Pictured: The cast and crew that Initiated Film Week: Sarah Dierflinger, Tristan Dierflinger, Skylar Hodson, Luke McCraw, Dr. Andrew Yox—Honors and Webb Society Director, Isabel Tresidder, Andrew Perez, Noah Pettey, Kaden Groda, and Remington Covey. Photo by Hudson Old and the East Texas Journal.
By: Dr. Andrew Yox, Honors Director
Francois Jarrige’s, and Thomas Le Roux’s, The Contamination of the Earth provides the best introduction to global toxification. However, its argument--that a fragmentation of knowledge has enabled a dangerous re-chemicalization of the world--sidesteps the vainglorious glee that often attended the development of a petro-based society in both capitalism and politics. A good example is Modern Texas. Reliance on internal combustion engines initially did wonders in terms of cleaning up the dreck of Texas streets, and allowing Texans to avoid the trains they had come to hate. As Vanessajane Bayna, a Presidential Scholar sophomore at «Ƶ noted in her Caldwell-Award winning essay last spring, conservatives went on to view oil wildcatters as great preservationists of individualism, and free enterprise. Twentieth-century liberals such as Lyndon Johnson and Ralph Yarborough saw petrochemicals as the way to pay for welfare, and achieve the Great Society. In Texas, the culture of oil has flourished in a political dreamworld.
It is a challenging story, but this past summer, members of The «Ƶ Webb Society, and Honors Northeast have spent hundreds of hours developing Bayna’s initial research, journeying to archives in Austin, weaving together a script, assigning roles, memorizing parts, and finally filming the way Texans came to love oil, and even depend on it as a panacea to promote cherished values. At the center of the effort, «Ƶ’s Dr. Mary Hood Scholar, Skylar Hodson, has served as the most pivotal member in moving the effort from the initial research to the production stage. Hodson has redirected a script that was sagging into the use of fictional characters, mentored incoming Presidential Scholar Isabel Tresidder to complete a second draft, and directed the completion of a third draft, relying on a new honors alumnus, Luke McCraw. Now participating in her third film initiative, Hodson has thoroughly learned the lingo of direction, and has shaped one of the most professional crew teams in the history of honors filming here. There has been a particularly good synergy with Emily Hamlin, an experienced photographer, and incoming honors student.
Others have played key roles, while allowing Hodson to take charge. Tresidder, whose family came from South Africa to the distant Dallas suburb of Anna, and finally to Naples, was the first incoming student to volunteer for the position of script-writer. Traveling to Austin with the research team in late May, she was impressed by the story of how Congressman Lyndon Johnson, suddenly became Senator Johnson, and then destroyed the reputation of the Federal Energy Commission chair, Leland Olds, a stalwart New Englander, by calling him a “communist.” The script now includes the findings of Robert Caro and others that shows how Johnson received numerous “white envelopes with green surprises” from the Texas oilmen, becoming their staunchest ally on Capitol Hill, and turning against their greatest antagonist—Olds, with success. Tresidder was also impressed by how another famous Texas liberal of the mid-twentieth century adopted a pro-oil attitude, Ralph Yarborough. Yarborough, from a small town outside of Tyler, came into prominence in the 1930s for his work for Governor James Allred, suing oil companies, and winning tax money for the Texas Permanent School Fund. Then, having angered the oil men, Yarborough went on a profound losing streak until he decided to fight for the Texas right to drill in the Texas tidelands, and for a special depletion allowance for oilmen in the federal tax code. If the Webb-Honors team can pull off the film, it will be the first cinematic version of the profound support given the oilmen, by the greatest of Texas liberals, Johnson, and Yarborough.
The script ends with the gubernatorial victory of the oilman who most profited from the Texas triumph to preserve their tidelands from federal control. William Clements, a pioneer of offshore drilling, became Governor in 1979. In the «Ƶ film, both his lines, and his person have been contrived by Luke McCraw, who graciously helped the film effort before beginning his tuition-paid scholarship at Dallas Baptist University. As Clements would probably have never been Clements the Governor, if he had not married long-term Republican strategist and daughter of an oilman, Rita Bass, this part too receives extensive treatment. Ariana Tagg, a beginning honors student, both researched the story of Rita last May, and plays the part in the upcoming film of Clements’ indispensable wife.
The 2024 film effort has had its challenges. Last year, Allen Herald, an aspiring film producer who has matriculated at «Ƶ off and on, returned from Austin to assist the annual effort. He was a tremendous inspiration and help, but he and his associate, Hannah Goldblum, performed many of the roles that honors students had typically performed. That made this year’s sophomore class less familiar with the specificities of cinematography. Also, though this year’s group of «Ƶ honors students is larger than last year’s group, less students had the time or inclination for the project this year. Last year’s effort, producing a lauded, Caldwell-Award winning film, also was the most expensive «Ƶ film, and decimated part of the Honors foundation account. But Hodson has worked with these constraints, and in time profited from the talents of students who were willing to support the project.
Three students, outside of honors, have emerged to play major roles. One, Noah Pettey, an officer in «Ƶ’s Alpha Mu Chi, appeared just in time to play the crucial part of Lyndon B. Johnson. Pettey prefers improvisation and that will make his “new-generation” reinterpretation of LBJ, interesting. Madeline Simmons, a second-year «Ƶ student has brought her theatre experience into the project, and is playing the part of Opal Yarborough. With her mellifluous southern accent, Simmons is working to transition her husband Ralph, played by incoming honors student, Remington Covey, to accept a compromise with the oilmen. Finally, Tristan Dierflinger, has worked on a New England accent, allowing him to play the part of Leland Olds.
Other students with major roles include second-year film veteran Kaden Groda, who plays oilman, Clint Murchison, sophomore Alison Majors as Lady Bird Johnson, Emily Hamlin as Maud Agnes Spear, Leland Old’s wife, incoming honors student, Andrew Perez, as Governor James Allred, and Sarah Dierflinger who has waded into the “deep calculus” of unit production. As director of unit production, she must figure the filming sequence which is based on the availability of scenes, crew, and cast, rather than chronology. Dierflinger, who along with Hodson won a McGraw Hill poster award for scholarship last spring, has also been influential with the finalization of the script and the cast, even getting her other son, Elisha to play the part of an extra when the group was filming at the Whatley.
The effort is deeply beholden to Jerald and Mary Lou Mowery of Mount Vernon, who have provided special film support for these summertime efforts every year since 2014. The friends of Honors Northeast have played an indispensable role. A long list of administrators, and IT specialists at «Ƶ have gone above and beyond for the film effort as has Hudson Old of the East Texas Journal, who served as photographer, Ann Goodson, with costume support, the owners of B&Bs in Jefferson, Texas where the group spent three days, and in each case, taxed the establishments of B.W. and Jessie Brooks, Tommy and Tracey Engel, and Jean and Curtis Clark, and Judge Kent Cooper of Titus County who permitted the group to film at the courthouse.
The group will begin to hand off recordings of the film scenes to producer, Yahir Garcia, an incoming honors student, soon. The plan is to launch a trailer which can serve to present the film effort to state audiences in San Antonio, and Nacogdoches, as well as at the National Collegiate Honors Council in Kansas City in November. The hope is to present another premiere in the early spring at the Whatley Center for the Performing Arts.
