I wasn't expecting much from a "family movie" that was awarded only two stars out of four by my TV guide but it's really quite well done. The location shooting in Haynes and Skagway, Alaska, is stunning. The narrative is clear -- parallel stories of a wolfish dog and a young man that come together at the end. Fine performances by everyone concerned. The dog wrangler should get a medal. Jed, who plays the dog, White Fang, deserves an academy award, and Bart the Bear does too for best supporting character. This may be the best adaptation of a Jack London novel that's ever been done.
Jack London himself was quite a character in the early 1900s. He was an oyster pirate in Oakland, traveled to Asia, lived in the artists' colony at Carmel, and made his way to Alaska during one of its periodic gold rushes. He later took to hard dope and died at an early age but before that, he produced some marvelously evocative stuff. His sketch of a ferry crossing from San Francisco to Sausalito in a heavy fog could have been described yesterday instead of 1904.
That ferry crossing is the opening of "The Sea Wolf," which may show his talent at its best -- until the love interest is introduced, at which point the writing plunges into purple. His short story, "To Build a Fire," is the first short story I remember reading in high school and I was duly impressed.
"White Fang" is equally gripping. The movie, not the story, which I haven't read. I did manage to run across an excerpt some years ago -- the scene in which White Fang gently closes his jaws around Jack's forearm and signal mute acceptance of their bond. It's a touching moment in a story filled with touching moments.
"White Fang", alas, has a stereotypical villain in James Remar, a fine actor. He's the bad guy who cons an Indian out of the dog and taunts the dog constantly to keep him angry enough to win the illegal dog fights that Remar has entered him into. The Indians didn't treat dogs with any familiarity. They weren't pets. They were work animals and did what they were told. "We are their gods," says Grey Beaver. They were indifferent but not cruel.
Klaus Maria Brandauer deserves applause too. He's an admirable actor whose career may have been stymied by his unprepossessing looks. His eyes are slanted at an odd angle that gives him a sort of feline expression. But he gets the job done and, as Jack the novice, Ethan Hawke pulls his weight, so to speak.
Alaska is great. Four time zones. And in the summer the sun never quite sets, yet everything stops just as if night had fallen. The birds stop singing, the forest and the towns quiet down, and everything seems asleep although it's sunny enough for rainbows to form at three in the morning.
Dogs are great too. They evolved from European jackals and were domesticated in Europe about 20,000 years ago. It's doubtful that they were pets. They were helpmates, as they were to Jack London's Indians, helping to trap large game animals, guarding the camp against intruders, perhaps saddled with packs, and living on scraps of food. They're social animals. They hunted in packs. That's probably why they're so much easier to "read" than cats, who were solitary predators.
Anyway, a nice job.
Jack London himself was quite a character in the early 1900s. He was an oyster pirate in Oakland, traveled to Asia, lived in the artists' colony at Carmel, and made his way to Alaska during one of its periodic gold rushes. He later took to hard dope and died at an early age but before that, he produced some marvelously evocative stuff. His sketch of a ferry crossing from San Francisco to Sausalito in a heavy fog could have been described yesterday instead of 1904.
That ferry crossing is the opening of "The Sea Wolf," which may show his talent at its best -- until the love interest is introduced, at which point the writing plunges into purple. His short story, "To Build a Fire," is the first short story I remember reading in high school and I was duly impressed.
"White Fang" is equally gripping. The movie, not the story, which I haven't read. I did manage to run across an excerpt some years ago -- the scene in which White Fang gently closes his jaws around Jack's forearm and signal mute acceptance of their bond. It's a touching moment in a story filled with touching moments.
"White Fang", alas, has a stereotypical villain in James Remar, a fine actor. He's the bad guy who cons an Indian out of the dog and taunts the dog constantly to keep him angry enough to win the illegal dog fights that Remar has entered him into. The Indians didn't treat dogs with any familiarity. They weren't pets. They were work animals and did what they were told. "We are their gods," says Grey Beaver. They were indifferent but not cruel.
Klaus Maria Brandauer deserves applause too. He's an admirable actor whose career may have been stymied by his unprepossessing looks. His eyes are slanted at an odd angle that gives him a sort of feline expression. But he gets the job done and, as Jack the novice, Ethan Hawke pulls his weight, so to speak.
Alaska is great. Four time zones. And in the summer the sun never quite sets, yet everything stops just as if night had fallen. The birds stop singing, the forest and the towns quiet down, and everything seems asleep although it's sunny enough for rainbows to form at three in the morning.
Dogs are great too. They evolved from European jackals and were domesticated in Europe about 20,000 years ago. It's doubtful that they were pets. They were helpmates, as they were to Jack London's Indians, helping to trap large game animals, guarding the camp against intruders, perhaps saddled with packs, and living on scraps of food. They're social animals. They hunted in packs. That's probably why they're so much easier to "read" than cats, who were solitary predators.
Anyway, a nice job.