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Never Cry Wolf by Carroll Ballard
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DVD detailsActor: Brian Dennehy, Charles Martin Smith, Hugh Webster, Samson Jorah, Zachary Ittimangnaq Director: Carroll Ballard Brand: Buena Vista Home Entertainment Writer: Charles Martin Smith Producer: Jack Couffer Producer: Joseph Strick Producer: Lewis M. Allen Writer: Christina Luescher Writer: Curtis Hanson Writer: Eugene Corr Writer: Farley Mowat Writer: Ralph Furmaniak Writer: Richard Kletter Writer: Sam Hamm DVD: Region Code 1 Audio: Spanish (Unknown); English (Original Language) Format: Color, DVD, NTSC Picture Format: 1.85:1 Running Time: 105 minutes DVD Release Date: 2004-09-07 Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) Studio: Buena Vista Pictures Product features: - Filmed amid spectacular wilderness vistas, NEVER CRY WOLF reveals a world of hypnotic beauty and breathtaking cinematic imagery. An unforgettable adventure begins as Tyler, a young inexperienced biologist, is deposited alone onto the desolate Arctic terrain. Once settled, he struggles to endure the forces of nature as he documents the mysterious habits of the wolves he has been sent to study. An o
DVD Reviews of Never Cry WolfDVD Review: What happens when you learn the REAL story of the wild? Summary: 4 Stars
The film Never Cry Wolf is interesting for its portrayal of the Wilderness North and the animals which inhabit it. The portions which show the various activities of the Arctic Wolves in particular I found to be fascinating. But this film was about more than that. Perhaps I should start at the beginning.
At the film's outset, we see a somewhat young, somewhat ideal scientist about to undertake a trip into the wilds of the far north in Alaska, to investigate the disappearance of the wild Caribou herds which used to be so numerous in the region and were now dying out. The U.S. government had sent him to investigate whether or not the Arctic Wolves were responsible for the decline. If so, they would kill the wolves to save the herds.
I would say that the film begins somewhat comically by showing us just how ill-prepared our intrepid protagonist is. He brings cases or beer, numerous scientific instruments, as well as piles of government forms, but quickly finds himself running out of food. Perhaps his unpreparedness physically is a metaphor for how unprepared he is mentally. Really, initially he is just as clueless about what is really going on as the people who sent him. He imagines that the issue is a simple one. Either the Caribou are being eaten by the wolves, or they aren't. Either the wolves are the bad guys, or innocent victims. What he finds out by the film's end surprises him.
I think you could say that the scientist and the various kinds of people he comes across throughout the movie represent various groups and ideologies found in the world around us. The group he represents at the outset (the U.S. government and the people it employs) are most concerned about conservation of natural resources so that they can be exploited in some way later; at least that's the impression I got. The man who takes him out to the wilderness probably represents the average man; more interested in survival and their own prosperity than anything else. The native people are interesting for several reasons. First of all, they are completely foreign to the scientist when he first meets them; an entirely different culture. But as he gets to know them, and they repeatedly help him, he gets to be friends with them and comes to admire their way of life. Theirs is a way of life that endeavors to understand nature and coexist with it rather than exploit it. Naturally, not all natives want things to stay the same way forever, and a native of the new generation has no qualms about killing all the wolves he can to make a few dollars.
In the end the scientist discovers that the caribou decline was the result of disease, not the wolves. In fact, the only thing keeping the herds healthy is the wolves (who thin out the weak and sickly from the herd). Are the wolves the bad guys, evil monsters bent on destroying something precious? Hardly. In the end, human beings seem to be more of a villain than anything in nature. Perhaps the real irony of the story though, is that the scientist came to care about the wolves and their environment more than anything else, taking the view of the old natives. He no longer cared about the issues that people were worried about. He became borderline obsessive about protecting the thing he was supposed to investigate. Interesting how learned the facts about what's really going on in nature can change a person's perspective.
The real lesson I got out of this film was to never make assumptions when it comes to the cause of a problem, and especially in nature. In other words, never cry wolf. Anyone with a strong interest in environmental science and wolves in particular will probably want to give this one a watch.
More Never Cry Wolf reviews: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Description of Never Cry Wolf
Features include:
?MPAA Rating: PG ?Format: DVD ?Runtime: 105 minutes
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