Rin Tin Tin and the Mystery of the Missing Oscar

Rin Tin Tin

Way back in 1929, when the Academy of Motion Picture Artsand Sciences was brand new, they organized the first Oscar presentations.  The members of the Academy voted on the (then short) list of awards, including best actor and actress.  When the votes were counted, the winner for best actor was Rin Tin Tin.

It really wasn't surprising.  Though it's hard to imagine today, Rin Tin Tin was the biggest star of his era.  Rinty, as he was known, helped to turn Warner Bros. from a small, struggling studio into the huge industry leader it became.  He was so famous -- and so beloved -- that when he died in 1932 radio broadcasts all over America were interrupted with the news.  In 1929 there really was no other clear choice for Best Actor.  There was Rin Tin Tin, and there was everyone else.

But (according to Susan Orlean, in her book Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend) the Academy was worried that if they gave the first ever Best Actor award to a dog, no one would take their new organization seriously.  And so, they gave it to the runner up, a German silent film actor named Emil Jannings.

Emil Jannings and Marlene Dietrich in "The Blue Angel" (1930)

(Who?  Emil Jannings was a German actor, well known to silent film audiences.  He starred opposite Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel.  Jannings had a thick German accent, which effectively ended his career in Hollywood once talkies came in.  During World War II he starred in Nazi Propaganda films and was reportedly close with Joseph Goebbels.  If you've seen Quentin Tarantino film Inglorious Basterds, Jannings is portrayed as one of the German actors in the climactic theater scene. You can find his Wikipedia page here -- and in the spirit of full disclosure, it was me who added the information about Rin Tin Tin to his biography.)

Taking into account the times, and the youth of Hollywood, the decision is understandable.  But over the years, the Oscars have become an institution, one that is devoted to celebrating and preserving the history of Motion Pictures.  And now, it seems only fitting that one of the greatest movie stars of all time -- Rin Tin Tin -- should finally get his due.

The folks over at The Dog Files (a great blog -- if you're not familiar with it, check it out) have started a petition to do just that.  They are calling on the Academy to include in the live Oscar ceremony a montage honoring animals in film, and then award (re-award) a posthumous Best Actor Oscar to Rin Tin Tin.

As my friends could tell you, I can go a little overboard on the subject of pop culture injustices (Why aren't the Monkees in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?)  But this, I really believe, is a cause whose time has come.  So I would like to call upon all my readers to sign the petition -- and if the spirit moves you, maybe write directly to the Academy of Motion PictureArts and Sciences.   

Let's get Rinty back his Oscar.

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Readers of Birds and Beasts might also enjoy our sister blog Birdland West, which covers birds and wildlife, mostly in the Seattle Area.  Currently at Birdland West, CSI: Pigeon Town, an avian murder mystery. 

 

Best Of 2011

Photo Courtesy of Animal Planet

This time of year everyone is coming up with their "Best Of" Lists, so not to be outdone, here at Books and Beasts we're offering our choices too.  If you follow the blog, you know that I've reviewed a lot of books and a few movies -- I'm pretty selective in what I include, so everything that I covered is there because I thought it was worth checking out -- even the books I had problems with.  However, even among the best, a few stand out.  So here are my choices for the best animal related offerings of the past year.

1.      Best Fiction -- Again, I've reviewed a lot of great novels and short story collections and all of them are worth your time.  However, there is one novel that stands out this past year among all the rest.  Possum Summer, by Jen K. Bloom is a wonderful children's book that will speak to child in the heart of every reader.  It's the kind of book I loved when I was a kid, and still do.  You can read my review of it here, but you might as well save yourself the time and just rush out and get it.  Not to be missed.

2.      Best Nonfiction -- Same caveat, all the books I've reviewed are important, useful and entertaining (in different combinations, depending on what they were).  But if I have to pick one that most affected me this year, it would be Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend by Susan Orlean.  Wonderful portrait of the dog so famous that when he died they broke into radio broadcasts around the country to announce it.  You can read my review here, but please, get this book, and pass it on to all your dog loving friends.

3.      Best Movie --  This one's easy.  (I haven't seen War Horse yet, but as soon as I do it'll show up here on the blog).  The best animal movie of the year -- and one of the best I've seen in a very long time -- is Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  Yes, it's true, I love it in part because I'm a geek, and there are scenes of Apes running wild through the city and attacking helicopters.  But this is much more intelligent, thoughtful and accurate movie than I ever expected.  The writers obviously did extensive research on chimps raised in captivity, and Caesar -- played by Andy Serkis in a performance that would be nominated for an Oscar if there was any justice in the world -- is the most realistic chimpanzee character ever captured on film.  (Sorry, Cheetah.)  Emotionally, technically, and intellectually the best movie of the year.

The Worst -- I don't usually include a section on "worst" in my blog -- I prefer to use time and space pointing out what's best, and what's important.  But one blog post I wrote this year Tears for Elephants has drawn more hits than anything else I've written.  It's about the sad fate of elephants in Hollywood, including the ones who starred in Water for Elephants.  I gave that book an enthusiastic review, because I think it's great -- but I boycotted the movie, sadly, because I think it could have been great too.  There have been a number of movies this year -- including Hangover 2, Zookeeper, and the new We Bought a Zoo, that made the unfortunate choice of using exotic, wild animals -- a practice that contributes to the abuse, over hunting, and endangerment of these creatures.  You can see my thoughts about it in earlier reviews, but it only makes my Best Movie choice even more notable.  The totally CGI apes in "Rise" are wonderful creations.

4.      Best TV Show -- I haven't reviewed this one yet in the blog, but it's too good not to include.  There are lots of great nature and animal shows on TV, but this one is the best if you're an animal lover -- especially if you're a dog lover -- absolutely if you're a Pit Bull lover. It also happens to be hands down the best reality show going: Pit Bulls and Parolees on Animal Planet. (This is the new favorite show of my canine housemate Lulubelle Dawg, who was also a big fan of Meercat Manner back in the day.) In this day and age, just the idea was audacious.  Let's take two of the most stigmatized groups we can think of, and then let's make an honest, sympathetic, non-sensationalized show about them.  If you've never seen it, the show follows Tia, the woman who runs Villalobos ranch, a rescue facility for pit bulls.  She is helped by her daughters -- who have had difficult lives in their own ways -- and by the parolees she takes on as volunteers.  I don't know of another show on television that deals with second chances, heartbreak, triumph and joy more often.  Oh yeah, and there are Pit Bulls!  What more could you want? 

Well, those are my choices for 2011.  I'd love to hear your thoughts or picks, whether you agree with me or not.  And I look forward to continuing to bring you reviews and information about the wide world of "Books and Beasts".

Readers of Birds and Beasts might also enjoy our sister blog Birdland West, which covers birds and wildlife, mostly in the Seattle Area.

Hail, Caesar!

 

 

I'll spare everyone the suspense and tell you upfront that I loved Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  But that was almost a foregone conclusion.  For months now I've been pestering friends about going to see it -- and meeting almost universal skepticism.  To which I responded with something like, "Apes running through the city, attacking helicopters.  Do you understand?  Apes.  What's not to love?"  As someone who has watched Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong at least twice a year since it came out, I was going to love this movie, even it was just a bunch of CGI scenes spliced together with no plot or substance to support it.

Fortunately for all of us, that's not the case.

The first Planet of the Apes movie came out in 1968, when I was five years old.  The final movie of the original series, Battle for the Planet of the Apes came out in 1973.  In between came Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, and Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.  There was a short lived television series in 1974(which starred Roddy McDowell and Mark Lenard, Star Trek's Sarek) and an even shorter lived animated series Return to the Planet of the Apes in 1975.    For geeks of my generation, it is impossible to overestimate how big a part these movies played in our lives.  In a time before Star Wars, when the only Star Trek was the original series in re-runs on television, and when big budget science fiction movies were almost unknown, Planet of the Apes loomed large.

And for me, at least, the two that loomed the largest were the last two (possibly because I was a little older when they came out).  I've never been overly fond of the first movie, with Charlton Heston, or the second, with it's weird underground mutant bomb worshiping cults.  But starting with the third movie, when the Chimpanzees Cornelius and Mira return to earth in the 1970's, I began to get really interested.  "Conquest" tells of the revolt of the enslaved apes -- all of whom are Mira's descendants, we must assume -- and "Battle" picks up about ten years later with Apes in control and Caesar trying desperately to find some way for them to co-exist with humans.

You can't re-watch the movies now without seeing the heavy-handed racial allegory everywhere. The various directors were determined to make their relevant political statements at the time, and the result is that the old moves feel dated in a way that has nothing to do with their basic ideas.  Only "Battle", which is mainly a full out action melodrama, escapes this overt politicizing.

Even as a kid, I knew enough about apes (I read about Jane Goodall, and Diane Fossey, and Washoe and others in National Geographic, for instance) to know that the portrayal of the different ape species was all wrong.  Gorillas were the heavies, the military complex.  In the real world, of course, gorillas are peaceful vegetarians who's aggression is mostly bluff and bluster.  Orangutans, bearing almost no resemblance to their real ancestors, were the administrative class -- Church and State, which didn't seem to be very separated in the first movie's world.  And the Chimpanzees were the counter culture -- scientists, hippies, war protestors -- naturally, in the late nineteen sixties in the United States, they were the heroes.

The reality of course is that chimpanzees are Machiavellian political animals who scheme and deceive and go to war almost as well as humans -- capable of the full range of goodness and badness that we are.  In any multi-ape society they would most likely be on top -- the gorillas would be the hippies.  But of course, the old Planet of the Apes movies weren't really about apes at all.

"Rise of the Planet of the Apes", directed by Rupert Wyatt and written by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, is a whole different species.  Being a creature of its time, it has its axes grind as well, but it does so for the most part subtly, letting the characters and the story carry the message.  And it is (oh frabjous day) that rarest of mass media beasties -- The Well Written and Scientifically Plausible Science Fiction Movie.

And in this movie, the apes really do take top billing.  (Despite the heavy hitters in the "human" cast -- James Franco, Frieda Pinto, and John Lithgow) it is Andy Serkis -- behind the motion capture and CGI -- as Caesar (along with the other apes) that carries the film.  A couple of chimps in the movie show the battered old faces you see in sanctuaries and Nature documentaries -- the Orangutan Maurice is cool (he has a background in the circus, and like Caesar, he knows how to sign) and the one gorilla in the film -- perhaps a little too Kong-like despite his normal size -- is very impressive.  Some of the films more moving scenes -- and important points -- are carried in the non-verbal interaction of the apes.  Serkis, who was grossly cheated out of Oscar recognition for his role as Gollum in "The Lord of the Rings", again deserves the highest accolades for this performance.  (In an interview with NPR he explained how much the technology of motion capture has advanced since he played Gollum.) 

Director Wyatt and the rest of the team behind "Rise" deserve the loud praise for their decision not to use any actual apes in the film.  They recognized that the issue of apes in entertainment is a serious ethical problem, and they made the humane choice.  The film doesn't suffer from it at all.  This is a fact that other filmmakers should take note of.  (I wish the makers of Water for Elephants, Zookeeper and "The Hangover" had made similar kinds of choices.)

"Rise of the Planet of the Apes" is not a perfect film.  I'm not overly fond of the "there are some things science is not meant to delve into" trope.  (Interestingly, it is Frieda Pinto who gets to voice those sentiments in "Rise" -- perhaps so her Indian beauty and exotic accent can lend them portent).  I would like to see a serious movie that tackles the question of Uplift -- to borrow David Brin's term -- in all it's implications, without resorting to disaster/horror movie form.  I'm also not fond of end-of-the-world stories.  I would rather see stories about how we might grapple with and even solve our problems -- about the possibilities of the future -- than about how we will inevitably destroy ourselves.   In this case, though, those are minor quibbles about a very good film.

 It seems that I seldom see movies any more -- no matter how much fun they may be while I'm watching them -- that can stand the weight of serious thought.  "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" is a movie both to enjoy in the moment, and to ponder afterwards.  That is a pleasure too rare to take for granted.

(Attentive viewers, who are familiar with the original movies, will see that the filmmakers have subtly set the table for the sequel.  If it rises to the same high standards as this film, I can't wait.)

On the question of animals in entertainment, interested readers might like to check out my previous postings Tears for Elephants and A Sad Digression. 

Readers of Birds and Beasts might also enjoy our sister blog Birdland West, which covers birds and wildlife, mostly in the Seattle Area.

Tears For Elephants

(My review of Water For Elephants -- the book -- can be seen here.)

A few years ago the animal advocacy group I volunteer for was organizing pickets of the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus, which comes annually to Everett Washington.  They don't come to Seattle anymore.  Some people attribute this to protests, although the circus claims that its only because the Event Center in Everett is a more economical venue.  I was very conflicted when I first heard about the protests.  I remember my father taking me to the circus as a kid and being totally captivated by the magic of the big show.  (I've always had a weakness for spectacle).  But I know that Ringling Brothers has a long history of being cited for problems with its animal handling, and that the very issue of keeping elephants in captivity -- much less training them to do circus acts -- is problematic. 

I decided that I wanted to investigate for myself.

The first person I talked to was the PR director for our organization.  She once worked for PETA and was now involved in coordinating the circus protests.  She gave me a lot of background information on Ringling Brothers, including an undercover video taken of training in the circus (which I've never been able to watch more than a couple of minutes of).  But I was still conflicted -- there was still a little kid in me who didn't want to give up the dream of the circus (and who loves having the chance to see elephants in person, whether it be in circuses or zoos).  So I contacted the local PR people for Ringling Brothers and managed to wrangle a press pass to talk to people inside the show.  I went up on the first night that they were open, and  was treated very well.  Ringling Brothers goes to great lengths to make local press feel comfortable.  (A large part of the press section of their website is devoted to issues about animal welfare, litigation and stressing their role in elephant conservation).  I was given a trainer to show me around, take me backstage and see the elephants waiting for the show.  They seemed to be at ease even with all the excitement around them.  The trainer talked about her love for the animals -- which seemed genuine -- and how she had given up a previous career to train for this one -- "run away and join the circus" she joked.  She reminded me P.T. Barnum (known as a reliable source)  said the two pillars on which the circus rests are clowns and elephants, and that following that mandate the  company had established the world famous Clown College as well as a Center for Elephant Conservation -- a 200 acre facility in Florida devoted to "conservation, breeding and understanding".  (You can see Ringling Brothers' description of the facility here.)  She told me that she had never seen animals mistreated, and that his particular unit of the circus, which she had been with for a long time, had never had an animal death since she had been working there.    It was a very impressive presentation.

And it was mostly untrue.

It turns out that this very same unit had a big cat die on their previous stop, under what the papers described as "suspicious" circumstances.  And that this unit, and Ringling Brothers as a whole, had an unusually high rate of animal attrition as well as a checkered record with Federal inspectors.  They were also involved in court cases and litigation, which they usually managed to keep tied up in the court for many years.

So much for the magic of the Circus.

I thought about that experience though, when I heard that they were going to make a movie out of Sarah Gruen's book Water For Elephants.  I love the book -- which deals openly with the subject of animal abuse -- and was excited about the idea of it being a movie.  But I was also disturbed.  As a rule, I'm really uncomfortable with the use of exotic wild animals in entertainment.  It promotes their being kept in captivity and creates a whole constellation of problems.  A few years ago I refused to see the movie Speed Racer (which the Geek in me really wanted to see) because of reports from the Humane Society that the chimpanzee used in the film had been struck and beaten on the set.  Using Great Apes in entertainment is a practice that I oppose, so even the directors' choice to use a real chimpanzee was upsetting.

What I hoped, when I first heard about Water for Elephants, was that they would do something really innovative, like creating CGI elephants (and other animals) instead of using real ones.  With today's technology it could be done convincingly and could be used to add to the dark and romantic atmosphere of the story. That's not what they decided to do.

Once again, I was prepared to put my misgivings aside.  I have a great respect for Sara Gruen and I know that she is passionately devoted to animals and their welfare.  (There's a wonderful picture of her on her website playing with Thai, the elephant "star" of the movie.)  When the movie came out I looked up the reviews from the American Humane Society, which monitors the use of animals in films and television.  They gave the film a rating of "Outstanding" and certified it as "No animals were harmed".  So I told myself I should just stop worrying and enjoy the movie.

Now, reports are surfacing about the company that trained Thai, the elephant in the movie.  KTLA in Los Angeles -- as well as other sources around the country -- are reporting on undercover video released by Animal Defenders International.  (You can see the KTLA report here.)  The organization which trained Thai is called "Have Trunk Will Travel", and according to its website it is a privately funded organization that uses the proceeds from giving elephant shows, rides and providing elephants for movies to "care for elephants and provide for their future".   The video shows elephants -- including baby elephants and including Thai -- being hit with a "bull hook", a long, sharp pointed "tool" which is used on elephants (and which, ironically, is shown disapprovingly in Gruen's book) as well as with electrical shocks.  

The bottom line is that there simply is no way for these animals to be kept, humanely, in captivity.  And there is no way they learned such unnatural behaviors as standing on their heads without questionable training techniques.  The public needs to know this.  We need to know when we support these activities, when we go see movies that use exotic wild animal like elephants or Great Apes, we are supporting a tradition that is rooted in cruelty and suffering.  

The Humane Society does a great job of monitoring the treatment of animals on movie sets.  But perhaps it needs to go much further.  Perhaps they need to monitor and certify trainers, and refuse to give their designation to movies that don't used certified trainers.  Perhaps, they need to simply accept that some animals cannot be humanely used for entertainment, and that giving a "No Animals Were Harmed" designation to any film which uses these animals is unacceptable.  With today's technology, it is doubly unnecessary. 

I, for one, will not go see movies, or live performances, with elephants or Great Apes in them again.  No matter how much I want to believe in the "magic", the reality is too sad.

I'm done.

If you are interested in learning more about the horrendous history of exotic animals in entertainment, a good book to star with is Visions of Caliban, by Dale Peterson and Jane Goodall.  This book is about chimpanzees, not elephants, but the sections on the use of apes in movies is must reading.  It reveals the heartbreaking fate of many animals, including the orangutan who "starred" with Clint Eastwood in Every Which Way But Loose.  Animal lovers should definitely read it.

Hachi: A Dog's Tale

 

Hachi: A Dog's Tale 

Directed by Lasse Hallström, starring Richard Gere and Joan Allen

So far, I haven't done any movie reviews on this site -- after all, our title is "Books and Beasts" -- but I recently watched a movie that I think is right at home here.  Hachi: A Dog's Tale  came out in 2009 with little fanfare.  I pay a good bit of attention to movie releases, and I don't remember hearing anything about it.  In fact, I only found it by accident on NetFlix and ordered it because -- well, there's an Akita in the film.  What more do you need?

I remember several years ago when I was working as a volunteer in a companion animal shelter, coming in for my shift one afternoon and being told by the kennel attendants that the "big black-and-white dog" on the back run didn't want to leave his pen to go outside.  Apparently they had tried everything, from coaxing him out with treats to just putting a leash on him and insisting that he go.  Nothing worked.  Often, during the hours when the shelter was open the staff were busy dealing with the public and the volunteers were left on their own.  I frequently do well with difficult and stubborn dogs (as long as they aren't my own -- but that's a different story) so I went around to take a look at this problem pooch.  As soon as I stopped in front of his pen, I understood.  The beautiful black and white dog stretched out on the dog bed had the unmistakable "noble" head and upcurled tail of an Akita.  He was young, maybe a year old, and there were some pretty ugly wounds on the top of his head probably the result of a fight.

"Who in the world was dumb enough to tangle with you?" I asked him.

He just watched me.  Not friendly.  Not aggressive.  Just watched.

I understood right away what the problem was.  A lot of dog handlers and trainers claim that the secret to dealing with difficult dogs is to assert your authority, to make it clear that you are the "alpha dominant dog".  I've never been really comfortable with that.  In my experience, dog's are well aware that humans run the world.  Most of them respect that, a few of them rebel against it.  Some, like second class citizens everywhere, are constantly on the lookout for ways to beat the system or slip the leash.  But I suspect that if you could take a survey of dogs everywhere their number one complaint would not be that humans are too strict, or that (according to the Caesar Milan philosophy) humans are poor alpha's and don't provide enough structure -- not even that the food is boring and there aren't enough walks.  I'm pretty sure that the number one complain of dogs everywhere is simply this:  Humans don't listen.  And since dogs spend a great deal of their time observing and "listening" to humans, it must seem more than a little disrespectful.

What's true for most dogs goes double (at least) for Akitas.

The Akita -- Akita-Inu or Great Japanese dog -- is believed by the Japanese to be one of the oldest breeds, a claim that modern DNA studies seem to bear out.  Among those who have only met them casually, Akita's have a reputation for being aloof and disinterested.  But in their homeland, they are a symbol of unswerving loyalty.

Hachi is a remake of a 1987 movie Hachi-kō  by the Japanese director Seijirō Kōyama, and both are based (the American version more loosely) on the real life case of a dog named Hachiko who was adopted by Professor Hidesaburō Ueno of the University of Tokyo in 1924.  Hachiko learned to meet his master's train every day when the Professor came home from work.  In 1925 the Professor died of a cerebral hemorrhage while at work, and never returned home.  Hachiko continued to return to the train station to meet the afternoon train every day for nine years.  His determination attracted national attention.  Articles were published about him.  A bronze statue of him was erected at the train station.  So great was the national admiration for Hachiko that he became an iconic symbol of family loyalty and national determination.  His fame in credited, at least in part, with reawakening interest and pride in the national dog and helping to save the Akita breed from extinction after World War II.

In this version the Professor -- a composer and music teacher -- is played by Richard Gere.  We, as viewers, get to see the young Akita puppy crated up by a monk in Japan and shipped out to a new owner in the United States.  But the crate falls off a baggage cart and the puppy escapes.  By the time the Professor finds him on the train platform he has no identifying information, just a collar which bears the Japanese symbol for the number eight -- Hachi.  The Professor takes him in to save him from the pound, promising his reluctant wife that he will find the dog a home.  There is some low-key conflict between the spouses over adopting the dog, but it is pretty obviously a done deal.  The Professor and the puppy have bonded.  Indeed, what is truly remarkable about this movie is that it is entirely the story of the relationship between one man and one dog.  All of the other human business -- the ups and downs of marriage, the wedding of a daughter and the birth of a grandson, and so on -- are only backdrop, and as the film goes on they drop away.  By the time the Professor dies, the film is entirely Hachi's.  In moments it comes as close as any film I've ever seen to truly presenting us with the dog's point of view.  (A few brief scenes are even shot in black and white to emphasize the dog's perspective).    There are actors who can carry a movie just with the strength of their personality, and as this film goes on it is the surprisingly expressive face of the Akita Hachi that delivers the emotional punch of the film.  (According to the Humane Society reviews Hachi was played as puppy by two Shiba Inus and as an adult by three alternating Akitas.  Good work guys.)

In the shelter that day, I guessed that it would be futile to try more bribes or enticements to draw the Akita out of his kennel.  And I certainly didn't expect him to accept anyone he just met as an alpha.  There was nothing in his body language to suggest that he cared what status we assigned to ourselves.  Hung up on status and primate political projections, humans often overlook how deep the emotion of pride runs in some breeds. 

"I know you call the shots," some dogs silently tell us, "even if I can't quite figure out why.  But Buddy, you're going to treat me with respect.  Or I ain't going nowhere."

I slipped into the kennel and sat down close to, but not right next to, the Akita.  I talked to him quietly and let him get used to me.  After a while I gave him a treat.  After a few treats, I scratched his ear, careful to stay clear of the wounds on his head.  Like most big, heavily coated dogs he had a great need for scratching assistance.  Mostly, I felt, he just wanted to be acknowledge.  Finally, I got up and showed him my leash.  Glancing around to make sure no one could see me, I put my hands together and bowed slightly.

"Akita-san," I said.  A silly American making stereotyped Japanese noises at a dog who had almost certainly been born and raised within a fifty mile radius of Seattle.  But he lifted his head and let me attach the leash, and a second later he slowly stood up, stretched, and followed me out of the kennel.  Just two respectful acquaintances going for a walk.

For those who have any experience with Akitas, Hachi: A Dog's Tale rings especially true.  For any dog lover, it is an unabashed tear jerker.  More so than any other realistic film I've ever seen, this really is the dog's story.  It comes a close to making a real dog the central character as any film I know -- much more so than more well known films like Marley and Me.  It's one of the best animal films I have seen in a long time.