Re: I'll give it a pass... (link)

One must be careful of Wikipedia. The film is certainly not an industry "puff piece". Although Flaherty received funding from Standard Oil, who would not have made this contribution if they thought that the oil industry would be portrayed in a negative light, the suggestion that Flaherty would have distorted his vision for anyone is ridiculous. Much of what the Wikipedia article says is misleading. For example, it complains that after the rig blowout, the drillers depart "leaving behind a phenomenally clean environment". But as the film makes clear, the blowout is a gas blowout, which leads to the emission of noxious gases, which are invisible, but otherwise only coats the derrick and surrounding area in a thin layer of mud - which we see quite clearly when the boy returns to the derrick. The article also criticises the film for not engaging with the hardships of Cajun society, and other such PC stuff, but all this amounts to is criticising the film for not being a documentary, which it never posed as. The point of the film is the lyrical portrayal of the boy's relationship to nature, but also, and in contrast to this, his attraction to the masculine world of the oil workers. Suffice to say that this is a truly great film. It has won many awards and is included in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (or at least the 2009 edition, which is the most recent iteration I happen to own). The only thing I would say to anyone who was thinking of viewing it is that one should really see it in the best possible picture quality, since the magnificent cinematography is an essential component of the film.