Jake Williams is a Scotsman who avoids common social processes in his attempt to maximize his self-sufficiency. This black-and-white portrait captures him in symbiosis with the environment in which he lives and where he maintains birdfeeders, among other activities. Like the other protagonists of Rivers’s films, Jake focuses on something quite different from what Western society is accustomed to. His solitary mutterings, however, are not difficult at all to understand. On the contrary, one can easily glean instruction that goes far beyond merely coexisting with nature. Jake is also the subject of the feature-length Two Years at Sea.