Jungle Book on DVD - Page 3 of 3


		Far Beyond the Bare Necessities (Continued from Page 2 )
		If it sounds like Reitherman knows a thing or two about filmmaking, it’s because he himself is an Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker. “My dad was always encouraging me to go for the things that were personal about my experience,” he says, “to try to pay attention to how I was feeling when certain things happened, and to try to recreate that emotional experience and show its importance, not just blandly present a factual occurrence. His approach was to reach for bits of personality, humor and the struggles found in nature.”	copyright Disney
		Reitherman talks in detail about his father on the DVD, and also presents a letter his father had written him about filmmaking. “His comments were always about grabbing the things that have an emotional appeal to them. Nobody will watch the most interesting aspects of scientific phenomena if you don’t make it entertaining somehow. He does talk about production quality, but that’s surprisingly way down on the list. You want to make your film as classy as you can, but it’s about what the characters are doing that makes is worth watching, not how well you execute it.” Reitherman concludes, “In many ways, my dad made me a good filmmaker by encouraging my willingness to look at the world, to think deeply and live richly, and have a sense of generosity about how to express your perspective to the rest of the world. At its best, entertainment is a gift to the audience.” The Jungle Book is certainly that.
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