White wilderness
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | White wilderness |
| Original title | White Wilderness |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1958 |
| length | 72 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | James Algar |
| script | James Algar |
| production |
Walt Disney , Ben Sharpsteen |
| music | Oliver Wallace |
| cut | Norman Palmer |
White Wilderness is an American animal film from 1958. The film is part of the Disney series True-Life Adventures .
action
The film describes the life of the lemmings in the Arctic . The life of other animal species in the Arctic, such as polar bears , is also described.
Fakes
The film is not a real documentary. According to research by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1982, technicians constructed a snow-covered spinning table to create the appearance of wildly wandering lemmings who then plunged themselves over a cliff into the sea. The deception shapes the popular understanding of lemmings to this day. In fact, they move in swarms at times, but refrain from “mass suicide”.
Myth about mass suicides
Among other things, this film gave rise to the popular myth that lemmings would commit collective mass suicide every few years by throwing themselves into the sea or rivers by the thousands and then drowning. This legend had previously surfaced in parts of Scandinavia, presumably because one could regularly observe the mass migrations there and animals often did not survive in search of new habitats. “Like the lemmings” has become a proverbial metaphor for all kinds of mass behavior. In the meantime, however, we know that there are regular population fluctuations among lemmings, but these are not caused by mass suicide, but presumably mainly by nocturnal enemies such as the snowy owl , the arctic fox and especially the ermine (see also predator-prey relationship ). Also speaks against the myth that lemmings are very good swimmers and therefore would not drown very quickly. The Disney film itself, from which the legend comes, was shot in the Canadian province of Alberta - but there are no lemmings there. The lemmings were brought in especially for the film in order to then stage a mass suicide with media coverage. Since animals were allegedly thrown into the water to make the scenes look more realistic, animal rights activists even accused the producers of animal cruelty .
criticism
- Documentary nature film from the Disney workshop with interesting shots of the life of the animal world in the far north of the Arctic. In contrast to Disney's earlier idylls and tragedies in the animal kingdom, the treatment also makes an effort to demonstrate natural history. - Lexicon of International Films .
Awards
In 1959 the film was awarded an Oscar in the category Best Documentary . Oliver Wallace received an Oscar nomination for his music. At the 1959 Berlin International Film Festival , director Algar was awarded the Golden Bear for the best documentary.
Web links
- White Wilderness in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Cruelty to Animals in the Entertainment Business. CBC News on cbc.ca
- ↑ Animal Torture Disney in Zeit Online , accessed December 2, 2012
- ↑ Do lemmings really commit suicide? ( Memento of February 5, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) in PM Magazin , accessed on December 2, 2012
- ↑ Dennis Chitty: Do Lemmings Commit Suicide? Beautiful Hypotheses and Ugly Facts. Oxford 1996, ISBN 978-0-19-509786-3 , p. 8 ( excerpt on Google Books ).
- ^ Lexicon of International Films , retrieved from Zweiausendeins.de.