The Winterkeeper
2023 · 13m · USA
Directed by Laurence Topham, David Levene
Genres: documentary
Tones: contemplative, tense
Steven Fuller has served as Yellowstone National Park's winter caretaker for 50 years, living alone in a remote mountain cabin as the park transforms each season. As the climate crisis threatens to forever alter one of North America's last great wildernesses, Fuller reflects on five decades of bearing witness to a changing landscape.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Fifty years alone in a Yellowstone cabin, climate change creeping in — the Guardian doc machinery is in full effect, but the subject is genuinely singular. Solid.
The Guardian sends Topham and Levene to ski-and-live with a 50-year Yellowstone caretaker — the access alone is the story, and Werner Herzog would recognize this register of human solitude. Modest but genuinely earned.
Thirteen minutes where the co-director lived with the reclusive subject for eight days (the longest non-family stay ever) and learned to ski to operate camera in extreme cold — that level of access investment is exactly how this kind of solitude portrait earns intimacy. Guardian's 755K views back the craft.
Reviews
Resonates with audiences seeking mindfulness — Fuller's rich vocal delivery and personal photographic archive create intimacy throughout the piece.