"Green & Gold" is an Inspiring, Anti-Capitalist Midwestern Film
The independent movie “Green & Golden,” featuring Craig T. Nelson, is about the struggles of a family farm in Wisconsin in the 1990s.
As the owner of a small labor publication, I found myself crying when I watched it at the Three Rivers Film Festival last November. The film is now available on Amazon Prime, and anyone involved in community organizing should go see it.
The film, set in 1993, is based on the writings of Wendell Berry and focuses on a 4th-generation dairy farmer played by Craig T. Nelson, who refuses to adopt the techniques of industrial agriculture. Instead, he relies on tending the land using horses and labor-intensive methods that he believes maintain the land's richness.
The bankers, who are threatening to foreclose, repeatedly chide him for operating his land in a 19th-century manner. Many of his neighbors go into foreclosure as the 1990s Wisconsin landscape becomes dominated by corporate factory farms.
His granddaughter hates the farm and wakes up the other residents each morning by trying to shoot out a light post. She has set up a recording studio in the barn and dreams of moving away and becoming a songwriter. Her grandfather resists her demands to modernize, holding a fist full of dirt, saying that all they have is the land.
One day, a banker shows up and informs Nelson that they are going to foreclose on his farm. The banker laughs and says to Nelson that he has as good a chance of saving his farm as the Packers have of winning the Super Bowl.
https://paydayreport.com/green-gold-is-an-inspiring-anti-capitalist-midwestern-film/