fri 19/04/2024

Director Lucien Castaing-Taylor on the Making of Sweetgrass | reviews, news & interviews

Director Lucien Castaing-Taylor on the Making of Sweetgrass

Director Lucien Castaing-Taylor on the Making of Sweetgrass

A dogged director on why he spent years shooting an elegy to sheep-herders

The stars of 'Sweetgrass', in the beautiful twilight of the old American West

I grew up in Liverpool, but my grandmother was from the Lake District - Wordsworth country, and about as rural and remote as could be. We used to stay with her on weekends, and I still remember the sense of freedom as we escaped the post-industrial detritus of Merseyside and Lancashire, and approached her cottage in this Arcadian paradise. But my bucolic fantasy was of course the projection of an urban child, who knew next to nothing about what it was like to actually inhabit this landscape, whether as a farmer, a sheep, a cow, a fox, or any other animal I spent my weekends gazing at.

I grew up in Liverpool, but my grandmother was from the Lake District - Wordsworth country, and about as rural and remote as could be. We used to stay with her on weekends, and I still remember the sense of freedom as we escaped the post-industrial detritus of Merseyside and Lancashire, and approached her cottage in this Arcadian paradise. But my bucolic fantasy was of course the projection of an urban child, who knew next to nothing about what it was like to actually inhabit this landscape, whether as a farmer, a sheep, a cow, a fox, or any other animal I spent my weekends gazing at.

I wore the camera on a harness all day long, whether I was filming or not, so that human and ovine alike would become indifferent to it

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