Paddle to the Sea (Released by Janus Films, in association with the Criterion Collection)

Paddle to the Sea (Released by Janus Films, in association with the Criterion Collection)
by Bill Mason

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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Paddle to the Sea
Director: Bill Mason
Brand: Image Entertainment
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 30 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-04-29
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Criterion Collection

Movie Reviews of Paddle to the Sea (Released by Janus Films, in association with the Criterion Collection)

Movie Review: Book - GREAT! Movie - HUGE disappointment! Skip the movie.
Summary: 2 Stars

My 6 yr. old son and I read this book and loved it. He is Inupiat Eskimo. I am from Michigan. We had a lot to talk about while reading the superb book - from following along the map to the different reactions of those that saw Paddle.In the book, people carve on the bottom wherever he stops so you can see right where he's been. He has really cool and exciting adventures. This made it real. I thought the movie would be a no-brainer, it was nominated for an Oscar, right ? I know the movie was done in 1966, and I know all about "artistic license" and so forth, but...the movie SKIPPED the saw mill scene, the sled dog ride to the Sault, the trip to Chicago, virtually all of Lake Michigan...and had Paddle going from Superior to Detroit in five minutes or less and then out to sea! No wonder it didn't win an Oscar. The only part we all liked was the first ten minutes - where the boy is carving and then places Paddle on the snowy hill...and then he goes downhill. Unfortunately, so does the movie. Literally and figuratively. Nothing more than a Reader's Digest condensed version. This DVD is going in the next yard sale. Even my 6 year old was visably "bummed out". Don't be thinking "oh kids gotta have blood and guts these days" like one reviewer wrote when she read other bad reviews - but they do need a STORY and the movie omitted the real story and instead made it out to be some sort of 60s evironmental "message", while ignoring the Native message which was in the original story. In the book, the news of Paddle making it to sea comes back to the boy, who is now older. He listens to white men take credit for putting it in the sea but it matters not to him because the knowledge that Paddle made it was enough. In the movie, by contrast, Paddle's journey never ends nor is there a tie back to the Native boy who made Paddle. Yuk. It was so bad it made me angry.

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Summary of Paddle to the Sea (Released by Janus Films, in association with the Criterion Collection)

Based on Holling C. Holling s beloved Caldecott-awarded children s book, William Mason s stunning film follows the adventures of a tiny, wood-carved canoe as it forges its own path from Lake Superior through the Great Lakes and down to the Atlantic Ocean. Buoyed by beautiful photography and a sense of true wonder about the sun, Earth, and water, the Academy Award nominated Paddle to the Sea is an unforgettable tribute to the forces of the natural world, as well as a thrilling journey across the waves and rapids of North America.

Paddle to the Sea, the short film named after the carved wooden toy boat it tracks through various waterways from Canada to the Atlantic Ocean, is Canadian director William Mason's sweet homage to the 1940s children's book. Like The Red Balloon, Paddle To The Sea folklorically portrays a toy's journey, with a bit of added personification since the whittled boat contains a stoic Native American man carved into its seat. The film begins in a Nipogon log cabin, where a boy laments releasing his newly crafted artwork but soon realizes that setting his toy free is the only way to enliven it. After pouring molten lead into the boat's base to encourage its floating upright, and writing "I am Paddle to the Sea: Please Put Me Back in the Water" on the boat's underside, he drops the boat into a snowy stream and hopes someday it will reach the ocean. Beyond the film's wise message of non-attachment, wonderment is sustained throughout while trying to guess how Mason managed to track this swift-sailing canoe down river rapids, through industrially polluted waterways, and even over Niagara Falls. Fortuitous shots of animals investigating the boat as if to eat it seem almost pre-planned. Cameras strapped onto rafts, lowered down cliffs by rope, and more enabled the director to follow the toy in close-up, as if he were filming a wildlife documentary. Narrated from an omniscient point of view by a man with a soothing storyteller's voice, Paddle to the Sea is a lullaby to tranquility that entertains with simple charm and clever wit. --Trinie Dalton

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