Post by Brad Nelson on May 23, 2020 8:06:21 GMT -8
Grey Owl is based on a true story whose facts to this day may be a little fuzzy.
Richard Attenborough directs (aka “virtue signals”) Pierce Brosnan in the main character of Archie Grey Owl. Two things to point out at the start: Brosnan doesn’t look even faintly Native American (compared to the real Archie, or anyone else), or even a halfbreed, as he presents himself. And going by the info at Wiki on Archibald Stansfeld Belaney, the story itself sees Archie through a very soft-focus lens. There’s not one mention of Archie’s fondness for drink, for example. Nor do you really get a good sense of his hopping from one bigamous marriage to another.
Be that as it may, I found the story to be watchable in a sort of light Disneyesque stuck-at-home-by-the-Wuhan-Flu looking-for-something-to-do way. The only large question is if Archie is a fraud or just an enthusiast who, instead of claiming at being a Native American like Elizabeth Warren, actually lived as one and might have wanted to be one. Playing a part he was not born to (including changing his name) is something that defines many Hollywood movie stars as well as a few politicians (Bill de Blasio/Warren Wilhelm Jr.). And given the amount of plastic surgery, hair transplants, etc., strewn through our culture, it becomes difficult to separate real from fake. He’s a genuine something. I’m just not sure what.
So we’ll give Archie the benefit of the doubt and assume he’s simply an adventurer. We do this not because he supported environmental policies (thus the soft-focus gloss of Attenborough and the script) but because he seems more a harmless roque than anything more sinister. He wasn’t seeking anything beyond a string of bigamous wives and maybe to spread awareness about the plight of the beaver and the forests in North America due to too much hunting and logging.
His most famous book is apparently Pilgrims of the Wild followed by The Men of the Last Frontier. The latter, going by Amazon reviews, is the better read.
Regardless of Archie’s fibbing about being a Native American, he apparently did live the life, becoming some hybrid of a mountain man and a Native American, learning the ways of both. This was no “Into the Wild” clumsy idealist, a la Christopher McCandless. Archie could live out in the wild in the harshest conditions of the frozen Canadian north and eek out a living. He must have done better when his books started selling like hotcakes although there is no apparent change to his lifestyle going by this movie.
Seen through a light Disneyesque animal-adventure lens, this is harmless stuff. Archie is always presented as a man simply torn between wanting human contact and wanting to be off alone. He makes his living as a hunting guide and a trapper. But he’s eventually domesticated and his consciousness is “raised” by his rather cute third (fourth?) wife/non-wife, “Pony,” played (somewhat oddly) by the lovely Annie Galipeau. I say “oddly” because her ascent seems to be channeling Isabella Rossellini. That’s all I heard every time she talked.
That’s a nice beaver, by the way. Obviously this film is presented as the ends justifying the means. But it’s first and foremost a relationship/animal film. And there are some good scenes in it, including Archie returning to visit his aunts in Hastings.
It has the feel of made-for-TV but I will say that it is watchable. You just have to get over the fact that Pierce Brosnan doesn’t look like 1/64th Native American, much less the half that he purports to be as Grey Owl. And the little beavers are cute and cuddly, so you have that.
Richard Attenborough directs (aka “virtue signals”) Pierce Brosnan in the main character of Archie Grey Owl. Two things to point out at the start: Brosnan doesn’t look even faintly Native American (compared to the real Archie, or anyone else), or even a halfbreed, as he presents himself. And going by the info at Wiki on Archibald Stansfeld Belaney, the story itself sees Archie through a very soft-focus lens. There’s not one mention of Archie’s fondness for drink, for example. Nor do you really get a good sense of his hopping from one bigamous marriage to another.
Be that as it may, I found the story to be watchable in a sort of light Disneyesque stuck-at-home-by-the-Wuhan-Flu looking-for-something-to-do way. The only large question is if Archie is a fraud or just an enthusiast who, instead of claiming at being a Native American like Elizabeth Warren, actually lived as one and might have wanted to be one. Playing a part he was not born to (including changing his name) is something that defines many Hollywood movie stars as well as a few politicians (Bill de Blasio/Warren Wilhelm Jr.). And given the amount of plastic surgery, hair transplants, etc., strewn through our culture, it becomes difficult to separate real from fake. He’s a genuine something. I’m just not sure what.
So we’ll give Archie the benefit of the doubt and assume he’s simply an adventurer. We do this not because he supported environmental policies (thus the soft-focus gloss of Attenborough and the script) but because he seems more a harmless roque than anything more sinister. He wasn’t seeking anything beyond a string of bigamous wives and maybe to spread awareness about the plight of the beaver and the forests in North America due to too much hunting and logging.
His most famous book is apparently Pilgrims of the Wild followed by The Men of the Last Frontier. The latter, going by Amazon reviews, is the better read.
Regardless of Archie’s fibbing about being a Native American, he apparently did live the life, becoming some hybrid of a mountain man and a Native American, learning the ways of both. This was no “Into the Wild” clumsy idealist, a la Christopher McCandless. Archie could live out in the wild in the harshest conditions of the frozen Canadian north and eek out a living. He must have done better when his books started selling like hotcakes although there is no apparent change to his lifestyle going by this movie.
Seen through a light Disneyesque animal-adventure lens, this is harmless stuff. Archie is always presented as a man simply torn between wanting human contact and wanting to be off alone. He makes his living as a hunting guide and a trapper. But he’s eventually domesticated and his consciousness is “raised” by his rather cute third (fourth?) wife/non-wife, “Pony,” played (somewhat oddly) by the lovely Annie Galipeau. I say “oddly” because her ascent seems to be channeling Isabella Rossellini. That’s all I heard every time she talked.
That’s a nice beaver, by the way. Obviously this film is presented as the ends justifying the means. But it’s first and foremost a relationship/animal film. And there are some good scenes in it, including Archie returning to visit his aunts in Hastings.
It has the feel of made-for-TV but I will say that it is watchable. You just have to get over the fact that Pierce Brosnan doesn’t look like 1/64th Native American, much less the half that he purports to be as Grey Owl. And the little beavers are cute and cuddly, so you have that.