Mother Nature threw a tantrum so epic it shaved 1,300 feet off a mountain. She was NOT playing.
In 1980, the eruption of Mount St. Helens leveled 230 square miles, sent 540 million tons of ash and volcanic rock twelve miles into the air, and blasted one cubic mile of earth from the crest of the Cascade Mountain Range. Illustrates the terrifying fury of the most destructive volcanic disaster in American history through aerial photography and survivors' own words. Shows examples of nature's plant and animal recovery seventeen years later.
Cinematography
Aerial shots of the post-eruption moonscape are genuinely haunting.
Production
Seventeen-year time gap footage shows nature's stubborn refusal to stay dead.
Director
John Kander
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Director John Kander is primarily known as a Tony-winning Broadway composer (Chicago, Cabaret) — this is his wild left turn into volcanic documentary filmmaking.
The 1980 eruption was the first major natural disaster in the US to be captured extensively on home video, creating our modern appetite for catastrophe footage.
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