film

CosmoCaixa holds a screening of the 1925 film Grass from Marguerite Harrison, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack. The film is presented as a part of José Luis Guerin’s ‘The Film Landscape’ series.

In 1925, Marguerite Harrison founded the Society of Women Geographers. A translator, writer, journalist and spy for the US, she was detained in the Soviet Union for several months where she met the airline pilot Merian C. Cooper. Together, the pair came up with the idea for this film. They needed someone with filmmaking experience, and approached Ernest Schoedsack. The three began their cinematographic journey - one which would take them on the trail of a people forgotten by the most adverse geographies of Persia.

In this sense, Grass doesn’t present a cliché of exoticism typical of colonial imaginations. Rather, it’s a noble adventure film in its purest meaning and also the best presentation of the landscape genre of its time.