The Ballad of Dorothy Dunn
THE STORY: An agitprop music drama set in Steinbeck Country in California during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Gretchen Gray stars as Dorothy Dunn, an inspirational Catholic worker, a cross between Father Daniel Berrigan and Mother Theresa, as she seeks to steer a humanitarian course through the clashing rocks of the extreme political right and left during one of the most turbulent labor strikes in American History. Shocked by the mob lynching of a worker, she struggles to maintain her faith. The worker was the victim of vigilante mob justice. He was broken out of jail and lynched by a mob of 5000 without due process of the law. This action was supported by the Hearst press and by the Governor of California (certainly an impeachable offense had the ACLU been a viable force in the 1930's).
The film is a commingling of fact and fiction insofar as it is based on true epical events, with some scenes and characters created or changed for dramatic purposes.
The Vigilantes– Scene from THE BALLAD
OF DOROTHY DUNN
The main character of Dorothy Dunn, for example, is based in part on Dorothy Day (1897-1980), the renowned Catholic worker and social activist who devoted her life to the helpless and disenfranchised citizens of the country, the broken people. In February of 2000, with Vatican encouragement, the beatification process seeking Sainthood for Dorothy commenced.
Gretchen Gray in a scene from THE
BALLAD OF DOROTHY DUNN
FILM STYLE: This agitprop film explores forms of "epik" agitprop filmmaking. First popularized in the 1930s, agitprop drama is styled to interrupt the flow of action in such a way as to cause the spectators to think about what they are seeing. In counterpoint to the dramatic action, the film employs agitational songs and choruses directed at the audience – collages - real sound bytes - motion graphics - newspaper headlines - and radio broadcasts to effect the expressionistic style.
THE BALLAD: The sung ballad sequences, framed in imaginatively-composed cinematic images and containing authorial points-of-view, weave through the film like so many Shakespearean asides and soliloquies. They offer commentary and insight into such issues as the vigilante frame of mind, the psychology of mob action, the need to come to grips with a world inflamed by descendents of Cain and, especially, the need to drive a humanistic wedge between the diametrically opposed extremes that beget violence, even war.
Ballad stanza: THE BOOK OF REVELATION -
Motion graphic
“Behold a Pale Rider
and He who sat on him
is Death”
WHO IS IT FOR?
THE BALLAD OF DOROTHY DUNN is an independent film exploring a new form of expressionistic narrative filmmaking. It should intrigue viewers interested in adventuring with non-traditional forms. The film will also offer viewers the opportunity to trace the roots of the violent right-left polemics which menace our own era seventy years later.
It is also a movie for:
- Devotees of independent filmmaking
- Individual viewers interesed in exploring an infamous crime committed in the midst if the Great Depression
- Church groups interested in experiencing the work of a great Christian humanist
- Study groups interested in exploring the historical and societal issues prevalent at that time and place (Steinbeck Country, 1930's)
CONTACT: webm2@atelierpix.com
"The greatest challenge of the day
is how to bring about a revolution of the heart."
- Dorothy