http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/294341
Against our better nature
Jan 16, 2008 04:30 AM
Vinay Menon
Just a wild guess: animals do not want to be movie stars.
And after watching a report on the fifth estate (CBC, 9 tonight) that is both maddening and saddening, who could possibly blame them?
But let's start at the beginning.
On May 5, 1982, the investigative series broadcast a landmark story titled "Cruel Camera." In that piece, reporter Bob McKeown unleashed some devastating truths about the mistreatment and outright cruelty animals suffered while "working" in showbiz.
You may be familiar with a few notorious examples from the early-to-mid 20th century: the nearly 100 horses that were killed during the climactic chariot race in Ben-Hur; the horse that perished after a stuntman rode it over a 70-foot cliff in Jesse James; the lion that was stabbed to death in Tarzan.
For years, animals were treated with cavalier disregard for the most frivolous and revolting reason: our amusement.
As McKeown now discovers - 25 years after his original report - Hollywood is still no place for inhabitants of the natural world.
During filming of Flicka in 2005, for example, one horse died an "agonizing death" after it was kicked in the head during a rodeo scene that spiralled out of control, turning into a stampede.
This despite the fact that monitors from the American Humane Association - which in the past year alone has collaborated on more than 1,000 productions - were on set to ensure safety.
That organization issues its now widely recognized closing credits approval, "No animals were harmed in the making of this film." Yet, curiously, Flicka did not receive an "unacceptable" rating because the AHA concluded the tragedy was an accident.
The implication made by some, including horseman Roland Vincent, an extra in Flicka and eyewitness to the commotion that preceded the gruesome death, is the AHA is simply too close to the studios.
Another startling revelation: the manipulation and lies contained within many wildlife documentaries and nature films.
Consider the classic White Wilderness, which ran under Disney's Tru-Life Adventures brand. The film, which won an Academy Award and is still available on DVD, contains a scene in which a polar bear cub struggles to ascend a snowy mountain. Before long, it careens helplessly, perilously, down the steep slope as cameras are rolling.
Viewers believed the cub was a wild animal in its natural Arctic habitat. But the cub was actually placed on a film set built specifically for the harrowing sequence.
In another scene, lemmings are shown committing "mass suicide," which of course is a popular myth. Like the bear, they were not filmed in the Arctic, but in Calgary, where they were catapulted off a cliff from an unseen turntable.
From the Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom to a scene in Sir David Attenborough's Polar Bear: The Arctic Warrior, tonight's documentary uncovers deceptions, then and now, that will make you question the entire wildlife canon.
Some of tonight's most heartbreaking scenes involve chimpanzees and the grim fate that awaits when the cameras stop rolling. The fifth estate obtained police footage that showed the chimps from Race to Space and a certain Seinfeld episode being hunted down and shot to death after escaping from unlocked cages at a roadside zoo in Nebraska.
"I got him," one of the shooters can be heard saying calmly as the poor animal shrieks in agony.
"Cruel Camera" should not be missed. But be warned: it's not an easy program to watch.
Because to watch a caged baby chimp clutch a red ball and rock impassively with dead-eyed anguish is to feel a blinding shame only humans can know.