The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936)
- Directed by
- Pare Lorentz
- Genre
- documentary film
- Country
- United States
- Runtime
- 25 min
- Rating
- 5.9 of 10 from 16 voters
- Elsewhere
- IMDb
The catalogue in 3D
The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.
How it feels
This short documentary examines how settlers plowed up the Great Plains after the Civil War. It shows how the misuse of natural resources led to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
educationalsoberinghistoricalreflectiveinformativeearnestmelancholicthoughtful
What happens
The Plow That Broke the Plains is a 1936 short documentary film that shows the cultivation of the Great Plains region of the United States and Canada following the Civil War and leading up to the Dust Bowl as a result of exploitation of the Great Plains' natural resources.The Plow That Broke the Plains was the first film created by the US government for commercial release and distribution through the Resettlement Administration as part of President Roosevelt's New Deal program. The Resettlement Administration recruited Pare Lorentz to produce The Plow That Broke the Plains to support its campaign of showing the public that the search for profits in the West resulted in the displacement of settlers, misuse of the land, and ultimately resulted in the dust storms that affected the Great Plains regions in the 1930s. The film was one of the most widely publicized attempts by the U.S. federal government to communicate to its citizens through motion pictures. The Plow That Broke the Plains was written and directed by Pare Lorentz independently while the music score was written by composer Virgil Thomson. The film was narrated by the American actor and baritone Thomas Hardie Chalmers. In 1999, The Plow That Broke the Plains was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)
More like this
The Dust Bowl (2012)
And So They Live (1940)
Popular Science J-6-2 (1936)
Enough to eat? : the nutrition film (1936)
Sagebrush and Silver (1941)
The New Deal for Artists (1976)
Life Belongs to Us (1936)
Popular Science J-7-1 (1937)- More like this film, on a shelf you can walk up to.It's the lit case on the top shelf.