credit: Roy Milburn

The Oscar-nominated film If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front documents the events and people involved in a series of arsons beginning in the 1990s in Oregon. Those crimes, committed by members of the radical environmental  Earth Liberation Front (ELF), were successfully prosecuted as terrorism.

New York filmmaker Marshall Curry was exposed to the story almost by chance. In 2005 (long after the ELF had disbanded), four federal agents entered his wife's office and arrested one of her employees, Daniel McGowen.

Curry explained to Think Out Loud's Allison Frost that the unassuming character of McGowen ended up becoming the catalyst for making the film.

"On the surface he seems very unlike somebody who might become a radical environmentalist. He'd grown up in Rockaway, Queens; his dad was a New York cop; he was a business major in college; and yet here he is facing life in prison for what the government considered to be terrorism. For me, whenever reality cuts against my expectations, or my stereotypes, that's interesting and I wanted to figure out — 'How did this guy wind up in this position?' "

With McGowen as a main character, the film ends up telling the story of the rise and fall of the Earth Liberation Front through the core members and law enforcement officers who eventually convicted them.

Throughout the film, questions are raised about the definition of terrorism and the roles of activism in a democratic society. Curry highlights the complexity of these issues using the arsons ELF committed, which included SUV dealerships, vacation properties, Bureau of Land Management offices and more.

"The people who are sympathetic view these [fires] as the Boston Tea Party, as symbolic property destruction that is designed to draw attention." Throughout ELF's 1,200 different acts of destruction across the United States, no one was hurt.

"But," Curry explains, "when we spoke to the folks whose buildings were burned, they really felt terrorized. They didn't know who had done these things. They didn't know if their families were going to be next... In their minds, you know, when someone uses intimidation to try and force you to do something, or not to do something, that's the essence of terrorism."  

If a Tree Falls is out on DVD and is live streaming on Netflix. Listen to Think Out Loud'sfull interview with Marshall Curry.

This article includes contributions from Think Out Loud's Allison Frost.