The Planet's Best Friend, David Attenborough is 100 - Celebrate with Two of His Latest
By Karen Gordon
One of the world’s greatest conservationists and environmental filmmakers, Sir David Attenborough celebrates his 100th birthday on Friday, May 8.
Through a career stretching decades, Attenborough has remained a man of integrity, and one of the most important and true voices in conservation, education, and environmental filmmaking.
He took a childhood fascination with the natural world and turned it into a life-long career, educating and enchanting people with the Earth’s biological beauty. Over the years, he moved from host to BBC broadcast executive to filmmaker.
His passion for the natural world never wavered. But as time went on, the human impact on the planet, and concerns about shrinking biodiversity, began to shift his work more towards environmentalism and using his work to advocate for change.
He zeroed in on themes of population growth, climate change and other ways human activity was having increasingly deleterious impacts on the planet and on the non-human population. And he never faltered.
Over the years, Attenborough built a steady body of work, and amassed awards and accolades, including a knighthood. He is one of the best known and most beloved figures in the world of science and nature programming.
I could go through all Attenborough’s career and his achievements, which are considerable,
But instead, I think the best way for us to honour his landmark birthday is to watch one of his films.
It isn’t just his passion that has captivated audiences for decades and through several generations. Sir David is a wonderful storyteller, never pedantic, with the ability to convey his wonder and his concern. And in a chaotic world, those talents make his work compelling and important.
There’s never a false note in an Attenborough documentary, no hidden agendas. On camera, he shares his awe at what he’s experiencing, and his concerns. He doesn’t anthropomorphize. There is no sense that nature exists relative to human need. Rather, his approach is to show the natural world with its own integrity.
Centenarian legend David Attenborough
His messages are straightforward and important: that these wild spaces deserve to exist on their own terms, and that human activity, our growing population and insatiable demands, are putting pressure on the existence of these places. We are wiping out habitats, on land and in the oceans, leaving entire species with nowhere else to go.
Once captivated by the unspoiled world and by the creatures who live in it, can any of us turn away from our role as keepers of the planet?
Attenborough’s work is a constant reminder not just of the wonder of our planet, but that we too are part of these ecosystems, interconnected and interlinked.
So, to celebrate Sir David’s 100th birthday here are two of his most recent films currently streaming, both appropriate for family viewing. Both are rated A by Original-Cin.
A Gorilla Story: Told By David Attenborough
In 1978, Attenborough travelled to the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda, where the late primatologist Dian Fossey studied mountain gorillas. Thanks to Fossey’s guidance on how to behave around the gorillas, he found himself relating to the members of a particular group, and in particular a three-year-old named Pablo who cuddled up to Attenborough.
Pablo grew up and became the leader of a group that would become the largest ever recorded. As a leader, he also showed unique behaviour.
Now approaching 100, Attenborough takes us back to Virunga, to see how Pablo’s descendants are faring. With footage of gorilla behaviour never filmed before, the documentary gives us a glimpse into the way of life for the apes, how their society is organized and how changes in the community structure affect the individuals.
A Gorilla Story: Told By David Attenborough, directed by James Reed and Callum Webster, now streaming on Netflix.
This award-winning National Geographic film, streaming on Disney+, is visually beautiful, but is also an urgent call to all of us to grapple with the state of our oceans while we still have time.
Attenborough talks about how far our understanding of the oceans has come in his lifetime. Over generations, technology has given us an astonishing ability to study the ocean - and just in time. Attenborough begins the documentary by telling us that he now believes that the most important place on the planet is not the land, but rather, our oceans.
And human activity is eroding the life there in a dramatic way. The film looks with photographic brilliance at the beauty of the underwater world and the incredible life that exists there. But it also provides stark images of the damage we’re doing.
Ocean with David Attenborough, directed by Colin Butfield, Toby Nowlan, Keith Scholey, streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.