THE UNFORSEEN —– Lauren Greenfield

The Unforseen

This is the story of the development of the Barton Springs green belt that may have contributed to the clouding of the waters as demonstrated by underwater footage shot in 1996 and then in 2006. Laura Dunn had the support of Terrence Malick who proposed this film to her and rallied his friend Robert Redford to the cause. With a backing and Lee Daniel at her side she proceeded to tell a compelling story of partisan politics and the defeat of the Earth First community by the administration of Gov. Bush. At the same time there is the story of a muscular mustached developer who lost it all and eventually cries for the camera. After the movie she noted how Terence Malick gave her daily advise on the editing, yet oddly did not want to be mentioned in the credits. The movie was driven by talking heads, but big one like Robert Redford and Ann Richards and left the room stale for a good bit of the run time. There issues are big but this needed to be 20-30min. The poorly crafted filler scenes in this movie take away form the fragmented story of the developer and leave us wondering if Barton Springs was actually ruined by the development. We know George Bush is the Son of Sam. For all the hype this did not go far.

Lauren Greenfield at the blanton
This was eye opening. She showed her girl culture slide show as well her THIN work. This is the authoritative body of visual work on the struggles and entrapment of young women. This is true advocacy for redefining to value we assign to the bodies of young women. The work addresses reality while the solutions require the complete destruction of the social construction of women.

I watched HOOP DREAMs again as well which I is on my list as the greatest example of the craft of documentary. All documentary should be judged against this work.

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