The film we propose is about that homecoming. It will focus on the
Enewetakans' efforts to renew the bonds between themselves and their
environment, and to pick up the thread of their thousand-year history.
This is a story of regeneration. But it is as much about the atoll ecology
itself as it is about the people who are returning to it.
In telling this scientific side of our story we enjoy a unique opportunity
to explore first-hand how Enewetak's face has changed and its plants and
animals have evolved.
Ron Nolan, noted marine biologist and world
authority on reef biosystems, will guide our exploration. We will dive
with him in water-filled bomb craters -~ some of them more than three
miles across and three hundred feet deep ~~ to examine the plant and animal
life that now thrives there. He will show us how Enewetak Atoll has
adapted after ten years of nuclear testing and a devastating war.
Dr, Nolan is also important to the human side of our story.
Readily
accepted by the Enewetakans, he is at home with thelr society.
same’ time, he himself is a Westem scientist.
an ambassador between cultures.
Yet at the
In many ways, he is
His is a uniquely penetrating
Perspective from which to view the Enewetakese homecoming.
At the core of our documentary will be the Enewetakese people themselves.
Even after their abrupt and traumatic collision with the West, they remain
a quietly poetic people.
Their attachment to their homeland is unshakeable;
- already they have written a song to commemmorate their return.
The spirit
of these people -- and the simple drama of their homecoming -- will bind
our story together, give it depth and energy. By observing how they once again
close the circle that joins them to their atoll and their heritage, we will
learn much about human nature, and about nature itself.
With this dual focus -- nature and human nature ~- AFTER THE SEA CAUGHT
FIRE cannot serve as a platform for any political ideology.
Perhaps we
will find in AFTER THE SEA CAUGHT FIRE a metaphor for other issues.
Perhaps it does represent the most jarring clash between man and nature;
perhaps it is somehow symbolic of our loss of innocence in the nucle&ér age.
These are issues which must for the moment remain open, because our aim
{s to tejl the "story of Enewetak" in terms understood by those who know
the story best ~-- the Enewetakans themselves.