User Reviews

This is the best film about environmentalism that I've ever seen. The issues are clearly presented. The archival footage is amazing. The narrators are world class. And the whole struggle to save our environment is captured beautifully. The film engages and provokes thinking. The director has done a superb job, in keeping with his world-class reputation.

It's unfair to compare this to Al Gore's film, which was also excellent but much narrower in scope.

This film is really epic in covering the subject.

I am sure that the point of view will provoke negative and even defensive responses from those who oppose it's point of view. That's to be expected.

But pay no heed to that and see this important film.

I saw the latest version and was blown away. A series of stories about historical moments when it seemed like there was no way to overcome a particular environmental threat: national parks, Love Canal, Brazilian rain forest, whale killing. The movie pulls it all together and shows what it takes to win the battles, and ends with 350.org's struggle with climate change. Inspiring and essential knowledge for anyone thinking about becoming an actor in preventing ecological disaster. Broken up into five parts that tell the story of five people playing key roles at different points in the movement. It played to sold out, cheering audiences last night at the beginning of it's run in San Francisco.

"A Fierce Green Fire," a documentary in five acts, chronicles the history of the environmental movement, beginning in the early years of the 20th Century and running through the present day.

Written and directed by Mark Kitchell, the movie divides its subject into sections entitled "Conservation," "Pollution," "Alternatives," "Going Global" and "Climate Change," each hosted by a different narrator (Robert Redford, Ashley Judd, Van Jones, Isabelle Allende, Meryl Streep, respectively). The movie provides a fascinating and informative survey of the people and events that, for more than a hundred years, have helped to raise the world's consciousness regarding the harm humans are inflicting on nature and the planet. More importantly, the movie shows that people can achieve great things against nearly impossible odds when they work together in a common cause. It also illustrates how the environmental movement and the social justice movement dovetailed over time into a single entity.

By interviewing many of the movers and shakers over the decades who have dedicated their lives to preserving the environment, the movie functions as an indispensable time capsule for future generations to see how people were able to rise up and make a difference. However, the movie also makes it clear that there is still a great deal more that needs to be done, particularly in the areas of global warming and climate change. And here is where the film turns much more pessimistic, pointing out the many seemingly intractable obstacles to rational action that have been thrown up by industrial, governmental and right wing ideological forces, particularly in the United States, since the 1980s. Yet, despite this gloomy assessment, the fight continues, as people of good faith and intentions storm the barricades of entrenched money and power to do battle in a just cause.

"A Fierce Green Fire" is a must-see both for those who lived through and participated in those tumultuous times - sometimes at the risk of their own lives - as well as for those more recent inhabitants of the planet who are reaping the rewards of their forebears' commitment and effort. But, as the movie also keeps telling us, there is still so much more to do.

Prior to this documentary, the debate centering on environmentalism has often been between warring factions which make the Wars of the Roses of the 15th century look tame by comparison. Each vilifies the other. The more conservative (ironically) who believe in complete free enterprise and capitalism without hindrance have labeled the environmentalists quacks and anti-capitalistic, and therefore "Un-American". Particularly figures like James Watt who was the Secretary of the Interior from 1981 to 1983 under the Reagan Administration felt that environmentalists were delusional in their perspectives, prompting Reagan to say of them "They won't be happy to until the Whitehouse is a bird's nest", which is of course wasn't true at all. Simultaneously, some "Green" activists have accused capitalists of being beholden to only moneyed and corporate interests. Corporations have argued that high regulation of business will stifle the free market and compromise jobs and incomes. The "Greens" have argued that if we destroy our planet's habitability, through Global Warming, we will have no planet upon which to exist and create, be it housing, cars, or corporations, etc. If the human species is extinct, there will be no capitalism in other words.

Strangely, prior to 2012, there hadn't been a documentary which tells the full tale of the environmentalist movement, why they came to believe what they believe, and why they have protested as vehemently as they have. Films like "An Inconvenient Truth" have successfully made the case why Global Warming threatens the existence of the Earth but there hadn't been a film explaining the history of the movement. "A Fierce Green Fire" has filled the gap. This film explains where the movement came from and why it continues today.

The film is divided into five parts: Act 1, The history of Conservation beginning with the origins of the Sierra Club, headed by John Muir in the 19th century and later David Bower in the mid-20th. Act 2, the pollution of the 1970's including demonstrations against toxic waste. Act 3, Green Peace and their exploits to save the whales. Act 4, the fights against the destruction of natural resources such as the Amazon Rain Forests. Act 5, Global Warming.

Despite popular belief, the Environmentalist Movement did not begin in the 1960's with hippie radicals on the Haight-Asbury in San Francisco. It began as early as the 19th century when birds with beautiful plumage were disappearing because they were being hunted and killed for the plumage adorning ladies' hats. A group formed to save these birds from extinction. Shortly thereafter, John Muir fought against the construction of dams which would destroy the habitats of many wildlife areas west of the Mississippi. Families of the mid-west who probably had never been involved in environmentalism before engaged themselves in the debate when their children were becoming and ill and even dying as a result of toxic waste. And the threat of Global Warming is recapped, extending what Al Gore had accomplished in his documentary 10 years earlier.

The view of the documentary is certainly from a particular bias, but at the same time, I think it does a reasonably good job of not vilifying the other side unless that side deserves it. Most political anti-environmentalists didn't believe there was a real problem, and the conventional wisdom prior to circa 1960 was that environments could and should be compromised in favor of "progress". Many people until President Reagan began to sign onto the Environmentalist cause, but this shifted under Reagan, particularly with the appointment of James Watt who wanted the country to drill more and more no matter where and how.

A very professionally-made documentary as good as any PBS documentary being produced today. The talents of several Hollywood heavy-hitters narrate the film, such as Robert Redford, Ashley Judd, and Meryl Streep. Even Isabelle Allende lends her voice to one of the segments. My only hope is that it doesn't just speak to the choir but encourages those on the fence, and maybe even the other side, to take a look at this very real issue. The truth is, if we don't have a world, nothing else really matters that much. I don't want cock roaches to be the only occupants of deserted cities in a few hundred years.

Not Sure what 'Intellectual Adult's' beef is with his post calling this documentary a 'religious drama,' but most his reviews on environmental issues are profoundly negative, and he gave a better review to a documentary on drug dealing, so it is hard to believe him/her. We probably won't be able to find any common ground with someone like that.

The biologists, ecologists, physicists, humanitarians, and "earth doctors" that helped put this work together are outstanding, honorable individuals; people whom you would want to go camping or fishing with, or take a class from--unlike politicians that bought their way into office riding the coattails of the corporate elite to block or aim to repeal environmental policy change.

The organizations these humanitarians represent to help educate people and change policy all over the world is a generosity beyond comparison. It is a life work that can leave people in awe; informed people that have become aware. The World Resources Institute is one example of an organization making global change to better its societies and environmental health.

This documentary raises awareness of the political and environmental hurdles we all must face to maintain a balanced natural environment, not repeal it.

It reminds us that our world needs to be balanced; we cannot live only for money--We cannot eat money.

I was looking forward to watching this. There is always the chance that a balanced view might be offered and discussed with maturity. No such luck.

All that is now left to do is to thank the rich people that made this religious drama. They are now back at their palaces, of course. Or flying around the world in their private jets.

Green acolytes will love this latest issue of their Watchtower. Just like the rest of us, the far larger majority, will not. It's a survival issue. For this "film" is an assault, camouflaged as an accusation, disguised as concern. And normal folk have been systematically brutalized before by the enlightened. We know in our bones that we are no more than prey to them.

In sum, it's just another propaganda piece. When it won't bore you, it will freak you out with its absurd extremes.