Frédéric Back's 'The Man Who Planted Trees' (1987)

[00:00:20] Welcome to another episode of Her Head in Films.

[00:00:24] I'm Caitlin and I'm your host.

[00:00:27] On this podcast, I share my thoughts and feelings about the films I watch.

[00:00:32] They tend to be art house and world cinema.

[00:00:35] What makes this podcast unique is that I weave together my life experiences with

[00:00:41] a personal and emotional discussion of film.

[00:00:44] I explore the impact that cinema has on me and why I connect so deeply to it.

[00:00:50] As I like to say, my head isn't in the clouds, my head is in films.

[00:00:56] Today's episode is about Frederick Backs 1987 animated film The Man Who Planted Trees.

[00:01:04] It tells the story of a humble French shepherd who plants thousands of trees over

[00:01:09] the course of decades and in the process revitalizes an entire region.

[00:01:15] It is a special little film.

[00:01:18] It's only 30 minutes.

[00:01:19] You can find it on YouTube.

[00:01:22] I suggest going and watching it if you haven't seen it yet and then coming back and

[00:01:27] listening to my episode.

[00:01:29] This is one of my favorite films of all time.

[00:01:33] It's also one of the most important films of my life.

[00:01:38] I can truly say that this film changed me in some kind of fundamental way.

[00:01:45] I can't say that about every single film that I watch.

[00:01:50] I'm deeply passionate about cinema and I'm passionate about how cinema can change our lives

[00:01:58] and affect us in very deep and emotional ways.

[00:02:02] As much as I love cinema, I cannot have a life changing experience with every single film

[00:02:08] that I watch.

[00:02:10] But that's what happened with the man who planted trees.

[00:02:14] It's a simple story.

[00:02:15] It's based on a short story by the French writer Jean Giano.

[00:02:21] He wrote the story in the 1950s and it was published in Boca Magazine.

[00:02:27] Frederick Beck then did his animated adaptation in the 1980s.

[00:02:33] It's not a well-known story.

[00:02:36] I don't think this is a well-known film.

[00:02:38] I rarely ever see it mentioned.

[00:02:42] I just happened to come across it and to watch it about a year ago.

[00:02:47] Then I rewatched it recently and I realized with the second viewing,

[00:02:52] it just cemented what a masterpiece this film is.

[00:02:58] And what an important story, Jean Giano wrote,

[00:03:03] it affected me in such a profound way that that's why I wanted to do this episode.

[00:03:09] And I wanted to talk about the film and I wanted to share my love for it and my passion for it

[00:03:15] because I think that this is a film about so many things.

[00:03:19] And I'm going to go into all the stuff that it makes me think about and that

[00:03:26] I think is so rich about the film.

[00:03:29] But I think at its core, it's a film about how to live.

[00:03:34] It's a film that inspires you to think about what kind of life you want to live.

[00:03:42] What you want to contribute to the world?

[00:03:45] How you want to leave this earth?

[00:03:49] Do you want to leave it better than you found it?

[00:03:53] Do you want to make the world a better place?

[00:03:56] And I know that we say these things and there's such big things.

[00:04:00] Like we all win very young like when we're teenagers and I was the same way when I was a teenager

[00:04:05] growing up in the early 2000s, I wanted to change the world.

[00:04:11] I was very political when I was, I was very political at a young age.

[00:04:17] I was always paying attention to politics or news events.

[00:04:22] Well maybe saying I was political is not the best way to describe it.

[00:04:28] I cared about other parts of the world.

[00:04:32] I wanted to know what was happening on other continents and in other cultures.

[00:04:39] That was really important to me. I was curious about other people all around the world.

[00:04:47] I wasn't just focused on my little bubble in the United States.

[00:04:52] I grew up in North Carolina in a pretty small town.

[00:04:58] I always thought beyond that, I think I always had an expansive curiosity about the world.

[00:05:06] And I think when we're very young, we have lofty ideals.

[00:05:11] I want to change the world. I want to change things.

[00:05:15] And I think as people get older they get disillusioned and they lose hope that things will change.

[00:05:24] And I think for me that certainly happened. There is certainly disillusion.

[00:05:29] But I think what I've realized as I've gotten older is that you cannot change the entire

[00:05:36] world and you can't save the world, whatever that means. All you really have control over

[00:05:44] is the immediate surroundings where you live and where you are for the most part.

[00:05:52] And the tangible difference that you can make is there in your own community,

[00:05:59] in the way that you treat your family, your friends, the people around you.

[00:06:03] How you interact with people and what you contribute that way.

[00:06:08] That is the most immediate way that you can have a positive impact for perhaps, volunteering,

[00:06:16] helping other people in that way. And then I think there are other ways that you can affect the

[00:06:23] world for me that's been through sharing online and through this podcast specifically.

[00:06:36] I've tried to have a voice, I've tried to share my passions.

[00:06:41] And I think that that had some kind of effect although very small on some people around the world.

[00:06:48] So our impact, it's complex. But we don't just change the entire world, do we? That's not possible.

[00:06:59] And you can't make that your goal that you're just going to change everything.

[00:07:04] You're going to change the world or you're going to save the world.

[00:07:07] I think there is something to be said about small acts and that's what I think this film is about.

[00:07:15] It's about how you live your life, what you want to contribute and the seeds that you want to

[00:07:23] plant or the acorns that you want to plant. And it's about how you can be small and you can be ordinary

[00:07:31] and you can have a very small impact perhaps that it can be meaningful.

[00:07:39] Those small acts can be meaningful when you are kind to someone going through a difficult time

[00:07:46] you don't know how that could affect that person, the rest of their lives the way that they might remember you.

[00:07:54] Me recording an episode about a film, I don't know what effect that could have.

[00:08:01] I've had people reach out to me at times and tell me that my episodes helped them through a difficult time in their lives.

[00:08:09] I never envisioned that when I started this podcast in 2016.

[00:08:15] So the seeds that we plant and the things that we contribute and the ripples that we make in the world

[00:08:23] can be invisible and unseen or they can seem slight but you don't know the impact you could

[00:08:32] have on other people. I don't believe that our lives just stop with us. I do believe that we are

[00:08:41] interconnected and that we touch the people around us whether we know it or not.

[00:08:48] We haven't impact on each other, we are affected by each other and I think this film asks us to

[00:08:54] consider what kind of impact do you want to have? How do you want to leave this world? What condition do

[00:09:03] you want to leave it in? How do you want to make the world a better place? Not the entire world

[00:09:09] but the parts that you have control over. I just can't name a lot of films that make me think about

[00:09:18] that make me think about the kind of person I want to be. What I want to leave behind

[00:09:25] the seeds that I want to plant. I think about teachers a lot because when I was in school

[00:09:31] I was very affected by some teachers that I had particularly some of the English teachers but

[00:09:38] I had a class in high school about film. It was a film appreciation class and the teacher who told it

[00:09:47] profoundly affected my life and that class was like a seed that got planted for me.

[00:09:56] And blossomed into this podcast and my passion for film that I share,

[00:10:03] but teachers have an effect on all the students that they teach and in a way they are planting seeds,

[00:10:11] planting acorns and I think a lot of us have been affected by different teachers that we've had.

[00:10:19] A teacher can inspire you to go into a particular profession or take a certain path in your life

[00:10:26] and then everybody who you affect, that teacher has also affected because if you'd never

[00:10:35] had that teacher you never would have taken that path. So that comes to mind as well. There are

[00:10:43] all kinds of ways that we can affect other people, artists, poets but also nurses and doctors

[00:10:51] and there's different ways that you can influence other people and you can influence them in

[00:11:00] harmful and negative ways or you can influence them in nourishing and positive ways.

[00:11:08] And it can just be small things, it can be creating a community garden,

[00:11:13] it can be volunteering at a shelter, there's all kinds of ways that you can have an effect in the world,

[00:11:23] it can just be writing online about your experiences or your life.

[00:11:28] It doesn't have to be a grand gesture. The thing about the man who planted trees is that he's

[00:11:34] planting these small acorns and he does it for decades and he plants thousands of them and most of

[00:11:42] them or at least half of them don't even survive. He has to plant thousands and thousands of acorns

[00:11:50] and I love the way that the story is told and I actually got the book by Jean Giano,

[00:12:00] the source material. This is the story that the film is based on and it pretty much

[00:12:08] adapts the story word for word. You could open the book and listen to the narration of the film

[00:12:17] as you're reading the book. It's almost like an audio book brought to life.

[00:12:23] And the copy of the man who planted trees that I purchased has these beautiful engravings,

[00:12:29] these beautiful images by Michael McCarty. They're very just wonderful. I love the way the

[00:12:36] stories told because the the shepherd is not narrating the story. A young man meets the shepherd

[00:12:44] shortly before the first world war. He meets this very humble man who lives in a humble cabin

[00:12:53] and who collects these acorns and then goes and plants them. The shepherd's name is Elsieard Boofiea.

[00:13:02] We learn that he's lost his wife and his son. We don't know the circumstances of it.

[00:13:10] We only know that he lost him at some point. He's an older man and so it's this very beautiful

[00:13:16] story of a younger man who's narrating the story, meeting the shepherd and he's affected by

[00:13:25] Elsieard Boofiea himself. And so it's this story about a younger person meeting an older person

[00:13:33] and being affected by their life. We don't know exactly everything that's happened to Elsieard Boofiea.

[00:13:44] What happened to his wife and his son we only know that they're gone. And it seems to me that

[00:13:51] his grief is one of the reasons why he starts to plant these acorns. That was something that really

[00:14:02] had the actual story itself and read the book. I read it in one sitting a few nights ago.

[00:14:10] It's only about 50 pages so it's very short because it was really a short story.

[00:14:16] And what struck me about reading it this time and then rewatching the film

[00:14:23] is that this shepherd starts to plant these acorns as a way I think to affirm

[00:14:31] life in the wake of death, in the wake of a devastating double loss of his wife and his son.

[00:14:44] He could retreat from the world. He could give up on life. He could lose hope in life.

[00:14:53] And instead he decides to go toward life and he decides to plant these acorns to try to

[00:15:02] revitalize the community, the town where he lives. And we've learned that the people who are

[00:15:09] living in this community are very unhappy. There's a lot of drama, they're at each other's throats.

[00:15:17] The region itself seems to be dying and his act of planting the acorns is a way for him

[00:15:24] to try to bring renewal and revitalization to this area. And that does end up happening as the story

[00:15:33] goes on that once he plants these trees and they grow and grow over the years that by the time

[00:15:41] the trees have grown and are at their fullest growth that just as the trees have come to life

[00:15:52] and the region and the earth has been revitalized and renewed so too has this community that it's

[00:16:01] happier that people live in more harmony with each other. But we meet the shepherd shortly before

[00:16:09] the first world war and the young man telling the story goes off to fight in the first world war.

[00:16:16] And then when he comes back from war, he meets the shepherd. There are a few times when they meet.

[00:16:25] I find it very interesting that Elzard, Boothie, plants these trees

[00:16:32] through both world wars and we know that the first world war in the second world war

[00:16:38] were catastrophic events. And when Jean Gioño is writing this story, he's doing it in the 1950s,

[00:16:47] not that far removed from the second world war about a decade. And I think the fact that this

[00:16:59] destruction, I think that's a very powerful message about the value of life. I've been thinking

[00:17:08] a lot lately about what it means to be devoted to life. I went through a lot of trauma in my

[00:17:16] teens. I went through a lot of loss and I had to confront very difficult things at an early age.

[00:17:24] I felt like for a very long time that that trauma kind of trapped me in the world of the dead.

[00:17:34] And I couldn't escape it. I lost my father when I was a teenager, I lost my grandmother,

[00:17:41] I lost my maternal uncle all within three years before I was 20 years old. I went to these

[00:17:49] funerals and I was left shell shocked by it. I was left totally reeling and then I didn't have

[00:17:58] the support and the care that I needed. And I was very abandoned by my family and I only had my mom,

[00:18:08] we only had each other. And it was such a catastrophic time of my life and it had such

[00:18:14] profound ripple effects, you know, to the point where I've just struggled a lot in life.

[00:18:22] And I haven't known fully how to live but I wanted to live and I realized now that

[00:18:29] there was a life force within me that kept me alive, that kept me going, that my connection to art

[00:18:38] in particular to film and music and books and poetry that that was the saving grace of my life.

[00:18:50] And so even though I lived sort of in this world of the dead and I felt so

[00:18:56] shattered and I felt like I was dying for a really long time and drowning,

[00:19:02] I do think that I was devoted to life without realizing it. It's like I couldn't fully get there though

[00:19:11] and then in the last few years, a watch changed and I kind of had this awakening where I woke up from

[00:19:21] sort of the dissociation and the sleepwalking that I had been under for 18 years, honestly.

[00:19:30] Many, many years, I feel this renewed connection to life that I didn't have for a really long time.

[00:19:40] I see the sacredness of all life, the sacredness of the earth, the sacredness of the creatures

[00:19:48] that live on this earth, the sacredness of other human beings and it's almost painful to feel it

[00:19:56] because just as that shepherd lived during catastrophic times of violence and war,

[00:20:04] the first and second world wars, we also live in a time of destruction and violence,

[00:20:13] whether it's climate change and the extinction of so many species and the destruction of

[00:20:18] forests, rain forest and the degradation of the earth, the violence that we unleash in other

[00:20:29] parts of the world. The 21st century has just been soaked in blood, Afghanistan, Iraq,

[00:20:37] Nalgasa and the genocide that has taken place there, we are confronting,

[00:20:48] and abyss, we are confronting an evil that I can't even put into words

[00:20:56] and when you come up against that kind of death and destruction, that kind of worship of it.

[00:21:04] That's what it feels like at times, particularly in America, you know, American culture,

[00:21:10] American society, our government, just this worship of domination and violence and destruction

[00:21:20] and death, the death that we unleash through weapons. At this time I think it is even more

[00:21:27] important to be devoted to life, to be connected to life. And when the shepherd plants those

[00:21:34] acorns that is such a profound ritual of being devoted to life, he is planting something that he

[00:21:43] may not even ever see. He's planting something that may not even grow and I love the use of acorns,

[00:21:54] you know, and I've always loved trees. I love trees since I was a little girl, I remember

[00:22:00] I had books about trees. I was always so enraptured by them and I actually have a little glass

[00:22:09] acorn on an altar in my room. I love the image of the acorn. I love the symbolism of the acorn

[00:22:19] because in this tiny little thing, you have the blueprint for life. You have the blueprint for a tree

[00:22:30] and trees are so vital to the earth, right? The reason we can breathe are because of trees.

[00:22:38] They nourish ecosystems, they are so essential and they all start every single tree as started

[00:22:46] as a little acorn. And every acorn has the potential to be a mighty strong, powerful tree that

[00:22:57] sustains an entire ecosystem. I love that. I love that something so small can contain that much

[00:23:05] life inside of it and that under the right conditions if it's nurtured properly, then that little

[00:23:12] acorn can become such a magnificent structure when he plants that acorn. It's an act of faith,

[00:23:23] it's an act of faith in life, in the future, in the belief that something can grow

[00:23:34] and that what he plants could contribute something to others. He will not even see those trees

[00:23:44] probably. He gets to see some of them and when he plants those acorns it's just such a beautiful

[00:23:52] fault to me. It's just a reminder that like you don't know your impact, you don't know

[00:24:01] how you affect others. You don't know what they might remember about you. You don't know

[00:24:08] the effect that you might have. Again, I think about teachers. They don't know who that student will

[00:24:15] become because of them and you have to live with not knowing what your impact could be.

[00:24:22] Sometimes you'll see it immediately like when people send me a message about listening to an episode

[00:24:28] but then there are probably people who have listened to episodes who never contacted me and I

[00:24:35] don't know what effect I had on them. I don't know what they what they've done in their lives

[00:24:41] and how maybe something I said affected them or how an episode might have given them something

[00:24:48] to think about or made them feel less alone. We are interconnected and we are interdependent

[00:24:56] and we don't know the ripples of our lives. I mean isn't that the whole point of it's a wonderful

[00:25:03] life? I've never watched that. I need to. Maybe I'll remedy that soon. He's being shown,

[00:25:13] you know, if you weren't alive or if you ended your life, you wouldn't know the impact that

[00:25:21] had on other people. If you weren't here, then these other people wouldn't have been affected by you.

[00:25:29] Your life has made a difference or your life matters. I think at the end of the day that's what we

[00:25:35] won't. I think that's what so many of us won't is that we want to feel like our lives matter

[00:25:42] that we matter to other people, that we have made a difference, that we have touched others,

[00:25:50] that we left something behind. But we just don't always know. We don't know the effect

[00:26:00] that we can have on other people. That's why when someone is contemplating ending their lives or

[00:26:06] they wish that they had not been born, it is important to try to remember well if you weren't here,

[00:26:13] you wouldn't have been able to affect the people that you've affected. You don't know how your

[00:26:18] presence has impacted the world. You just don't know. And I think the man who planted trees

[00:26:26] is kind of about that as well, is that he's planting these acorns and he doesn't know what they will

[00:26:34] become. He doesn't know which ones will flourish, which ones will become the trees. He doesn't know

[00:26:41] how these trees could affect the people who live among them. I think trees are sacred,

[00:26:48] trees are so important in sustaining ecosystems and also how they nourish us just by looking at them.

[00:26:59] I mean, think about the red woods, think about Sequoia's, you know, just looking at trees

[00:27:05] feels spiritual. And they live for such a long time, some of them. And so this one act,

[00:27:15] this one small act of planting the trees has so many far-reaching consequences. He's just a humble

[00:27:23] man, you know, and he ends up creating an entire forest. It's a really beautiful idea.

[00:27:37] That's what I love about it is that you don't know what those seeds and what those acorns

[00:27:43] become. And even though we feel very small and we feel so insignificant against the vastness

[00:27:53] of the cosmos, the vastness of the stars and of time, time itself, you know, think about

[00:28:01] billions of years. What are we? What are we against all of that? We will all be forgotten.

[00:28:08] We are all tiny and small on this earth when you compare it against the backdrop of time.

[00:28:17] It's hard to even comprehend all of the people who lived before us,

[00:28:23] who are gone, who are forgotten. We don't have control over it. We're here. We are here

[00:28:33] for a blink of an eye. It is so fleeting. It's very moving at times when I think about it.

[00:28:40] How brief we are here. How brief the powerful it is. You know, I had that acorn on a bookshelf.

[00:28:50] I have like an altar on top of one of my bookshelves. And I have all kinds of stuff on that altar

[00:28:58] along with that acorn. I have a base of flowers and I have like some crystals and tarot cards

[00:29:08] and I also have a picture of me and my dad when I was a little girl. And I just think about

[00:29:15] how he affected me, the seeds that he planted in me. I mean isn't love? A kind of acorn?

[00:29:25] Isn't love a kind of seed that we plant in each other? I think about how lucky I was

[00:29:31] to have the father that I had. And the mother, I've thought about it so much lately about my

[00:29:39] upbringing and my family made my mom my dad. I get very emotional about it because

[00:29:49] I was loved. I grew up in a very loving home and in some ways it's been hard as I've gotten older.

[00:29:59] It was very obviously painful when I lost him as a teenager.

[00:30:04] But as I've gotten older and into my 30s and I've had trouble finding

[00:30:13] deep connection with people. And I don't have any kind of partner or romantic relationship or

[00:30:21] anything and I never have. It's been really hard when you grew up and you had like,

[00:30:28] I guess I could say for 16 years, the first 16 years of my life,

[00:30:32] I had this like safety and I had this loving environment almost womb-like or like this cocoon

[00:30:42] or something where I was safe. And then I lost my dad and it's like everything was shattered.

[00:30:51] It's almost like I had this garden of Eden or something, right? This very loving home

[00:30:58] and then it was shattered and I've never been able to find that safety again. I've never been

[00:31:07] able to find that kind of wholeness, I guess you could say. So the older I get, the more I realize

[00:31:15] how rare it is to have that kind of love and I still remember it. I still remember that life.

[00:31:23] I still remember us together. The three of us, I remember that wholeness, I remember that love.

[00:31:32] It was so devastating to lose it or to lose the physicality of it, the tangibility of it.

[00:31:43] It now exists in my memory but I realized now that the love that my parents gave me was a kind of

[00:31:53] to do what I'm trying to do is to carry that love forward in everything that I do.

[00:32:02] I think that that love is my North Star, my compass, my moral compass. They taught me how to love.

[00:32:13] They taught me how to be authentic, how to care about other people and how to care about the world.

[00:32:22] They instilled in me this idea that all people deserve dignity and respect.

[00:32:32] And who I am and who I will become and the life that I live is a direct, it is a direct consequence

[00:32:43] of the way that my parents raised me and the love that they gave me. And so when we love another

[00:32:49] person, whether it is our child, our mother, our father, our family, our friends,

[00:33:00] maybe it's somebody in our community, a neighbor when we show love or we show compassion or we show

[00:33:08] care for other people. That is also planting a seed. That is also a ripple. That has an impact

[00:33:19] the love that we give and the way that we live. And I'm grateful that I had that. And I wonder

[00:33:26] with L. Z. R. Boothier, our shepherd, he can't really love his wife and his son anymore.

[00:33:36] And I wonder if planting the trees is the way that he carries on that love and the way that

[00:33:44] shows devotion to life and the way that he continues to nurture life in his grief.

[00:33:52] I do think that what this man is doing is a product of his grief and his loss. And as we know,

[00:34:00] the grief is often or always proportionate to the love. And the more we love somebody,

[00:34:09] the more we will grieve them. I think for a long time, I didn't know what to do with the grief.

[00:34:16] And I think what I've realized is that you must do something with it. It cannot stay

[00:34:24] there. It cannot stay just trapped inside you. It can't congeal in your heart.

[00:34:32] That you have to move it. You have to work with it. You have to use it.

[00:34:36] And I think that's what I'm still trying to do is to use it, is to use it to be more empathetic,

[00:34:46] more compassionate, to understand life better, to be kinder, to care about others,

[00:34:53] to share my voice, to put something of value and meaning out into the world.

[00:35:02] That's why I do these episodes. That's why I share the way that I do.

[00:35:09] Because I don't think I can bear it otherwise. And I think with Elziard Boothier,

[00:35:18] maybe planting the trees as how he bears the destruction of his own life.

[00:35:24] I mean, he loses the two most precious people. And I think his planting is an act of love.

[00:35:32] It is a way to continue to love life after he's lost everything. How do we love life?

[00:35:43] I mean, Mary Oliver has this beautiful poem and she basically asks this question.

[00:35:48] There's only what did she say? She says something like there's only one question how to love

[00:35:54] this world. She says how to love this world, but I would also say how to love this life

[00:36:01] when you've lost something so precious and somebody so precious. How do you continue to love life?

[00:36:10] How do you continue to stay devoted to life? How do you keep your soul in your spirit and

[00:36:17] act? I think it requires giving something, doing something with the grief and the pain.

[00:36:28] I think that's why I'm drawn to art. I think that's why I'm drawn to writing

[00:36:34] and to creating in some way you could say that planting the trees is an act of,

[00:36:40] it's an act of creation, emits the destruction of the world wars, emits the destruction

[00:36:47] of L. Z. R. Boothier's own life. You know, he was once like me and my father and my mother.

[00:36:55] It was once him, his wife, and his son. Three became one. Three became two in my case.

[00:37:04] What do you do when that wholeness is destroyed? What can you do?

[00:37:11] And I think L. Z. R. Boothier goes to nature and he goes to life,

[00:37:18] to a devotion to life, nurturing new life, renewing life. And so perhaps that's why this story

[00:37:26] means so much to me. It's about this man finding a way to continue living

[00:37:32] and to also contribute something to the community where he lives,

[00:37:39] and to take care of the earth as well. It's a kind of hope. It's a way of

[00:37:45] cultivating hope. And I do think that hope has to be cultivated and it has to be worked at

[00:37:51] I don't know if it comes naturally for me personally. I think hope is like a spiritual practice.

[00:37:57] It is so hard to remain hopeful. I do sink into a lot of despair, particularly because of the

[00:38:07] political situation. But then I see what Palestinians are able to do in the midst of a genocide

[00:38:18] in the midst of an occupation that's gone on for decades over 70 years. Their resilience,

[00:38:25] their indestructible spirit, that is what gives me hope is what I see. What they have managed to

[00:38:35] salvage and to create amid the ruins of their own lives and the way that they have, there has

[00:38:43] been an attempt to destroy them and yet they continue to live and to resist and to survive.

[00:38:52] And they show us a deep, deep devotion to life and that gives me hope. They have hope as well.

[00:39:02] Hope is so sacred isn't it? You have to fight for it. You really have to fight for it.

[00:39:11] Particularly in the times we're living in with climate change, with the political situation that's

[00:39:17] ongoing and never ending. I don't feel that I live in a society that values life,

[00:39:25] that values creation. It's not a nourishing or nurturing society.

[00:39:34] It's very, I've watched it become this too. It's just very hollow and vapid and superficial.

[00:39:42] I'm shocked honestly at things that I see in the world today. I'm shocked at how people act.

[00:39:51] I think this is a story about hope at its core and there's a really great afterword for the book

[00:40:00] addition of the man who planted trees. This afterword is written by Norma Goodrich

[00:40:08] and she writes about the topic of hope and Jean Giano's feelings about hope. She writes

[00:40:16] quote, Gianno termed his confidence in the future Esperals or hopefulness not espoir

[00:40:25] which is the masculine word for hope that espoirals the feminine word designating the permanent

[00:40:33] state or condition of living one's life in hopeful tranquility.

[00:40:38] Wints springs this well of Esperals Gianno wondered.

[00:40:44] Hopefulness must spring he decided from literature and the profession of poetry.

[00:40:51] Authors only write so to be fair about it they have an obligation to profess hopefulness

[00:40:57] in return for their right to live and write. The poet must know the magical effect of

[00:41:04] certain words, hey grass, meadows, willows, rivers, furs, mountains, hills, people have suffered

[00:41:14] so long inside the walls that they have forgotten to be free Gianno thought. Human beings were

[00:41:21] not created to live forever in subways and tenements for their feet long to stride through tall

[00:41:28] grass or slide through running water. The poet's mission is to remind us of beauty.

[00:41:37] Of trees swaying in the breeze or pines groaning under snow in the mountain passes,

[00:41:44] of wild white horses galloping across the surf. You know Gianno said to me,

[00:41:50] there are also times in life when a person has to rush off in pursuit of hopefulness. Unquote,

[00:41:59] I love that idea that hope is something that you pursue, that it's something worth seeking out.

[00:42:10] And I also love that he felt like artists and writers should be hopeful

[00:42:18] and that should be part of their work as they should remind us of the beauty of life and

[00:42:27] connect us to the beauty of life. They have an obligation to profess hopefulness. That's the way

[00:42:34] that good rich puts it. I find this really interesting. I have gotten into animated films

[00:42:42] in my 30s. I would say the last few years I've gotten pretty like intensely interested in animation.

[00:42:50] I'm by no means an expert, but the man who planted trees is one of my favorite animated

[00:42:57] films. I know that I haven't lingered as much on the visuals of the film, but I do think that it

[00:43:04] is beautifully rendered and beautifully drawn. I guess I focused more in this episode about the story

[00:43:13] itself. That's what is so powerful for me. And the version of it, the version of the film I was

[00:43:20] able to watch on YouTube is not like the clearest highest quality, but I do think that it's a beautiful

[00:43:27] film. And so I've gotten into animation lately and just recently I went through the entire

[00:43:35] catalog of studio jibbly. I watched like 20 films in a couple of months. I was watching one every night

[00:43:45] and just falling in love with them and discovering a lot of favorites. My neighbor,

[00:43:52] Kodaro and Keke's delivery service. So I've entered into the world of Miyazaki.

[00:44:01] I don't know as much about him as I would like to, and hopefully I can learn more about Miyazaki.

[00:44:08] But I find it interesting that some of the clips that I've seen of him online.

[00:44:15] And this has come up in some discussions that I've also seen about him as that he comes off

[00:44:21] more of a cent like a cynical or pessimistic person in terms of his personality. I haven't watched

[00:44:30] any documentary about him or studio jibbly, but I've just seen clips from some of them where he

[00:44:38] he says things where he's just like really unhappy with the world and he seems a bit more pessimistic.

[00:44:44] And this is sort of in stark contrast to his art and to his films. I think, you know, obviously

[00:44:53] many of his films are masterpieces. I think my neighbor, Kodaro, is one of the greatest films

[00:44:59] ever made personally. It is like almost spiritual for me when I watched my neighbor, Kodaro this year.

[00:45:10] I was blown away by it and it's by far my favorite studio jibbly. My top used to be only

[00:45:17] yesterday and it got knocked down, it got knocked to the second position because I think there's

[00:45:22] something very magical and spiritual in my neighbor, Totoro. And so it doesn't actually surprise me

[00:45:32] that Miyazaki the man might be pessimistic, but his art is more hopeful or is more

[00:45:45] optimistic or life affirming or uplifting. I think that it makes sense and I think that the art

[00:45:56] may not always match the artist that you can maybe be a pessimistic person, but try to create art

[00:46:05] that is more optimistic or more hopeful. I think that active creating art is connected to hope.

[00:46:16] Why else are you creating it? Why alter you creating something and sharing it with other people?

[00:46:22] Because you're trying to change others and there's hope in that. I think that's an active

[00:46:29] hope or an active faith to try to affect other people, to try to move them, to try to make them

[00:46:36] feel something, to try to tell the story that could affect them. I do think that the act of creating

[00:46:43] art is a hopeful act. And so it doesn't surprise me that he might be more of a pessimistic person

[00:46:52] that doesn't totally align with the art that he creates. So I tend to agree with Shiono

[00:47:00] that artists, I think that art does give us hope or it can. Now of course, there is art that is more

[00:47:12] devastating and bleak and there's certainly pessimistic art but I would still argue that

[00:47:20] the experience of that art can give you hope. That the experience of watching a film, even if it's bleak,

[00:47:27] even if it's bellotar and Satan tango or something very heavy or sad that your experience of

[00:47:36] art can be life affirming because there could be something in the art that speaks to you and that

[00:47:45] help you in your life that makes you feel less alone or makes you feel sane or just remind you

[00:47:54] that there is something worth living for. Because that's how I feel about art, it's one of the

[00:48:00] things that I live for and it is something that gives me hope. And so, Jean Jiano writing the story,

[00:48:12] the man who planted trees was a kind of seed that he was planting as well. You know telling the

[00:48:18] story about this man who didn't exist but who gives us a model or a blueprint for a life that is good,

[00:48:33] a life that is worth living. What do we live for? How do we put one foot in front of the other every day?

[00:48:42] We have to all ask ourselves that, what do I want to contribute? Who do I want to be? Why

[00:48:48] am I waking up every day? Why am I here? Nobody can answer any of those questions except for you.

[00:48:59] And sometimes I do feel like I'm not living as authenticly as I should. I feel like I'm not

[00:49:07] living the life that I am capable of living. I often feel like I'm kind of haunted by an unlived life

[00:49:17] because a lot of things did not work out for me. I had a lot of dreams and none of them have,

[00:49:25] none of them have come true. Unfortunately, I wanted to be a writer, I wanted to travel,

[00:49:33] I wanted to publish books, I wanted to be somebody in the world. I wanted to matter, I guess,

[00:49:40] create, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be someone I think and that really hasn't

[00:49:48] happened for me. And so I think there's all this untapped potential or this unlived life

[00:49:56] that I am haunted by personally. I just sometimes think, now that I'm in my mid-30s and I just

[00:50:03] I look at my life and I'm like, what have I done with my life? What have I done with all this time?

[00:50:09] You know, this time that my father didn't get to have, I don't have a child. I don't have any

[00:50:15] children. I don't have a great career. I don't have like a lot of things that kind of define

[00:50:24] a valuable life. I don't have a partner. I don't have a big family. I don't have status. I don't

[00:50:33] have like all of these things because I went through a lot of trauma and it affected my ability

[00:50:40] to function in the world and to just live. And so I feel like I have this unlived life. I feel

[00:50:49] like there's so much that I haven't done. I feel like I'm behind other people. I feel like

[00:50:56] I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do with my life. I don't know what my

[00:51:02] greater purpose or my greater meaning is, but I'm someone who deeply yearns for that. Like I wish

[00:51:09] I could wake up every day and feel like this is my purpose and I am living in alignment

[00:51:15] with what I meant to do on the surface. I don't feel that. I mean, this podcast for a while

[00:51:24] was very meaningful for me and mattered to me, but it didn't go anywhere. It didn't really

[00:51:32] like connect with a lot of people. I had dreams for it for a while. Like I wanted to,

[00:51:38] I wanted it to be bigger. I wanted it to like maybe lead to something, like lead to opportunities

[00:51:46] or connections or I wanted to go to film festivals. I wanted to like really be able to share my

[00:51:53] passion and my love for film and to be able to support myself through it potentially.

[00:51:59] That was like a big dream of mine and it just did not happen. It didn't connect with enough

[00:52:07] people that to ever be a possibility. And it's been difficult for me to kind of accept that.

[00:52:15] Of like, oh, okay, you know, this is not going to be what I wanted it to be.

[00:52:21] I'm not going to be able to have the impact or the influence that I had hoped for. I never,

[00:52:29] I just never got a following. I never got like a big, big enough audience to turn it into

[00:52:37] any kind of career or to for it to lead to connections or opportunity, use or something like that.

[00:52:47] And that was really hard. You know, it's been hard for me to kind of accept that. But

[00:52:53] it wasn't meant to be. And so it's why just kind of occasionally do episodes because

[00:53:00] I don't have the time on the time or the energy to keep putting out episodes and stuff.

[00:53:08] But I'm grateful for the people who have come across the episodes and who have found it

[00:53:13] stuff like that. But I, I feel this sense of like, well, what's my purpose? What am I supposed to be

[00:53:21] doing? How am I supposed to be living? And I guess sometimes I can get wrapped up in those questions.

[00:53:28] And then I forget to actually live. I forget to actually be in my life and to be connected to my

[00:53:35] life in the day in, day out. You know? And I think something like the man who planted trees,

[00:53:43] I think this story, both the book and the animated film, I think it creates the space or this

[00:53:52] container. I feel like the way I approach film is like, I see film as a container at times.

[00:54:00] And that container can hold our feelings and dreams and experiences that a film can like be a space

[00:54:14] that you enter into. And it can bring up all these faults and feelings and ideas.

[00:54:22] And so the film is the container that holds all of that, that holds what you bring to it.

[00:54:33] And so the man who planted trees, that's what it makes me think about. It makes me think about

[00:54:38] these really big questions about what kind of life I want to live

[00:54:44] who I want to be, what I want to contribute, how I want to make that contribution.

[00:54:52] And I'm one of those people where I do want a deeper meaning. You know, how do we get out

[00:54:56] of bed every day? How do we put one foot in front of the other? How does, you know, Ozear,

[00:55:03] Boofie, keep living after his wife and his son are gone. He has to have a greater purpose.

[00:55:11] And I think planting these trees becomes that greater purpose. His devotion to life,

[00:55:20] his desire to nurture life, these become his larger purpose. He finds that purpose through nature,

[00:55:28] through being a steward of nature and of the earth. And I love that. And so he finds that greater purpose.

[00:55:40] He finds like something to live for. He's kind of a lonely figure. I find that kind of interesting.

[00:55:48] He doesn't really live with anybody, you know, he has a sheep for a little while.

[00:55:54] And he's kind of separate from the community. Even though he's planting these trees to try to help it,

[00:56:01] he seems separate at the same time. Maybe it's his sorrow that kind of separates him or Mark

[00:56:08] him a little bit. He's on a mission. He's on a mission to nurture life. And that becomes his

[00:56:19] greater purpose. That's what allows him to keep living. And I think for me,

[00:56:26] I don't have that. I think I've struggled for so long to find that. Like what is my purpose?

[00:56:33] Why am I here? How can I have the effect on other people that I would like to have? How can I

[00:56:42] contribute something of meaning and value? And I still, I don't feel that that's totally answered.

[00:56:50] But I do feel like these episodes are at least some kind of offering that maybe these are

[00:56:57] little seeds or acorns that I'm throwing out into the universe or into the world and people come

[00:57:03] across them. And so that, that has meaning. That has value. But I think that I'm someone

[00:57:11] always kind of searching for that greater meaning or purpose. I don't know if I've hit on it yet.

[00:57:22] But I love that idea of being devoted to something, being devoted to life.

[00:57:28] And I do find a lot of solace through nature. I find so much comfort through it.

[00:57:36] And I recently got a bird feeder for the first time. I've never really done this before.

[00:57:42] I just got like a simple tube type of bird feeder that has these things where the bird can

[00:57:49] the birds can land and then they can eat the seeds that you put into the bird feeder.

[00:57:55] And I don't know why I did it. I was just kind of interested in it and I really like birds

[00:58:00] and I like bird song and stuff. And it took a little while, like a few days or maybe a week,

[00:58:07] but finally the bird started to have started to use it and to congregate on it.

[00:58:14] And I cannot tell you how satisfying and beautiful it is to me to know

[00:58:24] that these birds are being nourished by those seeds that I've put out.

[00:58:32] I just love the feeling of it, of knowing that I have given nourishment to these birds

[00:58:41] and that they have a place to go and they can eat and then they can fly off

[00:58:47] and I've contributed to their lives. I have nurtured them in some way and fed them and

[00:58:58] done that. It just makes me feel good. Like I have a dog, I like to have a cat one day

[00:59:07] and so I'm grateful to have my dog and to take care of her. There's something about wild animals

[00:59:15] I guess and like that are not domesticated. You don't own them or anything. It just kind of go

[00:59:22] off and you don't have any personal connection with these animals or with these birds.

[00:59:29] And I feel like I've just contributed something, just through feeding some birds.

[00:59:36] I don't know where they go. I don't know what they do but I was one small part of their

[00:59:41] existence or their lives. I like the idea of just nourishing somebody. I like the idea of nurturing

[00:59:50] something and it's just really beautiful to me and I was sitting outside today and one of the birds

[00:59:58] landed on the bird feeder right in front of me, I couldn't believe it and I started to cry.

[01:00:04] It was the first time that had happened. I have to look at them from like the window

[01:00:11] and there was this beautiful bird right in front of me and I felt so moved by it and I just

[01:00:18] started to cry because I felt in that moment so connected to life. I think that's what nature

[01:00:25] gives us is that it gives us this very visceral immediate feeling of being connected to life

[01:00:34] and the thing about nature is that it goes on without us. It exists parallel to us but we are

[01:00:44] not important to it. Like those birds fly around and they take no notice of me. You're not really

[01:00:53] necessary to the natural world like the birds and the rabbits and even the snakes and the

[01:01:03] rural south. All these animals exist and you don't know what they're up to but you're not necessary

[01:01:15] to it. Their lives go on irrespective of you. It's this world that is like it's there,

[01:01:24] it's parallel but it goes on without you. Whether you're there or not, those birds are

[01:01:32] going to keep flying. The butterflies are going to land on the flowers and that's also what makes

[01:01:41] nature very scary because nature is indifferent to us. That's why it's scary when somebody's

[01:01:47] attacked by an animal. That animal doesn't know what you are. It doesn't it doesn't separate

[01:01:54] you from anything else like a shark attack. You know the shark doesn't know that you're not a seal.

[01:02:01] It doesn't care. It's indifferent to you. It's almost hostile to you and so nature can be kind of

[01:02:09] this alien thing too where you feel I feel like rabbits and birds and all of that they're unknowable

[01:02:17] are not humans. You don't have any frame of reference of what's going on in the mind of a tiger.

[01:02:27] When I was little I loved watching nature documentaries. I would watch stuff about big cats and

[01:02:33] tigers and lions and whales and dolphins and the ocean is so vast and so interesting.

[01:02:42] And I just realized like wow all of this is going on and we don't even like know all the species

[01:02:50] of animals that are out there. It's just this world that goes on without you, you know,

[01:02:56] trees that live for hundreds of years and there's such a magnitude about it. So much larger than

[01:03:04] you. That's what I think what nature makes you feel too. It's just so much bigger than you

[01:03:10] and you're so small and comparison to all that and you're not necessary to it.

[01:03:16] They don't care. The birds don't care about you. They don't have any personal connection to you.

[01:03:24] And I just think nature really connects us to to all that, you know, of just life.

[01:03:33] It's really beautiful to me. I can't believe I cried because I was looking at some birds

[01:03:38] because a bird came kind of close to me on my bird feeder. But I just love the idea that I was

[01:03:45] helping that bird and it's totally like selfless. I mean, I didn't get anything in return.

[01:03:52] It's just I think when you take care of an animal or you take care of nature. It's like

[01:03:56] you're just giving to give. It's so pure like you're just giving them food or your planting things

[01:04:06] because you won't do what does the shepherd get out of planting the trees. He will not

[01:04:14] really be able to experience a lot of those trees. He may never see them. He does it for the people

[01:04:22] of the future. That's what he does it for. It's really altruistic. It's very selfless.

[01:04:30] It's just for the act itself. It's for knowing that these trees will help that region.

[01:04:39] Will help that community. He doesn't want to be remembered for it. He's not out telling everybody,

[01:04:48] well, I'm planting these trees. He just does it because he wants to even when there's

[01:04:54] words happening. He continues to plant the trees because he believes in life and he wants to be

[01:05:03] connected to life and that's his mission, and that's his purpose and that's the meaning that

[01:05:09] he's created is to plant those trees. I just love it. You know? And there's people all across this world

[01:05:17] who are planting those eight coins in different ways. They're planting it through their communities

[01:05:26] and what they create, what they share, what they give back. Some of them we know, some of them we

[01:05:33] don't. And there's all kinds of ways to plant those eight coins and to put something better

[01:05:41] out into the world. And I think this film and the story makes me think about

[01:05:47] the impact that I want to have or what I want to contribute, who I want to be and how I want

[01:05:55] to live. It's just very powerful, very like life changing, life affirming. And I feel so changed by

[01:06:05] it, you know? I just feel so affected by this story and I wouldn't have even come across the

[01:06:12] itself without the animated film. The animated film I think is much more famous. It's a story that

[01:06:22] revitalizes me, you know? Just as he plants the eight coins and tries to revitalize the region.

[01:06:28] When you take in this story it's revitalizing to your spirit and I think we need that at times.

[01:06:35] You know, we can get into places maybe if pessimism or despair and I think that art can be one of

[01:06:42] more powerful ways that we can be revitalized and we can feel our spirits get raised again, you know?

[01:06:52] And we definitely need that in the world today. No doubt about it. That's all I wanted to say

[01:07:00] about this film. I love it deeply. It's a very simple story about a simple man who does very

[01:07:08] simple acts of planting trees and yet the ripple effects of those actions are profound and far-reaching.

[01:07:21] So I hope that you liked this episode. I appreciate anybody who listened to it.

[01:07:28] And until next time keep watching Great Films.