March of the Penguins

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On July 23, 2005, a French-filmed documentary called “March of the Penguins” came out. It was all about emperor penguins in Antarctica. Once it was shown in theaters all over the U.S., the movie got lots of awards and even won an Oscar. The movie became the highest-grossing documentary in movie history. “March of the Penguins” showed the long journey of the Emperor penguins between the ocean and their inland breeding grounds. It took two cinematographers a whole year to film the emperor penguins. During this time, they had to live in isolated terrain and live through challenging weather conditions. However, the end result was one amazing film which showed the penguin parents caring for their unhatched eggs and young chicks. The male and female penguins were shown as being monogamous, and in turn this got comments from conservative commentators that the film promoted family values. However, the French film director Luc Jaquet stated that the penguin’s monogamy only lasted as long as one reproductive cycle, and therefore you had to let penguins be penguins and humans be humans. The American version of “March of the Penguins” was narrated by Morgan Freeman, an Oscar-winning actor. In the French version, which was titled “La Marche de l’empereur,” the voices of human actors made it seem that the emperor penguins were actually talking. This film won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature at the 78th Academy Awards. It was the success of this film that brought on a sort of penguin craze. In 2006 the computer-animated movie “Happy Feet” was released, featuring emperor penguins and featuring the voices of Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, and Nicole Kidman. It won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature at the 79th Academy Awards. This is the trailer for “March of the Penguins.”