Yellowstone, Green Library, and the Bluescreen

By Marina Luccioni '21
Hometown: London, United Kingdom
Major: Undeclared
Research Intern, Galatée Films

I spent summer working for the french film company Galatée Films, as a researcher for their upcoming film, The Photographer. I focused on the area around and including Yellowstone National Park from the 1860-80’s, with an emphasis on Native American presence and interplay with the ecology and other historical events in the region.

My internship was remote meaning I spent a fair amount of time perusing the Green Library stacks on campus. I ended up with a pile of books big enough to warrant locker space in the basement and one day as I sat on the floor fiddling with the radial lock on my book locker door, I couldn’t help but see irony in my methods of research versus their content. I was reading and googling about a type of knowledge and cultures which fundamentally prioritize embodied, place-based understanding, the opposite of remote methods I was using for my research, and even communication with my boss at Galatée. Everything I was reading suggested that I needed to be on the land in Yellowstone to see and feel the place and people there to better understand the history. I should be talking to elders and asking about their memories or oral histories instead of listening to recorded interviews. I came across that sentiment repeatedly, feeling sometimes sceptical and sometimes tickled by this tension in the work I was doing.

The Photographer is still in production, with the script-writing stage concluded around the same time as my internship. It was exciting to think of my small fact and story searching being paralleled by a bigger team actively crafting narrative. Skyping my boss to check in every few weeks was always a positive exchange and sprouting of ideas for more research. At our last call I asked to read the script once it was finalized and he said he hadn’t realized I also read French. He exited the screen for a few minutes and came back with a stack of books he had written on the topic of animals and humans and humans and the environment. “Give me your address and I’ll send you some!”

I started summer keen to make sure that my final timeline/essay/deliverable was approved and helpful for Galatée. But ultimately the work was more relationship building and process oriented, valuable for the energy and ideas brought up through discussion. I sometimes felt disappointed in myself for knowing but failing to act on this idea of the power of place and immersion into an environment as a way of learning. But as surely as some important understandings are place based, I found there is value to be had too in the abstract, created spaces. Interest, challenge, support, inspiration… all folded in pixels of Skype calls, made this summer really unique.

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