The Bear

1989 "He's an orphan... at the start of a journey. A journey to survive."
7.7| 1h34m| PG| en| More Info
Released: 27 October 1989 Released
Producted By: Renn Productions
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
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An orphan bear cub hooks up with an adult male as they try to dodge human hunters.

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Director

Jean-Jacques Annaud

Production Companies

Renn Productions

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The Bear Audience Reviews

Console best movie i've ever seen.
Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes
Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows
Robert J. Maxwell Man Bites Bear It's easy to see why this film was rated so highly. It's awfully likable. The principles are Youk, a bear cub, and Bart, a 1500 pound fully grown male Kodiak bear. Poor Youk. His mother is digging out a honeycomb and dislodges a large chunk of granite which crushes her head. Youk, whimpering, must take off on his own, wobbling along through the grasslands and crags of the Wasatch Mountains in Utah, an inhospitable place to everyone but skiers.We are then introduced to the mammoth Bart, who shoos off the rugrat, clearly a bear with dependency issues. Still the cub follows Bart around, though unwanted. Then, enter the enemy, two sinister hunters collecting bear skins to sell for the manufacture of robes, rugs, coats, hats, and whatever else they make out of bearskins. Pow! And Bart is wounded in the shoulder, wobbling off painfully until he manages to heal his wound by rolling around in a muddy pond. His convalescence over, Bart adopts Youk, and teaches him the rules of the game.But during his escape from the two hunters, Bart has killed one of their horses and wounded the other, so now revenge joins profit in motivating the two hunters, who bring in a pack of hunting hounds. Well, I'll tell you, it's one tribulation after another, both for the bears and for the hunters. Youk is hunted by the angriest mountain lion known to man or beast and is saved at the last minute by the intervention of Big Bart. Big Bart also traps the meanest of the hunters, scares the crap out of him, and then after roaring, bearing his teeth, and scraping some dust on the cowering human ("Please, don't kill me!") he wanders off, satisfied that he's made his message clear through his body language and prosody. And he HAS too. The mean hunter has an epiphany. Later when he has a clear opportunity to kill Bart, he spares him.What makes the film so appealing, chiefly, are two of its features.First, Youk is both ugly and cute at the same time. He's pretty funny too, rolling around, eating psychedelic mushrooms and tripping out, so that a floating mushroom turns into a real butterfly. The hunters manage to capture him and in their absence from the camp he rummages through their possessions and winds up covered with feathers. Cute. He witnesses a primal scene involving Bart and a sluttish female and falls asleep while they copulate.Second, although we are constantly on the side of the bears, the humans are not shown as resolutely evil in their actions or their emotions. Having captured Youk, they tie him to a tree, tease him, and laugh at his antics. He's not treated badly. When the men ride away, Youk is perfectly willing to follow them so they must scare him away. And the humans don't show any animus towards bears or other animals. They like their dogs and their horses. They're just depicted as making a living. The living involves killing animals, but the bears kill deer too. Everybody has to make a living.The framework for the relationship between humans and their natural environments was described by an anthropologist, Florence Kluckhohn, who observed that people had three ways of dealing with nature: they could live in submission to it, they could live in harmony with it, or they could try to conquer it. The hunters in this film are more or less living in harmony with nature. The iconography suggests this story takes place in the late 19th century. By that time -- up to and including now -- not everyone felt that way. We have no more passenger pigeons in North America, though they used to darken the skies. If you want to see an American buffalo, you must go to a zoo now. Wolves are disappearing and grizzlies are increasingly hard to come by. I won't go on about this point, though it would be easy to do.One annoying element of the film is that, well, I'm afraid some of Youk's whimpers, screams, and inquiries were dubbed by either a pre-adolescent human child or a fully blown human woman. We can clearly hear little Youk uttering, "Huh?" and "Wow" and "Oh" and "Wassup" and "So's your old man" and reciting Hamlet's famous soliloquy -- "To be or not to be". Under the influence of those psychedelic mushrooms he fantasizes himself at the Metropolitan opera singing "La Donna e Mobile" to a packed house.I kind of enjoyed it, despite the cuteness, not because of it.
Scott LeBrun Based on James-Oliver Curwoods' 1917 novel "The Grizzly King", "The Bear" is quite remarkable, a heart tugging and involving drama where animal actors are at the forefront. At the beginning, a grizzly cub is orphaned, and the poor little thing eventually hooks up with an adult Kodiak bear. The big and fearsome Kodiak becomes the cubs' companion and protector, but is itself a tempting prize for a pair of hunters, Bill (Jack Wallace), and Tom (Tcheky Karyo).Written by Gerard Brach ("Repulsion", "Frantic") and directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud ("Quest for Fire"), what's nice about "The Bear" is how well it manages to promote love and respect for Mother Nature. It's a beautifully shot (by Philippe Rousselot), picturesque story, with no shortage of perils into which our four legged heroes are placed. It may be hard for some people to watch at times, although scenes of harm to animals were faked as best as possible using special effects. (Admittedly, the blood looks rather like paint.) It's sometimes manipulative, to be honest, but it still engages the viewer, thanks to a delightful pair of performances by Bart (the Kodiak) and Youk (the cub). Youk in particular is adorable. Wallace and Karyo are good, refraining from being purely one dimensional. Philippe Sarde composed the touching music score.The film is actually not without humour, and even creates some surreal "nightmare" sequences containing striking imagery.Must viewing for lovers of both cinema and animals.Eight out of 10.
ma-cortes Enjoyable kiddie film about the adventurer life of an awesome bear and the feats on the wildness , as the animal has to survive on his own , facing off dangers and risks . Picturesque story about an orphan bear cub hooks up with an adult male as they attempt to dodge human hunters played by Tcheky Karyo and Jack Wallace . He's an orphan called ¨Bart the Bear¨ at the start of a journey throughout meadows , woods and mountains . Bart stars this dangerous journey to survive and being relentlessly pursued by two stubborn hunters.This is a wonderful film , an ecologist story dealing with orphaned bear cub that is adopted by an adult male bear and must avoid two obstinate hunters . The tale of the extraordinary existence and times of a little bear is well written by Gerard Brach , Roman Polanski's usual , being based on novel titled "The Grizzly King" by James Oliver Curwood . The impressive scenery , photography and music enhance the story of Bart and his adoptive father . The scenes featuring the bears were breathtaking , plenty of pranks and frolics , their legs moving together in smooth rhythm , they were all absolutely beautiful . There are some rousing animal shots , it must have been hell getting the bears to "act" . The story is treated in good sense and high sensibility ; environment , mountains , forests combine to enhance the glories of nature, one of which, after all, is silence . Because in the wild, male bears usually eat bear cubs if they can, the filmmakers prepared the adult Bart the Bear for the cub by having him play with a teddy bear the size and fur color of the cub , when the trainers felt he was ready, he was introduced to the cub and he greeted the cub affectionately . Glimmer and colorful cinematography by Philippe Rousselot , splendidly filmed in spectacular landscapes from Dolomites , Italy . Sensitive and emotive musical score by Philippe Sarde . For the music lover, ¨The Bear¨ is a sensible ride in which the music all too well toys with the soul , it is so delicately composed, performed, and chosen for the movie that it is worth seeing just to enjoy the soundtrack . The magnificent filmmaker Annaud creates yet another picture in nature with almost no human dialogue such as ¨Quest for fire¨ in this agreeable flick . Excellently directed and produced by the French Jean Jacques Annaud , an expert on animal films as proved in ¨Running Free¨ about horses and ¨Two brothers¨ dealing with tigers . The bottom line is if you love animals at all , then you will completely adore this film . Rating : Better than average , worthwhile watching .
moonspinner55 Well-received French film from James Oliver Curwood's book harks back to the wildlife documentaries from 1950s Disney in both style and sentiment, as an orphaned bear cub trails a Kodiak bear around a mountain terrain for companionship. Soon, they're both being followed by an eager pack of hunters. "The Bear" features several eloquent and lovely moments, captured beautifully on film by director Jean-Jacques Annaud, though unfortunately the film as a whole isn't especially worthwhile. The animals are manipulated into action for the sake of thrills, some of which have a brutal edge, leaving an uncomfortable pall hanging over the project. Ultimately, it's an old-fashioned adventure story with a sincere appreciation for the bears involved, yet it doesn't leave one feeling very satisfied. ** from ****