Stratford filmmaker captures vanishing
cowboy
For his documentary on a ranching family in Colorado,
filmmaker Garret Maynard of Stratford thinks Manhattan would be the
ideal location for a shot of his two central characters.
He imagines the 60-something-year-old cattle rancher
and his son in their cowboy hats and dusty shirts surrounded by the
buildings and billboards of Times Square. He would ask passers-by if
they have any questions to ask of these specimens of a dying breed.
Cowboys are disappearing with the land on which they
graze their cattle, he says, and he fears in 30 years they will be gone.
"The cowboy won't have have any other place to roam, so
to speak, so we'll potentially see see the disappearance of an American
icon," Maynard said. Maynard, who grew up in Stratford, is making a film
about the Mantle family to bring attention to what he sees as a threat
to their way of life: the federal government's land use policies. The
government wants to buy the land the family settled just after World War
1 because it is surrounded by Dinosaur National Monument.
The Mantles also have grazing rights to tens of
thousands of acres in the park; the deal was negotiated before the park
existed. "They've built up an entire life and an entire culture based on
the guarantee of that land being there," Maynard said.
Maynard, 39, heard about the Mantles when he was
filming a documentary about water-skiing two years ago. The story of the
possible end of a ranching legacy caught his imagination.
Maynard has worked his way around the film and
television industries. He moved to California when he was 23 and went to
film school. He was graduated from the University of Southern
California.
He lived in the Golden State for eight years, working
on "Stark Trek: Next Generation" and other projects.
Then he moved back to Stratford. Now he teaches film
and video production at local colleges from New Haven to Norwalk.
He also runs his own literary agency and production
company.
Documentary filmmaker Garret Maynard shoots closeups of photographs
in his Stratford living room. The work is part of an independent film he
is creating on the plight of the American cowboy
Maynard flew to Colorado in May and spent a few weeks
shooting footage of the ranch in Dinosaur National Monument and at the
Mantles' second ranch south of the monument.
He went back in October and shot interviews with family
members, park officials and others to piece together the story. He
expects to complete the one-hour documentary within a year and hopes it
will be aired on television.
"Documentaries are the cheapest form of filmmaking,"
Maynard said. "It provides a good platform for showing what I'm really
good at which is narrative filmmaking."
In a production booth at the Ed McMahon Center at
Quinnipiac College in Hamden, Maynard loaded up rough, silent footage of
the ranchers and their land.
Mixed with shots of the deep river canyons cut by
winding rivers is footage of the everyday work of ranch life. Cows are
herded into a narrow gateway and caught around the neck so cowboys can
poke a brand through the bars. Calves are bound by their legs and
quickly castrated.
The family gathers around an open fire with fat steaks
dripping on the grill. And some shots, the family and ranch hands stand
still with the wind whipping their hair so Maynard could get shots of
their faces. When the land on the Utah border in northwestern Colorado
was settled, it was wide open. It's first resident, Charlie Mantle,
spent his early years in a sod hut. Later, the family built a cabin and
nearby the government established a small park to protect dinosaur
fossils.
In 1938 and 1960, the park expanded to protect local
rivers and canyon walls with pictographs and petroglyphs. It surrounded
the ranch.
In 1987, Charlie's son Tim, moved off the land. Tim
Mantle now runs the ranch with his wife and son, and they truck in
cattle to graze.
Since 1960, conflicts between the family and the
National Parks Service have intensified. The park service wants to buy
the land, but it is offering $1.2 million for the land valued at $6
million, Maynard said.
"They really don't want the Mantles to stay there so
they're waging a psychological war against the family", he said.
Dennis Ditmanson, superintendent of Dinosaur National
Monument, said that although certain federal land is set aside for
parks, other land is open for grazing. It's wrong to generalize that the
government's goal is to eliminate ranching", he said.
"When the area became part of the National Park
Service., we're not particularly interested in perpetuating grazing
because that's not why the park exists," Ditmanson said.
"It's almost poetic to talk about the passing of the
cowboy, but it's a very complicated issue."
For Maynard, the fundamental question remains why families like the
Mantles were used to open up western land, then shunted.
It's killing a unique legacy and a worldwide symbol of Americana he
said.
"What happened to Native Americans could eventually
happen to the cowboy," he said.
For comments or for more information, please contact: Garret C. Maynard, 1549 Main Street Stratford, CT 06615 203.345.6167, www.thegarypaulagency.com.
CONNECTICUT POST
Vol 8, No 10 (c) 1999
Sunday, January 10th, 1999
By Elizabeth Ganga
Staff writer
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| Tim Mantle and his "livelihood" | "Mormon Tea" makes for a quick bed |
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| North entrance to Utah's Dinosaur National Monument and the Mantle Ranch | |