Elephant Boy
Zoltan KORDA, Robert J. FLAHERTY
- UK
- 1937
- 81min
- G
- mp4
- black and white
Synopsis
Toomai is a young boy growing up in India who longs to be like his father. He accompanies him on an expedition with their elephant, Kala Nag. Tragedy strikes when Toomai’s father is killed by a tiger. The rest of the hunters send Toomai home, but he has not gone far before he hears Kala Nag trumpeting and runs back. Distressed at the loss of his owners, he has stampeded and thrown the new driver, who demands he must be killed. Toomai cannot bear to lose another member of his family, so the two run away deep into the jungle, where they come across a rare and wonderful sight.
Review
An adaptation of the original novel by Rudyard Kipling. Co-directed by Robert Flaherty and Zoltan Korda. Commissioned by a British studio, Flaherty spent a year in India filming elephants and their trainers to tell the story of a boy who joins a white expedition with dreams of becoming a hunter, only to lose his father and the elephants that have become his family. This, coupled with filming in a London studio, makes Elephant Boy both Flaherty's unique documentary cinematography and Zoltan Korda's direction of a large-scale commercial genre film. Despite criticisms of the film's narrative for its colonialism and exoticism, Flaherty's images capture the incredible bond between the boy and the elephant. The Indian boy who played Toomai, the film's protagonist, went on to become a Hollywood star, starring in Jungle Book and other films directed by Zoltan Korda.
Director
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Zoltan KORDA
A one time Hungarian cavalry officer, Zoltan Korda started working in films as a cameraman then an editor before becoming a director with London Films run by his brother Alexander Korda. Zoltan had strong liberal/socialist ideals and often clashed with Alexander, who, despite both being born in Hungary, was a proud supporter of the old British Empire.
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Robert J. FLAHERTY
Between Robert J. Flaherty’s major feature-length films, Nanook of the North (1922), Moana (1926), Man of Aran (1934), and Louisiana Story (1948), he made several smaller ones outside the epic man-against-nature format. More than 50 years after his death, Flaherty’s name still stands out among the most celebrated in motion picture history.