White Wilderness (film)
| White Wilderness | |
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Original poster
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| Directed by | James Algar |
| Produced by | Ben Sharpsteen, Walt Disney |
| Written by | James Algar |
| Narrated by | Winston Hibler |
| Music by | Oliver Wallace |
| Edited by | Norman R. Palmer |
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Production
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| Distributed by | Buena Vista Distribution |
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Release date
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Running time
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72 minutes |
| Country | United States Canada |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $1.8 million (est. US/ Canada rentals) |
White Wilderness is an American nature documentary produced by Walt Disney Productions in 1958 noted for its propagation of the misconception of lemming suicide.
The film was directed by James Algar and narrated by Winston Hibler. It was filmed on location in Canada over the course of three years. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
White Wilderness contains a scene that supposedly depicts a mass lemming migration, and ends with the lemmings leaping into the Arctic Ocean. There have been some reports that the Disney film describes this as actual suicidal action by the lemmings. However, the narrator of the film states that the lemmings are likely not committing suicide, but rather are in the course of migrating, and upon encountering a body of water are attempting to cross it. If the body of water the lemmings encounter is too wide, they can suffer exhaustion and drown as a result.
In 1982, the CBC Television news magazine program The Fifth Estate broadcast a documentary about animal cruelty in Hollywood called "Cruel Camera", focusing on White Wilderness, as well as the television program Wild Kingdom. Bob McKeown, the host of the CBC program, discovered that the lemming scene was filmed at the Bow River near downtown Calgary, and not in the Arctic Ocean as implied by the film. He also found out that the lemmings did not voluntarily jump into the river, but were pushed in by a rotating platform installed by the film crew. McKeown interviewed a lemming expert, who claimed that the particular species of lemming shown in the film is not known to migrate, much less commit mass suicide. Additionally, he revealed that footage of a polar bear cub falling down an Arctic ice slope was really filmed in a Calgary film studio.
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Wikipedia