Last week Wednesday, I attended the Rose Café event featuring guest movie director and producer Marshall Curry. Unlike previous Rose Café events, which took place in the Rose library, this event took place at the Cornell Cinema. At the cinema, Curry screened for us his movie If a Tree Falls. The movie was a documentary, which centers on Daniel McGowan and his involvement as a member of the Earth Liberation Front movement. The documentary covers the time from Daniel’s first finding out about the ELF to his eventual arrest.

Overall, I really enjoyed this Rose Café. One of the best parts of the Café was going to the Cornell Cinema for the first time. I know it is sad that I am a junior and have never set foot inside the Cornell cinema before, but it was a great, first time experience. If it were not for the Rose Café, I probably would have never gone to the Cornell Cinema and now, after having seen a film in it, I am excited to going to more movies in the future.

In addition to enjoying my first experience at the Cornell Cinema, I found the movie quite enjoyable as well. Going in, I knew what the movie was going to be about, but I had never seen the movie before. It was interesting to see Curry emphasize that cases like that of Daniel McGowan’s is not as black and white as one may think, especially when it comes to deeming his actions as “terrorism.” The concept of terrorism was intensely analyzed in this movie as Daniel and his ELF associates felt that because they took great precautions to not do any physical harm to anyone, they did not see their actions as terrorism. Personally, I feel that terrorism is not defined by physical harm and thus their actions can be classified as terrorism, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion. There obviously is no right or wrong answer as this topic is a very grey area, just as Curry portrays in his film.

Once again, I highly enjoyed this Rose Café event and I am looking forward to more events of this type in the future.