USA,
2000, 57 min
Shown in 2001
CREDITS
- dir
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Mark Lewis
- prod
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Mark Lewis
- cam
-
Steven Arnold
- editor
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Robert DeMaio
- mus
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Mick Muhlfriedel
- source
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Mark Lewis Radio Pictures, 6305 Yucca Street #202, Los Angeles, CA 90028. FAX: 323-469-5184
- gga award
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Golden Gate Award, Television—Science & Nature
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COMMENTS
Screened with Doos and Don’ts. Mark Lewis in person.
OTHER
Filmmaker Mark Lewis’s latest work of gentle social surrealism paints a convincing portrait of a world where chickens rule—or, at least, hold an eerie power over the humans around them. Consider the enviable life of Cotton, an impassive Japanese Silkie whose owner treats it to shampoo baths, swims in the pool, Pavarotti and McDonald’s. Witness Janet Bonney’s amazing mouth-to-beak resuscitation of her bird Valerie, as well as the “animal communicator” who solicits Valerie’s account of the hereafter (for chickens, too: a bright white light). In bemused but respectful profiles and hilarious reenactments, Lewis (Cane Toads, Rat) takes genuine delight in the eccentric, interspersing these stories with facts and mesmerizing footage of the commercial poultry industry to further make the case for the chicken’s central role in American life. From the family who keeps a headless chicken alive and touring county fairs to the man whose 100 crowing roosters drive the neighbors to read The Art of War for advice on battling the birds, The Natural History of the Chicken is an entertaining and irresistible account of the power of poultry.
FACTOID #125
According to the November 29, 1959 San Diego Union, The Village on the River was the first Dutch feature ever shown in the U.S. (at the Third San Francisco International Film Festival).
