MovieChat Forums > Animals Are Beautiful People (1974) Discussion > Concern about possible staged, tragic sc...

Concern about possible staged, tragic scene. Spoiler

posted 18 years ago by equalizer5150
17 replies | jump to latest

Near the beginning, they are filming the birds who live in "condominium" style bird nests that are over 100 years old. Somehow they are able to predict and film a dew drop form and then magnifying the sun's ray at the exact angle and distance to set fire to the nest. I find this very suspicious.

Notice the close-up of the dew drop forming. They never pan out. It goes from that angle to seeing the whole nest begin to burn as birds fly out and some appear to remain. Surely nobody is wicked enough to burn this nest for the sake of the film but it looks to me as though the close up was fake and then after having someone shoot a flaming arrow into the nest, they begin to film the whole tree.

According to the facts presented in the film, this occurrence is extremely rare and happens less than once ever 100 years AT LEAST!

Any opinions? Insight?

________________________Other than that scene, it's an amazing movie.

[–] sasamijurai 18 years ago

I doubt Jamie Uys would burn a tree full of Weaver Birds.

[–] equalizer5150 18 years ago

Me too. I re-watched the scene after I posted it. It definitely was staged but I believe the nest was either abandoned or man made because we never see birds flying out as it burns. They do show a close up of about 10 birds flying out of a nest but I suspect it was routine from another nest edited in.

Surely this has been brought up or asked of Jamie Uys.
If anyone ever sees an interview with him regarding this or any part of the movie I would appreciate it. It's a great movie. It should have been remastered when put to DVD considering all of the work put into it and how outstanding it is.

[–] jaysmut76-1 18 years ago

How about the scene where the snake is supposedly scaring away an elephant? I feel that was a cut and paste job, first they show the snake coiling, then the elephant turns back without showing the two animals together.

[–] gen12 17 years ago

In one scene, 2 porcupine-looking creatures try to enter a small hole at the same time and get stuck at the entrance because there isn't enough space for 2 there. After a while, another scene occurs where the 2 come out backwards and go in together again, only to be stuck again at the entrance. It looks like the film was rewound and then played for the second time.

Then, did the baboon really look under the same stone for the second time when it "fainted" at the sight of a snake first time? Why would the snake still be lying under the same stone? It was already let loose by the baboon.

[–] catsidhe (1649) 5 years ago

"Porcupine looking creatures"? Those were warthogs.

[–] alfabetizado 17 years ago

That whole movie had fake scenes. The seeds jumping from that plant are clearly artificial, so are the bees at that nest in the tree. Also, I heard the marula scene is fake too, apparentely elephants wouldn't suffer that strongly from the effects of the fruit.
Also, the ostrich scene is so unlikely, I mean, so many things happening at once: the baboon stealing an egg, the little ostrich coming out of his egg, the hunter and the hyena showing up.
And the duck scene, we never see the duck and the hyena together.

I think they had trained animals for some scenes, on other scenes they just scared animals, or did even worse, like tranquilizing an elephant just for the sake of filming it or burning a nest like that.

[–] mkell_226 17 years ago

Nature documentors always spiff things up a bit, and the producers here do that a *lot*. Regarding the weaver birds, my understanding is that the colony was abandoned. Notice, for example, how the chicks are filmed backing away in fear, but you never see flames or smoke in the same shot. While it's easy to cry foul at a bit of creative editing, most often the film makers are telling stories that can and do happen, but didn't necessarily happen while they were filming... though when I was watching some of the "drunkards" staggering about, I did start to thing about tranquilizers. All in all though, this movie's plain old fun, and I think helps the kids feel a bit more compassion towards animals in general.

[–] dutchtreat-1 17 years ago

Concerning crying foul regarding the nest burning, I would rather cry, "Fowl!"
in the same spirit in which the movie was made. By the way, the Marula fruit really does ferment, and animals really eat it, and really get drunk. I have it on good authority from a South African friend of mine.
By the way, I never hear about David Niven's wonderful deadpan narration style for the film. Part of what makes it, for me.

[–] AgnoscoCausa 17 years ago

The Marula fruit is used to make a delicious cream liqueur.

[–] woodyuj 17 years ago

The narrator was Paddy O'Byrne, a radio presenter in South Africa at the time.
Regarding the editing, yes, many scenes are 'contrived' and make use of repeated shots, animation and totally unconnected scenes, but remember this was a low-budget film shot over a number of years in a pretty unforgiving environment. You just can't get wild animals to work to a script...

[–] alfabetizado 14 years ago

I know that animals actually do that, but I don't think an Elephant would get high from those fruits. I don't think there are enough fermented marulas on just one site to get one elephant high, let alone two.

[–] maverx1 15 years ago

I was wondering the exact same thing. It could be that they just saw a nest which (for whatever reason) caught fire and, afterwards, filmed the dew drop as a potential cause. I find it very hard to believe that they purposely set the nest on fire.

Although there are definitely a few "fake" or replayed/edited scenes, this is still a higly enjoyable film. As someone previously said, they portray incidents that do happen; they just didn't necessarily happen during filming.

[–] ImJacksUsername 13 years ago

The odds of getting the burning nest on film is extremely unlikely - the film makers almost certainly set it on fire; hopefully it was abandoned before that.

In the scene with the ostriches spinning (supposedly rejoicing after the rain), you can see an elaborate fence in the background.

[–] drunkdaddy69 13 years ago

many scenes have ANIMATION others heavily edited. but this is exactly what micheal moore does in his docs.{well he does a lot more manipulation and lies} and it made him BILLIONS.
just watched more of it and the bird that leads to bees is fake.

[–] ImJacksUsername 13 years ago

[citation needed]

[–] org1andrew 10 years ago

In the credits they give thanks to two Ostrich farms.

Man, reading through this thread bums me out after such an amazing movie. If I wanted to watch a true, raw documentary about animals in nature, I have hundreds to choose from. This movie is unique and should be revered for its construction despite its falsities.

The 'ethics' of documentary filming in 1975 weren't nearly as robust as they are now (see Africa Addio for instance), so I'm not 'concerned' about what is past, even if they did burn the tree with the birds in it, as long as future documentaries don't do stupid things like that.

[–] pimp4u 8 years ago

The things that happen in real nature are far worse than anything the filmmakers could have done (if they did). I just finished watching it and it is still one of my favorite nature films ever. It's done with an entertaining, humorous tone - while at the same time being educational. They did an outstanding job that stands the test of time and technology. I thank them for making such a wonderful film.