Films & Events
California Company Town
Director Lee Anne Schmitt, who studied under pioneering structuralist James Benning, offers an unblinking examination of the life cycle of California's company towns. Over the past 125 years, dozens of corporations such as Occidental Petroleum, Sierra Pacific, and Borax Energy have bought huge parcels of land to establish their private operations, which included stores, schools, and homes for their workers. In doing so, the companies superseded their role of employer to become the town's landlord, merchant, and educator as a way to control and placate their employees. When the profits stopped rolling in, though, the companies sold out or abandoned the properties, leaving detritus: industrial warehouses; dilapidated homes and businesses; clear-cut, sterile land—and the occasional tourist trap. The bleached tone of the footage, meditative shots of wrecked landscapes, and the deadpan narration add to the film's solemnity. As America tiptoes gingerly but optimistically into a new era, the lessons of California Company Town can only gain in relevance as the wheels of progress grind onward and, hopefully, upward.
Sponsor:
Northwest Film Forum
Cast & Crew
Director: Lee Anne Schmitt
Producer: Lee Anne Schmitt
Editor: Lee Anne Schmitt
Screenwriter: Lee Anne Schmitt
Cinematographer: Lee Anne Schmitt
Filmography: Debut Feature Film
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(1 review)
user reviews
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Worse than watching grandma's slides., May 27, 2009
By Andrew Karlsson
“In the description, it is said that there are "meditative shots of wrecked landscapes." This is an understatement. The more accurate description would be excruciatingly long, silent shots of rather dull landscapes. One patron two rows behind me actually fell asleep. Lee Anne Schmitt's long and”
… full review
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