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Dating to 1925, this silent film "Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life" is one of the earliest ethnographic documentary films ever made. This version runs 57 minutes. The film was also released in a slightly longer version of over 70 minutes by Paramount, and in digest form from Kodak as part of its Kodascope Library. The film follows members of the Bakhtiari, a sub-tribe of the Lurs, in Persia -- modern-day Iran -- as they and their herds make their seasonal journey to better pastures. The film was directed and filmed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack, with financing provided by Marguerite Elton Harrison and Cooper's family. The journey was the first ever undertaken by Westerners with the Bakhtiari. The first part of "Grass" documents the ancient caravan route from Angora (modern Ankara, Turkey) to the Bakhtiari lands in Persia (western Iran in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province and the eastern part of Khuzestan). It then shows leader Haidar Khan as he leads 50,000 of his people and countless animals on a harrowing trek across the Karun River and over Zard Kuh, the highest peak in the Zagros Mountains. The film was made at a critical juncture, as just 20 years later, this type of migration was being made with trucks and by train, instead of on foot. Also, the position of the tribe changed greatly in the years after the film was made. Reza Shah Pahlavi (r. 1925–1941) made the destruction of the Bakhtiari influence in Persia part of his mission, in part due to the existence of oil on Bakhtiari territory A few tribal leaders were executed by Pahlavi in order to crush Bakhtiari autonomy.
The documentary preceded and influenced another, more famous film made by Cooper and Schoedsack, namely King Kong (1933). Grass was distributed by Paramount Pictures and shown publicly in New York on March 30, 1925.
Marguerite Elton Harrison (1879–1967) was an American reporter, spy, film maker, and translator who was one of the four founding members of the Society of Woman Geographers. Merian Caldwell Cooper (1893 – 1973) was an American aviator, United States Air Force and Polish Air Force officer, adventurer, screenwriter, film director, and producer. He was member of the Explorers Club, and is credited as co-inventor of the Cinerama film projection process. Cooper's most famous film was the 1933 movie King Kong.
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