Fly Away Home

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the novel, see Jennifer Weiner. For the 2016 film, see Fly Away Home (2016 film).
Fly Away Home
Theatrical release poster
Directed byCarroll Ballard
Screenplay byRobert Rodat
Vince McKewin
Based onFather Goose: One Man, a Gaggle of Geese, and Their Real Life Incredible Journey South
by Bill Lishman
Produced byCarol Baum
Starring
Cinematography
Sony Pictures Releasing
Release date
  • September 13, 1996 (1996-09-13) (United States)
Running time
107 minutes
CountriesCanada
United States
New Zealand
LanguageEnglish
Box office$36.5 million[1]

Fly Away Home (a.k.a. Flying Wild and Father Goose) is a 1996 family adventure drama film directed by Carroll Ballard. The film stars Anna Paquin, Jeff Daniels, and Dana Delany. Fly Away Home was released on September 13, 1996, by Columbia Pictures.

Fly Away Home dramatizes the actual experiences of

Canada geese to follow his ultralight aircraft, and succeeded in leading their migration in 1993 through his program "Operation Migration". The film is also based on the experience of Dr. William J. L. Sladen, a British-born zoologist and adventurer, who aided Lishman with the migration.[2]

Plot

After surviving a car accident in which her mother Aliane dies, 13-year-old Amy Alden is brought from New Zealand to Ontario, Canada, by her estranged father Thomas Alden, a sculptor and inventor, to live with him and his girlfriend Susan.

When a construction crew destroys a small wilderness area near the Alden home, Amy finds an abandoned nest of 16

domestic geese must have their wings pinioned
(clipped) to render them flightless. He promptly tries to demonstrate the process with one of the goslings, which upsets Amy. Thomas throws Seifert off his property, only for Seifert to threaten the Aldens that if the birds start flying, he will have to confiscate them.

Thomas decides to use an

bird sanctuary in North Carolina
, and arranges for the geese to go to the sanctuary. The birds have to arrive before November 1, or the sanctuary will be torn down by developers who plan to turn it into a coastal housing development.

Amy and Thomas practice flying the aircraft, but Igor, the weakest of the geese, who has a limp, accidentally hits the front of Amy's aircraft and lands in an isolated forest. While the group goes off to search for the bird, Glen Seifert returns to the Alden farm and confiscates the other geese. The next day, the Aldens free the geese, and Amy leads them on their migration to North Carolina, keeping Igor strapped in her cockpit as he is unable to fly in his current condition.

Making an emergency landing at Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station in western New York on the south shore of Lake Ontario, Amy and Thomas almost get arrested. They become national news, with residents cheering them on.

Thomas and Amy meet an old woman with a vendetta against goose shooting, and she invites them to stay the night at her house. That night Amy asks Thomas why he seldom visited her and her mother. From her mother, she knows that her parents were artists, who tend to be selfish, and that her mother left for both of their sakes. Thomas tells her that he was afraid and angry at himself for letting them leave, so he spent the next ten years buried in his work. He apologizes to Amy.

Thirty miles before reaching the bird sanctuary, Thomas's aircraft suffers a structural failure and crashes in a cornfield; having suffered a dislocated shoulder he tells Amy to finish the journey by herself. Thomas hitchhikes to the bird sanctuary. While waiting for the geese, Thomas, Susan, David, Barry, and many animal enthusiasts stand up to developers who are waiting to start the excavation of the site.

Amy eventually appears with the geese, much to the joy of the townspeople and Amy's family, and to the dismay of the developers. The townspeople and the Aldens celebrate their victory. During the end credits, a note reveals that all 16 geese - including a fully recovered Igor - returned to the Aldens' farm on their own in the following spring.

Cast

Songs

Production

To recreate the Alden home, principal photography took place in 1995, at two farms near

A Cool Dry Place (1998). The blacksmith shop constructed onsite for the filming of The Last Buffalo at Purple Hill, Ontario, was re-used as part of the Alden homestead.[3]

Western Canada Aviation Museum
to publicize the film.

Two gliders were featured in the film: The UFM Easy Riser and the Cosmos Trike. The Easy Riser first appears as a foot-launched biplane hang glider. True to Lishman's real-life saga, modifications were made to improve the design including the addition of a motor and seat. Anna Paquin's character instead flies an A-frame Cosmos Trike with a mock goose head mounted to the noseplate of the airframe and a fabric wing covering painted to resemble feathers. The Cosmos Trike was reportedly chosen for its safety, superior engine power, and increased wing size (a feature that was needed to fly slow enough for the birds).[4]

The four-day trip home for the geese that would take them to Lake Ontario, over the Appalachians to Pennsylvania, Maryland, finally settling on the North Carolina Shores, had principal photography actually filmed nearly entirely at Port Perry and Sandbanks Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada. Additional location shots were the city-fly-through in Toronto, Ontario, standing in for Baltimore, Maryland (CGI aircraft).[5] At the conclusion of the production, Lishman led the 60 imprinted "actor-geese" in migration, to winter at the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center off the coast of Georgetown, South Carolina.[6]

While in production, the film was at first titled Flying Wild, but was changed to Fly Away Home just weeks before its release in movie theaters. The original trailer has the title Flying Wild, and can be found on certain VHS copies of

Jumanji from Columbia TriStar Home Video;[7] the French
version title (L'Envolée sauvage) is the translated version of this title.

Director Carroll Ballard and cinematographer Caleb Deschanel previously collaborated on The Black Stallion and Never Cry Wolf with Fly Away Home being their third family film. Anna Paquin, who plays daughter to Jeff Daniels in Fly Away Home, would later play a love interest in The Squid and the Whale (2005). Upon the release of the Squid and the Whale, Jeff Daniels said that having had the previous experience made the filming a bit awkward for both of them.[8]

Reception

Box office

Filmed on a modest budget, Fly Away Home returned US$25 million in the U.S. box office and US$31 million internationally.

Critical reception

Audiences enjoyed the evocative, uplifting family-oriented film, which also received acclaim from critics.

Today Show
called the film "a must see movie".

The uplifting theme of the film was often cited; Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat stated, "The movie adds excitement and emotion, turning into a celebration of the creative ways human beings and animals can serve, assist, and love one another."[11]

Fly Away Home received an 88% approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes based on 48 reviews, with an average rating of 7.30/10. The site's consensus states: "Well-acted and beautifully filmed, Fly Away Home offers heartwarming entertainment for moviegoers of all ages."[12]

Impact

The first production of investigative theater group The Civilians, Canard, Canard, Goose?, was inspired by rumors of animal mistreatment on Fly Away Home's set.[13]

Awards

Caleb Deschanel's visuals received notice and resulted in Best Cinematography nominations for the 1996 Academy Awards and from the American Society of Cinematographers. Although unsuccessful in both competitions, Fly Away Home went on to win the 1997 Broadcast Film Critics Association Critics Choice Award as the Best Family Film, the 1997 Christopher Award (for family films), 1997 Young Artist Award in the category of Best Family Feature – Drama, and the 1997 Genesis Award for Feature Films. Anna Paquin was also nominated for the Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film – Leading Young Actress (the film was also nominated as Best Family Feature – Drama) and the 1997 YoungStar Award for Best Performance by a Young Actress in a Drama Film.[14]

Home media

Fly Away Home was more successful on

Blu-ray
edition of Fly Away Home was released on April 7, 2009.

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ Fly Away Home at Box Office Mojo
  2. Washington Post
    . Retrieved 2017-06-27.
  3. ^ Lishman, Bill. "William Lishman- Film." Archived 2011-07-18 at the Wayback Machine williamlishman.com. Retrieved: May 9, 2011.
  4. ^ "Ultralight Aircraft." Archived 2009-12-12 at the Wayback Machine williamlishman.com. Retrieved: March 20, 2010.
  5. ^ "'Fly Away Home': Leading the Flock." HBO special, airdate: August 1996.
  6. ^ Lishman, Bill. "Fly Away Home: Behind the scenes." operationmigration.org, 2011. Retrieved: May 9, 2011.
  7. ^ Maslin, Janet. "Overview: 'Fly Away Home' (1996), Alternate title: 'Flying Wild, Father Goose'." The New York Times, September 13, 1996.
  8. YouTube
    , March 31, 2009. Retrieved: May 7, 2011.
  9. ^ Ebert, Roger. "Fly Away Home" Archived 2013-01-04 at the Wayback Machine. Chicago Sun Times, September 13, 1996. Retrieved: March 20, 2010.
  10. ^ Maslin, Janet. "Fly Away Home (1996)." The New York Times, September 13, 1996.
  11. ^ Brussat, Frederic and Mary Ann. "Film review: 'Fly Away Home'." spiritualityandpractice.com, 2009. Retrieved: May 9, 2011.
  12. ^ "Fly Away Home (1996)." rottentomatoes.com. Retrieved: May 20, 2021.
  13. ^ Cote, David (7 February 2008). "Reviews: Canard, Canard, Goose?". Time Out New York.
  14. ^ "Eighteenth Annual Youth in Film Awards, 1995–1996." Archived 2011-04-02 at the Wayback Machine youngartistawards.org. Retrieved: May 7, 2011.
  15. ^ Matzer, Marla (1997-04-16). "Direct-to-Video Family Films Are Hitting Home". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 4 June 2011.
  16. ^ "'Fly Away Home' on DVD."[usurped] currentfilm.com. Retrieved: May 7, 2011.
  17. ^ "Fly Away Records FLY-CD 79258." Soundtrack Collector. Retrieved: May 9, 2011.

Bibliography

External links
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