Stanley Kauffmann
. . . . [Dian Fossey] was the American naturalist who . . . went to Rwanda to study gorillas . . . [and] became (one can say) a friend of theirs . . . In the course of her increasing infatuation with the gorillas, Fossey became angrily protective of them . . . She very soon appointed herself the gorillas' guardian and got in various broils with the law throught her passionate arrogance.
This progress, from scientific-humane interest to near-mania, is well-enough drawn by Sigourney Weaver, as Fossey. But WEaver is handicapped by a script that clutters Fossey's impulses with movie mechanics. . . . [LO] Even her concern for animals is made suspect. When a zoo agent captures a baby gorilla, she is enraged, opens the agent's van, and takes out the small caged creature. But she leaves a bird and a snake in their cages. Don't they count? [whatever, it's not exactly equivalent, is it? or is it?]
The film has a peculiar undertone about sex. Fossey has reached the point where she can go out and sit amid gorillas and be treated as a companion. She is particularly fond of a big male. At one point when he approaches, she lies down on her back. He does nothing futher, but what if he had? (Weaver herself, with Stanislavskian subscription, writing of her experience on location in the October Life, says of a particular male: "If a female from the Suza Group doesn't transfer to him one of these days, I'll be surprised. I certainly would.") Fossey's sexual views are further bent. . . . [Kauffmann notes Fossey's anger at the two students she catches in bed, although Fossey herself has an affair with a married man.] Only she, among humans, is permitted sex in gorilla country?
Weaver's success in becoming friends with the gorillas is the only really interesting element in the film, but even this intimacy sparks suspicions. Was all of it genuine? All those close-ups of gorilla hands in hers? No special effects? The program credits five mime artists and their choreographer. What did they mime? Gorillas, perhaps?
Stanley Kauffmann
New Republic
fill in?
This progress, from scientific-humane interest to near-mania, is well-enough drawn by Sigourney Weaver, as Fossey. But WEaver is handicapped by a script that clutters Fossey's impulses with movie mechanics. . . . [LO] Even her concern for animals is made suspect. When a zoo agent captures a baby gorilla, she is enraged, opens the agent's van, and takes out the small caged creature. But she leaves a bird and a snake in their cages. Don't they count? [whatever, it's not exactly equivalent, is it? or is it?]
The film has a peculiar undertone about sex. Fossey has reached the point where she can go out and sit amid gorillas and be treated as a companion. She is particularly fond of a big male. At one point when he approaches, she lies down on her back. He does nothing futher, but what if he had? (Weaver herself, with Stanislavskian subscription, writing of her experience on location in the October Life, says of a particular male: "If a female from the Suza Group doesn't transfer to him one of these days, I'll be surprised. I certainly would.") Fossey's sexual views are further bent. . . . [Kauffmann notes Fossey's anger at the two students she catches in bed, although Fossey herself has an affair with a married man.] Only she, among humans, is permitted sex in gorilla country?
Weaver's success in becoming friends with the gorillas is the only really interesting element in the film, but even this intimacy sparks suspicions. Was all of it genuine? All those close-ups of gorilla hands in hers? No special effects? The program credits five mime artists and their choreographer. What did they mime? Gorillas, perhaps?
Stanley Kauffmann
New Republic
fill in?
posted by Intersections28 - David Gibson at
9:55 AM
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