Grass (1925)
American travelers Merian C. Cooper, Ernest Schoedsack, and Marguerite Harrison join the Bakhtiari people of Persia on their twice-yearly migration, following tens of thousands of herders and animals across the icy Karun River and barefoot over the snowbound Zardeh Kuh mountain.
Grass is a foundational work of the expedition and ethnographic documentary, made by the team that would go on to direct King Kong. The Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry in 1997.
Background
Grass documents the Bakhtiari people of Persia on one of their twice-yearly migrations, an arduous journey with tens of thousands of people and their herds crossing an icy river and a snowbound mountain range in search of grazing land. It was made by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, American filmmakers who later went on to direct King Kong, working alongside traveler and writer Marguerite Harrison, who helped organize and fund the expedition.
What to watch for
Watch for the sheer physical difficulty on display: the migration involves crossing a dangerous river without bridges and a mountain pass on foot and barefoot for some participants, filmed as it actually happened rather than staged for the camera. It stands as an early and influential example of the expedition documentary, a genre that placed the filmmakers themselves at real physical risk to capture footage of a culture and a journey most audiences of the time would never otherwise have seen. It was added to the National Film Registry in 1997.
