Sweetgrass
- Posted: 21st Apr 2011
- Category: Reviews
- Tags: sheep, cowboys, american west
by Ali May
Eight years in the making and with a cast of literally thousands, Sweetgrass is a beautifully epic yet unromantic glimpse into the lives of the American West’s last cowboys, a fascinating breed who as it turns out are actually shepherds in Stetsons.
Sweetgrass is a bold and fascinating piece of observational documentary, it is a candid look at the dying tradition of Western pastoralism and the ancient, uneasy relationship between man and beast. The herders’ love‐hate relationship with their environment, their work and with their animals is simultaneously inspiring, shocking and often entertaining.
The stunning scenery and a much romanticised way of life are unapologetically cut with the harsh day to day realities which are part of a practice that has been going on since the late 19th century. Tens of thousands of sheep once made the difficult three month, 150 mile journey but in the summer of 2003 a small group of aging shepherds took their 3000 strong flock one final time through the Beartooth Mountains of Montana. Of course, there's sadness there, but to husband and wife filmmakers Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Ilisa Barbash it’s important to pay tribute to a way of life that is fast‐disappearing, and while nobody expects their lifestyle could or even should be salvaged, it should certainly be celebrated.
There is very little dialogue throughout, no music and no interviews or voiceover, which is unsurprising since the sheep are the stars of the show and they are notoriously difficult to pin down for an interview.
Castaing-Taylor feels that music and voiceover are a lazy way to indoctrinate people when the material isn’t strong enough to work by itself and so the soundtrack seems to consist solely of an unrelenting chorus of bleating sheep all competing for each other's lines - which is tough to handle for the two hours of the film let alone the three month trek across the Montana wilderness.
Surprisingly though this really works for the film and the absence of narration proves very liberating; you can immerse yourself in the journey on your own terms and the atmospheric soundscape adds real texture and atmosphere to the experience - right down to the incredible sheep point-of-view shots with which the film takes you right into the center of the herd, so that at times it almost feels as if you’re jostling alongside the animals. It is exceptionally well done.
It wasn’t an easy film to make either. What started out as a summer’s filming rapidly became an eight-year project that took its toll on the filmmakers. Castaing-Taylor’s wife; visual Anthropologist and producer of the film Ilisa Barbash, describes how when he got down from the mountains her husband was “unrecognizable – bearded beyond belief, 20 lbs lighter, carrying a ton of footage, and limping.” Castaing-Taylor who is the director of the Sensory Ethnography Lab at Harvard, would later be diagnosed with trauma‐induced advanced degenerative arthritis, caused by carrying the equipment day and night, and would need double foot surgery.
Despite all this, Castaing-Taylor is a strong believer that “in order to try and do something really interesting with documentary, in order to reveal something about the world that has never been depicted before you usually have to push yourself to the absolute limits.”
Hopefully you wont have to push yourself to the absolute limits to enjoy this film – although the incessant bleating of sheep may bring you close!
Dir. Lucien Castaing-Taylor, UK / USA 2009, 101 mins
Sweetgrass is released on DVD on 23rd May 2011 by Dogwoof. Read Ali's interview with director Lucien Castaing-Taylor here.