GRASS

Ernest B. Schoedsack, Marguerite Harrison, Merian C. Cooper
Iran, USA 1925 | 70 Min. | 35 mm

Silent movie with musi­cal accom­pa­ni­ment by Günter A. Buch­wald, Murat Coşkun and Shakir Ertek

Mar­guerite Har­ri­son, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoed­sack travel through Asia Minor to reach a tribe of nomads in Iran known as the Bakhtiari. They follow the tribes­men on their 48-day trek across deserts, rivers and moun­tains to reach summer pas­ture for their flocks. There are hard­ships and con­quests for the 50.000 tribes­men lead­ing their 500.000 ani­mals across the treach­er­ous land. First is ford­ing the raging waters of the Karun River by float­ing on rafts buoyed by inflat­ed goatskins. Back and forth they go in the frigid waters as some ani­mals drown. Hard­est of all is the ascend­ing in bare feet of an almost per­pen­dic­u­lar moun­tain only to face the even more tow­er­ing Zardeh Kuh, path­less and cov­ered with deep snow. Final­ly they descend to their goal — a fer­tile and grassy valley. 

Merian C. Cooper, geboren 1893 in Jack­sonville, Flori­da. Arbeit­et als See­mann und Jour­nal­ist, bevor er nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg in Wien Ernest B. Schoed­sack kennen lernt, mit dem ihn eine lange Fre­und­schaft verbindet. 1933 entste­ht mit KING KONG der größte Erfolg in der Zusam­me­nar­beit mit Schoedsack.1949 dreht er mit Schoed­sack MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, ein inof­fizielles Remake von KING KONG. Cooper stirbt 1973 in San Diego.