Live stream preview

Watch this video and more on OVID.tv

Watch this video and more on OVID.tv

Start your free trial

Already subscribed? Sign in

Northern Light

The Sporting Life • 1h 45m

Directed by Nick Bentgen and Lisa Kjerulff • Documentary • 2013 • 105 minutes

Set against the backdrop of a town's annual snowmobile race, NORTHERN LIGHT explores the working class experience in a series of captivating personal stories of recession-era America. The lives of three families change profoundly in the north woods of Michigan, where winters are unforgiving, jobs are hard to come by, and the line between living life and simply surviving is razor-thin. This cinematic, observational documentary explores the American working class experience through character-based storytelling.

Filmed over the course of several years spent with the film's protagonists, NORTHERN LIGHT is a fresh and vital contribution to the tradition of contemporary American cinema verite.

"Critics' Pick! There's a stillness to the filmmaking, coupled with Saunder Jurriaans and Danny Bensi's truly lovely original score, that lends specific shots—toddlers bundled up like pastel Ewoks on a snowdrift, or a bakery window glowing like a still life in a gallery—a near-heartbreaking melancholy."—Jeannette Catsoulis, The New York Times

Tags
america, american studies, americas, anthropology and archaeology, cinema verite, cinematography, communication and media studies, community, cultural and ethnic studies, cultural anthropology, doc, documentary films, econjustice, economic anthropology, expository, family, family issues, film and video studies, icarus films, light, lisa kjerulff, michigan, nick bentgen, northern light, nothern, nyt, ovid, ovid_ca, recreation and sports, s_0065, s_0066, s_0074, s_0081, s_0104, s_0108, s_0263, s_0306, s_0461, s_0495, small town, snow, snowmobile, social studies, sociology, sports, the, the industrial heartland, title_n, title_nopqrs, united states, usa, world regions

Up Next in The Sporting Life

  • Fake it So Real
    1:34:58
    Fake it So Real

    Fake it So Real

    Directed by Robert Greene • Documentary • 2012 • 91 minutes

    Fake it So Real follows a ragtag group of wrestlers in North Carolina over the course of a week leading up to a big show. The film explores what happens when the over-the-top theatrics of the wrestling ring collide with the realities of...

  • Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
    1:44:37
    Harvard Beats Yale 29-29

    Harvard Beats Yale 29-29

    Directed by Kevin Rafferty • Documentary • With Vic Gatto, Brian Dowling , Tommy Lee Jones
    • 2008 • 105 minutes

    An incredible true story that unfolds like "a ripping good yarn... with an uproarious, impossible Hollywood ending" (Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com), Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 is filmmaker...

  • The Big Game
    58:05
    The Big Game

    The Big Game

    Directed by E. J. Vaughn • Documentary • 1982 • 60 minutes

    Part of the acclaimed Middletown series.

    As Muncie Central and Anderson High prepare to meet for the annual basketball game, a game charged with the spirit of long-established rivalry, THE BIG GAME examines what this competition, and th...

×