Into the Great White Sands by Craig Varjabedian

Author:Craig Varjabedian
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNM Press
Published: 2018-03-18T04:00:00+00:00

White Sands Reverie. Watercolor painting by Dan Stouffer. Courtesy of the artist.

The film industry has likewise found White Sands a unique setting for feature films, television shows, music videos, and documentaries. According to an NPS information sheet available at the White Sands National Monument website, twenty-three feature motion pictures have been filmed at White Sands; the films have been directed by such luminaries as Stephen Spielberg, Harold Ramus, Michael Bay, and Sam Peckinpah and have included actors such as Clint Eastwood, Willem Defoe, George Clooney, and Ewan McGregor. Eugene Manlove Rhodes’s novel Pasó Por Aquí was made into a film entitled Four Faces West with Joel McCrae in the leading role and a young John Astin (“Gomez Addams”) in a small part. More recently, the first two Transformer movies, The Men Who Stare at Goats, and The Astronaut Farmer were filmed at White Sands. The White Sands International Film Festival is held every year in September; it attracts film stars such as Lou Diamond Phillips and Jeffrey Tambor.

While the NPS information sheet lists several additional television shows and films, it does not include films or television shows that feature White Sands as a setting or that use archival materials from White Sands. A favorite White Sands reference is an episode of The Twilight Zone entitled “A Hundred Yards Over the Rim” (1961), a Western starring Cliff Robertson. While the episode was not filmed at White Sands, it features White Sands as a setting—almost a character. One of the classics of early science fiction, Destination Moon, a 1950 film based on a Robert Heinlein story, used archival material from the missile range. According to Michael Shinabery of the New Mexico Museum of Space History, the opening sequence of the film is a “rocket [launch that] appears to be actual footage from White Sands Proving Ground’s Launch Complex 33.”26 For the opening scene of his 1956 movie, Around the World in 80 Days, Michael Todd filmed the launch of a Corporal missile at the missile range.27 Music videos filmed at White Sands include Pink Floyd’s “The End,” Boyz II Men’s “Water Runs Dry,” and Martina McBride’s “How Far.”

Not only have music videos been filmed at White Sands, but songs and a ballet have also been inspired by the monument. The ballet, which premiered at Flickinger Center for the Performing Arts in Alamogordo, is named for and based on the “Legend of Pavla Blanca.” The ballet is an entirely New Mexican production: “The score and libretto were written by Alamogordo resident JD Droddy and choreography is by Ann Gavit, Anne Bishop and Sara Jackiewicz of the New Mexico State dance program.”28 Music inspired by White Sands includes the mystic-pop group Maquiladora’s album White Sands, the band Oppenheimer Analysis’s song “New Mexico,” Planet P Project’s song “White Sands,” and several original tunes available on YouTube. During “Full Moon Nights,” held monthly between May and October, White Sands National Monument invites musicians to play for the public out on the dunes.

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