A Way Out of the Wilderness Backdrop Blur
A Way Out of the Wilderness Poster

A Way Out of the Wilderness

A Way Out of the Wilderness is a 1968 American short documentary film produced by Dan E. Weisburd. It describes and illustrates steps being taken by the Plymouth State Home and Training School, Northville, Michigan, to bring mentally impaired children out of the wilderness into the mainstream of life. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Top Cast

  • Lorne Greene

    Lorne Greene

    Narrator

Overview

A Way Out of the Wilderness is a 1968 American short documentary film produced by Dan E. Weisburd. It describes and illustrates steps being taken by the Plymouth State Home and Training School, Northville, Michigan, to bring mentally impaired children out of the wilderness into the mainstream of life. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Rating

6.4 / 10
5 Reviews
0 Popular

1 Reviews

  • CinemaSerf
    CinemaSerf
    6 May 21, 2024

    Some of the language here is a bit on the pejorative side, but the underlying message contained in this documentary is quite effective at illustrating the problems of the profoundly handicapped people for whom society really only has one solution. Institutionalising them. A single camera follows the daily trials and tribulations of people struggling with disabilities that affect everything from their brain function to their mobility. What's a little more distinctive here is that the focus is more on able-bodied people learning to adapt to their world, not the other way round. Can we find common ground, but more on terms easily accessible and acceptable to people who cannot (or will not) understand? Belligerence is rife and the skills of the professionals here is to peacefully mitigate tha,t keeping tempers down, options open and allowing for all to retain their dignity. The production is basic, but that's fine - it allows the focus to fall squarely on the "patients" and the patience. It's dated, but it's still an useful retrospective on just how scared we were of stigma and the unknown.

Recommendations

Night Will Fall

When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".

Night Will Fall

7.6 2014