Gordon Buchanan is the heir apparent to David Attenborough - as long as he doesn’t end up on a polar bear’s plate
The wolf is still an outsider. From Red Riding Hood to Jack London, it has
symbolised wilderness and raw, bloody survival. So if you want to try your
hand at proper wildlife filming, up close and wolf-breath personal, it has
to be Canis lupus arctos. Snow Wolf Family and Me (BBC Two) was a new
outing for heavily insured cameraman Gordon Buchanan, the third strand in a
series that’s done black bears in Minnesota and hungry polar bears. The
latter memorably showed Buchanan coming close to being a bear lunch.
Buchanan chose Ellesmere Island in Canada for its remoteness. You can’t even
get a Domino’s Pizza delivery there and the local wolves have never met a
human, although they obviously have a decent media agent and PR.
His method was hands-on, or possibly paws-on. Getting to know the wolf family
and winning their trust, though, proved slow. Empathy was expressed in usual
ways: wolves love licking cameras and apparently weeing on binoculars is a
sign of friendliness. The beasts also demonstrated that they were worryingly
clever, pulling at the insulated parts of the electric fence Buchanan had
erected round his camp.
The cutest sequence showed three pups practising howling. Each would
hesitatingly raise its snout skywards before essaying a mournful cry, a baby
Wolf of Wail Street.
Wildlife shows constantly seek new thrills, greater authenticity and deeper
understanding. Buchanan succeeded on all these fronts. This wasn’t reality
TV play-acting. Wolves don’t misbehave for the camera, they just misbehave
full-time. Buchanan was in unconfected danger, visibly unnerved by the
presence of a fully grown killing machine circling him with its tummy
rumbling.
The great curiosity of Buchanan, despite his abilities with wolf-talk and
whining, is his normality. He doesn’t risk his life to exorcise some
appalling demon. He doesn’t talk to the animals because he can’t talk to
people. Of all the people cited as David Attenborough’s successor, he’s out front.
Just as long as he doesn’t end up on a polar bear’s plate.source
No comments:
Post a Comment