Brewster McCloud (1970)

Rene Auberjonois: The Lecturer

Photos 

Quotes 

• The Lecturer : [First line]  I forgot the opening line.

• The Lecturer : The flight of birds. The flight of man. Man's similarity to birds. Birds similarity to man. These are the subjects at hand. And we will deal with them for the next hour or so and hope that we draw no conclusions; else wise, the subject shall cease to fascinate us and, alas, another dream would be lost. There are far too few.

• The Lecturer : Social behavior. Schjelderup-Ebbe first used the word dominance in describing his observations on the social hierarchies of birds. He concluded that within a flock, composed of single species, there exists a definite order of social distinctions. And between any two birds, one invariably has precedence over the other.

• The Lecturer : In these words, the German poet Goethe expressed man's desire to fly, "How I yearn to throw myself into endless space and float above the awful abyss."

• The Lecturer : Man, incontestably the most advanced creature, has only to observe the flight of birds to realize the weight of the earth's imprisonment. And so, the desire to fly has been ever-present in the mind of man. But, the reality has been long in coming.

• The Lecturer : Has man truly realized his dream? To answer that, we must isolate the dream. Was the dream to attain the ability to fly? Or, was the dream the freedom that true flight seemed to offer man?

• The Lecturer : There could be no more shocking statement than to say the closest living relatives to men are house flies or that the butterfly evolved from a rhinoceros. But, is there any real proof? Can evolution really *prove* birds came from reptiles?

• The Lecturer : Courtship is ordinarily the province of the male. He shows his wares before the female, with an astonishing assortment of tricks, varying according to the species. He may posture, so as to reveal his gaudiest nuptial plumage, spread his tail and erect his crest or inflate brilliantly colored pouches or parade, dance, fly with dizzying acrobatics, sing his most fetching love song.

• The Lecturer : The blue-footed booby will compete for the attentions of her intended by goose-stepping in front of him, raising her bright, blue feet as high as she can and thrusting out her chest.

• The Lecturer : Courtship activities have the further function of regulating the timing of sex readiness; so that the reproductive physiology of a pair may be synchronized. This is particularly important in a flying animal; which cannot afford to carry indefinitely the extra ballast of greatly enlarged gonads.