Amargosa

fascinating portrait of an artist, loner, dancer, free spirit, american woman
This is a lovely, fascinating, and OUTSTANDING documentary portraying Marta Beckett's development of the Amargosa Opera House...an abandoned theatre on the edge of Death Valley which she renovated, painting an audience on the walls and performing her vaudeville style ballets and skits. And then the real audience came. She was profiled in National Geographic in the 70's and is still performing. The documentary also discusses her help with saving wild burros and horses, the haunted hotel, and the local handyman who became her friend and colleague.

"Don't Fence Her In"
AMARGOSA is the story of Marta Beckett an artist and dancer who at the age of 43 left her native Manhattan to settle in a tiny isolated town in the California desert called Death Valley Junction. The town was developed in the early 20th century for the Borax mining industry but at the time Marta first came there it was a virtual ghost town with an abandoned theater and hotel that Marta and her then husband renovated. Marta soon covered the walls with intricate murals and begin giving solo dance performances as her audience gradually expanded.

The film meanders at time with too lengthy sequences concerning the possibility of the hotel being haunted, Marta feeding the wild horses and the shooting of wild burros by Death Valley National Park rangers. Yet the film is quite fascinating when Marta talks about her relationships - the complicated bond with her controlling but artistically nurturing mother, the breakup of her marriage to her husband because he took second place...

Marta and Co., Oh How You Shine!
This is one of the truly most beautiful films I have ever experienced.

Not wanting to spoil it for anyone, I will say that you will be moved more then you could ever possibly imagine watching and ultimately experiencing it. From the beauty that is Amargosa and Death Valley themselves to the beautiful and multi-talented Marta Becket and company and her story - oh my gosh, what a Diamond mine in the desert this is!

I'm a newly implanted Amargosa Valley Resident myself who was interested in finding out about Marta's story and I have to say that having not been on a stage for awhile myself, I am inspired once again and I have Marta to thank for it, not to mention everyone in the film. They all have something significant to say and oh but the true beauty of Death Valley Junction and the surrounding area...the animals and people...you will love this, I know it! I was moved more then once to tears. A good thing!

The only thing I have left to do now is to make...

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