''Animals Are Beautiful People'' (also called ''Beautiful People'') is a 1974 South African

nature documentary A nature documentary or wildlife documentary is a genre of documentary film or series about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures, usually concentrating on video taken in their natural habitat but also often including footage of tr ...

written, produced, directed, filmed and edited by

Jamie Uys Jacobus Johannes Uys (; 30 May 1921 – 29 January 1996), better known as Jamie Uys, was a South African film director, best known for directing the 1980 comedy film ''The Gods Must Be Crazy'' and its 1989 sequel ''The Gods Must Be Crazy II''. ...

, about the

wildlife Wildlife refers to domestication, undomesticated animal species (biology), species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wilderness, wild in an area without being species, introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous ...

Southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost subregion of the African continent, south of the Congo and Tanzania. The physical location is the large part of Africa to the south of the extensive Congo River basin. Southern Africa is home to a number of ...

, presented with

comedic Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

elements. It was filmed in the

Namib Desert The Namib ( ; pt, Namibe) is a coastal desert in Southern Africa. The name is of Khoekhoegowab origin and means "vast place". According to the broadest definition, the Namib stretches for more than along the Atlantic coasts of Angola, Namib ...

, the

Kalahari Desert The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa extending for , covering much of Botswana, and parts of Namibia and South Africa. It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African Namib coastal de ...

and the

Okavango River The Okavango River (formerly spelled Okovango or Okovanggo), Also known as the Cubango River, is a river in southwest Africa. It is the fourth-longest river system in southern Africa, running southeastward for . It begins at an elevation of in ...

and

Okavango Delta The Okavango Delta (or Okavango Grassland; formerly spelled "Okovango" or "Okovanggo") in Botswana is a swampy inland delta formed where the Okavango River reaches a tectonic trough at an altitude of 930–1,000 m in the central part of the en ...

. It was the recipient of the 1974

Golden Globe Award for Best Documentary Film The Golden Globe Award for Best Documentary Film is a Golden Globe Awards, Golden Globe Award that was introduced for the 11th Golden Globe Awards, followed by the 30th Golden Globe Awards before discontinuation after the 34th Golden Globe Awards. ...

. The film, a critical and commercial success, was independently made by Uys, also known for his later African comedy ''

The Gods Must Be Crazy ''The Gods Must Be Crazy'' is a 1980 comedy film written, produced, edited and directed by Jamie Uys. An international co-production of South Africa and Botswana, it is the first film in ''The Gods Must Be Crazy'' series. Set in Southern Africa ...

'' (1980).

General description

The film begins in the Namib desert, with the narrator saying: "You'd think nobody could make a living here." But the film proves the opposite and shows the lives of the animals that live there. The narrator concludes: "But to the

Oryx ''Oryx'' is a genus consisting of four large antelope species called oryxes. Their pelage is pale with contrasting dark markings in the face and on the legs, and their long horns are almost straight. The exception is the scimitar oryx, which l ...

and the little creatures of the Namib, this waterless, hostile desert is paradise." The second third of the film shows the rich life in the

and

(see Marula, below), and the last third of the film focuses on life in the Kalahari desert.

Criticisms

One scene depicts

baboon Baboons are primates comprising the genus ''Papio'', one of the 23 genera of Old World monkeys. There are six species of baboon: the hamadryas baboon, the Guinea baboon, the olive baboon, the yellow baboon, the Kinda baboon and the chacma ba ...

elephant Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae an ...

giraffe The giraffe is a large African hoofed mammal belonging to the genus ''Giraffa''. It is the tallest living terrestrial animal and the largest ruminant on Earth. Traditionally, giraffes were thought to be one species, ''Giraffa camelopardalis ...

warthog ''Phacochoerus'' is a genus in the family Suidae, commonly known as warthogs (pronounced ''wart-hog''). They are pigs who live in open and semi-open habitats, even in quite arid regions, in sub-Saharan Africa. The two species were formerly cons ...

s and other African animals eating rotten, fermented fruit of the Marula tree. The animals are then intoxicated, and they stagger around to comic effect, before nightfall comes and they fall asleep. In the morning, we see one baboon wake up, disheveled, next to a warthog, and quietly exit the burrow, as not to wake her. Some experts have claimed that some scenes were likely staged; elephants would be too large, for example, and drink too much water (diluting the alcohol) to get intoxicated.

Classical music

The film uses

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...

and especially well-known pieces to support a scene. A few examples: * " Brahms Hungarian Dance No. 5" with acrobatic

s * Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers", showing the miracle of the

blooming Bloom or blooming may refer to: Science and technology Biology * Bloom, one or more flowers on a flowering plant * Algal bloom, a rapid increase or accumulation in the population of algae in an aquatic system * Jellyfish bloom, a collective n ...

desert A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About on ...

* Weber's "Invitation to the Dance" orchestrated by Berlioz, featuring the animals' celebration of Paradise's return * Smetana's "Die Moldau", throughout the movie, especially during the river scenes *

Franz Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...

's "Les préludes, symphonic poem No.3", near the end of the film, during the cloud formation scene * Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Reed Flutes"

Featured species

''This incomplete list does include almost all mentioned species.''

References

External links

* * {{Golden Globe Award for Best Documentary Film 1974 documentary films 1974 films Documentary films about nature Films directed by Jamie Uys Films shot in South Africa South African comedy films South African documentary films Warner Bros. films 1970s English-language films