Reviews
PSYCHOLOGY TODAY REVIEW
Family systems therapists are a rare breed, for we see the world from a different angle. Simply put, our particular slant is that we look for the interconnections and relationships between people instead of seeing people as separate independent individuals. And for teaching us this unique way of seeing the world, family therapists are indebted in large part to Gregory Bateson.
A giant among twentieth century thinkers, Bateson was at once biologist, ecologist, anthropologist, cyberneticist, family therapist, and creative thinker. As ecologist, he taught us that human beings act in ways that are destructive to fragile ecological systems because we do not see the interdependencies between natural systems and our own lives…
HUFFINGTON POST REVIEW: An Ecology of Mind: A Film by Nora Bateson
Marilyn Wedge, Ph.D.
Family systems therapists are a rare breed, as we see the world from a different angle from most people and even from most other therapists. Simply put, our particular slant is that we look at the interconnections and relationships between people instead of seeing them as separate independent individuals. For teaching us this unique way of seeing the world, family therapists are indebted in large part to Gregory Bateson. Read full review…
Wild River Review, Jan. 2012 LINDISFARNE CAFE – Film Review – An Ecology of Mind:
A Daughter’s Portrait of Gregory Bateson
by Lauren McConnell
“What pattern connects the crab to the lobster,” muses anthropologist, philosopher, and systems theorist Gregory Bateson in An Ecology of Mind (2011), filmmaker Nora Bateson’s award-winning tribute to her father.
“And the orchid to the primrose,” he continues, “and all the four of them to me? And me to you?”
Beneath these examples, Gregory Bateson believed that the only question we really need to ask is, “How are things interrelated?” Read full review…
RESURGENCE MAGAZINE REVIEW
“For me, watching Nora Bateson’s film was overwhelming”
- Read full review here
NPR – Dan Webster Review Excerpts (transcription) on KPBX
The documentary An Ecology of Mind, which won a Golden SpIFFy award at the just-completed Spokane International Film Festival, is playing this weekend only at the Magic Lantern Theatre. Following is the review that I did for Spokane Public Radio. Read full review…
An Ecology of Mind Review by Jan van Boeckel
When we reflect on how environmental education can be innovated to meet the needs and challenges of today’s world, and if we also consider the role that the arts can play in this, we are well-advised to take a closer look at the groundbreaking work of the great thinker Gregory Bateson. The year 2010 saw the release of a highly interesting documentary on his work, entitled An Ecology of Mind. Completed more than thirty years after his death, filmmaker Nora Bateson (Gregory Bateson’s youngest daughter) directed a compelling hour-long introduction to the world of this thinking. Gregory Bateson was one of the most original thinkers of the late twentieth century. His research covered a vast array of different fields: anthropology, biology, psychology, and philosophy of science. He would often move himself across the boundaries of disciplines, and do so in highly innovative ways. Until now his work has been largely inaccessible to those outside of the academic community. With An Ecology of Mind, this is soon bound to change. Read full review…
Excerpts from German review in FILMDIENST by Joseph Lederle, June 2011
Previously, Bateson’s work was known in the alternative and environmental circles in the academic milieu of the 80s. Bateson’s two most important written works, Steps to An Ecology of Mind and Mind and Nature, were published by the … German publisher Suhrkamp. Surprisingly, it has taken 30 years since Bateson’s death in 1980 for a more popular understanding of his work. Gregory Bateson remains alive in his significant impact on systemic family therapy, and his influence on the works of Nikolas Luhmann and other systems theorists. But the body of Bateson’s work needed the cinematic “art of translation” of his youngest daughter, Nora Bateson, to save one of the most refreshing, unpretentious thinkers from oblivion and make the work more accessible in the present. Read full review…
Rex Weyler – Co-founder, Greenpeace International
“An Ecology of Mind is a spell-binding, lyrical, and very important film about Gregory Bateson and his revolutionary ideas that helped launch the modern ecology movement. Read full review…
A Culture Vulture in Lotus Land Review Excerpts
Vancouver International Film Festival
Gregory was a modern Renaissance man whose areas of study and ideas threaded together anthropology, biology, psychology, technology, and ecology. Interviews with wide ranging figures like Internet pioneer Steward Brand, physicist and author of The Tao of Physics Fritjof Capra, and former California governor Jerry Brown attest to the influence and importance of Gregory’s ideas.
There is much footage of Gregory with his measured and eloquent English accent, as he lectures, and discusses the importance of understanding relationships. He was an avid documentarian, taking thousands of photos and hours of footage when he worked with his then wife anthropologist Margaret Mead in Indonesia. Nothing seemed beyond his purview. He was a formidable and rigorous thinker, but a caring man who was especially tender with his youngest daughter.
What people are saying about An Ecology of Mind
“I learned to converse with Gregory through Nora’s exchange with her father, in the Zen Koan-like, “The Questions are the Answers” metalogue. This remarkable film by Nora about the Essence of Gregory, the Man, his Heart/Mind/Body; the scientist, the mystic, the sage is full of magic, humanity, humor and joy; most lovingly presented with sensitive intelligence and beauty.”
Chungliang Al Huang – founder, Living Tao Foundation; Director, Lan Ting Institute, author, “Embrace Tiger, Return To Mountain: The Essence of Tai Ji”, co-author with Alan Watts, “Tao: The Watercourse Way”
“‘The major problems in the world,’ said Gregory Bateson, ‘are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think.’ Nora Bateson’s brilliant film magically liberates our minds to discover that difference, and so dissolve it. Edwin Land said that people who seem to have had a new idea have often just stopped having an old idea. Gregory Bateson taught us how to stop having the most fundamental old ideas—the static, separating, reductionist fictions that dis-integrate an integrated world. Nora Bateson’s beautiful portrait of her father’s key insights is a stunningly effective antidote for a new generation that now needs his wisdom more than ever. It is really a remarkable and wonderful film. It will do much good.”
Amory B. Lovins – Chairman and Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute
“Nora Bateson combines imaginative graphics with fascinating documentary footage and illuminating interviews to present her father’s intellectual legacy against the backdrop of his relationship with his youngest child, the filmmaker herself.
This unique documentary will be an invaluable resource to the many who have drawn on Gregory Bateson’s ideas – myself included – and to those for whom this will be an enlightening introduction.”
Deborah Tannen - New York Times Bestselling Author, Speaker, Professor at Georgetown University
“An amazing film.”
Wade Graham – writer, Harpers and Los Angeles Times