The Practice of the Wild

The Practice of the Wild

Directed by John J. Healey
A conversation with Gary Snyder and Jim Harrison

Overview

Genre
Culture, Contemporary Issues, Biography, Nature, and Environment
Synopsis

Poet and naturalist Gary Snyder has been at the center of cultural changes which transformed the modern world. Along with Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, he was a founding author of the Beat generation. He helped bring Zen Buddhism into the America scene, was an active participant in the anti-war movement, and served as literary inspiration to seekers of freedom, mindfulness and higher human potential.

Snyder won a Pulitzer Prize in 1975. His great epic poem: Mountains and Rivers Without End was completed in 1996. He has been called the poet laureate of Deep Ecology.

Since a childhood in the Cascades, he has been the voice of a new environmental awareness, which never loses sight of direct wild experience -- local people, animals, plants, watersheds and food sources.

The film follows Snyder and novelist Jim Harrison (Dalva, Legends of the Fall), as the two old friends wander along trails of the central California coast -- in a remote area untouched for centuries.

Stage
finished
Running time
52 minutes

Credits

Production Details

Prod. Co.
San Simeon Films
Country
United States
Years of Production
2010
Locations
Piedras Blancas Ranch - San Simeon, California
Prod. Partners
Will Hearst & Jim Harrison

Distribution Details

Release year
2010
Festivals
San Francisco Intl. Film Festival, Lyon Lumiere Film Festival, Sacramento Film Festival
Language
English
Subtitles
Spanish & French

Photos

45a4daad1d69b870642951e6c83625f7

Browse documentary films on The D-Word