RICK PRELINGER PRESENTS EATING, ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT: HOW WE GOT IT WRONG THE FIRST TIME

RICK PRELINGER PRESENTS EATING, ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT: HOW WE GOT IT WRONG THE FIRST TIME
DIRECTOR: VARIOUS
US, 1949-2011

VISITING ARTIST—This program of short industrial, advertising, and educational films focuses on food as the center of a complex system enabled by mid-20th century science and industry. How did our perceptions of America’s food production system change from bounty to dread? And what can past corporate persuasions tell us about the present and the future? The program includes THE MAN IN THE DOORWAY (American Cyanamid, 1956), a dystopian parable explaining why societies starve and die; THE COLOR OF HEALTH (American Bakers Association, 1954), an existentialist epic on children and nutrition; the newly discovered vegetable-patch comedy GARDENING MADE EASY (Henry Charles, 1949); and other lost artifacts. As always, Prelinger’s insightful contextualization of these films in our culture makes one see them as more than just campy artifacts from another era. (80 mins.)

Rick Prelinger will introduce the films.