, I mean, plants do not have consciousness. But this is a fault of our own vocabulary. We don't have a very good vocabulary to describe what other species do to us, because we think we're the only species that really does anything.
[pause]
Michael Pollan: But to the extent that you can put yourself in the place of these other species and look at the world from their point of view, I think it frees us from our sense of alienation from nature? And we become members of the biotic community, one among many species, all of them together creating this wondrous web that we call life.

User reviews7

Review

Featured review

7/10

Interesting, Well Put Together Documentary

The Botany of Desire is a well made PBS documentary adaptation of Michael Pollan's book discussing humanity's interactions with four different plants-the apple, the potato, the tulip, and marijuana-over the ages. It is both highly informative and thought-provoking.

The film itself is a useful introduction to Michael Pollan's ideas, particularly the idea of evolutionary deals between plants and humanity, in which a species of plant provides humans with benefits in exchange for human cultivation, which ensures survival. This concept is particularly useful for understanding Pollan's work, and figures in his other books such as The Omnivore's Dilemma.

The ending of the film is especially essential viewing, as it discusses the problems raised by industrial agriculture and the issue of monocultures-the tendency to grow identical breeds of a plant, which could all be vulnerable to the same disease. This fits with his broader critique of industrial farming in The Omnivore's Dilemma, and is important for anyone concerned with the future of American food.