Film Record: Mother Earth

Image from Movie Makers, Dec. 1938, 597.

Date produced: 1938

Filmmaker(s):

Charles A. Ferrie

Languages:

English

Length:

200 ft

Format:

8mm

Colour:

B&W

Sound Notes:

Silent

Awards/Recognition:

ACL Ten Best 1938 - Honorable Mention General Class

Description:

"Charles A. Ferrie, jr., an urban movie maker, has gone back to the land for the beauty and charm of Mother Earth. Here, in carefully filtered and unfailingly well composed shots, he has caught the moist freshness of newly turned soil, the delicate loveliness of waving grain, the quiet dignity of men going about the homely tasks of the farm. His method of subject matter treatment has been to study these things from the outside, as a sensitive spectator, rather than to involve them (and the spectator) in a story told against such backgrounds. Mr. Ferrie's photography is consistently good and often striking, while his sequencing adds much of interest and inspiration to an essentially pastoral subject." Movie Makers, Dec. 1938, 620.

Resources:

The film won first prize in a Metropolitan Motion Picture Club members' film contest in 1938 (Movie Makers, March 1938, 129).

Subjects:

• Agriculture
• Ethnology
•      Manners and Customs
•           Country life
• Nature

Genre:

• Documentary

Form:

• Short

Screenings:

• Screened by the Metropolitan Motion Picture Club in 1938: New York City, N.Y.
• Screened by the Halifax Cinema Club in 1939: Halifax, NS
• Screened by the Seattle 8mm. Club in 1939: Seattle, WA
• Screened by the New York 8mm. Motion Picture Club in 1939: New York City, N.Y.

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