Deep Time

Director: Noah Hutton

Noah Hutton, an emerging directorial talent; offers a sequel of sorts to his 2009 documentary Crude Independence with his thoughtful, penetrating follow-up Deep Time. While the former film focused on a town on the threshold of an oil boom, the "sequel" serves as a bookend; measuring the successes and failures of the oil industry's impact on the inhabitants of Sidney, North Dakota. Hutton's film could also serve as a bookend to Jesse Moss' excellent 2014 documentary The Overnighters. While both films share a common subject, they diverge in their storytelling scope. Moss' film gauges the oil boom's impact on a community; Hutton's on a town and reservation. Both are powerful films; shedding light on how promised prosperity and wealth can also bring accelerated change to a community unprepared for its many demands. But Hutton's film shows us the broader, environmental impact of harvesting non-renewable energy; its ultimate cost for nature and human lives.

We hear from Sidney inhabitants and a few politicians, including former Senator Byron Dorgan (D) and Republican governor Jack Dalrymple, whose surprising, convergent, pro-oil views say more about the oil industry's power to forge consensus than bilateral cooperation. More compelling are the views of life-long residents; many who have succumbed to the oil company's presence and influence.

We also hear from others who have managed to survive without oil revenue largesse but still feel its overpowering presence, like a baseball coach whose field lies adjacent to newly-built, over-priced modern apartments (stimulated by oil wealth) and in full view of oil derricks.

Housing becomes an issue for the enormous influx of oil company employees. Though many live in ad hoc trailer units, others are forced to reside in what one resident likens to third-world living conditions. Startling are statistics that compare the skyrocketing rent in Sidney (and elsewhere in North Dakota) to that of Los Angeles and New York. One would be shocked to find the residents (and oil workers) are subject to rental prices twice that of said major cities.

We see that some residents have made out handsomely; leasing their property to oil and gas companies for drilling or housing; the money proving to be too irresistible. While some are ambivalent about their augmented income, others see only a golden lining.

But it isn't only the residents who grapple with the oil/natural gas beasts; a tribe on an area reservation are no less affected and no less susceptible to the seductive allure of Midas-like wealth. One tribe member; a very charismatic and articulate young man, addresses those of his community and representatives from a Texas company hoping to build units on tribal land in a community gathering. While one elder member extols the virtues of leasing tribal land, the young man and the community see its Mephistophelian obverse. One of the highlights of Hutton's film is this young man, whose infinitely wise perspective allows him to weigh the benefits and the bane of oil revenue. We learn his reservation earns $12 million dollars a month from the oil companies in leased property, but we also learn the money is often spent in extravagantly foolish ways. A helicopter and a yacht are two examples of tribal profligacy.

Hutton shows us a shameful episode from North Dakota's past where the U.S. Government--more specifically the The Army Corps of Engineers, circumvented Tribal sovereignty in building the Garrison Dam. Though the Dam occupies both federal and Tribal property, the Reservation has never received compensation for it. We get a clear sense of how the tribe has been bullied by the government in its past and by oil and gas companies in the present.

A scene from Hutton's previous film (reprised in Deep Time) shows us a farmer's heroic resistance to the oil company's presence. We see Hutton return to visit the man, only to find he has relocated to very comfortable digs, free from the noise generated by oil company activity. That his new, upscale home was purchased with oil money is self-evident. This sequence speaks eloquently of the oil industry's powerful reach and its ability to force Faustian deals with those who try to resist.

Near the end of Hutton's film, we take a detour to Alaska, where a NASA/JPL scientist measures the carbon released by melted permafrost. A brilliantly drawn connection between the alarming scientific evidence for global warming and man's unquenchable thirst for oil and natural gas shows us the cost of our dependence on fossil fuels.

Hutton is well on his way to becoming a premier documentarian, but what makes his film rare is its aesthetic power. We see and hear North Dakotans, but we also see the landscape lovingly photographed. We see what people stand to lose if the oil and gas companies pollute green, rolling hills and the endless fields of swaying grass. This film is beautiful to behold, no doubt about it.

We even get a Herzogian detour into a tunnel dug by the Army Corps of Engineers (irony noted), in which we see fossils embedded in the strata. Though we know fossils are the origin of oil, they also represent a past that is beyond our ken. The film is prefaced with a quote by the Scottish geologist James Hutton: (paraphrased) As far as human perspective is concerned, the land has no beginning and no end. Very pertinent words.

It should be noted that the terrific film score we hear was composed by Hutton himself. This guy may not have limits.

Deep Time is an unsettling film that invites deep reflection. Hutton is a young director with a universe in his head and the gifts of a natural filmmaker at his command. That he will dazzle us further is beyond doubt.