Gorillas in the Mist

Gorillas in the Mist is a 1988 American drama film directed by Michael Apted and starring Sigourney Weaver, Bryan Brown, Julie Harris and John Omirah Miluwi in the leading roles. It tells the true story of naturalist Dian Fossey's work in Rwanda with mountain gorillas.

Plot

Occupational therapist Dian Fossey (Sigourney Weaver) is inspired by anthropologist Louis Leakey (Iain Cuthbertson) to dedicate her life to the study of primates. To this end, she writes to him incessantly for a job cataloging and studying the rare mountain gorillas of Africa. With some effort, he manages to convince Leakey of his conviction and devotion to the cause after approaching him personally after a conference in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1966. Thereafter, Fossey embarks for the Congo, where Leakey and his foundation they provide her with the necessary equipment and housing to achieve personal contact with the gorillas, and introduce her to a local animal tracker, Sembagare (John Omirah Miluwi), to help her in her endeavours. Settled deep in the jungle, Fossey and Sembagare manage to track down a herd of gorillas, but are ultimately overtaken by the events of the Congo crisis after being forcibly evicted from their research site by Congolese soldiers, who accuse Fossey of of being a foreign spy and troublemaker.

Initially, Fossey sees no choice but to leave the mainland and return to the United States. However, after Sembagare and her temporary host Rosamond Carr (Julie Harris) encourage her to stay, she decides to base her investigative efforts in the jungles of neighboring Rwanda, which Dian presumes will be safe from outside incursions.. What Fossey cannot foresee, however, is the rampant poaching and corruption that takes place there, which becomes apparent when she discovers several traps in the vicinity of her new base in Karisoke. However, Fossey and her colleagues make several key advances with gorillas, taking into account gorilla communication and social groups. In doing so, her work impresses Leakey and gains wider international attention.

National Geographic, which funds his efforts, takes an increasing interest in his work and sends photographer Bob Campbell (Bryan Brown) to highlight his research. Fossey, initially unreceptive towards the outsider Campbell, grows increasingly attached to him after several photo sessions with the gorillas, and the two eventually become lovers, despite Campbell's marriage. Campbell proposes to divorce her wife and marry her, but insists that he would have to spend time away from Karisoke and her gorillas, leading her to call off the meeting and end her relationship. During this time, Fossey also becomes close to a gorilla named Digit, forming an emotional bond with him, and attempts to prevent the export of other gorillas by the merchant Van Vecten (Constantin Alexandrov).

Increasingly horrified by the poaching of gorillas for their skins, hands and heads, Fossey complains to the Rwandan government, who fires her, claiming that poaching is the only means by which some of the native Rwandans they can survive. However, a government minister (Waigwa Wachira) promises to equip her with a three-man anti-poaching squad and pay her wages. Ultimately, Fossey's frustration reaches its climax when Digit is killed and decapitated by poachers, driving her to increasingly extreme actions to save the gorillas from illegal poaching and likely extinction. To this end, she forms and leads numerous anti-poaching patrols, burning down the poachers' villages and even carrying out a mock execution of one of the criminals, serving to alienate some of her research assistants and earning various enemies. Sembagare expresses her concern over her outspoken opposition to the emerging gorilla tourism industry, but Fossey brushes off her concern by stating that she already has an extended travel visa increasing financial support for her research. However, on December 27, 1985, Dian Fossey is brutally murdered in her cabin bedroom by an unknown assailant. Later, at a funeral attended by Sembagare, Carr and others, she was buried in the same cemetery where Digit and other gorillas had been buried. Afterward, Sembagare symbolically links Fossey and Digit's graves with stones as a sign that their souls rest in peace before they leave.

A pre-credits sequence indicates that his actions to help save the gorillas paid off and the species was saved from extinction as a result. According to the ending, Dian Fossey's death remains a mystery, a fact that remains so today.

Cast

• Sigourney Weaver is Dian Fossey.
• Bryan Brown is Bob Campbell.
• Julie Harris is Roz Carr.
• John Omirah Miluwi is Sembagare.
• Iain Cuthbertson is Dr. Louis Leakey
• Constantin Alexandrov is Van Vecten.
• Waigwa Wachira is Mukara.
• Iain Glen is Brendan.
• David Lansbury is Larry.
• Maggie O'Neill is Kim.
• Konga Mbandu is Rushemba.
• Michael J. Reynolds is Howard Dowd.
• Gordon Masten is the Photographer.
• Peter Nduati is Batwa chief.
• Helen Fraser is Mme. Van Vecten
• David Maddock is the same.

John Alexander, Peter Elliott, Denise Cheshire, Antonio Hoyos and Jody St. Michael participated as mime artists, meaning those who customized the gorillas in the film.

Production

Production began in 1985 when Universal Pictures filmmaker Arne Glimcher tried to convince Dian Fossey to produce a film about her life. Fossey needed money to finance her work with the gorillas and was grateful for the offer. Before their meeting, Fossey was murdered at the Karisoke Research Center research base. Interest in the film project increased after the death of the gorillas. Fossey, and Universal sent screenwriter Anna Hamilton Phelan to Rwanda to fix original work on the film. The film company had already bought the film rights to Fossey's autobiography in 1983 and eventually established a collaboration with one of Fossey's friends, Rosamond Carr.

At the same time, film producers Peter Guber and Jon Peters began work on a similar project with Warner Bros. Pictures. Their screenplay based on the Harold T.P. Hayes about her in the Life newsmagazine. The two film companies invested a lot of money to get the film project off the ground. An independent film company, Heritage Entertainment Co., also started its own project on Fossey. They bought the film rights to Farley Mowat's book Woman in the Mists and planned to produce a mini-series to air on US television channel CBS. However, the Heritage project was shelved. when the company gained new leadership, while Universal and Warner Bros. agreed to a co-production that would be based on both Fossey's book and Hayes' article. Following a meeting between Glimcher and Guber, Guber and Peters were determined to be executive producers, while Glimcher was primarily responsible for production.

The screenplay was adapted by Anna Hamilton Phelan from articles by Alex Shoumatoff and Harold T. P. Hayes and a story by Phelan and Tab Murphy. The original score was composed by Maurice Jarre. The film was directed by Michael Apted and the cinematography was by John Seale.

Much of the recording took place at the Karisoke Research Center, founded by Fossey to study the mountain gorilla. Much of the recording time was spent hiking in the mountains to find the gorilla groups. Many of the gorillas in the film are the real gorillas that were filmed while staying at Karisoke; Only in gorilla hunting scenes were acrobats dressed as gorillas or animatronics (radio-controlled dolls) used. Makeup designer Rick Baker created the gorilla costumes for the film. The recordings in Rwanda lasted two months, while one month into the recording was in other African countries.

Director Michael Apted wasn't sure how much he would like Fossey. He has said that he took a chance on her "to see how tough he could let her be before the public lost sympathy for her." In an interview with Aftenposten, Sigourney Weaver said: 'I tell myself that she wasn't angry but lonely, hypersensitive and completely obsessed with the idea of protecting animal species. [The film is about] a person who sacrifices everything for what she believes in. To her they are not creatures of the second or fifth degree, but co-creatures, human congeners ".

Acknowledgments

Criticism

The film received generally positive reviews, with many praising both Weaver's performance and the film's technical achievements, while some were frustrated by the lack of depth in Fossey's on-screen characterization.

"Finally (Weaver) could have found a piece made to his scale." wrote Hal Hinson of the Washington Post. "It's a great role for her, and she doesn't skimp.' However, she had her doubts about the restrictions placed on Fossey's character: "The main problem with Gorillas in the Mist is that he trivializes his heroine, they make her one of us. And from what they say, Fossey was anything but normal. He also accused the filmmakers of toning down Fossey's unstable mental state: 'Fossey was beyond eccentric... The film hints at these aspects of her character but tries to smooth them over;... the filmmakers have done more than sanitize the Fossey's life has been deprived of any meaning'. Hinson concluded that "Gorillas in the Mist isn't a terrible movie, but it is frustrating."

While Roger Ebert was also pleased with Weaver's casting as Fossey ("It is impossible to imagine a more appropriate choice for the role"), he felt that the character was too distanced from the public and that her development and motives were unclear. "Gorillas in the Mist tells us what Dian Fossey accomplished and what happened to her, but it doesn't tell us who she was, and in the end that's what we want to know." However, Ebert was impressed by the scenes with the gorillas and the way the live footage of the gorillas blended seamlessly with the gorilla costumes: 'Everything seemed just as real to me, and the finesse with which director Michael Apted developed the relationship between the woman and the beast was deeply absorbing. There were times when I felt a bit of awe. Those moments, which are genuine, make the movie worth watching. Hinson also agreed that "every time the cameras turn on the gorillas - who are the real stars of the movie - you feel like you're witnessing something really great."

The film has a freshness rating of 83% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 18 reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10.

Ticket office

• United States gross domestic income: US$24,720,479
• Other international entries: $36,429,000
• Gross global income: $61,149,479

Awards

She was awarded the 1989 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score for Maurice Jarre, and Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama for Sigourney Weaver, and Best Feature Film. Winner of the 1989 Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing; and the 1990 Genesis Awards.

She was also nominated for the 1988 Oscar Award in five categories, which were: Best Leading Actress, Best Editing, Best Original Score, Best Sound, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Historical assessment

Gorillas in the Mist deals with the subject of colonization and the consequent decolonization, but this is placed as a backdrop to show the audience the true intention of Michael Apted: to make visible the precarious situation of the mountain gorillas in Rwanda, a species on the brink of extinction.

It cannot be conceived as a reliable piece of history as long as it does not highlight the colonial conflict in its entirety. His approach obeys more personal and human purposes, such as the exaltation of Dian Fossey's personality and the transmission of a message of improvement. The film urges viewers to imitate the author's example and join forces for the welfare of the African continent.

However, the recreation of the Batwa is especially accurate, both regarding their physical features and their way of life, their homes, their customs and their religious beliefs.

Facts

After filming the film, Weaver became a supporter of The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, where she is today the organization's Honorary President. In 2006, the actress was featured in the documentary Gorillas Revisited with Sigourney Weaver for the BBC, which is about how Fossey studied gorillas. Several of the natives who participated in the film disappeared during the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

In 2018, the National Geographic Channel aired a 3-episode miniseries called Dian Fossey: Death in the Mist. expose new elements of the investigation that surrounded his death and make visible the achievements of a woman who was brutally murdered in 1985 in her home: a cabin in the Virunga mountains, Rwanda (Africa). In addition, the thoughts expressed by Fossey are shown in his annotations, these being reported by Sigourney Weaver herself.

The film was nominated for a place on the American Film Institute's list of "AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers," a roundup of the 100 most inspiring films in America, ranking at number 112.