Essay
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
It is insane that this movie exists
How can we, as a culture, have forgotten this movie? I’m sort of breathless just thinking about it. It “stars” seagulls — as you probably guessed — but not mechanical or animated. Actual seagulls. Trained seagulls. And they talk. Not a lot, but they talk. The voice acting, led by James Franciscus (who you may remember as Brent in Beneath the Planet of the Apes because we all remember BtPotA), gets its power from being understatedly ecstatic. These are characters. You can tell them apart. They have personality. They are persons.
They argue. About philosophy, theology, and tradition. And flying. They argue about flying. The way you should fly and the way you — or rather Jonathan — should NOT fly. Mortality comes up in the second act. Discipleship (I shit you not). There’s a bit where a seagull flies into a cliff to avoid killing a young bird that few in his path, and the seagull dies in a transparently brutal, selfless, devastating act of martyrdom. There’s a bit where a seagull and hawk fight and it’s all “nature red in tooth and claw.”
This film has — I am not exaggerating — the most beautiful nature cinematography that I have ever seen. Any number of shots where my thoughts went somewhere like, “How could they have possibly got that shot?” Combine…
