The Bear (1988 film)

French adventure family film

The Bear is a 1988 French adventure family film directed by Jean Jacques Annaud and released by TriStar Pictures. Adapted from the novel The Grizzly King (1916) by American author James Oliver Curwood, the screenplay was written by Gérard Brach. Set in British Columbia, Canada, the film tells the story of an orphaned grizzly bear cub who befriends a large adult male Kodiak bear as two trophy hunters pursue them through the wild. Several of the themes explored in the story include orphanhood, peril and protection, and mercy toward and on the behalf of a reformed hunter. Annaud and Brach began planning the story and production in 1981, although filming did not begin until six years later, due to the director's commitment to another project. The Bear was filmed almost entirely in the Italian and Austrian areas of the Dolomites, with live animals—including Bart the Bear, a trained tall Kodiak bear—present on location. Notable for its almost complete lack of dialogue and its minimal score, the film was nominated for and won numerous international film awards.

In 1885, in the mountainous wilds of British Columbia, Canada, a male grizzly bear cub and his mother are searching for honey when the mother is crushed to death by a rockslide. Forced to fend for himself, the cub struggles to find food and shelter. Elsewhere in the mountains, a male Kodiak bear roams searching for food or a mate but is unknowingly pursued by two trophy hunters Tom and Bill. Tom shoots the Kodiak, but his gunshot only grazes the bear's shoulder and the wounded animal flees. Shortly after, Tom and Bill hear crashing noises and discover two of their three horses missing. Bill finds one horse that was killed by the bear while Tom finds the other one mortally wounded. Bill vows to kill the bear. The cub comes across the Kodiak, and a friendship forms between the two with the Kodiak teaching the younger bear how to catch salmon and hunt animals such as mule deer for food. While journeying through the mountains, the Kodiak and the cub come across a female grizzly, whereupon the two bears perform a mating ritual, with the Kodiak impressing the female by showing off his strength before mating with her. Determined to find the Kodiak, the two hunters are joined by a third man and his pack of vicious Beaucerons, in addition to Tom's Airedale Terrier. Both bears attempt to escape by climbing up a cliff as the dog pack follows. While the cub hides in a cave, the Kodiak holds his own against the pack in order to protect him. Despite suffering grievous wounds from the dogs, he kills some of his assailants before escaping over a pass with the remaining pack members chasing him, leaving the cub behind. The hunters arrive, spot the lone cub, and capture him, taking him back to their camp where he is tethered to a tree and tormented by the men and their remaining dogs. That night, the hunters plot how to massacre the Kodiak, though unbeknownst to them, they are being watched by the bear. The next day, the hunters split up, with Tom manning a spot high on a cliff near a waterfall. He leaves his post to wash up in a small waterfall in the hills. His gun out of reach, Tom suddenly finds himself confronted by the Kodiak. Seeing Tom at his mercy, the Kodiak refuses to kill him and leaves. Tom, amazed by the bear's act of mercy, attempts to scare him off by shooting his gun in the air. When Bill joins him, Tom lies that the bear is dead. When Bill catches sight of the Kodiak, he raises his rifle to shoot, only to be intercepted by Tom, who silently insists they let the animal go free. The three hunters return to their camp empty handed, where they release the cub and then ride off into the wilderness. Alone again, the cub is stalked by a cougar, who corners him near a stream. The cougar, upon seeing the Kodiak behind the cub, flees. The bears reunite. As winter approaches, they find shelter in a cave for hibernation and peacefully fall asleep together.

After the commercial success of Jean Jacques Annaud's previous films, including the Academy Award winning Black and White in Color (1976) and Quest for Fire (1981), producer Claude Berri offered to produce Annaud's next project, no matter the cost. The French filmmaker had first considered the idea of making a film that included mammal communication through behavior, rather than language, while working on Quest for Fire. He became particularly interested in making an animal "the star of a psychological drama", so he "decided to do an entertaining, commercial adventure and psychological film" that would have an animal hero. He discussed this idea with his longtime collaborator, screenwriter Gerard Brach, who within a few days sent Annaud a copy of The Grizzly King, to which the filmmaker quickly agreed. Although Brach began writing the screenplay in late 1981, Annaud took on another project, that of directing a film adaptation of Umberto Eco's book The Name of the Rose. Between preparing for and filming his next film, Annaud traveled and visited zoos in order to research animal behavior. In an interview he later gave with the American Humane Association, Annaud stated: "Each time I was fascinated with the tigers, to a point that I thought to do a movie called The Tiger instead of The Bear. In those days I felt that the bear, because they're so often vertical, would give me a better identification, or would provide more instant identification from the viewers." The finished script was presented to Berri in early 1983.

Shot from 13 May to late October 1987, The Bear was filmed almost entirely in the Italian and Austrian areas of the Dolomites. Several additional scenes were also filmed in a Belgian Zoo in early 1988. The crew consisted of 200 individuals. Husband and wife team Tony and Heidi Lüdi served as the film's production designer and art director, respectively, alongside set decorator Bernhard Henrich. In their book, Movie Worlds: Production Design in Film, the Lüdis state that as the film's production designers, they "were constantly faced with the question 'What did you have to do?' To which we answered 'We turned the Alps into British Columbia.'" Cinematographer Philippe Rousselot noted that "the only thing Jean Jacques was unable to control" while filming in the Bavarian Alps "was the weather: he did not manage to have the clouds take part in pre production meetings." While animatronic bears were used for several of the fighting scenes, live animals—including bears, dogs, horses, and honey bees—were used on location for filming. A trained, tall Kodiak bear named Bart played the adult male grizzly, while a young female bear named Douce ("Sweet" in English) took on the role of the cub, with several alternates. Three trainers worked with Bart (including his owner Doug Seus), eleven with the cubs, three with the dogs, and three with the horses. One day during production, Bart injured Annaud while the two posed for photographers; Annaud's wounds, which included claw marks on his backside, had to be drained with a shunt for two months. In addition to the real bears, there were animatronic bears which were used in specific scenes that were made by Jim Henson's Creature Shop.

With its intersecting storylines of animals and humans, The Bear includes a variety of thematic elements. These themes include orphanhood, peril and protection, and mercy toward and on the behalf of a reformed hunter. Film critic Derek Bousé has made the connection between The Bear and Disney's model of wildlife films, comparing not only the sympathetic characters but also the filmatic structure, to the animated Bambi (1942) and the live action Perri (1957). In his 2000 book Wildlife Films, Bousé makes a stronger correlation between Annaud's film and Disney's Dumbo (1941), in that both young animals lost their mothers at an early age, creating an unfortunate situation that allows the rest of the plot to develop (although, Dumbo's mother was merely imprisoned for a while, and was re united with her son at the film's end). Dumbo and The Bear also share a similarly purposed dream sequence, brought on by alcohol in the former and hallucinogenic mushrooms in the latter. The theme of the reformed hunter is a direct reference to the original novel and its author. James Oliver Curwood, himself a past hunter and trapper, considered The Grizzly King to be a "confession of one who for years hunted and killed before he learned that the wild offered a more thrilling sport than slaughter". During its American release, the film used one of Curwood's famous quotes as a tagline—"The greatest thrill is not to kill but to let live"—and the film was endorsed by both the American Humane Association and the World Wildlife Fund.