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The Bear is a 1988 French adventure family film directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud and released by TriStar Pictures. Adapted from the novel The Grizzly King (1916) by American author James Oliver Curwood, the screenplay was written by Gérard Brach. Set in British Columbia, Canada, the film tells the story of an orphaned grizzly bear cub who befriends a large adult male Kodiak bear as two trophy hunters pursue them through the wild.

The Bear
American film poster
Directed byJean-Jacques Annaud
Written byGérard Brach
James Oliver Curwood (novel)
Produced byClaude Berri
Starring
CinematographyPhilippe Rousselot
Edited byNoëlle Boisson
Music byPhilippe Sarde
Production
companies
Price Entertainment
Renn Productions
Distributed byAMLF[1]
Release date
  • 19 October 1988 (1988-10-19)
Running time
94 minutes
CountryFrance
LanguageFrench
Budget120 million Franc ($20 million)[2]
Box office$31,753,898 (U.S. and Canada)[3]
$120 million (worldwide)[4]

Several of the themes explored in the story include orphanhood, peril and protection, and mercy toward and on the behalf of a reformed hunter. Annaud and Brach began planning the story and production in 1981, although filming did not begin until six years later, due to the director's commitment to another project. The Bear was filmed almost entirely in the Italian and Austrian areas of the Dolomites, with live animals—including Bart the Bear, a trained 2.74-metre (9.0 ft) tall Kodiak bear—present on location. Notable for its almost complete lack of dialogue and its minimal score, the film was nominated for and won numerous international film awards.


Plot


In 1885, in the mountainous wilds of British Columbia, Canada, a male grizzly bear cub and his mother are digging and searching for honey to eat when the mother is suddenly crushed to death and buried by a rockslide, leaving the cub orphaned. Forced to fend for himself, the cub struggles to find food and shelter.

Elsewhere in the mountains, a male Kodiak bear roams free in the forest, but is unknowingly being pursued and hunted by two trophy hunters, Tom and Bill. Tom attempts to shoot the Kodiak in order to claim the animal as a trophy, but his gunshot only grazes the bear's shoulder and the wounded animal flees. Shortly after, Tom and Bill hear crashing noises and the sounds of their tied up horses. The men discover two of their three horses missing and claw marks from the Kodiak on the trees. Bill finds one horse that was killed and mutilated by the bear while Tom finds the other one frightened and mortally wounded from being attacked by the beast. While attempting to control the horse, Tom is lifted by the animal's reigns and sprains his leg. Bill makes a promise to hunt and kill the bear for revenge.

The cub later comes across the Kodiak, and, noticing his wound, attempts to help him, but the Kodiak warns the cub away, emphasizing he doesn't need support. The cub persists and approaches him again, managing to soothe his wound by licking it. A friendship forms between the two bears as the Kodiak adopts the cub as his foster son, teaching him how to catch salmon and hunt animals such as mule deer for food. That evening, the cub suffers from nightmares where he relives the tragic death of his mother. While journeying through the mountains, the Kodiak and the cub come across a lone female grizzly who the Kodiak becomes infatuated with, whereupon the two bears perform a mating ritual, with the Kodiak impressing the female by showing off his strength before mating with her afterwards in a private area of the forest.

Determined to find and track down the Kodiak, the two hunters are joined by a third man and his pack of vicious Beaucerons, in addition to Tom's Airedale Terrier. Both bears, sensing danger, attempt to escape by climbing up a cliff in the mountains for safety as the dog pack follow them in pursuit. While the cub hides in a cave, the Kodiak ferociously fights off the pack in order to protect the cub. Despite suffering grievous wounds from the dogs, the Kodiak manages to kill some of them before giving up and escaping over a pass with the remaining pack members chasing after him, leaving the cub behind. The hunters arrive to find the bodies of some of their dogs, including Tom's (whom Bill sorrowfully shoots dead), killed from their violent fight with the Kodiak. The men spot the lone cub and capture him, taking him back to their camp where he is tethered to a tree and tormented by the men and their remaining dogs. That night, the hunters plot how to massacre the Kodiak, though unbeknownst to them, they are being watched over and stalked by the bear.

The next day, the hunters split up, with Tom manning a spot high on a cliff near a waterfall. He leaves his post to wash up in a small waterfall in the hills. His gun out of reach, Tom suddenly finds himself confronted by the Kodiak, who aggressively bellows at the sight of him. Faced with certain death, Tom cowers and expects to be mauled. Upon seeing that Tom is at his mercy, the Kodiak refuses to kill him and leaves. Tom, amazed by the bear's act of mercy, attempts to scare him off more quickly by shooting his gun in the air. When Bill joins him, Tom lies that the bear is dead. When Bill catches sight of the Kodiak ascending a scree, he raises his rifle to shoot, only to be intercepted by Tom, who insists they let the animal go free instead. The three hunters return to their camp empty-handed, where they release the cub and then ride off into the wilderness.

Alone again, the cub is soon stalked and attacked by a cougar, who chases the cub until it corners him near a stream. The cub, despite getting injured by the cougar's attacks, desperately growls for help. However, the cougar, upon seeing the sight of the Kodiak behind the cub, suddenly stops and flees after the Kodiak viciously roars at it for harming the cub, saving his life in the process. The cub, surprised that the Kodiak saved his life, happily reunites with him and runs to his side, where his foster father comforts him and licks away the cub's wounds that he suffered from being attacked by the cougar. As winter approaches, the two bears find shelter in a cave for hibernation, where they peacefully fall asleep together.


Cast



Production



Sources


Frontispiece of James Oliver Curwood's The Grizzly King (1916)
Frontispiece of James Oliver Curwood's The Grizzly King (1916)

American author James Oliver Curwood's novella The Grizzly King was published in 1916. The story was based on several trips he took to British Columbia, and the young hunter, called Jim in the book, is based on Curwood himself.[5] However, many of its plot elements—mainly dealing with the friendship between the bear cub and the adult male grizzly—were fabricated. Curwood's biographer, Judith A. Eldridge, believes that the incident in which the hunter is spared by a bear is based on truth, a fact that was later related to Jean-Jacques Annaud. He stated during an interview that he "was given a letter from Curwood's granddaughter revealing that what happened in the story happened to him. He was hunting bear, as he had done often, and lost his rifle down a cliff. Suddenly, a huge bear confronted him and menaced him, but for reasons Curwood could never know, spared his life."[6] Shortly after the book's publication, Curwood—once an adamant hunter—became a supporter of wildlife conservation.[7]

Brach and Annaud decided to set the film in the late 19th century to create a perception of true wilderness, especially for the human characters.[8] In addition, while both the bears and the two hunters are named in the script, only Tom is named in the film. The bear cub is referred to in the script as Youk, and the adult male grizzly is known as Kaar. Tchéky Karyo's character is said to have been called Tom and Jack Wallace's is Bill. These names differ from Curwood's novel; for example, the cub is known as Muskwa in the novel, and his adult companion is called Thor.


Development


After the commercial success of Jean-Jacques Annaud's previous films, including the Academy Award-winning Black and White in Color (1976) and Quest for Fire (1981), producer Claude Berri offered to produce Annaud's next project, no matter the cost.[9] The French filmmaker had first considered the idea of making a film that included mammal communication through behavior, rather than language, while working on Quest for Fire. He became particularly interested in making an animal "the star of a psychological drama", so he "decided to do an entertaining, commercial adventure and psychological film" that would have an animal hero.[10] He discussed this idea with his longtime collaborator, screenwriter Gerard Brach, who within a few days sent Annaud a copy of The Grizzly King, to which the filmmaker quickly agreed.[11]

Although Brach began writing the screenplay in late 1981, Annaud took on another project, that of directing a film adaptation of Umberto Eco's book The Name of the Rose. Between preparing for and filming his next film, Annaud traveled and visited zoos in order to research animal behavior. In an interview he later gave with the American Humane Association, Annaud stated: "Each time I was fascinated with the tigers, to a point that I thought to do a movie called The Tiger instead of The Bear. In those days I felt that the bear, because they're so often vertical, would give me a better identification, or would provide more instant identification from the viewers."[12] The finished script was presented to Berri in early 1983.[13]


Filming


Saslonch, a mountain in the Dolomites in South Tyrol, Italy
Saslonch, a mountain in the Dolomites in South Tyrol, Italy

Shot from 13 May to late October 1987, The Bear was filmed almost entirely in the Italian and Austrian areas of the Dolomites. Several additional scenes were also filmed in a Belgian Zoo in early 1988.[14] The crew consisted of 200 individuals. Husband and wife team Tony and Heidi Lüdi served as the film's production designer and art director, respectively, alongside set decorator Bernhard Henrich. In their book, Movie Worlds: Production Design in Film, the Lüdis state that as the film's production designers, they "were constantly faced with the question 'What did you have to do?' To which we answered 'We turned the Alps into British Columbia.'"[14] Cinematographer Philippe Rousselot noted that "the only thing Jean-Jacques was unable to control" while filming in the Bavarian Alps "was the weather: he did not manage to have the clouds take part in pre-production meetings."[15]

While animatronic bears were used for several of the fighting scenes, live animals—including bears, dogs, horses, and honey bees—were used on location for filming.[16] A trained, 2.74-metre (9.0 ft) tall Kodiak bear named Bart played the adult male grizzly, while a young female bear named Douce ("Sweetness" in English) took on the role of the cub, with several alternates.[17] Three trainers worked with Bart (including his owner Doug Seus), eleven with the cubs, three with the dogs, and three with the horses.[16] One day during production, Bart injured Annaud while the two posed for photographers; Annaud's wounds, which included claw-marks on his backside, had to be drained with a shunt for two months.[18] In addition to the real bears, there were animatronic bears which were used in specific scenes that were made by Jim Henson's Creature Shop.


Themes


With its intersecting storylines of animals and humans, The Bear includes a variety of thematic elements. These themes include orphanhood, peril and protection, and mercy toward and on the behalf of a reformed hunter.

Film critic Derek Bousé has made the connection between The Bear and Disney's model of wildlife films, comparing not only the sympathetic characters but also the filmatic structure, to the animated Bambi (1942) and the live-action Perri (1957).[19] In his 2000 book Wildlife Films, Bousé makes a stronger correlation between Annaud's film and Disney's Dumbo (1941), in that both young animals lost their mothers at an early age, creating an unfortunate situation that allows the rest of the plot to develop (although, Dumbo's mother was merely imprisoned for a while, and was re-united with her son at the film's end).[20] Dumbo and The Bear also share a similarly purposed dream sequence, brought on by alcohol in the former and hallucinogenic mushrooms in the latter.[19]

The theme of the reformed hunter is a direct reference to the original novel and its author. James Oliver Curwood, himself a past hunter and trapper, considered The Grizzly King to be a "confession of one who for years hunted and killed before he learned that the wild offered a more thrilling sport than slaughter".[21] During its American release, the film used one of Curwood's famous quotes as a tagline—"The greatest thrill is not to kill but to let live"—and the film was endorsed by both the American Humane Association and the World Wildlife Fund.[22]


Release


The Bear was released on 19 October 1988 in France, and 27 October 1989 in the United States. An official tie-in to the movie The Odyssey of 'The Bear': The Making of the Film by Jean-Jacques Annaud, a translation from the French edition, followed in November. In addition, Curwood's original novel—out of print in the US for fifty years—was republished by Newmarket Press, and a children's book titled The Bear Storybook was published by St. Martin's Press.[23]

By August 1989, The Bear was reported to have grossed $90,685,310 and was yet to open in the United Kingdom, the Far East and the United States and Canada.[24] The Bear later grossed $31,753,898 in the United States and Canada[3] taking its worldwide gross to over $120 million. It was then presented in the following countries:


Critical reception


The film was a critical success, holding an 88% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes from 16 reviews.[25] Some critics pointed to The Bear's adult handling of the wildlife film genre, which is often dismissed as belonging solely to children's films.[26] While positively reviewing the film, critic Roger Ebert wrote that The Bear "is not a cute fantasy in which bears ride tricycles and play house. It is about life in the wild, and it does an impressive job of seeming to show wild bears in their natural habitat" and that scenes from the film, especially those "of horseplay and genuine struggles – gradually build up our sense of the personalities of these animals".[27]

Janet Maslin of The New York Times, however, believing that the film was less about its wild characters and more about personification, wrote: "The Bear...is a remarkable achievement only on its own terms, which happen to be extremely limited and peculiar...its true emphasis is not on wildlife. Instead, it grafts the thoughts and dreams of more commonplace beings onto bear-shaped stand-ins."[28] Writing for the hunting and fishing magazine Field & Stream, editor Cathleen Erring stated that The Bear not only stripped its human characters of "all sympathetic traits and [gave] them to the bears", but it also created "a caricature that will subject anyone embarking on a bear hunt ... to the kind of scorn previously reserved for 'Bambi Butchers'."[29]

Some reviewers were critical of the film's dream sequences, which heavily utilize special effects and deviate from the overall naturalistic feel of the film. In his review for the St. Petersburg Times, Hal Lipper called the dream sequences "existential flights of fancy are accompanied by psychedelic images that seem better suited for '60s 'happenings.'"[30] In addition, one scene in which the male grizzly mates with a female bear while the cub looks on was criticized as being unfriendly for children viewers.[28] David Denby of New York Magazine stated as much in his review of the film, noting "I would like to be able to recommend The Bear as a movie that parents and children could see together, but I'm afraid there's a scene in the middle that would have to be... explained."[31]

A small campaign was launched for the 62nd Academy Awards to get Bart a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor, with defenders arguing the bear gave such a moving performance he should be the first animal actor to receive consideration for an award. However, the campaign was squashed by the Academy, who said they would not permit non-human actors to be nominated, in the Best Actor category or any other.[32]


Awards and nominations


Won:

Nominated:


References


  1. "The Bear (1988)". UniFrance. Retrieved 26 October 2021.
  2. "It's The Berris Behind Those 2 Pagnol Smashes". Variety. 18 February 1987. p. 84.
  3. "The Bear". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
  4. Cerone, Daniel. "How to Train an 1,800 Pound Movie Star: What It Takes to Turn a Kodiak Into a Screen Sensation: A Bear's-Eye View of Grizzly Country," Los Angeles Times, 22 October 1989. Online at Latimes.com, retrieved 16 May 2015.
  5. Eldridge 1993, p. 7.
  6. Mahar 1989, p. E01.
  7. Eldridge 1993, pp. 7–8.
  8. Thompson 1989, p. 2.
  9. Benabent-Loiseau & Annaud 1989, p. 7.
  10. Nichols 2003, p. 23.
  11. Benabent-Loiseau & Annaud 1989, p. 8.
  12. Milosevic, Yvonne. "Film & TV Unit Profiles: Jean-Jacques Annaud". American Humane Association. Retrieved on 6 June 2012.
  13. Benabent-Loiseau & Annaud 1989, pp. 11–12.
  14. Lüdi, Lüdi & Schreiber 2000, p. 72.
  15. Baron 1989, p. E1.
  16. Nichols 2003, p. 26.
  17. "The Bear / L'ours (making of)". YouTube. 24 June 2021. Retrieved 15 August 2022.
  18. Schickel 1989, p. 97.
  19. Bousé 1990, p. 31.
  20. Bousé 2000, p. 138.
  21. Curwood 1916, p. vii.
  22. Wilson 1992, p. 154.
  23. McDowell, Edwin. (20 September 1989). "Book Notes". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 December 2010.
  24. "$90,685,310 [The Bear advertisement]". Variety. 16 August 1989. p. 50.
  25. "The Bear Movie Reviews, Pictures". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 12 July 2022.
  26. Bousé 1990, p. 30.
  27. Ebert, Roger. (27 October 1989). "The Bear". rogerebert.com. Retrieved 14 December 2010.
  28. Maslin, Janet. (25 October 1989). "The Bear (1988) Review/Film; Two Bears Who Are Just Plain Folks". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 December 2010.
  29. Errig 1990, p. 172.
  30. Lipper 1989, p. 13.
  31. Denby 1989, p. 70.
  32. White, Adam. (7 July 2017). "From Marcel to Keiko: whatever happened to some of film and TV's most famous animal stars?". The Telegraph. Retrieved 14 October 2020.

Bibliography




Wikiquote has quotations related to The Bear (1988 film).

На других языках

- [en] The Bear (1988 film)

[it] L'orso (film)

L'orso (L'ours) è un film del 1988 diretto da Jean-Jacques Annaud, tratto dal romanzo The Grizzly King (1916) di James Oliver Curwood. La sceneggiatura, di Gérard Brach, vede come protagonista un possente grizzly prendere sotto la sua protezione un cucciolo d'orso, rimasto orfano della madre. Entrambi sono braccati da un gruppo di cacciatori che, una volta compresa la vera essenza degli animali, rinunceranno all'arduo inseguimento.

[ru] Медведь (фильм, 1988)

«Медведь» (фр. L' Ours, англ. The Bear) — французский драматический художественный фильм, поставленный кинорежиссёром Жан-Жаком Анно по роману Джеймса Оливера Кервуда «Гризли». Премьера фильма состоялась 19 октября 1988 года во Франции.


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