Inspired by Eco-Chick’s summer reads list, I thought I’d suggest a few nature-inspired films for those on summer vacation and lots of time to kill. So here we go:
1 – Akira Kurosawa’s Derzu Uzala (1975) – One of the Japanese master’s best-known films, Derzu Uzala was based on the memoirs of Russian explorer Vladimir Arseniev. Kurosawa found in Arseniev’s encounter with the nomadic tribesman Derzu Uzala, who lived wildly and happily in the wilderness of the Siberian frontier, the perfect material around which to compose an ode to pantheist communion with nature. It is poetic and nostalgic for the times when we all lived like Uzala.
2 – Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man (2005) – The veteran German film auteur shows he continues to be a leading light with the succcessful Grizzly Man. Herzog has always been fascinated by individuals with an obstinate sense of mission in the middle of nature and Grizzly Man fits right in Herzog’s vast oeuvre, which includes classics like Fitzcarraldo and Aguire: The Wrath of God. But what is most impressive is that he managed to make a film completely his own despite the fact that Grizzly Man was assembled out of video footage shot by the man who is the subject of the film, except for a few segments shot by Herzog himself. Grizzly Man is Timothy Treadwell, on the surface quite a typical American blonde dude who, after a failed attempt at acting, proclaimed himself the guardian of the grizzly bears of the Katami National Park in Alaska. For eleven years, up to his death in October 2003, Treadwell would camp out in the park to ‘protect’ and study the bears that became his reason to live – and to die. He become a minor celebrity in the process, the subject of a Discovery Channel series and even appeared in the David Letterman show as a guest. During those years he shot over 100 hours of footage. Herzog sculpted out of Treadwell’s story a beautiful, humanist essay about the power of nature and how it should be respected.
3 – Reha Erdem’s Times and Winds (2006) – A coming-of-age story about three adolescent friends in a remote mountain village in Turkey, the cinematography gives to nature the same attention it gives to people while we find out about the boys’ pains and joys of growing up.
4 – Frank Hurley’s South (1919), Ernest Shackleton and the Endurance Expedition– Hurley’s 1919 film record restored in 1999 by the British Film Institute. This is the historic film record of the famous survival story of Sir Ernest Shackleton and the crew of the Endurance taken by Australian cinematographer and documentararian Frank Hurley, who accompanied the expedition on the first leg of its voyage from Buenos Aires to the Antarctica. The imagery is stunning and the bravery shown by the crew is awe-inspiring.
5 – Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s King Kong (1933) – Yes, King Kong is a great illustration of the eternal battle between civilization and nature and the dire consequences of irresponsible human interference in the forces of nature. The 1933 original starring Fay Wray remains the best cinematic rendition of this ‘lost world’ adventure.
