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CRAZY GIRAFFES OF OMAHA |
Nature film depicts life
of urban giraffe colony
By GERALD NACHMAN
of TheColumnists.com
In the flurry of excitement over such recent wildlife films as “The March of the Penguins,” “Winged Migration” and “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill,” Murray Grosbeak’s new film, “Nebraska’s Galloping Giraffes, ” has escaped serious media attention.
For his movie, the little-known Omaha film-maker spent 18 years tracking giraffes around the Nebraska outback to document their unusual lifestyles, mating habits, migratory customs, facial tics and belief system. He distinguishes his film from similar ventures, scoffing, “This film is not dependent on mere cuteness to connect to viewers.”
Few, even in Nebraska, are aware that giraffes are indigenous to the Midwest, which is why it took Grosbeak seven years simply to persuade distributors that his film was not a computer-generated fantasy. During that time, the filmmaker (now working on a documentary about the snails of New Haven) went deeply into hock and financed his movie by maxing out his parents’ and brother-in-law’s credit cards.
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of the flashback sequence in "Nebraska's Galloping Giraffes" in which Spot dreams of his Mama on the great African veldt. |
Grosbeak, now serving six counts of identity theft and mail fraud, believes his new film will find its audience. “My timing cannot have been better,” he said from the visitor’s room at Lewiston State Penitentiary. “Documentaries are really hot, and especially wild-animal docs.” Although his movie has yet to land a distributor, he feels that he’s on the verge of finding success at the PETA Film Festival in Duluth, Minn., where “Nebraska’s Galloping Giraffes” is entered in the Tall Inedible Creatures Division.
He is also awaiting a call back from the David Letterman show, where he would like to land a spot on the Stupid Pet Tricks segment. “One of our Giraffes, Toby, can limbo under a low-hanging limb,” he explains. “Let’s see a goddamn penguin top that!”
Perhaps the highlight of Grosbeak’s
movie is a 40-minute segment that depicts two giraffes fighting
for the last leaf on a fake palm tree in a strip mall in suburban
Lincoln. Many viewers were moved to tears, others to leaving
the theater. Prior to that, we see the giraffes making their
annual winter trek from a zoo in Wichita all the way to a trailer
park just outside Omaha, mating ground for the few giraffes that
still remain in Nebraska. Since the movie, many have moved to
Los Angeles, to break into TV. One giraffe, Big Fred, has a development
deal with the Nature Channel.
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in Omaha, Nebraska. From left to right: 1. A young giraffe helps an Omaha youngster practice basketball foul shots; 2. A giraffe maintains proper hygiene by using one of the Omaha community giraffe showers; 3. A giraffe passer-by gawks at a backyard barbecue party; 4. An educated giraffe takes an Omaha night school course in animal husbandry. |
Unlike penguins, giraffes do not mate for life and are, in fact, extremely promiscuous, some dating as many as four or five giraffes simultaneously. Giraffes have even been known to flirt with llamas and camels when nothing better is available.
Many giraffes, interestingly, prefer to live alone and rarely go out at all. And unlike parrots, giraffes do not speak or communicate except by blinking their eyes and wagging their tongues in a sort of semaphore. One rare breed of short-necked giraffe, found mainly around Lincoln, paws messages into the ground with their hooves, but the messages are extremely hard to decipher, even for other giraffes.
Grosbeak spent nine years tracking the day-to-day existence of one giraffe, Spot, as the camera zooms in on his every fascinating move, from nibbling acorns to dozing to nibbling more acorns, to attempting to mate with inappropriate animals, such as a grizzly bear, a possum and a cocker spaniel. After four hours spent among “Nebraska's Galloping Giraffes,” viewers are sure to emerge with a far better appreciation of what it means to be a giraffe trying to survive in a modern fast-paced American city.
©2005 by Gerald Nachman. The Nachman caricature is ©2000 by Jim Hummel. The cartoons are from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted Aug. 15, 2005.
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