If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front is a 2011 feature film directed by Marshall Curry.
It is a documentary about, as the subtitle points out, the Earth Liberation Front
. But it's a story, not the story, and as such it concentrates on one figure, ELF member Daniel McGowan. McGowan, an idealistic young man from Queens, makes his way west and becomes involved with environmental activism. Incidents such as the clear-cutting of a national forest and the cutting down of trees in Eugene, Oregon to make a parking lot, radicalize the local environmental movement. Violent reactions by the police, such as shooting pepper spray directly into protesters' eyeballs, further spur radicalism.
McGowan joins the ELF, which becomes convinced of the need for radical action and begins a campaign of arson that includes setting fire to ranger stations, a ski resort, and the headquarters of a logging company. Intercut with interviews and stock footage of the history of the ELF during its 1996-2001 heyday are scenes with McGowan back in Queens in 2006-7, after his arrest for terrorism, when he was facing over 300 years in prison for arson and terrorism.
Tropes:
- Anachronic Order: The film goes on two different timelines, with Daniel McGowan's life in the months before his trial intercut with scenes from the earlier timeline in which he joins the ELF and the ELF goes on a campaign of arson across the northwest.
- Art Shift: Most of the film is obviously in live action, but the recreations of ELF attacks are shown with rotoscoped animation in black-and-white. Later, the recreations of FBI arrests of McGowan and others are shown in the same way.
- The Book Cipher: As explained in the movie, members of the ELF used book ciphers to communicate. This is demonstrated with an Ursula K. Le Guin novel.
- Complete-the-Quote Title: The title naturally is from the old cliche, "If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one to hear it, does it make a sound?"
- Creepy Crows: A shot of a crow cawing and taking off is used to set the mood before the sequence where McGowan arrives at the courthouse for sentencing.
- Documentary: Of the Earth Liberation Front and one man's involvement in it.
- The Ken Burns Effect: Used quite a bit with stills. One scene has the camera make a dramatic pan over a photo of the headquarters of Superior Lumber, engulfed in flames.
- Scenery Gorn: A montage of ghastly environmental damage like the Exxon Valdez disaster is shown as McGowan recounts watching a film that helped radicalize him.
- Stock Footage: Quite a bit of the film is old news reports and stock footage of environmental protests and the aftermath of ELF attacks.
- Talking Heads: Daniel McGowan, being the focus, is the most interviewed character. Other interviewees include his family and his girlfriend, as well as his old girlfriend from the ELF, and the ELF leader who turned cooperative witness and ratted the others out. Also interviewed are a detective who investigated the ELF, the Eugene police chief, the federal prosecutor in the ELF case, and two men from Superior Lumber who talk about the ELF attack on their company.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: A chyron at the end notes that McGowan got seven years after refusing to cooperate. His old girlfriend Suzanne Savoie got four years after becoming a cooperating witness. Jeff Ferguson, the ELF leader who agreed to wear a wire and get recordings of the others, got no jail time. (In Real Life, McGowan was paroled in 2013 after five years in jail.)
- Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: Discussed Trope, said nearly word-for-word by the Eugene, Oregon police chief as he ponders whether or not the ELF can be considered "terrorists". McGowan rejects this label, pointing out that for all their anti-corporate arson attacks, the ELF never hurt a single person.
