Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind

Written and Directed by John Gianvito
USA; 2007

A sad quality of Americana is that it's only a celebration of a diffuse slice of our history, the one in which Henry Ford's preserved historical villages don't include union organizer meetings, Norman Rockwell's The Problem We All Live With doesn't include cops spraying lunch counter patrons with firehouses, and Superman fights communists while holding down a day job as a yellow journalist. It's a sad fact, too, that most history books tell the rich people's established version of history, perhaps because it's easier to research than it is to launch investigations into how the other half lived. Just ask Howard Zinn what kind of a process that involves, or ask Chris Harman. Uncovering what the ruling class would have preferred us to forget is borderline revolutionary! There are so many people that history has forgotten to mention, either out of laziness or a concentrated effort by powerful interests, that it doesn't seem at all possible for it not to repeat itself. And when we're talking about business interests, isn't that the idea? Andrew Carnegie named a school after himself, Reagan branded an economic paradigm, and Sam Walton's legacy is as strong as his market share, but what kind of institutions are keeping alive the name of Lucretia Mott? How many students learn the name of Uriah Smith Stephens, the founder of the Knights of Labor, one of the first successful national labor unions in the country? This national hero is buried in an unmarked grave in Philadelphia. Not only has history misplaced him, but it has also failed even to label his remains.

John Gianvito's stunning Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind was the New York Society of Film Critics' Best Experimental Film of 2007, and rightly so. Here is a dedicated soul, and passionate filmmaker, who not only knows how to construct a powerful cinematic experience, but is also one of the rare historians willing to trek through miles of weeds and historical records in order to find these unmarked graves. Gianvito, a teacher at Emerson, set about to make a very different kind of documentary, but was taken aback by the kind of treatment history has shown not only the two aforementioned heroes, but dozens of others including Henry David Throeau, Soujourner Truth, Fanny Lou Hamer, Cesar Chavez... the list goes on and on. Gianvito decided to concentrate only on the earthly remains of these labor organizers, civil rights activists, and humanitarians. PMATWW inter-cuts between snippets of the lonely grave sites and the delicate movement of wind through the pines and the grass that usually provide Americana with an artificial warmth. Under Gianvito's discerning video lens, these elements are quite cold and become quite eery by the end of the hour-long piece. Occasionally through the trees or behind a particular memorial we catch a glimpse of a McDonalds, or a WalMart. The end sequence is punctuated by common protest signs, popular movement, and community organization. Slowly, the title becomes that much more pertinent, and the loud cracking of the drums shakes us to the depths of our moral hearts. The film is dedicated to Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, and Gianvito is pleading with us not to forget those lessons learned therein.