Writing for Behemoth

I watched many films (it is one of my passion), but I've never passed by any film like Never Cry Wolf (1983). It is simply a brilliant film: a masterpiece.

At times when I am alone in my room... I like to watch it and just enjoy its excellent narration, beautiful sceneries and touching background music.

The other beautiful thing about the film is that the actors are very few. It is a film about the Arctic wilderness, wolves, and the loneliness of a scientist.

There are two Inuits in the film: Zachary Ittimangnaq and Samson Jorah.

I enjoyed the Zachary character in the film: Ootek. He was an elderly Inuit who had vast knowledge about wolves and cared about them deeply. Ootek believed that a wolf devoured his soul. His wife, Martha Ittimangnaq also played very shortly in the film.

Zachary Ittimangnaq as Ootek in Never Cry Wolf

Then I read an insightful article about the making of Never Cry Wolf, A New York Times Time Magazine article (October 16, 1983) by Bruce Brown: “Filming 'Never Cry Wolf' Making the film of a biologist's self-discovery became a saga in itself”.

Reading this article is as necessary of watching the film. It explains the processes of making such a masterpiece in almost three years. The film that Charles Martin Smith stated: “It was the loneliest film I've ever worked on”.

I found out that Zachary Ittimangnaq had film experience beforehand; John Robert Colombo in his book, Canadian Literary Landmarks (1984), mentioned him:

“... the elderly shaman, played by Zachary Ittimangnaq of Pelly Bay on the Gulf of Boothia... Ittimangnaq, a film veteran, starred in NFB's “Netsilik's Series” of twenty-six anthropological films.”

So, I have searched for Netsilik's series, and fortunately, I've found them in two sources: Google Videos and NFB (National Film Board of Canada). It was right, Zachary Ittimangnaq played the Inuit in the Netsilik series, thought he looked young this time! (in 1967).

The NFB videos, naturally, are freely available to the public.

I watched all the episodes; it is a comprehensive documentary about traditional lives of Inuit and every episode beings with this announcement:

“Because of their almost inaccessible, the Netsilik, the people of Seal, were virtually the last of Inuit groups to abandon the nomadic life of the Arctic hunter. As late as 1923 the Danish explorer, Knud Rasmussen, reported that numerous Netsilik had never seen a white man. In the early 1960s, the people of Seal still remembered vividly the old nomadic ways. Thus, a minimum of reconstruction was required to film the traditional life of Netsilik. “

The final link is an outstanding and an eye-opener: the 55-min documentary of Through These Eyes.

Apparently the showing Inuit's lives as an educational programme for students, caused controversies in US and even caused a senator to start campaign against it. But analysis of “Through These Eyes (documentary)” really needs a separate post…

=========== Colombo, J. R. (1984). Canadian Literary Landmarks, Hounslow Press.

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