The White Dawn

[MikeBSG]

This 1974 movie isn't exactly a Western, but that is the closest genre fit for it.

It is about three shipwrecked whalers (Warren Oates, Lou Gossett Jr. and Timothy Bottoms) who are rescued by some Eskimos. They live with the Eskimos for about one year, and then they are killed in an inevitable culture clash.

Directed by Philip Kauffman (The Right Stuff), it is a beautiful film, if a bit too obvious and slow for my tastes. (I love "The Right Stuff" and "Unbearable Lightness of Being," but "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "Henry and June" didn't work for me.) Frankly, the ending saved the movie, because it avoided the obvious. I just knew Warren Oates' character was doomed. It was interesting that the Eskimos killed the other two guys as well. That raised "The White Dawn" from being totally predictable.

The movie itself puzzled me. It has a PG rating. A lot of the action seemed like it could be a Disney true-life adventure, until suddenly there is wife-swapping among the Eskimos and some bared breasts. This was PG in 1974? (Certainly the emphasis on eroticism foretells "Unbearable Lightness" and "Henry and June" but it was surprising in this context.)

As I watched "The White Dawn," I had to compare it to "The New World," the recent Terence Malik film about Jamestown. "The White Dawn" beat "The New World" hands down in my view. It was clear and it got the same points across without a lot of irritating subplots that didn't really go anywhere.

[CineMaven]

Back in the 1970's I was going to see anything that TIMOTHY BOTTOMS appeared in. "The White Dawn" was one of them. And seeing a man of color in this setting was unusual and refreshing.

I enjoyed the movie immensely.