The Botany of Desire

Name: The Botany of Desire
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2009-10-28
Duration: 2 h
Rating: 7.6
Cast: Frances McDormand, Michael Pollan

TV Movie
20092009
TV-14TV-14
2h

IMDb RATING

7.6/10

560

YOUR RATING

Documentary

Michael Pollan, a professor of journalism and a student of food, presents the history of four plants, each of which found a way to make itself essential to humans, thus ensuring widespread p... Read allMichael Pollan, a professor of journalism and a student of food, presents the history of four plants, each of which found a way to make itself essential to humans, thus ensuring widespread propagation. Apples, for sweetness; tulips, for beauty; marijuana, for pleasure; and, potat... Read allMichael Pollan, a professor of journalism and a student of food, presents the history of four plants, each of which found a way to make itself essential to humans, thus ensuring widespread propagation. Apples, for sweetness; tulips, for beauty; marijuana, for pleasure; and, potatoes, for sustenance. Each has a story of discovery and adaptation; each has a symbiotic re... Read all

IMDb RATING

7.6/10

560

YOUR RATING

- Michael Schwarz
- Edward Gray(co-director)
- Frances McDormand
- Michael Pollan

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Awards
- 1 nomination

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Frances McDormand

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Michael Pollan

Self

- Michael Schwarz
- Edward Gray(co-director)
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Quotes
[last lines]
Michael Pollan: For me the most important lessons to take away from these tales is that we are not simply standing outside the web of life, but that we are part of that web of life, and that everything we do, what we choose to eat, what flowers we choose to - to put on our tables, what drugs we choose to take, these are evolutionary votes we are casting every day in - in many, many different ways.
[pause]
Michael Pollan: When we use these metaphors when we talk about plants having a strategy to do this, or wanting this, or desiring this, we're being metaphorical obviously, I mean, plants do not have consciousness. But this is a fault of our own vocabulary. We don't have a very good vocabulary to describe what other species do to us, because we think we're the only species that really does anything.
[pause]
Michael Pollan: But to the extent that you can put yourself in the place of these other species and look at the world from their point of view, I think it frees us from our sense of alienation from nature? And we become members of the biotic community, one among many species, all of them together creating this wondrous web that we call life.

User reviews6

Review

Featured review

7/10

Our plants may be more successful than we are

By making themselves as attractive to us as possible, the four plants documented here have spread over the whole world. They have succeeded in getting us to do their bidding. Michael Pollan helps us see from the plant's point of view just what we're doing to the planet. By telling the history of some of our most important plants and interviewing the growers most intimate with them, he clarifies our symbiotic relationship with them. He lays out fairly the opposing views on high tech versus organic growing arguments. He clearly prefers the work-with-nature approach but fully understands that we're completely dependent upon high tech methods. The only really clear opinion he hammers strongly is that monoculture is bad and that preserving biodiversity is the key to a solution. He doesn't quite explain *how* we can do that globally, but he's quite good at getting people thinking in new ways about the bigger pictures of this divisive subject, and this is the main strength of the movie. The photography and production quality are also very high.

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