I thought about the poems and creative nonfiction in Patricia A. West’s book, Still Water Words (2020), for quite some time after seeing more and more film crews on different sites in Savannah, Georgia (USA). In 2022, I watched crews at work in the Benjamin Van Clark Neighborhood on the set for director David Gordon Green’s Halloween Ends. In early 2023, I observed technicians, actors, and grip trucks on a set for Ava Duvernay’s Origins project (based on Isabel Wilkerson’s book: Caste, The Origins of Our Discontents) not too far from the previous location. The proliferation of movies shot in the city strikes me as confirmation of how much change the film industry has brought to the entire state of Georgia. That is particularly notable when observing how the modern high-tech cosmopolitan culture of the industry occasionally bumps against unflattering political and social attitudes and behaviors from the past. Such was the case when segments of Wakanda Forever were filmed in the Mary Ross Waterfront Park in Brunswick at the same time (October 2021) the trial of three White men was getting underway for killing Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man, in the same city. It is also a strange kind of irony for visiting actors, directors, or producers who attempt to reconcile their enjoyment of a pleasurable evening in the Plant Riverside District with their confusion over the name of the beautiful bridge shimmering a short distance away. |
Archives
November 2023
Categories
All
|