500 Words on Thursday | Written by Lee Schneider

Many nature films build a bridge of empathy between human watchers and animal protagonists, and most nature filmmakers work with charismatic on-camera talent, you know, like Lassie and Flipper and gorgeous supermodels like Bengal tigers.

Mark Lewis doesn’t do any of that.

He doesn’t cast Lassie. He focuses his documentary lens on the bit players of the animal kingdom – the extras – and he turns them into superstars. I didn’t think I could ever like a rat. But after seeing Mark’s film RAT, I never felt so warmly toward vermin. I never thought I could really like a chicken. But Mark’s The Natural History of the Chicken had me thinking of chickens as lead actors. Then you have Cane Toads: The Conquest, his 3D epic about a toad invasion in Australia.

“Ultimately, it’s an entertaining film experience,” Mark said.  “Why 3D?  We wanted to submerge or place the audience into the world of the toad.  3D is the ideal way to do that. I’m not trying to preach, I’m trying to entertain. Nothing gives me greater satisfaction, after the years of work making this, than to see people laughing and cheering as they watch the film.”

The film recently screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Also at the LA festival, One Lucky Elephant, Lisa Leeman’s warmly told and heartfelt documentary, ten years in the making, about the relationship between a circus producer and his favorite elephant. I didn’t think I could shed a tear watching an elephant movie, but Lisa’s movie can do that to you. More about elephants later. For now, let’s start small.

“The toad is a heroic character in this,” said Robert DeMaio, the editor of Cane Toads. Turning a tiny toad into a heroic character is no small feat, but the transformation starts with where you put the camera.

“Mark’s approach is to move the camera down,” DeMaio said. “The animal is suddenly on an equal footing with the audience. So there’s no condescension.”

Lisa Leeman (director, on left) and Christina Colissimo (producer, right)

DeMaio edited RAT, The Natural History of the Chicken, and other Mark Lewis films, so he has helped shape storylines that reveal the deep relationship possible between animals and people. This relationship zone is where Lisa Leeman goes so admirably in One Lucky Elephant. In the film, we experience how an elephant becomes a daughter to a circus owner, and how that situation sadly cannot hold when the elephant cannot live among humans any more. Her separation from her human “father” to live among her sister elephants is wrenching, powerful and ultimately redemptive – it makes us question our dominion over animals. Sure, we’re at the top of the food chain – but who’s really in charge?

You could say that the title characters of Cane Toads are insignificant creatures, but in the film they dominate the humans who obsess over them. Viewed through the Mark Lewis lens, the meaningless little toad becomes – literally – huge.

“I think that’s the theme that all these Mark Lewis films have, that there is meaning within the meaningless,” DeMaio said. “You look for those things that are in your day-to-day life invisible, but if you sort of shine a light on them, there’s something to be learned.”

When this hit me (in 3D no less!) I realized I was on to something – a heightened form of empathy. The people in a Mark Lewis film are precisely-framed eccentrics, truly one of a kind. But then I realized the animals are, too. The vermin in RAT, the meal on your plate in The Natural History of the Chicken and yes, the annoying toads are individuals who count. You certainly can’t ignore toads who are taking over your country. This passionately-observed world is unnerving for humans. Masters of the universe? I don’t think so. Not when a lowly toad can rock your world.

Those 3D glasses really did take me to another dimension.

Photos by Lee Schneider