MY INSPIRATION: HOMEWARD BOUND, AN INCREDIBLE JOURNEY

                               

TRIBUTE TO HOMEWARD BOUND: THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY

It’s said that the older one gets, the wiser one becomes. I’m glad that’s true, apparently, of most folks. The older I get, the weirder my life becomes. And so to adapt and adjust and stuff… Yeah, like THAT’LL work with you guys. (sigh)

I get my inspiration from some strange places. For all of my experience in LA and in the entertainment industry both as a staff magazine writer and under the mentorship of character actor and screenwriter True Boardman, Jr.; and despite the number of years I watched traditional hero in crisis saves the town, the country or whatever and even if he/she dies, they’re remembered forever movies for the courage to keep going, it’s like, "Hey, I was partly raised on a ranch but I did NOT come to town on a horse, okay?" (And not that there would have been one flipping thing wrong if I had, by the way.)

I was talking to animals before I was conversing with humans. For the first three years of my life ~ true story ~ I didn’t utter a single humanly intelligible word. They thought I was partially autistic. When I finally did open my mouth in their direction, I spoke in complete sentences. And they consulted upteen specialists before they asked Grandpa Seamus what he thought. He just shrugged and said,

"It’s obvious to me that up ‘til now, the lad hasn’t had anything to say to us."

He was right and I’ll allow as how I’ve been making up for it some since. I don’t consider myself a vain man but I do love the sound of my own voice. When it doesn’t inspire me, it puts me to sleep. I’ve noticed it has the same effect on most others. I don’t know what you call that in your family but in my house, we call it "a win-win situation".

The movie I go to for inspiration is a Walt Disney film called "Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey" http://aolsearch.aol.com/aol/search?query=The%20Incredible%20Journey. There have been two versions, both by Disney Studios, and I’m talking about the 1993 remake. (http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0211900/journey/incredible_journey.htm)

Though filmed in the Canadian wilderness, it’s about a family who moves 200 miles across the Sierra Nevadas to San Francisco and accidentally leaves their three pets behind.

It’s the saga of an aging but wise golden retriever Shadow (voice by Don Ameche), this pizza loving Peter Pan adolescent bull terrier with consistently more guts than good sense named Chance (Michael Fox) and this immutably prissy but surprisingly adaptable lady Himalayan cat, Sassy, (Sally Field) and what they endure to rejoin their human family.

It really works for me on several levels and not always in this order.

First, it’s a study in how diverse personalities unite behind a common goal. For these three, it’s following their human family to a new home.

Second, there’s no religion, politics, philosophy or any of the other things we tend to hide behind as human beings when we are confused or frightened by one another.

Third, these three make mistakes but it’s because they don’t judge one another by them that they learn so quickly and adapt so well.

Fourth, there’s an enduringly resonant sense of humour flowing through this film. It’s the kind that doesn’t involve hurting other people or mocking the way other folks think and feel. I like to believe it’s the kind of comedy that makes God smile. I suspect the Deity could use a gentle laugh now and then, especially considering what we, also His children, do to one another in our competition to be the favourite child. Harder for us, perhaps, than contemplating a universe with no beginning, might be accepting the notion that just MAYBE God alone has no favourite child.

Fifth, based on my experience in the woods, it’s realistic in terms of inter-species teamwork. And it’s a cooperative effort that has been going on a lot longer than human beings have been around. Ironically, we were a lot more that way once than we are now. As far as I’m concerned, that puts an interesting spin on Darwin.

The production values are flawless and panoramic. Ameche, Fields and Fox become the characters they portray so the casting, as far as I’m concerned, was perfect. One also has the distinct impression that these three were in the same room, at the same time, with three separate microphones, doing this like radio theatre. The musical scoring was beautiful and as right on the mark and mood as the photography.

There’s one scene where Sassy falls into a river and is apparently swept away for good (mournful music in the background, panning close-up on the faces of the dogs, panning to a sunset as the scene fades). The reunion is a tear-jerker, not the least in part because the cat caught fish and the younger dog learned to like them. (Not altogether surprising. Trout are my favourite meal fish as well.)

Emotionally, to me, it’s like when I start to get a little stressed, a scene will pop up and/or I’ll hear the music; remember the exchange between Sassy and Chance over dogs drool and cats rule, and the wise but stern voice of Shadow, reminding them that they need to get home and as fun as it might be for the two of them, this inter-species bickering isn’t helping any.

Perhaps lastly, it’s based on a children’s story published in 1952 by a Canadian lady writer named Sheila Burnford (http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0211900/journey/incredible_journey.htm) Now I’ll admit I’m prejudiced as far as Canada’s concerned, considering where I was born. But to me, any children’s story so simply set and crafted, in so naturalistic a setting, and which, in its time, has gone so far beyond the shadow of the Maple Leaf to reach so many, suggests that perhaps we have not lost our innocence entirely.

I hope not.

Thanks for the ear, then, eh? And until next time…

Tags: Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, Sheila Burnford, Canada, inspiration, Merritt Scott (Rusty) Miller, Mick McGuire, The Northstar Journal, humour, dogs, cats, wilderness, philosophy, films, Walt Disney, Disney Studios