Has anyone else ever noticed that the introductory credits of "March of the Penguins" includes an attribution to screenplay writers? That little detail led me to believe that all of the chirping was actually preconceived by some maniac on a typewriter, but logic indicates otherwise.
At the very most, the emperor penguins may have been aware of the cameramen and possibly threw on some lip-gloss, but their staccato dialogue was otherwise unaffected by the silver screen.
"March of the Penguins" left me boiling over with rudimentary questions that undoubtedly would have been addressed in a documentary (even though "March of the Penguins" claims to be just that).
One question that protrudes from my mind is whether the emperor penguins have or do reproduce/d in locations less melodramatic than a thick sheet of ice 90km from the ocean.
Why not lay their eggs closer to the ocean's openings or in June when the climate is more forgiving? If it weren't for the constant bombardment of 200mph winds and an atmosphere of -40 degrees Celsius, this Antarctic love story would be far less compelling.
In his eternally erudite voice, narrator Morgan Freeman explains that the penguins choose such an impossible location so that their eggs and infants won't plunge through the ice. Yet, about one of every 15 eggs becomes a successful adult, which leads me to believe that the emperors' chances would be just as good, if not better, were they to locate their "breeding huddle" closer to the ocean.
Also, what evolutionary properties are emperor penguins equipped with that allow them to measure the firmness of the ground they stand on? Do they have durometers built into their blubber?
This may come as a surprise to most readers but I am not a penguin expert, which means that I have no business knowing about the reproduction cycle of emperor penguins in the first place. However, I am a consumer, and I am allowed to question the purposes and proposals of film.
All of my curiosities are sure to be satisfied if I would only take the time to flip pages at my local library, but that's not what this is about. The movie's attempt of transforming a documentary into a heartfelt story about the perseverance of love leads me to doubt the validity of filmmaking.
How does information in film compare to information on paper? Should we even allow the two mediums to be compared or should they remain separate but equal?
For instance, my favorite movie ("Adaptation") can't hold a candle to my favorite book ("Catch-22"), and the adaptation of my favorite book is peanuts in comparison to what my imagination makes of vowels and consonants on a 4x7 inch sheet of paper.
It seems as though filmmaking is writing being cheated, kind of how digital photography is like a darkroom being cheated. So what good are movies to people who love to read?
Movies take the intricacies of life and make them inexplorable and static, which is kind of what my older brother does to everyone I attempt to date. Whereas books, both fiction and non-, reveal life to completion.
That is not to say that written words are seamless; in fact, most published research and novels are incomplete, but they do something film will never adequately do. Books invite the reader to participate in the completion of the idea, whether it be finding out more, or settling for imaginative extrapolation.
I don't think I will stop watching films but I certainly cannot feel good about it. I like watching people fake feelings as much as I like watching penguins clumsily mount one another, and there is something almost admirable about how careless film is with people and ideas.
Us humans probably deserve to be framed in one-dimensional experiments involving love, war, death and transience. Just like the emperor penguins deserve to be studied and scrutinized for their clumsy march. But don't you wish there was more to it than that?
Asking whether readers should be comfortable with film is as natural as asking your doctor about that rash on your nether regions. There is something unhealthy about film and the gratuitous summations they serve to audiences. On second thought, I suppose there is also something unhealthy about newspaper columnists.
p.s. - The largest emperor penguin colony located at Cape Washington, Antarctica embarks on a mere 3km commute to the Ross Sea during their breeding season. I guess love doesn't need to persevere when it's so god damn convenient.
