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White Wilderness (film)
The lemmings will jump off of the cliff when they see this.
Directed By:
James Algar
Produced By:
Ben Sharpsteen Walt Disney
Written By/Screenplay:
James Algar
Music By:
Oliver Wallace
Release Date:
August 12, 1958
Country:
United States Canada
Language:
English
White Wilderness is a 1958 nature documentary film produced by Walt Disney Productions as part of its True Live Adventure series. It is noted for it propagation of the misconception of lemming mass suicide.
The film is directed by James Algar and narrated by Winston Hibler. It was filmed on location in Canada over the course of three years. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and the Golden Bear for Best Documentary at the 1959 Berlin Film Festival.
The main and biggest problem with this movie is the one infamous scene where, we kid you not, a group of lemmings literally jump off a cliff into the Arctic Ocean on-screen. This is a horrible attempt to cash in with the myth of lemmings committing suicide by jumping off cliffs, which is not what they do in real life.
To make matters worse, the whole scene was actually faked as well. The so called "Arctic Ocean" was actually filmed in the Bow River in Alberta, Canada, where lemmings do not live in, the lemmings were taken from Inuit children, and that they were actually thrown into the river by the filmmakers. This could potentially imply that Disney is promoting animal cruelty to audiences, which is horrible and unacceptable for a Disney documentary (Or any documentary as a whole).
Just like most of the documentaries, there is a lot of filler in this movie, especially from the lemming scene.
The production values in this movie are very abhorrent and are by far the worst in the series. The lemming scene is the WORST offender, given that the whole scene was staged and that the scene was filmed in Alberta, Canada rather than the real Arctic Ocean.
The narration is such a big downgrade from the other documentaries, mostly because just like the other films, the narrator himself is still reduced to a annoying plot device who does absolutely nothing in this story except to point out a bunch of random gimmicks going on during the animals' journeys, meaning that you can just replace him or take him out, and the story would be the same.
The soundtrack, while charming, is just as lackluster as the other films.
False advertising: One poster claims that this documentary was filmed in the Arctic, but in reality, it was actually filmed in Canada.
