‘Middletown’: a Quixotic quest in environmental justice – uscannenbergmedia.com


SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL — “Boys State” and “Girls State” documentary filmmakers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine returned to Sundance this year, not with a story about the political assembly of youth in the United States, but with “Middletown,” a film about environmental issues and the power of an influential educator.
Focusing on Middletown, NY — a small town in the Hudson Valley — this film documents a high school class’ investigation of toxic waste dumping that was occurring at their local landfill. The class — Electronic English, conceived by teacher Fred Isseks — gave students the opportunity to use film and journalism to reflect on and express their feelings about the world around them. Isseks, a central character in the film, says of teaching that class that “You learn by doing. You learn by getting involved.” This philosophy is evident in both the extensive archival footage from his class, and through his former students’ reflections on their time under his tutelage.
Opening on now-haunting footage of young children wading through ponds and joking about the water being poisonous, “Middletown” immediately establishes its tone by juxtaposing this footage with an opening credits sequence set over paintings from the Hudson River School — a 19th-Century American art movement composed of painters who depicted the singularities of the natural scenery in their region. Their artwork captures the unmistakable golden light of their locations and the vastness of untouched landscapes — all focusing, primarily, on the areas surrounding the Hudson Valley in New York. By using these paintings in the opening credits of “Middletown,” a specific message is conveyed: this once was a very beautiful place (and perhaps still could be, as the town is described numerous times in the documentary as “bucolic”), but somehow along the way — through capitalism, industrialization, Mafia ties and more — the landscape changed.
“Middletown” is a story in two halves, seamlessly woven together with the help of its central characters. On one side is the very real investigation into toxic waste being dumped in a landfill atop an aquifer that served Middletown and some surrounding areas. For anyone who knows of the tragedies associated with Love Canal — another New York State environmental disaster that came to light almost 20 years prior to Middletown — the story covered in this documentary may be a familiar one. What sets “Middletown” apart, though, and what makes it especially compelling, is the second half of its story: Isseks and his class of misfits.
As explored in the documentary, Isseks’ students were a group of kids from mismatched backgrounds — yet in different ways, they all felt like outsiders. As adults interviewed in the film, all of Isseks’ former students emphasize that social barriers and expectations fell away as they all worked together in service of the story they were chasing. They seemed to all understand that what they were doing was bigger than just school and even just their town. Isseks also says that he didn’t have a single student walk away out of fear, and that all of them just kept going, despite how frustrating and often dangerous their work could be.
Blending archival footage of the students’ own documentary with present-day interviews and b-roll, “Middletown” is a comprehensive look at the development of Isseks’ class, the escalation of his students’ film and the impact Isseks had on the kids he taught. For Isseks, as his students made their film, “civic courage became a motto.” He wanted them to “act as if [they] live in a real democracy,” and approach the world with earnestness and facts, rather than an expectation that their case would fall apart. Isseks empowered his students to enter the world as they were, but to also not let anyone talk down to them simply because of their age; he emphasized the value of their voices and experiences, giving them the strength and motivation to stay tenacious.
In an interview, one of Isseks’ former students describes their work as a “Quixotic quest” — but whether impractical or not, there is no doubt that Isseks’ impact goes beyond the literal results of the students’ documentary. “It’s not a story that ever ends,” they say in the film, but it is one that keeps developing in interesting and meaningful ways.
By focusing so heavily on Isseks’ influence on his students, “Middletown” walks an intriguing but undeniably effective line between purely an environmental story and a case for the necessity of good educators. It’s not that environmental issues aren’t possible to emotionally connect with — in fact, younger generations tend to be very aware of environmental problems, to the point of near jaded-ness about their future. Rather, the emotional pull of a group of students banding together, in over their heads but fighting anyways, and under the leadership of one of those rare, truly inspiring and influential teachers — that’s gold. That can connect with almost anyone, and it’s the students’ involvement in the story that gives Middletown faces and humanity, rather than it just being regarded as one instance in a long list of ecological disasters in the United States.
“Middletown,” at the time of writing, is still seeking distribution. But with any luck, this expertly-concocted, genuinely impactful documentary — of and for its times — will be on the receiving end of many more eyes.
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