Red Dog (film)

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Movie
German title Red dog
Original title Red dog
Country of production Australia
original language English
Publishing year 2011
length 88 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Kriv Stenders
script Daniel Taplitz
production Julie Ryan and Nelson Woss
music Cezary Skubiszewski
camera Geoffrey Hall
cut Jill Bilcock
occupation

Red Dog ( German  Red Dog ) is an Australian feature film by Kriv Stenders from 2011. The tragic comedy is based on the novel of the same name by Louis de Bernières (German The red dog. A story from Australia ), which is by Daniel Taplitz for the cinema was adapted. The adventures of the dog Red Dog in and around the Western Australian town of Dampier are described , based on a true story. The film was produced by the Australian production company Woss Group Films .

action

Western Australia , late 1970s: Truck driver Tom stops in Dampier, where he is introduced to the unusual story of the dying Red Dog. The couple Maureen and Jack planned to open a pub in the remote mining town in the early 1970s. On their way there, both of them became aware of an abandoned dog. The trusting mixed breed dog ( Kelpie x Cattle Dog ) gained access to the interior of the car as a matter of course and Maureen and Jack decided to take the animal with them. Because of his reddish coat color, which was made worse by the dust of the outback, he was nicknamed Red Dog or Red .

Main actor Koko (2005–2012) at the premiere in Sydney .

After Red Dog arrived in Dampier, many residents began to open up to the friendly and open-minded animal. Tensions among the rough and hard-drinking miners from all over the world, who made up a large part of the town's population, were reduced with the help of the dog, which initially did not belong to anyone. The Italian miner Vanno found a willing listener with whom he could share his many stories from his home region, Abruzzo . He was later to meet his wife, the vet nurse Rosa, through Red Dog. The dog kept the powerful Peeto company while secretly knitting and listening to music. The animal indirectly dissuaded the depressed loner Jocko from suicide after he had lost his wife and child to the chaos of war in his home country.

However, Red Dog only found a real master in the bus driver John Grant. The sedentary motorcyclist did not initially share the open expressions of sympathy. It was only when Grant stood up for the dog during a bet in the pub that Red Dog became his loyal companion by mutual agreement. Even when the animal was shot by a stranger, he stood by the dog. The young and attractive secretary Nancy, who became John's fiancée, had to assert herself against the animal's great affection. When John was killed in a traffic accident, the animal was left alone in his house, hoping for his return. After three weeks, Red Dog started looking for his master. He was willingly taken in cars, trucks, planes, and even ships, and roamed all of Western and Northern Australia and Japan in search of John.

Years later, the dog returned to Nancy in Dampier, where it was once again accepted into the community and successfully defended itself against the hostile Red Cat and its dog-hostile owner, the caravan site manager Mr. Cribbage. Cribbage leaves the place leaving behind Red Cat, whom Red Dog befriends. After the presumed consumption of poisoned bait, the animal dies, whereupon it drags itself with its last strength to the grave of its former master John. In the following years, Red Dog is honored with a life-size sculpture in Dampier, while the truck driver Tom falls in love with Nancy and moves in with her a year later with a Kelpie / Cattle Dog puppy.

History of origin

The real red dog

The story of the film is based on a true story. In 1971 a mongrel dog (Kelpie / Cattle Dog) was born in the Australian mining town of Paraburdoo , south of Tom Price . The animal, which originally went by the name Tally Ho (in addition to Red Dog, the dog should also be known under the name Bluey ), first belonged to a Colonel Cummings. He described the young dog as a " born wanderer " with an " unlimited supply of energy ". So Cummings drove the animal four miles away to Paraburdoo Airport, where he let Tally Ho get out and run after his car. When the dog was one year old, the family moved to Dampier, where the animal was renamed "Red Dog" after it had spent the drive through the outback on an open trailer and was blown up by the typical Australian red Earth was "powdered". In his new home he escaped and from then on wandered around. Even in its early years, the Red Dog lay down on the roadside, where it was taken or occasionally fed by passing car, bus, truck drivers, mine vehicle drivers or train drivers. He often stole unsupervised meat meals at family celebrations. It was also known for its strong stench.

The animal, which was popularized by many newspaper reports in the Paraburdoo area, spent most of its time between Karratha and Dampier. There Red Dog used the regular Hamersley worker bus - in the late 1960s the Hamersley Iron Company had started operating a huge iron ore mine outside Tom Price and built a railway line to Dampier, where a large overseas port was being built. The dog was also spotted in Perth , 1,300 km south . Allegedly, Red Dog is also said to have started a two-week voyage to Japan on a container ship loaded with iron ore. His collar bore the inscription “ Red Dog Bluey ” on one side and “ I've been everywhere mate ” (Eng .: “ I've been everywhere , comrade”) on the other (according to other information, a pendant with the inscription “ Red Dog - Bluey “on one side). The animal had special access to a bus driver named John Stazzonelli. Red Dog accompanied him on his work and always sat in a seat behind the driver's seat until Stazzonelli was killed in a traffic accident. In cars or trucks, the animal should always have occupied the front seat next to the driver.

Red Dogs bronze statue in Dampier, Western Australia

Red Dog was shot twice in the leg on one of his nightly forays. Two men from Dampier then took him to a veterinarian in Port Hedland, 350 km away . After his life was saved, the dog was given its own bank account as well as memberships in the Dampier Club and the Metal Trades Union . Lotteries were held to pay his feed bills and he was given a meal card for the Hamersley Casino. The Wales Bank , the account-holding credit institution, advertised the dog's membership (" If Red banks at the Wales, you can too. ", German: "If Red has a bank account with Wales, you can do that too."). According to other sources, an electrician from the Dampier Salt Company allegedly took care of the animal for some time when Red Dog fell from the back of a truck. The man is said to have officially registered the dog in the Australian county in addition to the club memberships and the bank account, whereupon Red Dog received the official title " Dog of the Northwest " (German: "Dog of the Northwest"). The title allowed Red Dog to roam in many places where "normal" dogs were not tolerated.

Red Dog died on November 20, 1979, after having been given food, believed to be bait poisoned with strychnine . The local paper The Hamersley Iron News described him in an obituary as " Pilbara's Own Epitome of the Dog Liberation Movement " (Eng .: " Pilbara's own epitome of the dog liberation movement "). The carcass was buried in an unmarked grave between Roebourne and Cossack in Western Australia . More than a year later, on December 14, 1980, a three-ton, lifelike bronze statue of Red Dogs was inaugurated outside of Dampier, made with the help of donations totaling 2,600  Australian dollars . The plaque attached to the artwork reads: “ Red Dog. The Pilbara Wanderer. Erected by the many friends made during his travels. "(Eng .:" Red Dog. The Pilbara Wanderer. Erected by the many friends he has made during his travels. "). In 1983, Nancy Gillespie published a collection of anecdotes and poems by people from the Pilbara region, called Red Dog , to record the life of the dog.

Novel adaptation

In the late 1990s, Louis de Bernières ( Corelli's mandolin ) became aware of the Red Dog story. The British writer and cat owner first traveled to Australia. He was on a book tour of Western Australia and was a guest at the Perth Writers' Festival . When he held his first literary evening in Dampier, he became aware of the bronze statue. “ I stopped […] and thought this was strange. It was a statue of a dog that used carpooling and went wherever it wanted, ”says De Bernières. A few months after learning of the animal's fate, he traveled to Karratha in 1998. Although he is more fond of cats than dogs (" I prefer cats a lot and I value them more than people "), he stayed two weeks to research the book. De Bernières collected the results every evening with his laptop on the Margaret River , which reminded him of the Scottish landscape . He used anecdotes from people who had known Red Dog from the 1970s, as well as press clippings, several books and a collection of poems.

The 100-page work was published in 2001 under the title Red Dog . A year later it was translated into German under the title The Red Dog . The book is loosely based on the animal's experiences, as De Bernières feared insults or the misrepresentation of real people. In 2006, Perth's Black Swan Theater premiered Victoria Laurie's play The Loaded Dog , which was also inspired by the dog's life.

Shooting the film

“ I hope my cat never finds out that I wrote a story to celebrate a dog's life. "(Louis de Bernières, author of the novel)

A five-year-old red kelpie named Koko († 2012) did most of the work when filming the eight million Australian dollar film. According to film producer Nelson Woss, who became the owner of Koko after filming was over, the animal can be seen in 85 percent of Red Dog . Three more dogs were used for the film, including an older animal for the death scene. The American Josh Lucas was signed two weeks after filming began after another actor gave up the role of John Grant. The Australian mining companies Rio Tinto Group , Woodside Petroleum and WesTrac supported the film project, as did Louis de Bernières. The author had given the Canadian screenwriter Daniel Taplitz a free hand in adapting his work, with the condition that the film would be shot on the original locations. American companies like Warner Bros. had tried in vain to collaborate on the project and move the story to Texas.

The Australian producers of Red Dog had grown up with films like Free - Queen of the Wild (1966), The Black Stallion (1979) or The Bear (1988) and had made it a point to create an “ old-fashioned film ” with little help of CGI effects. These were used, among other things, in the fight scenes between Red Dog and Red Cat.

publication

The film celebrated its world premiere on February 13, 2011 as part of the Generation 14plus section of the 61st Berlin International Film Festival . It was released in theaters in Australia on August 4, 2011, in the United Kingdom and Ireland on February 24, 2012. It was released on DVD on August 21, 2012 in Germany. Alternative German title: Red Dog - A hero on four paws

Award

Film music

Source:

literature

  • Nancy Gillespie: Red Dog . Ilfracombe, Arthur H. Stockwell, Devon 1983
  • Beverley Duckett: Red Dog: the Pilbara wanderer . [Karratha, WA?]: B. Duckett, c1993
  • Red Dog of Western Australia . In: Stryker, Ruth Perin: It takes a dog to raise a village: true stories of remarkable canine vagabonds . Minocqua, Wis .: Willow Creek Press, 2000, ISBN 9781572233003 , pp. 136-151
  • Louis de Bernières: The red dog . Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verl., Frankfurt am Main 2003. - ISBN 3-596-15592-4

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate from the FSK (PDF), accessed on June 14, 2014
  2. ↑ a b c cf. Paul Oswell: One-Dog Town from the Wild West of Oz . In: Mail on Sunday, October 28, 2001, p. 94
  3. ↑ cf. Red Dog of Western Australia . In: Ruth Perin Stryker: It takes a dog to raise a village: true stories of remarkable canine vagabonds . Minocqua, Wis .: Willow Creek Press, 2000.- ISBN 9781572233003 . Pp. 138-139
  4. ↑ a b c cf. Red Dog of Western Australia . In: Ruth Perin Stryker: It takes a dog to raise a village: true stories of remarkable canine vagabonds . Minocqua, Wis .: Willow Creek Press, 2000.- ISBN 9781572233003 . P. 145
  5. ↑ a b c d cf. Mark Russell: Dog paws his story out . In: The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, Australia), October 20, 2001, p. 81
  6. ↑ a b cf. Laurie, Victoria: Mining the folkloric depths of a dog's fortunate life . In: The Australian , October 10, 2006, p. 10
  7. ↑ cf. Let's do Red Dog justice . In: Kalgoorlie Miner (Western Australia), August 15, 2009, p. 13
  8. ↑ cf. The Pilbara Wanderer . In: The Australian Women's Weekly, Jan. 28, 1981, p. 13
  9. ↑ a b cf. Red Dog of Western Australia . In: Stryker, Ruth Perin: It takes a dog to raise a village: true stories of remarkable canine vagabonds . Minocqua, Wis .: Willow Creek Press, 2000.- ISBN 9781572233003 . P. 143
  10. ↑ a b c cf. Susan Wyndham: Red Dogs & Englishmen . In: October 20, 2001, p. 4
  11. ↑ cf. Dog tale makes mark . In: The West Australian (Perth), February 15, 2011, p. 10
  12. ↑ cf. Commentary by director Kriv Stenders during a question and answer session at the Berlinale premiere of Red Dog , February 13, 2011
  13. ↑ a b cf. A true-blue red dog . In: The West Australian (Perth), June 10, 2010, p. 6
  14. ↑ Screen reporter ARD ( Memento from August 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  15. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0803061/soundtrack