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Gasland
Gasland is a 2010 American documentary film written and directed by Josh Fox. It focuses on communities in the United States where natural gas drilling activity was a concern and, specifically, on hydraulic fracturing ("fracking"), a method of stimulating production in otherwise impermeable rock. The film was a key mobilizer for the anti-fracking movement, and "brought the term 'hydraulic fracturing' into the nation's living rooms" according to The New York Times.
Fracking is a technique that has been used routinely since the late 1940s as an aid to stimulating production in oil and gas wells. Horizontal drilling, a recent innovation in drilling techniques, can create horizontal pathways deep within the Earth, and has successfully incorporated hydraulic fracturing to release fluids from shale formations. Horizontal drilling coupled with fracking has transformed the energy business, enabled vast new supplies of natural gas, and advanced the goal of United States energy independence.
The film premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, where it was awarded the Special Jury Prize for Documentary. In June 2010, it premiered on HBO to an audience of 3 million homes, and it was seen by over 250,000 audience members during a 250-city grassroots tour. Among its numerous nominations and awards, the film was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 83rd Academy Awards and won Outstanding Directing for Nonfiction Programming at the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards.
Josh Fox describes his receipt of a letter in May 2008 from a gas company, offering a signing bonus of nearly $100,000 to lease his family's land in Milanville, Pennsylvania, to drill for natural gas, after which he sets out to see how communities across the nation are being affected by the natural gas drilling boom. Beginning in nearby Dimock before driving to locations as far away as Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Texas, where the boom began a decade earlier, he spends time with citizens in their homes and on their land and hears stories about how hydraulic fracturing has contaminated their air, water wells, and surface water with methane and toxic chemicals, leading to a variety of chronic health problems and, sometimes, tap water that can be lit on fire. Although some residents have obtained court injunctions or settlement money from gas companies to replace the affected water supplies with potable water or water purification kits, the companies continue to insist that fracking has never been proven to be the cause of any contamination. Fox is particularly troubled by what he learns because there are plans to begin drilling for natural gas in the portion of the Marcellus Shale formation that overlaps with the New York City Watershed and the Delaware River Basin, which together provide unfiltered drinking water to 15.6 million people in New York City, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. Scientists, government employees, and politicians describe how the Energy Policy Act of 2005 exempted hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act, making the practice essentially unregulated, and, in the end, Fox finds himself in the halls of Congress as a subcommittee discusses the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act, "a bill to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to repeal a certain exemption for hydraulic fracturing" (the proposal never made it past the committee stage).
Gasland was Fox's first documentary and second film, following Memorial Day, a narrative feature from 2008. He made the film over the course of about eighteen months and often worked as a one-man crew while filming, though later in the process he sometimes employed additional camera operators. Fox gave editor Matthew Sanchez credit for coming up with the structure of the film and said they edited roughly 200 hours of footage down to approximately 100 minutes.
Debra Winger is credited as a "creative consultant" on the film.
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 98% based on 41 reviews, with an average score of 7/10; the website's "critics consensus" reads: "GasLand patiently and powerfully outlines alarming problems with modern fuel extraction -- and the horrific public health risks that go along with them."
Robert Koehler of Variety referred to the film as "one of the most effective and expressive environmental films of recent years", saying it "may become to the dangers of natural gas drilling what Silent Spring was to DDT."
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Gasland
Gasland is a 2010 American documentary film written and directed by Josh Fox. It focuses on communities in the United States where natural gas drilling activity was a concern and, specifically, on hydraulic fracturing ("fracking"), a method of stimulating production in otherwise impermeable rock. The film was a key mobilizer for the anti-fracking movement, and "brought the term 'hydraulic fracturing' into the nation's living rooms" according to The New York Times.
Fracking is a technique that has been used routinely since the late 1940s as an aid to stimulating production in oil and gas wells. Horizontal drilling, a recent innovation in drilling techniques, can create horizontal pathways deep within the Earth, and has successfully incorporated hydraulic fracturing to release fluids from shale formations. Horizontal drilling coupled with fracking has transformed the energy business, enabled vast new supplies of natural gas, and advanced the goal of United States energy independence.
The film premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, where it was awarded the Special Jury Prize for Documentary. In June 2010, it premiered on HBO to an audience of 3 million homes, and it was seen by over 250,000 audience members during a 250-city grassroots tour. Among its numerous nominations and awards, the film was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 83rd Academy Awards and won Outstanding Directing for Nonfiction Programming at the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards.
Josh Fox describes his receipt of a letter in May 2008 from a gas company, offering a signing bonus of nearly $100,000 to lease his family's land in Milanville, Pennsylvania, to drill for natural gas, after which he sets out to see how communities across the nation are being affected by the natural gas drilling boom. Beginning in nearby Dimock before driving to locations as far away as Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Texas, where the boom began a decade earlier, he spends time with citizens in their homes and on their land and hears stories about how hydraulic fracturing has contaminated their air, water wells, and surface water with methane and toxic chemicals, leading to a variety of chronic health problems and, sometimes, tap water that can be lit on fire. Although some residents have obtained court injunctions or settlement money from gas companies to replace the affected water supplies with potable water or water purification kits, the companies continue to insist that fracking has never been proven to be the cause of any contamination. Fox is particularly troubled by what he learns because there are plans to begin drilling for natural gas in the portion of the Marcellus Shale formation that overlaps with the New York City Watershed and the Delaware River Basin, which together provide unfiltered drinking water to 15.6 million people in New York City, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. Scientists, government employees, and politicians describe how the Energy Policy Act of 2005 exempted hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act, making the practice essentially unregulated, and, in the end, Fox finds himself in the halls of Congress as a subcommittee discusses the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act, "a bill to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to repeal a certain exemption for hydraulic fracturing" (the proposal never made it past the committee stage).
Gasland was Fox's first documentary and second film, following Memorial Day, a narrative feature from 2008. He made the film over the course of about eighteen months and often worked as a one-man crew while filming, though later in the process he sometimes employed additional camera operators. Fox gave editor Matthew Sanchez credit for coming up with the structure of the film and said they edited roughly 200 hours of footage down to approximately 100 minutes.
Debra Winger is credited as a "creative consultant" on the film.
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 98% based on 41 reviews, with an average score of 7/10; the website's "critics consensus" reads: "GasLand patiently and powerfully outlines alarming problems with modern fuel extraction -- and the horrific public health risks that go along with them."
Robert Koehler of Variety referred to the film as "one of the most effective and expressive environmental films of recent years", saying it "may become to the dangers of natural gas drilling what Silent Spring was to DDT."