Cadillac Desert
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Daniel Beard
Sandra Postel
Barry Goldwater
Robert Towne
Kevin Starr
Marc Reisner
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Four-part documentary chronicling the epic struggle for water in the modern American West. The first three programs, based on Marc Reisner's book, "Cadillac Desert," are tales of astounding engineering feats, heroic determination, political machinations, and economic triumphs and disasters: how the people of Los Angeles sent William Mulholland to look for water and how he found it; the transformation of the Colorado River from a wild desert waterway into the most controlled, litigated, domesticated, regulated and over-allocated river in the history of the world; and the fierce political and environmental battles that raged around the transformation of California's Central Valley from semiarid desert into the most productive and environmentally altered agricultural region in global history. The fourth episode, based on Sandra Postel's book, "Last Oasis," explores the ramifications of the global export of American land reclamation technology to developing countries.
Cast
Daniel Beard
Sandra Postel
Barry Goldwater
