New Tracks In The Amazon Footage

New Tracks in the Amazon
This clip is not available for streaming at this time. Please contact WPA.	Tape Master:
	Catalog #:	437063
	Clip Number:	437063-1
	Orginal Film:	WPA 867
	Timecode:
	Location:	Colombia
	Year Shot:
	Audio:	Yes
	Color:	Yes
	Headings:	ANIMALS/GENERAL: Ethics & Issues
	Description:	ON PREVIEW CASSETTE # 215474 There's absolutely nothing new about globalism, at least not in principle. Whenever intrepid businessmen have sought the goods and services and prospects of unwitting, unknowing countries, things have typically progressed into a quagmire of decidedly one-sided exploitation, an exploitation of indigenous persons, animals and resources. The only difference between then and now is who is doing the pushing around and why. This film follows the exploits of Mike Salekas, an American businessman who operates an exotic animal exportation business in Columbia that employs anthropologically primitive Indian tribes. The animals themselves are rounded up for private or public American zoos and for scientific research. CU's Anaconda in low-lying grass. Aerial of Miami Beach. LS's Avianca Colombia commercial plane in flight, landing in Colombia. LS's boats on Amazon River. EST shots Amazon River. LS Mike Salekas rowing in canoe at night with Indian guide; MS's Mike and guide snaring and subduing a regional type of crocodile; CU's Mike wrestling the croc, tying its mouth shut. MS Mike entering crowded squirrel monkey cage with bowl of fruit; MS monkeys eating. Traveling shots along river, past Indians in canoe, a boat filled with "an international group of hippies", and an abandoned luxury passenger boat. LS's of powerboat on river. LS & MS researcher from the Chicago Field Museum sailing on river in a thatched roof boat, stopping to converse with Mike and crew; Mike gives the man two cans of Schlitz, which he reluctantly takes. CU's steering wheel of powerboat. LS's Mike and crew helping local Indians undo a log jam. MS & LS's Mike and crew boarding dugout canoe, setting out into shallow tributary, arriving at remote Tacoona (sp) Indian village. MS Indian guide munching on roasted monkey meat. MS Indian boy playing game with tortoise bones. LS jungle sunset. CU idols in flickering candlelightàà MS's Mike and crew-- armed with rifles and machetes-- entering jungle in search of primitive Yargua (sp) Indian village; they cut swath, cross small river, etc, eventually arriving at village. MS thatched hut, MS's Indian women roasting a rodent, fur and all, over smoldering coals (VO makes a joke of their "short skirts" and "topless look"). MS's Indian women weaving and making sato, a fermented beverage made from the yucca plant, mashing the whitish meat in a trough. MS's Yargua chief returning to village. VO speaks of the "economic boon" and ethical reward of trapping monkeys to be used for scientific experiments in the United States, in hopes to cure diseases which "plague mankind", cut to MS's of Mike giving the Indian women and children lollipops and cigarettes and beer to the chief. MS's Mike taking a Polaroid of the chief, his wife and their infant; they smile at the thing developing in their hands, having never had seen photograph before. MS's Mike cutting bark from a fallen tree with a machete, placing a leaf in a fold; MS Indian chief loading blowgun, shooting darts into leaf from good distance, showing offàà LS's & MS's topical rainstorm in Amazon, building gradually, in time creating a marsh. LS's flooded riverbanks, submerged home in Tisia, Columbia. MS's Mike meeting his brother at dock; they board seaplane, take off for Monkey Island. Aerial of Monkey Island, where Mike must fill the orders filed by pharmaceutical companies, universities, and research centers. MS caged animals. MS Mike taking squirrel monkey from one cage and into another. MS Mike paying off Indian woman for captured monkeys, the VO brushing off any criticisms by saying that he is not exploiting the locals because "his critics don't understand what it means to a poor family to have a cash income for the first time in their lives", that monkey research has led to cures for "mumps and measles" and may lead to other cures and that Mike plays the role of nature by maintaining a human-exclusive idea of ecological balance. MS's Mike and crew bringing overcrowded monkey cage to island, where the animals are released; MS's monkeys in trees. CU guava tree. TLS men walking along banana grove. Here the monkeys "multiply" and lead a "happy" life, that is, until U.S. scientists have need of their livesàà MS Senorita Consuela Calderon Rodriguez, "top stewardess for Avianca Air", deplaning, being greeted by Mike on tarmac. MS's & CU's cheesecake Consuela in bikini wading in swimming pool, making her way to Mike and another lady-friend of his; the three crack open cans of Schlitz, have a great time. MS's & CU's Mike and Consuela at his Tarpon Zoo (he shows parrots, rodents and an Anaconda)àà MS & CU's Mike and crew wrestling an enormous Anaconda in a swamp.