Grey Owl
UK/Canada 1998
Reviewed by Richard Falcon
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
1936. After Native American trapper-turned-author Archie 'Grey Owl' gives a lecture on conservation, newspaper reporter Cyrus Finney asks him about an Englishman called Archibald Belaney.
Two years earlier, Archie is performing a war dance with a group of Native American performers. Anahareo Bernard, an assimilated Mohawk whose real name is Pony, asks him to take her to the Mohawk reservation. Against the advice of her father Jim, Pony accompanies Archie on a breaver-trapping expedition. Archie rescues Pony when she falls through the frozen surface of a lake. He later expresses worries that the beavers are becoming scarce due to the activities of the timber industry. Ignoring Archie's protests, Pony adopts two orphaned beaver kittens as pets. Pony and Archie become lovers.
Taking his pelts to the Hudson Bay Trading Company Post, Archie has a run-in with two unscrupulous trappers. After he gives a lecture about preserving the beaver to some tourists, Archie is invited to take up residency in a mock trapper's hut in Prince Albert national park. His articles about the wilderness are reprinted around the world. Millionaire publisher Harry Champlin commissions a book from him which is a big success.
On a tour of England, Archie stops off in Hastings to pay a visit to his two aunts who raised him. In the US, Archie receives the honour of a ceremonial audience with a gathering of Native American chiefs. The Sioux chief realises immediately that Archie isn't a Native American. Shunned by the white establishment when they learn of his English origins, Archie delivers a lecture about the importance of conservation before returning to the wilderness. In 1938, he dies of pneumonia.
Review
Richard Attenborough's latest liberal-conscience adventure biopic has two significant advantages over its epic predecessors. First, the film's true-life protagonist Archibald 'Grey Owl' Belaney, while a talismanic focus for a certain brand of North American environmentalism, isn't as well known as some of Attenborough's other subjects. Second, this latest attempt by the director to conflate the personal, the political and the mythical is essentially a drama revolving around questions of authenticity. Grist to the mill, one would have thought, for a director whose work has often been criticised for failing to explore with sufficient depth such overexposed historical figures as Charlie Chaplin, Mahatma Gandhi and Winston Churchill.
Archie's bluff - he was a Hastings grammar-school boy so besotted with Native American culture that he uprooted to Canada to live as a Mohawk - is a rich point of departure. But Grey Owl limits its story to the period from 1934 to 1936, when Archie transformed himself from a trapper into a writer, lecturer and conservationist under the influence - or so the film tells us - of his young Native American lover Pony. The logic of this is clear: it allows events to be structured around a love story. And there is an enjoyable irony in accessing Archie's world through a Native American character who knows far less about "the old ways" than the Englishman. Pony is introduced wearing jodhpurs, the somewhat spoilt daughter of a wholly assimilated businessman (a nicely shaded cameo by Graham Greene). But neat and tidy as the old ways of such Hollywood narrative economy are, the screenplay by William Nicholson (Shadowlands) leaves a great many questions unanswered: how, for instance, did Archie become an adept trapper, and how did he first meet the Mohawks, who are his friends as the film opens? Instead of exploring such potentially interesting issues, Attenborough gives us a ready-made, ruggedly individualistic hero, a plum role for his star Pierce Brosnan.
Attenborough relies on loving sequences of cute furry animals, notably the two orphaned beaver kittens which Pony adopts, to advance Archie's conservationist cause. To his film's credit, moments in Grey Owl rival Gladiator in its mainstream reflexiveness about its audience-pleasing techniques: as Archie lectures wealthy tourists, for instance, he clutches two beavers, realising if the visitors won't respond to his words, they will to the sight of the animals; later we see him introducing film of the beavers at play to delighted audiences on his British tour. But while the film's green message, encapsulated in Archie's slogan that we are the planet's servants, not its masters, is unimpeachable, the film is so enamoured of its outdoor spectacle that at times it feels as if Attenborough would have been happier making an IMAX documentary.
This said, Brosnan is excellent in an unlikely role and the film abounds with genuine pleasures: director of photography Roger Pratt's shot of the tepees on the plain at night, lit from within like Chinese lanterns, gives you a sense of the romantic appeal the Canadian wilderness must have had for young Archie and goes some way to explaining why he left Hastings to live there. Then there's his return to Hastings where he visits his maiden aunts, a small gem of Alan Bennett-like understated insight. As the two old ladies reveal they have kept his room exactly as he left it, they add an apologetic rider: "I'm afraid we had to throw away the dead snakes."
Credits
- Director
- Richard Attenborough
- Producers
- Jake Eberts
- Richard Attenborough
- Screenplay
- William Nicholson
- Director of Photography
- Roger Pratt
- Editor
- Lesley Walker
- Production Designer
- Anthony Pratt
- Music/Music Conductor
- George Fenton
- ©Beaver Productions Ltd & Ajawaan Productions, Inc
- Production Companies
- Largo Entertainment presents in association with Transfilm and Beaver Productions a Jake Eberts presentation
- Co-produced by Beaver Productions Ltd & Ajawaan Productions, Inc with the assistance/ participation of the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit
- and the assistance of the Government of Québec (Tax Credit Program)
- Executive Producers
- Barr Potter
- Lenny Young
- Canadian Producer
- Claude Léger
- Co-producers
- Diana Hawkins
- Josette Perrotta
- Production Associate
- Judy Wasdell
- Production Co-ordinators
- Danielle Boucher
- 2nd Unit:
- Charles-André Bertrand
- Marie-Josée Dupont
- U.K. Unit:
- Joyce Turner
- Production Manager
- U.K. Unit:
- Hugh Harlow
- Unit Production Manager
- Michel Chauvin
- Unit Managers
- Jean-Yves Dolbec
- 2nd Unit:
- Maurice Forget
- Michel Guay
- Gilles Perreault
- Location Managers
- Céline Daignault
- 2nd Unit:
- François Fauteux
- U.K. Unit:
- Mark Somner
- Joel Cockrill
- Assistant Directors
- Patrick Clayton
- Buck Deachman
- Anne Alloucherie
- Stéphane Bourdeau
- 2nd Unit:
- Isabelle Brutus
- Jean-Sébastien Lord
- U.K. Unit:
- Trevor Puckle
- Script Supervisors
- Nikki Clapp
- 2nd Unit:
- Anne-Laure Debay
- Casting
- Vera Miller
- René Haynes
- Additional Consultant:
- Rosina Bucci
- ADR Voice:
- Louis Elman
- 2nd Unit Director
of Photography - Sylvain Brault
- Camera Operators
- Andy Chmura
- Daniel Vincelette
- Robert Guertin
- Steadicam Operator
- Brad Hruboska
- 2nd Unit Wescam Technicians
- Clyde Miller
- John Trapman
- Visual Effects
- Hybride Technologies
- Special Effects
- Les Productions de l'Intrigue
- Graphic Designer
- Carl Lessard
- Supervising Art Director
- Claude Paré
- Decorators
- Josée Pilon
- Daniel Carpentier
- Set Decorator
- U.K. Unit:
- Joanne Woollard
- Storyboard Artist
- Francis Back
- Key Sculptor
- Gilles David
- Sculptors
- Denis Ampleman
- Camille Villeneuve
- Costume Designer
- Renée April
- Costume Consultant
- John Hay
- Wardrobe Co-ordinator
- Marianne Carter
- U.K. Unit Wardobe
- Master:
- Adrian Simmons
- Mistress:
- Jill Avery
- Make-up
- Key Artist:
- Jocelyne Bellemare
- U.K. Unit, Artistes:
- Christine Beveridge
- Helen Barrett
- Hair
- Key Stylist:
- Marcelo Nestor Padovani
- 2nd Unit, Dresser:
- Géraldine Diane Courchesne
- U.K. Unit, Dressers:
- Christine Beveridge
- Helen Barrett
- Title Design
- Chris Allies
- Digital Titles/Effects
- Magic Camera Company
- Additional Music
- David Lawson
- Orchestra Leader
- Gavyn Wright
- Orchestrations
- Geoffrey Alexander
- Jeff Atmajian
- Music Co-ordinator
- Veronika Rentsch
- Music Editor
- Graham Sutton
- Recording Engineer
- Keith Grant
- Sound
- Patrick Rousseau
- Jonathan Bates
- Gerry Humphreys
- Sound Mixers
- Michel Charron
- Tim Cavagin
- 2nd Unit:
- Véronique Gabillaud
- Sound Recordist
- U.K. Unit:
- Dave Allen
- Dialogue Editor
- Nick Lowe
- ADR Mixer
- John Bateman
- Foley
- Artists:
- Pauline Griffiths
- Paula Boram
- Mixer:
- John Bateman
- Editor:
- Peter Holt
- First Nation Adviser
- Donna Noonan
- Pow Wow Consultant
- Don Waboose
- Stunt Co-ordinators
- Dave McKeown
- Michael Scherer
- Armourers
- Andrew Campbell
- 2nd Unit:
- Stéphane Falardeau
- Animals
- Equus Action
- Educational Audio-Visuals
- Pro-Films Animals
- Animal Wrangler
- Pete White
- Beaver Specialist
- Bill Carrick
- Beaver Wrangler
- Kelly Whitlock
- Dog Wranglers
- Raymond Ducasse
- Josée Juteau
- Canoe Wrangler
- Marcel Savoie
- Cast
- Pierce Brosnan
- Archibald Belaney, Archie Grey Owl
- Annie Galipeau
- Anahareo Bernard, 'Pony'
- Renée Asherson
- Carrie Belaney
- Stephanie Cole
- Ada Belaney
- Nathaniel Arcand
- Ned White Bear
- Stewart Bick
- Cyrus Finney
- Chip Chuipka
- 1st trapper
- John Dunn-Hill
- Sim Hancock
- David Fox
- Jim Wood
- Saginaw Grant
- pow wow chief
- Jimmy Herman
- Chief Pete Misabi
- Jacques Lussier
- hotel manager
- Gordon Masten
- Gus Mitchell
- Charles Powell
- Walter Perry
- Vlasta Vrana
- Harry Champlin
- Floyd Crow Westerman
- pow wow chief
- Graham Greene
- Jim Bernard
- Neil Kroetsch
- Serge Houde
- hunters
- Peter Colvey
- hotel guest
- Lee-Roy Jacobs
- hotel porter
- John Walsh
- 2nd trapper
- Annabelle Torsein
- Marcel Jeannin
- Kent McQuaid
- hikers
- Matthew Sharp
- Hiker Hawkins
- Seann Gallagher
- Bill Oliver
- James Bradford
- Tom Walker
- Noel Burton
- Southampton reporter
- Richard Jutras
- Art Kitching
- Pierre Lenoir
- Norris Domingue
- Halifax reporters
- Al Vandercruys
- immigration officer
- Gene Blackbird
- Lindsey Coté
- Arnold Jocks
- Tahatie Montour
- Rene Tonda Splicer Kiepprien
- Donald J. White
- Kevin Peltier
- Donald Swamp
- Wabikon Lodge dancers
- Timothy Eashappie
- pow wow dancer lead
- Frank Buswa
- Vernon Cardinal
- Josie Cox
- Donald Dowd
- Hilliard Friday
- Les Harper
- David Herman
- Joseph McLeod
- Dylan Manitopyes
- Brian Moore
- Gordie Odjig
- Gary Parker
- Ron Ranville
- Steve Sands
- Dwight 'Bucko' Teeple
- Denis Whiteye
- Larry Yazzie
- pow wow dancers
- Gerald McDonald
- Wabikon Lodge drummer lead
- Michael MacDonald
- Narcisse Kakegabon
- Wabikon Lodge drummers
- Steve Wood
- pow wow drummer lead
- Elmer Baptiste
- Shane Dion
- Aaron McGilvery
- Bradley McGilvery
- Ferlin McGilvery
- Cecil Nepoose
- Leroy Whitstone
- pow wow drummers
- Certificate
- PG
- Distributor
- 20th Century Fox (UK)
- 10,641 feet
- 118 minutes 14 seconds
- Dolby Digital
- Colour by Astraltech/Technicolor
- 2.35:1 [Panavision]