The Living Desert (1953)

The Living Desert
Directed by James Algar
Written by James Algar and Winston Hibler
1953/USA
Walt Disney Studio
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] “I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams…” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince[/box]

I believed less than half of what they were trying to teach me but enjoyed looking at the American desert, my current home.

This is a very Disney documentary.  First we get an animated explanation of how the desert is formed by the clouds bumping up against the Sierra Nevada mountains.  The film then focuses mostly on the animal life of the desert.  Several species are covered.  Many of the little stories involve predator-prey behavior.

All the animals are seen through a simplistic human-centric lens.  Their behavior is shown in heavily edited little dramas conforming to what a child might imagine the motivation to be. We don’t really see quite this kind of nature documentary anymore.  Disney captured some nice footage though and the narrative is entertaining.

The Living Desert won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, Features.

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