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Shoot the Moon

Seth Wochensky takes a glimpse at rural life in Western New York

When you ask someone to name New York’s large industries, the answer is invariably something like finance or real estate, or travel and tourism, maybe entertainment or education, or some other white-collar profession.

Almost never do they think of agriculture.

That’s because most images of New York focus solely on New York City, the urban jungle, centering on places like Wall Street and Times Square. Very little attention is paid to the rest of the state. Even when the national spotlight turns to Western New York—usually drawn to one of our sports teams or the weather—there’s no coverage of our state’s vast agrarian economy.

New York is the third largest dairy producer in the nation, behind California and Wisconsin. Dairy accounts for 50 percent of the state’s agricultural industry. We’re a huge producer of milk, cheese, ice cream, yogurt. We’re the second largest producer of apples in the country, behind Washington. We also produce a huge peach crop. Other top crops in New York State are corn, alfalfa, soybeans and wheat.

Seth Wochensky’s documentary Shoot the Moon focuses on Gentner’s Commission Market, a weekly Wednesday livestock and junk auction in Springville.

Filmmaker Seth Wochensky

All kinds of livestock and odds and ends can be found at the auction. If you find yourself lacking gerbils, rabbits, coffins, calves, goats, sheep, canoes, chicken, pigs, housewares, furniture, pigeons, ducks, geese, musical instruments, mechanical equipment or the occasional antique, you’ll find it at the auction.

Shoot the Moon has a deep affection for its subjects, some of whom have been regulars at the auction since it began in 1939. The film is rich with older characters who volunteer their time at the market, and some of whom have over the years accumulated a vast amount of goods from the market. For the old-timers, the auction is like religion. As one says, “I don’t drink or gamble. I don’t chase women. I go to the auction.”

Although Wochensky enjoys showing the incongruities in his subjects’ lives, he wanted to avoid what he deems a genre of dismissive documentaries, usually made by outsiders from urban centers who view rural denizens with a disparaging eye. Wochensky says, “The film is not, as the cliché goes, laughing at them; rather I laugh with them.”

The film also notes the farm country’s shifting demographic. Initially those who attended the auction were mostly Polish, German, Irish and Italian immigrants, many from Buffalo or the growing suburbs. The heavily Catholic presence can still be seen in the celebrations of Easter—and in the remnants of a Pope John Paul II clock in an auction bin.

Nowadays people drive in from as far away as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Ontario. The new wave of immigrants include Yemenis from Lackawanna, as well as Asians, Russians and even Iraqis from Buffalo.

The Amish have also been in attendance from the beginning; however, out of respect to their traditions, they were not filmed. One of the most memorable lines in the film is offered by an Amish farmer, an admonition not to purchase radios: “Don’t hanker after furniture that talks.”

In addition to a portrait of the people who attend the auction, the film is a comment on today’s obsessive, disposable, consumerist culture. As one regular says, “If it gets dirty or doesn’t work, get a new one. Take the old one to Springville.”

“Gleanings” are leftovers that even junk hounds don’t want. They’re the eight-track tapes, vinyl records, eight-millimeter cameras, broken toys, home fixtures and exercise equipment you can’t give away. The debris sits in a muddy field until it is cleaned up and discarded.

“By all rights, the auction should have died out 50 years ago,” Wochensky says. The small family farms have dwindled, replaced by corporations with bigger machinery and more cost-effective operations. Still, the auction continues, this place to purchase livestock and comb through other people’s castoffs.

Next week DieDie Weng’s documentary on rural life in China, Mosuo Song Journey, will be reviewed.

Seth Wochensky and DieDie Weng will discuss their documentaries after the screenings Friday, April 11 @ 8pm in Squeaky Wheel’s Cinema at 712 Main Street (squeaky.org/884-7172). $4 members/$6 non-members.

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