The River

It's the Mississippi river system. This New Deal doc is directed by film critic Pare Lorentz. It shows overuse and mismanagement over the years causing floods and erosion. Then government agencies replant trees and build dams to repair the damage and improve the lives of the people.

This poetic documentary is rather simple and effective. It's a great piece of salesmanship for the New Deal and the river projects. It does set into motion some less appealing aspects of the big projects. Of course, they don't see it at the time. In the end, the program is sold very well.

I first saw this as a 16 mm film projection in 1961, and have been looking for a copy off and on since then. Finally found one on eBay as a DVD labeled The History of the Mississippi River. While ultimately plugging the achievements of the TVA and FDR's New Deal, the film movingly portrays both the muscle of American industry and agriculture, and its folly and wastefulness and the effects on both the land and its people.

Probably the best part of the film, and certainly crucial to its message, is the music of Virgil Thomson, who interwove melodies from popular and gospel hymns with his own original creation to enhance and define the mood of this documentary. The music, along with his music for the companion film The Plow that Broke the Plains, is available on CD.

With a running time of 30 minutes, this is a gem of a documentary, and one that has had a life-long effect on me personally, in terms of my career, politics, and environmental sensibility.

As Pare Lorentz did for the Southern Plains about the Dust Bowl in a previous documentary, here is focuses on the Mississippi River. Virgil Thomson composed music to help enhance the documentary. During the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal programs helped to understand and educate others throughout the country about causes such as saving the Mississippi River and the Southern Plains in the Dust Bowl years. Pare Lorentz does a decent job in a time when documentaries were still new as with films in general. The documentary is short enough but long enough to explain the Mississippi River. It would have been nicer to have heard from people along the Mississippi River who are probably generations of families have lived to earn a living. The documentary is fine for historic review and the music is ingenious in understanding the river's significance. The Mississippi River stretches from Minnesota to New Orleans, Louisiana and has been an important part of American history.

I first saw THE RIVER in the 1950's in school, in the days when watching a movie in class didn't mean turning on the TV and popping in a VHS tape, it meant rolling in the old Bell and Howell Filmosound, putting up the screen, and watching a real 16mm projected MOVIE. I saw it two more times during my school career because it had so much to say at different levels about different things. It is the story of the Mississippi River, what it means to the land, and what we have done to it. It is, let's admit, a New Deal tract, an ecology drama, and moderately political. It is an unabashed apology for the entire Tennessee Valley Authority construction project. But that out of the way, it is a poetic and almost hypnotic (due to repetitive images)narrative, well-written and dramatically read. And it doesn't hurt that the musical score, by Virgil Thompson, is arguably the greatest musical score written for any movie (it is in its orchestral suite format a concert standard and has had many recordings, and is also available as the complete score on at least one recording). You can rent this disk from Netflix and it is worth it just for The River. I also watched its predecessor, THE PLOW THAT BROKE THE PLAINS, which I didn't like as much. I passed on the other offerings. But just for THE RIVER it is worth it. My only argument with it is that the ending loses the hypnotic poetry and simply sums up the rest of the story. That aside, it is as great a documentary as has been made.

The River is a very wonderful documentary, covering the importance of the Mississippi River to the United States. It's Depression-era propaganda, yes, but it's so beautifully filmed, edited, and written, as well as read. The narration is absolutely poetic. This is a must-see if for all documentary enthusiasts. 9/10.