Product Description

Jack London's famous short is filmed with complete fidelity to London's graphic narrative and could be called a screen short story in its purest form. The stark realism of the chilling images combined with the power of Orson Welles' reading fills the viewer with an awesome admiration for the story's courageous hero. The visuals add a new dimension to London's prose and the viewer feels the icy cold to an extent that reaches far beyond the power of words alone. This chilly discomfort provides a tense background for the suspense which is to come as the man attempts to build the fire he must have in order to survive. Bonus Features: Scene Selection| Previews| Jack London Bio. Specs: DVD5; Dolby Digital Mono; 56 minutes; Color; 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio; Year - 1969; SRP - $9.99.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #56187 in DVD
• Brand: VIDEO COMMUNICATIONS INC.
• Released on: 1999-12-07
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 56 minutes

Customer Reviews

Nature 1, Man 0
A man and his dog are walking along Henderson Creek in the high Yukon country. It is winter, and winter in the Yukon can be unforgiving to a chechaquo, a newcomer to the land. It's the man's first winter and he is walking on a day he should not. The dog knows this, but the man is a newcomer. The temperature is colder than sixty-five degrees below zero. Jack London's `To Build a Fire' is a classic tale of man against nature, London's harsh Yukon nature that was ruled by the law of club and fang. First published as a juvenile story in the magazine Youth's Companion in 1902, it was changed a bit for an adult audience and published in its final form in the Century Magazine in 1908. A little later it was anthologized in a slim volume of London short stories entitled `Lost Face' in 1910.

TO BUILD A FIRE is a 56-minute episode from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's 1981 mini-series `Jack London's Tales of the Klondike.' Directed by David Cobham, narrated by Orson Welles and starring Ian Hogg as the man, it is a faithful adaptation. Which, in this case, is a mixed blessing. London wrote from inside his characters, and what happened - the action - almost always shared equal billing with the character's reaction to that action. I mean, his masterpiece, The Call of the Wild, is written from a dog's point-of-view! The challenge presented by works like Call of the Wild and To Build a Fire is to bring that inner voice to the surface. This program met the challenge, with middling success, by having Welles read pertinent sentences from the story over the action.

Remove the narration and you have an hour's worth of a man walking across the snow. It doesn't look as cold as I've pictured it, although whoever did the make-up frosted up the man's beard right nicely. The man and dog get along too well, too. London's Man ruled by the club, his Dog challenged that rule with the fang, and neither party ever seemed particularly fond of the other. There are scenes in TO BUILD A FIRE where the dog seems downright frisky and playful. Nowhere in the program is this observation from London's story on display - "On the other hand, there was no keen intimacy between the dog and the man. The one was the toil-slave of the other, and the only caresses it had ever received were the caresses of the whip-lash and of harsh and menacing throat-sounds that threatened the whip-lash. " I never thought I'd ever have occasion to offer this observation, but I think the husky Pepper was miscast. This program needed a surly dog, and they got a Disney-cute one instead. I haltingly recommend TO BUILD A FIRE. It could have been much worse. Do not under any circumstance, though, watch this before reading the story. London's story in its entirety is readily available on the internet, and your first exposure to a story usually sets it in your mind. If you watch this before reading the original you're likely to wonder what all the fuss is about.

Review "film" as "film," not a novel or short story...
I've developed a viewing guide for this film which combines the narration and a "few" excerpts from London's short story -- thus I've spent a great deal of time studying the film and London's original narrative.

What bothers me immensely about "many" Amazon reviewers of films are the "observations" or "criticisms" that the "film versions" don't measure up to original literary works.

Why should they?

These are "film adaptation" and the filmmaker seldom can "match" the creative essence of the original literary work.

Quite often the film adaptations are "far superior" to original literary works in creating significant and lasting literary experiences.

In the past fifty years or so, "electronic literary experiences" have become the primary medium for vicarious literary experiences.

In this case -- the film adaptation of London's "To Build A Fire" -- the filmmaker captures the "essence" of the story. The film version is a classic -- especially well done considering that the film was produced and released 39 years ago, and was never intended to be a major theatrical release.

For you "literature teachers" try a controlled experiment with two groups - use "only" the film with the one group; while using "only" London's story with the other group. Be sure the two groups are comparable -- then compare and contrast. I dare you.

Also, try such a "controlled" experience with recalcitrant / reluctant students in "both" groups. I dare you.

If no one ultimately reads London's story it will disappear, even from the internet.

Comp. 2 Review
The story "To Build a Fire" was very intersting but the movie fell short. Costuming, scenery and special effect were all miserable. The sotry depicts a man who had a strong bond with his dog and is very knowledgeable with it comes to traveling. In the story we could picture how cold it was by the color of his amber beard from his tobacco chew and the darkness. The movie did not depict the amber beard and the darkness.
The movie left many of these elements out. Until the very end of the movie when his face frosted over it seemed like he was just a man walking on a normal winter day, but iwth arrogance and stupidity.