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Filmmaker Nicholas Berger talks about his short film, Nutkin's Last Stand. On the surface, the film documents the battle between the English red squirrel and the North American grey squirrel. But Berger explains that in addition to being about squirrels, his film is also about patriotism, war and American imperialism.
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I have always been attracted to documentary subjects that have such strong characters, visual coherence and metaphorical structures that they feel scripted. These subjects attract me because I am more interested in making morality tales than informational pieces.”
— Nicholas Berger, Filmmaker
Talk About This
Executive Director
Saw very clearly the metaphorical and otherly symbolic aspects to these wee rodents. Very creative, interesting, human stories.
Thank you!
by Tamara from wallingford, CT
August 18, 2009, 11:00 PM
Alternatives For Saving Red Squirrels
Maybe this documentary aimed at presenting the mindset of its main subjects - the grey squirrel abolitionists - with as little outside influence as possible, but I still think some sort of enquiry or mention of alternatives to their callous killing campaign should have been made. Has inoculation of red squirrels against what the grey squirrels cary been considered? What about a red squirrel breeding program - just inoculated ones if possible to increase disease resistance? Is there a way to stop grey squirrels from being being carriers? Grey squirrels are poetic creatures too; that they happen to cary diseases that red squirrels aren't immune to is just something that happens in nature quite often. Decline and or extinction of one species due to the introduction of a foreign species happens quite often as well. If this isn't endangering or plaguing one's own species I'd think a little less soul-deadening tactic than grey squirrel genocide should predominate.
by Erick from Rochester,, NY
August 19, 2009, 1:45 AM
Alternatives
I agree about there having to be some sort of alternatives out there to help protect the red squirrels. Then I might not have to look at a pile of poor dead gray squirrels laying the back of a van right before I go to sleep at night as I enjoy watching PBS. There has to be some other alternative.
by Andrea SC
August 19, 2009, 5:50 PM
don't they mate?
i failed to hear about whether the two squirrel species mate, and what kind of result this would bring. Did i miss it, or was it overlooked or omitted?
Other than that, thanks for the documentary. In addition, the filmmaker's interview is great.
by Jerome Potts from Austin, Texas
August 20, 2009, 12:51 AM
The Eye of the Beholder
I too, enjoy Beatrix Potter’s Nutkin, and of course understand the Brits’ having taken the little fellow to their hearts…much like Pooh. However, using the term “American imperialism” when discussing British sensibilities, is rather a joke, since Britain was one of the modern world’s biggest of that sort.
As to invasion, I do not know how it was that the gray squirrel came to be in England; surely, it was not the fault of the squirrel. The only American “invasion” was one to which the Americans had been invited by many present day Brits and their antecedents.
As to the sweet elderly lady, Miss Hallsworth, a Priest of the C. of E., being so incensed by the cardboard figure of a naughty gray squirrel, that she resorted to the violence of knocking down the mightily offending figure, all the while telling the tale in a rocking chair with the glow of a homey blazing fire in the hearth…
And…then the fellow who handled the body of a dead gray squirrel as though it were a barely interesting “thing”, explaining it was a 7-month old female that he had shot in the head, all the while poking his finger into the bullet hole. He finished his tale of triumph over the little creature, by tossing it aside and saying it was “good for nothing, apart from shooting. That’s all it was good for.”
Neither of the two could think of another way of handling their gray squirrel pique. It seems ugliness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. I am sure I would like the little Red fellows, but I do very much enjoy the Grays. As they romp around my garden, running up and down the trees, they are thoroughly entertaining and have always exhibited manners of the utmost refinement.
When we talk of war and imperialism, America is not in Britain’s league. I am an American, brought up by a British mother and an American father, and have a fondness for things British. However, although my father was quietly and sincerely patriotic, it was our mother who made a point of telling us that we were Americans and that we had a country of which to be proud…gray squirrels or not.
by Dae NY
August 22, 2009, 2:34 PM
Excellency
As a resident of Manhattan and visitor to Riverside and Central parks I am somewhat disturbed seeing what is certainly a less than humane way of "despatching" the cousins of the ones I see and enjoy every day. I don't grasp the statement of the man who had just plugged a squirrel, that "it's just a rodent, with a different tail." Aren't the Imperial squirrels as much rodents as the Colonial ones? I bet they would make just as good crepes, too.
The reds certainly deserve protection, but there must be a more modern, high-tech approach. I had read there is another reason the grays have the advantage, that they eat the most readily accessible part of the acorns and leave the part that reds can't digest. Is that accurate?
by Richard Johnston from New York, New York
September 4, 2009, 8:26 PM