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Michael Pollan & Michael Schwarz

Film Screening & Discussion of "The Botany of Desire"

Tuesday, March 2, 2010  |  Herbst Theatre, 7pm

The apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato are the stars of the film adaptation of journalist Michael Pollan's best-selling book, The Botany of Desire. The two-hour documentary, which takes the same name, also features Pollan himself. It begins in the author's own garden before the film journeys to the potato fields of South America, the apple orchards of Kazakhstan, the tulip markets of Amsterdam, and to a medical marijuana hot house. These four famous plants share histories with corresponding human desires-for sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control over food production. The developmental relationship between human beings and the plants is what Pollan calls "the botany of desire." In this coevolution, Pollan argues, human beings are both controlled and controlling. "It makes just as much sense to think of agriculture as something the grasses did to people as a way to conquer the trees," he writes.

A professor at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, Michael Pollan is a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine and the author of several books, including The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food. Producer, director, and screenwriter of The Botany of Desire, Michael Schwarz has produced numerous documentary films and won several Emmy awards for his work.

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