Customer Reviews

The Natural History of the Chicken [VHS]

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I caught this film at the USA Film Festival in Dallas last year, thinking it would be a fun way to spend an hour or so. (As you may be able to surmise by my online name, I have something of a thing for chickens.) Little did I know what was in store for me and my companions. The stories are charming, some even downright silly, and I learned way more about chickens than I ever thought I would.

I loved the story of the lady who gave her chicken mouth-to-beak resuscitation after it got lost in a blizzard, garnering national attention for them both. Then there's the story of Cotton, the pet rooster of a woman even more eccentric than I. This pampered chick has his own special seat in the car so that he may ride around with his owner, who dresses him in diapers (guess chickens can't be house-trained!) and washes and blow-dries him daily, after they swim laps in her pool. He also loves to watch TV with his human. (Apparently chickens have vision similar to ours, and also enjoy all kinds of music!) There's also a story about a rural neighborhood where a man who raised fighting cocks moved in, and all hell broke loose because of the noise the roosters made. I also learned from Mike ("Miracle Mike") that chickens can indeed live a very long time without a head! And a pastor tells his moving story about a tiny hen he owned who defended her chicks against a marauding raptor. This little film may also make you change the way you think about eating poultry (I was already a vegetarian), showing the horrors to which chickens are subjected before being slaughtered for consumption.

Director Mark Lewis' tongue is firmly planted in his cheek with some of these stories, treading a fine line between mocking/deriding his subjects, and gazing upon them with pure affection. This film is truly a celebration of chickens, and the people who love them.

....the Unnatural History of Man.

If the story about the frozen chicken brought back to life with CPR doesn't get you, or the one about the headless chicken or the one in which an entire country community responds to the torrent of Bantam rooster crowing, maybe the one in which the lady shows how she puts the Depends on her pet chick or the story of how the mamma chicken saves her brood from the hawk ('I would be proud to be called chicken.') will. These are tales told with a deadpan and a tongue in cheek ala PBS's Rare Visions show. Something here will have you chuckling...or clucking....and putting a big smile on your face. If, however, you feel the need to sit on a few eggs, I suggest you seek a therapist.

This is a great program for people who just don't know chickens.
The program comes across as a bit anthropomorphic, but it is a very sensitive, very enlightening, very engrossing, insightful look into the life of a fellow creature we too often take for granted. Chickens tend to be under-appreciated considering the numbers of them it takes to feed us. Eggs, McNuggets, buffalo wings, Teriyaki, chow mein, etc.

There are several people in this program who are clearly absorbed with the Nature of the Chicken. They dearly LOVE chickens--but they are people who probably love cats, dogs, kids, and other people, too.
Chickens seem much more special after watching this program.

I can't believe how utterly stunned I am. Rarely does a television show leave me so dumbfounded as the documentary I just watched. Thank god I taped it, because I had to watch it twice.

It was on PBS and called, "The Natural History of the Chicken." Still being in a sense of awe, Im not even sure what to say about it, but here goes.

Theres a woman in Florida who proudly skinny-dips with her rooster/significant other Cotton every morning. She takes him with her everywhere she goes. Shes got a special little car-seat that allows him to look out the window as they drive around town running errands. He eats the same foods this woman eats and even shares a bed with her. She has him wear little panties around the house to prevent him from  well, you know. As Im typing this, theyre grocery shopping together since Cotton eats the same things she eats (just not as much I guess).

Ok, now they cut to McDonalds where the Florida lady and Cotton are enjoying a Big-Mac. (I believe this proves I really dont have a life. Its Saturday night and Im mesmerized by watching a chicken eating a hamburger.)

Now, when this woman leaves for work in the morning she leaves on the television tuned to Cottons favorite programs, usually classical music. He also seems to be partial to opera and is a big fan of Pavarotti.

She shared a poem she wrote about Cotton:

My Cotton Rooster

Each day the beautiful, white rooster called Cotton arises crowing.
He has such love and happiness.
He has such a joy exuding from his whole beautiful being.
I never even knew a human that was filled with so much love and joy, so great to greet me each morning.

Then they spend quite some time talking about this chicken that lives for several weeks after it had been be-headed. Its owners took the bird on tour all over the country when it finally died as they were in between gigs.

Another woman who had several chickens as pets was calling them all in for the night when one of them was discovered missing. She searched exhaustively for the bird and found it some time later under a house, on its back, frozen solid, legs straight up in the air. The woman was sad that her chicken was dead, so she picked up the bird and brought it home in order to give it a proper burial.

As she laid the chicken in a box and was about to close it, she felt a faint pulse in the chickens neck. She immediately scooped up the bird and began performing CPR and was able to revive the bird.

Word had gotten around about the miracle, and the owner of the bird was contacted by an animal psychic who wanted to ask the miracle chicken a few questions.

She wanted to know, When you were frozen [the chicken], had you been going down a long tunnel with a light at the end? And, if so, why did you come back?

The chickens response [as relayed by the psychic]: Yes indeed I did go down the tunnel. I got pretty close to the end where the light was and was told You must go back. And I realized that I had been put on this farm not to just lay eggs, but to prove to people that with love and with caring miracles DO happen. (Ah, the wisdom of a chicken.)

There was a lot more, but those were the highlights. I just had to write about it or I wouldnt be able to sleep tonight.

Anyway, if you have a chance to see this documentary, do it! You wont regret it.

Not a comprehensive view of chickens, but if you're looking for a little less on the information and more on the entertainment, this is it. I love this movie! It reminds me of Best in Show in the way it was filmed and the intriguing people and will give you a whole new perspective on chickens.

My pal wanted to share this video with me, and I was so pleased. It offers several viewpoints of the chicken, in parallel to the ways that humans view them. Some views as a dear pet, some as sport, some as simply chicken parts awaiting the freezer, and some as a wonderful creature with a PERSONALITY, for God's sake! I am buying a few as Christmas gifts. Truly, this video has it all: warmth, comedy, hilarity, sadness, but overall propounds a new-found RESPECT for the amazing CHICKEN!

I cannot wait to own this video. I watched this the other night and was so emotionally moved. This video was excellent. It is full of these great vignettes--some of which are unbelievable--and other crazy people who are ga-ga over chickens. There is one particular vignette that made me ball my eyes out in sadness one second and then ball my eyes out in joy the next. I am so impressed with this documentary, I am going to purchase this director's other video, "Cane Toads: An Unnatural History."

While not a comprehensive natural history of the chicken, this beautifully filmed story of people and their chickens will leave you with a new perspective on chicken life. It's full of funny and emotional vignettes, outstanding photgraphy and some truly weird and funny stories. You won't be disappointed in this one.

I saw this last year and couldn't get it out of my head. Not only is it funny, as many of the reviewers here have said, it is also very, very, sad. It tells some wonderful stories about chickens and the last one about the chicken who's chick is attacked by a hawk is quite moving. But, there is a dark side to this as well because it shows very clearly how human beings abuse and use chickens as pure commodoties.

Watch this and you'll never feel the same about chickens again.

And ignore the person who thinks it's mad - it's not mad, it's just that they don't understand.

I saw this a few years back and got the biggest kick out of it! I regret that I didn't buy it at the time because three years later I still tell my friends about the hilarious and unbelievable things I saw in this film. If you are a serious chicken student, you might not get this film, but I never thought twice about chickens til I saw this and I gotta say it makes great conversation, now I can show my friends I wasn't making this stuff up! I'm a serious weird comedy lover, and this just hit the spot. p.s. sorry if this offends all you die hard chicken advocates, but it really is funny!