There aren't many really fine films out there, so it matters when we encounter one that almost makes it.
This movie comes so close in a few dimensions. It comes so close that I imagine it will be one of the first that Apple-Disney offers in their Final Cut library offerings. If I were teaching, I'd make it an assignment to take this film, just what you have from your DVD, and make a great film from it.
Here are some of things to recommend it:
-- it is disguised as a simple Disney film, meaning that it has a third grade moral and clearly distinguishable good and bad guys. Behind that disguise is a complex of complex issues. Not at all tidy: bad wolves, bad Inuits, bad scientists, all where you expected white hats.
-- it has a scene that I'm sure was the centerpiece of the book: a man awakens nude to find himself in the midst of wolves hunting caribou, something he was convinced wasn't true. He frantically tries to "warn" the panicked caribou.
-- it has so many scenes that you simply step out of the movie and wonder how the heck they did it. Many of these shots involve animals. But there was one where he falls into ice and pulls himself out another hole. And all you can see are his tracks in the snow.
-- it is a nature film in a lovely area. But except for some aerial shots of mountains at the beginning, we have none of the standard shots that creep into these things. No silhouettes on ridges. No faces around campfires shot from a distance. None of that. It just seems natural and fresh as if it wasn't made as a film, but as this guy's dreams (some of which we actually see).
Against it is a comic tone (until the end) that I'm sure is from the book. But it would take better editing and score to carry that humor. There's no timing in our hero's face, so the timing has to come from the visual rhythm and score. That score, by the way seems to have come from the Disney third string getting directions by phone.
And the whole thing has a most insipid voice-over narration. Just fixing the narration, redoing the score and tightening the editing would make this a very good film. Some of the Dennehy stuff needs fixing. There's no reason that it should be told so linearly. We'd need new dreams, some of which would contain narrative info, like the Dennehy episodes.
All these things could be fixed on a cheap Mac by film students, and you'd have a fine thing indeed.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
This movie comes so close in a few dimensions. It comes so close that I imagine it will be one of the first that Apple-Disney offers in their Final Cut library offerings. If I were teaching, I'd make it an assignment to take this film, just what you have from your DVD, and make a great film from it.
Here are some of things to recommend it:
-- it is disguised as a simple Disney film, meaning that it has a third grade moral and clearly distinguishable good and bad guys. Behind that disguise is a complex of complex issues. Not at all tidy: bad wolves, bad Inuits, bad scientists, all where you expected white hats.
-- it has a scene that I'm sure was the centerpiece of the book: a man awakens nude to find himself in the midst of wolves hunting caribou, something he was convinced wasn't true. He frantically tries to "warn" the panicked caribou.
-- it has so many scenes that you simply step out of the movie and wonder how the heck they did it. Many of these shots involve animals. But there was one where he falls into ice and pulls himself out another hole. And all you can see are his tracks in the snow.
-- it is a nature film in a lovely area. But except for some aerial shots of mountains at the beginning, we have none of the standard shots that creep into these things. No silhouettes on ridges. No faces around campfires shot from a distance. None of that. It just seems natural and fresh as if it wasn't made as a film, but as this guy's dreams (some of which we actually see).
Against it is a comic tone (until the end) that I'm sure is from the book. But it would take better editing and score to carry that humor. There's no timing in our hero's face, so the timing has to come from the visual rhythm and score. That score, by the way seems to have come from the Disney third string getting directions by phone.
And the whole thing has a most insipid voice-over narration. Just fixing the narration, redoing the score and tightening the editing would make this a very good film. Some of the Dennehy stuff needs fixing. There's no reason that it should be told so linearly. We'd need new dreams, some of which would contain narrative info, like the Dennehy episodes.
All these things could be fixed on a cheap Mac by film students, and you'd have a fine thing indeed.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.