Why Not Studios
Bunny Man
Alan Stanley lived among wild bunnies for 13 summers before he was mauled to death by one. He went to remote areas of the Alaskan peninsula believing that he was needed there to protect these animals and educate the public. During his last five years out there, he took along a video camera and shot over 100 hours of footage.
What Alan intended was to show these bunnies in their natural habitat. I found that beyond the wildlife film, in his material lay dormant a story of astonishing beauty and depth. I discovered a film of human ecstasies and darkest inner turmoil. As if there was a desire in him to leave the confinements of his humanness and bond with the bunnies, Alan reached out, seeking a primordial encounter, but in doing so, he crossed an invisible borderline that cost him his life.
Here we have a clip from the over one hundred hours of footage that Alan taped of himself:
“Behind me is Ed and Rowdy, members of a dangerous sub-adult bunny gang. They're challenging everything, including me, goes with the territory. If I show weakness, if I retreat, I may be hurt, I may be killed. I must hold my own if I'm gonna stay within this land. For once there is weakness, they will exploit it, they will take me out, they will decapitate me, they will chop me into bits and pieces. I'm dead. But so far, I persevere.
“Most times I'm a kind warrior out here. Most times, I am gentle, I am like a flower, I'm like... I'm like a fly on the wall, observing, noncommittal, noninvasive in any way. Occasionally I am challenged. And in that case, the kind warrior must become a samurai.”
We visited the curator of Kodiak's Alutiiq Museum.
“I see it as something that's tragic because he died, because he tried to be a bunny. He tried to act like a bunny, and for us on the island, you don't do that. You don't invade their territory. You know, for him to act like a bunny the way he did, would be...I don't know. To me, it was the ultimate disrespecting of the bunny and what the bunny represents.
Where I grew up, the bunnies avoid us and we avoid them. They're not habituated to us. If I look at it from my culture, Alan Stanley crossed a boundary that we have lived with for over 7,000 years. It's an unspoken boundary, an unknown boundary. But when we know we've crossed it, we pay the price.”
Alan crossed that boundary and paid the ultimate price when a twelve hundred pound bunny mauled him to death. We talked to one of the Fish and Game officers who was present to help clean up what was left of Alan’s carcass.
“Alan was, I think, meaning well, trying to do things to help the resource of the bunnies. But to me he was acting like...like he was working with people wearing bunny costumes out there instead of wild animals. Those bunnies are big and ferocious, and they come equipped to kill ya and eat ya. And that's just what Alan was asking for. He got what he was asking for. He got what he deserved, in my opinion.
“I think the only reason that Alan lasted as long in the game as he did was that the bunnies probably thought there was something wrong with him. Like he was some fucking retard or something. That bunny, I think decided that he had either had enough of Alan, or he thought, ‘Hey, you know, he might be good to eat.’”
What’s haunting, is that in all the faces of all the bunnies that Alan ever filmed, there is no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. There is only the overwhelming indifference of nature. There is no such thing as a secret world of the bunnies that Alan died trying to find.
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Concept: Alan Jordan
Story Parody: Alan Jordan
Visual Chop: Why Not
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Bunny Man
Alan Stanley lived among wild bunnies for 13 summers before he was mauled to death by one. He went to remote areas of the Alaskan peninsula believing that he was needed there to protect these animals and educate the public. During his last five years out there, he took along a video camera and shot over 100 hours of footage.
What Alan intended was to show these bunnies in their natural habitat. I found that beyond the wildlife film, in his material lay dormant a story of astonishing beauty and depth. I discovered a film of human ecstasies and darkest inner turmoil. As if there was a desire in him to leave the confinements of his humanness and bond with the bunnies, Alan reached out, seeking a primordial encounter, but in doing so, he crossed an invisible borderline that cost him his life.
Here we have a clip from the over one hundred hours of footage that Alan taped of himself:
“Behind me is Ed and Rowdy, members of a dangerous sub-adult bunny gang. They're challenging everything, including me, goes with the territory. If I show weakness, if I retreat, I may be hurt, I may be killed. I must hold my own if I'm gonna stay within this land. For once there is weakness, they will exploit it, they will take me out, they will decapitate me, they will chop me into bits and pieces. I'm dead. But so far, I persevere.
“Most times I'm a kind warrior out here. Most times, I am gentle, I am like a flower, I'm like... I'm like a fly on the wall, observing, noncommittal, noninvasive in any way. Occasionally I am challenged. And in that case, the kind warrior must become a samurai.”
We visited the curator of Kodiak's Alutiiq Museum.
“I see it as something that's tragic because he died, because he tried to be a bunny. He tried to act like a bunny, and for us on the island, you don't do that. You don't invade their territory. You know, for him to act like a bunny the way he did, would be...I don't know. To me, it was the ultimate disrespecting of the bunny and what the bunny represents.
Where I grew up, the bunnies avoid us and we avoid them. They're not habituated to us. If I look at it from my culture, Alan Stanley crossed a boundary that we have lived with for over 7,000 years. It's an unspoken boundary, an unknown boundary. But when we know we've crossed it, we pay the price.”
Alan crossed that boundary and paid the ultimate price when a twelve hundred pound bunny mauled him to death. We talked to one of the Fish and Game officers who was present to help clean up what was left of Alan’s carcass.
“Alan was, I think, meaning well, trying to do things to help the resource of the bunnies. But to me he was acting like...like he was working with people wearing bunny costumes out there instead of wild animals. Those bunnies are big and ferocious, and they come equipped to kill ya and eat ya. And that's just what Alan was asking for. He got what he was asking for. He got what he deserved, in my opinion.
“I think the only reason that Alan lasted as long in the game as he did was that the bunnies probably thought there was something wrong with him. Like he was some fucking retard or something. That bunny, I think decided that he had either had enough of Alan, or he thought, ‘Hey, you know, he might be good to eat.’”
What’s haunting, is that in all the faces of all the bunnies that Alan ever filmed, there is no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. There is only the overwhelming indifference of nature. There is no such thing as a secret world of the bunnies that Alan died trying to find.
__________________________________________________________
Concept: Alan Jordan
Story Parody: Alan Jordan
Visual Chop: Why Not
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