ZooScope

Category: Year: 1978

  • Ringing Bell. Dir. Masami Hata. Crunchyroll. 1978.

    Ringing Bell. Dir. Masami Hata. Crunchyroll. 1978.

    “Wolf! Alright, I’ve decided to be your apprentice and learn to be strong! (…) I’m sick of being a sheep, all we ever do is stand in corners and shake!” – Chirin from Ringing Bell Ringing Bell was originally released in Japanese – this article focuses on the English dub.  Sanrio, the Japanese entertainment company…

  • Every Which Way but Loose. Dir. James Fargo. Warner Bros. 1978.

    James Fargo’s 1978 film Every Which Way but Loose follows Clint Eastwood’s character Philo Beddo and his orangutan companion Clyde in their search for love. The audience’s expectations of human-animal relationships depicting docile animals who are human playthings are immediately subverted by Philo’s interactions with Clyde, the orangutan.  Clyde throughout the film is given a freedom not…

  • The Deer Hunter. Dir. Michael Cimino. EMI. 1978.

    Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter explores the impact of the Vietnam War on Americans, depicting protagonist Michael’s transformation from notoriously adept hunter and Russian-roulette crazed killer to sparing a deer’s life, delicately challenging the culturally normalised human-animal hierarchy. Specifically through mirroring shots of when he is moments away from firing at the deer, one prior…

  • The Magic of Lassie. Dir. Don Chaffey. The International Picture Show Company. 1978.

    Content: After the death of his son and his daughter-in-law, Clovis Mitchell, a Californian wine grower, takes his grandchildren Kelly and Chris home and cares for them. When the children arrive at his house, they find a little baby dog, a border collie, and call her Lassie. Mr. Jamison, a rich man from Colorado, wants…

  • The Cat From Outer Space. Dir. Norman Tokar. Buena Vista Distribution. 1978.

    As we see a feline descend from the tongue-like walkway of a cat-shaped spaceship, Disney’s 1978 film The Cat From Outer Space opens, invoking a science-fiction both familiar and alien. It is difficult to not subscribe to the film’s endearing nature of a developed animal companionship as a bond forms between human and cat that goes beyond…

  • Gates of Heaven. Dir. Errol Morris. New Yorker Films. 1978.

    Figure 1: The original cinematic release poster for Gates of Heaven. Eighty-Five minutes of predominantly medium close-up shots without narration with a focus, superficially at least, on the pet cemetery business. You may think that the initial prognosis for Errol Morris’s 1978 debut Gates of Heaven is bleak; indeed you would be in good company.[1] Morris’s fleeting between concepts led…

  • Watership Down. Dir. Martin Rosen. Cinema International Corporation. 1978.

    Above left: Film Poster             Richard Adams reading Watership Down in 2008 Far from the fluffy, cotton-tailed animals we think rabbits to be, Watership Down (dir. Martin Rosen, 1978) depicts the brutal world of a political and regimented rabbit hierarchy. Chief rabbits dictate from the top of the hierarchy, whilst the military ‘Owsla’ bring down…