Under this framework, no one is cast as a hero or villain. Through Curry’s lens, Daniel is a well-meaning family man whose earnest concerns about the logging industry’s clearcutting tactics led him to the misguided conclusion that the only way to instigate change was to take violent action. Meanwhile, the president of Superior Lumber, one of the targets of Daniel’s cell, is a father who intends to pass the business on to his son one day and therefore understands the need to preserve the forests from which he harvests his timber. The truth may fall somewhere between these two characterizations, but the primary focus of “If a Tree Falls” is not on the trees themselves and the conflict surrounding their management but on the human stories behind the fight over them. And when the individuals involved are shown to be fully human, it makes the vitriolic language used to denounce so-called eco-terrorists or their enemies that much harder to justify.
     As someone whose apartment was covered in papers from the collapsing World Trade Center on 9/11, Curry says he has very strong feelings about terrorism and objects to liberal use of the label.
     “I think that it has become a term that people throw around very lightly to attack their opponents, and they don’t think carefully about what it means and what the implications of that term could be,” he said.
     The dividing line between acts of terror and severe cases of politically-motivated vandalism is a murky one, particularly after the 2002 Patriot Act sought to redefine terrorists as anyone who takes measures deemed “dangerous to human life.” The Earth Liberation Front can accurately claim that it has been responsible only for property damage and never for the loss of life. And yet there is a very obvious difference between breaking windows and setting alight the headquarters of a poplar