White Wilderness

White Wilderness
Original poster
Directed by	James Algar
Produced by	Ben Sharpsteen
Narrated by	Winston Hibler
Editing by	Norman R. Palmer
Release date(s)	12 August, 1958
Running time	72 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

White Wilderness is a nature documentary produced by Disney in 1958 noted for its splendid visuals as well as its propagation of the myth of lemming suicide.

Production

The film was directed by James Algar and narrated by Winston Hibler. It was filmed on location in Canada over the course of three years.

Reception

It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. ^[1]

Controversy

White Wilderness contains a scene that supposedly depicts a mass lemming migration, and ends with the lemmings leaping to their deaths into the Arctic Ocean. There have been some reports that the Disney film describes this as an actual suicidal action by the lemmings, but the narrator in the film does state that the lemmings are likely not attempting suicide, but rather are migrating and upon encountering water, attempt to cross it. If the water they attempt to cross is too wide, they suffer exhaustion and drown.

In 1982, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation news magazine The Fifth Estate broadcast a documentary about animal cruelty in Hollywood, focusing on White Wilderness as well as the television program Wild Kingdom. Bob McKeown, the host of the CBC program, found that the lemming scene was filmed at the Bow River near downtown Calgary and not at the Arctic Ocean as implied by the film. He found out that the lemmings did not voluntarily jump into the river but were pushed in by a rotating platform installed by the film crew. He also interviewed a lemming expert who claimed that the particular species of lemming shown in the film is not known to migrate, much less commit mass suicide. He also discovered that footage of a polar bear cub falling down an Arctic ice slope was really filmed in a Calgary film studio. ^[2][3]

The scene of lemmings leaping off a cliff in White Wilderness was used as political metaphor in a campaign ad promoting Andrew Rice,^[4] an Oklahoma candidate in the 2008 US Senate race.

References

External links

• White Wilderness at the Internet Movie Database
• White Wilderness video at YouTube
• "Lemmings" political ad at YouTube

This documentary film-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e