Knight Chair on the Air: Michael Pollan's 'Botany of Desire'
From Marly Falcon, Knight Foundation contributing blogger:
People are easily lured in by the sweetness, beauty, smell and sometimes even intoxication of certain plants. What if plants have their own hidden agenda that we didn’t know about?
Michael Pollan, Knight Chair in Science and Technology Reporting, is featured in a two-hour long documentary based on his best selling book The Botany of Desire. Pollan explores the natural history of four plants: the potato, the apple, the tulip and marijuana. The well-reviewed film examines the mystery between humans and plants and how they each use each other to get what they want.
The documentary, which airs Wednesday at 8 p.m. on PBS, begins in Pollan’s garden and then travels to the potato fields of Peru and Idaho, the apple orchards of Kazakhstan, the tulip markets of Amsterdam and finally, medical marijuana grow rooms of the United States. See a clip here.
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October 27th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
I hadn't heard of this documentary, but Michael Pollan is one of my favorite authors. He completely changed the way I look at buying and preparing food. I don't typically watch television, but I'm going to get a few friends together and watch this tomorrow.
October 30th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
I really want to see this, the film's concept is orginal, I'm very curious to see how he pulls if off. I wonder if the someone is going to smoke the mary and then the potatoes are going to start talking to him and convience him not to eat him or something ahahaha