rediscovered :: essays research papers

â€Å"Heartland† places the audience almost a hundred years back in time, a technique that not only captivates ones mind, but also allows for the unique opportunity to witness first hand history being re-told. Richard Pearce the director of â€Å"Heartland† saw a chance within this film to white out previous interpretations of American homesteading; Pearce paints a radically new picture, which may more accurately reflect the truth behind homesteaders. The inspirations behind Pearce’s documentary â€Å"Heartland† were the personal journals of Elinore Pruitt Stewart. Stewart’s journals were published in 1914 in the form of a diary titled â€Å"Letters of a Women Homesteader† these enriched historical documents were used by Pearce in such a way that neither Stewart nor anybody else would have ever suspected.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Heartland first and foremost is a story of survival. Clyde Stewart and Elinore Randall Stewart are followed through their daily life by Pearce, their struggles embody American homesteaders across the west and their own efforts to survive in the extreme cultural and climatic conditions they all faced. Scarcity of life in all forms is a theme that is driven hard throughout Pearce’s film. The absence of food, wood, water and life create an absence of hope among the homesteaders. For Pearce homesteading was a last resort, an opportunity in a world which opportunities are limited to succeed. The grind and grit of frontier life is truly captured through Pearce’s distinctive directorial approach. His exclusive approach allows for the viewer to be almost transported back in time witness first hand to the butcher of a live pig and many other daily frontier life chores. Pearce’s depiction of homesteading within his film â€Å"Heartland† contradic ts his main source in almost all facets, thus creating a whorl wind of controversy regarding Pearce’s intensions behind his film.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Elinore Pruitt Stewart describes life dramatically different from the one â€Å"Heartland† reveals. Pearce drew upon this distinction to refute prior beliefs and truths carried by the Letters of a Women Homesteader. The Letters describe nature as a bountiful playground rich with discovery and treasures. Stewart describes a situation within her journals in which she is caught in a compromising position â€Å" here I was thirty or forty miles from home, in the mountains were no one goes in the winter and were I knew the so got ten to fifteen feet deep†(Letters p.33). Stewart’s casual attitude about this situation she has found herself in, along with the fact she did survive when she discovered safe haven within a conveniently placed log cabin, directs the reader/ historical audience to draw upon false conclusions of the homesteading life.