Bart the Bear is absorbing company in The Bear, with a physical authority that needs little help from the filmmakers. We recommend that performance, though the urge to give every animal response a precise human meaning sometimes gets in its way.
Fi1m perspective
In The Bear (1988), Bart's physical authority gives us something quite different to watch from Douce's vulnerable cub. Jean-Jacques Annaud trusts the animals to hold our interest, and for much of the film that trust is repaid. We were moved by the cub's effort simply to survive; Bart's imposing presence makes the contrast between them count. We can follow them without needing every response translated into an emotion we recognise.
His film work began with Windwalker (1981), and The Bear made him a prominent animal lead. The same year brought the physical comedy of The Great Outdoors (1988), a useful reminder that menace was only one use for his bulk. Appearances in White Fang (1991) and Legends of the Fall (1994) followed. By The Edge (1997), Lee Tamahori was using him as the pursuing threat opposite Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin. These are different demands, but they depend on the same practical achievement: trained behaviour that remains believable alongside other performers.
The work depended on trainers Doug and Lynne Seus. For The Bear, Bart learned to accept an unrelated cub; what looks unforced on screen depended on considerable preparation. Philippe Rousselot's location photography keeps the bears interesting within their surroundings, rather than treating the landscape as sufficient entertainment. We get a place worth looking at and animals worth following through it. Noëlle Boisson's editing does the equally necessary work of making their behaviour carry a dramatic sequence, and for the most part it works.
The reservation comes when those sequences grow too tidy, assigning a bear exactly the feeling a scene requires. That is where The Bear presses for an affection its animals have already earned, and where Bart is least well served. His responsiveness to Doug Seus was an asset, but the finished film still needs to leave some room for behaviour that resists a simple explanation. Start with Annaud's film, with a little patience for its occasional insistence on telling us how to respond.
Biography
Bart the Bear (1977–2000) was a male Kodiak bear who worked as an animal actor in films and television. He was raised and trained from a cub by Doug and Lynne Seus of Wasatch Rocky Mountain Wildlife in Utah, using reward-based methods.
He is credited in The Bear (1988) as the Kodiak Bear, alongside appearances in White Fang (1991), Legends of the Fall (1994), The Edge (1997) and The Great Outdoors (1988). In 1998 he presented an Academy Award envelope onstage with his trainer.
Bart grew to 9 ft 7.5 in (2.93 m) tall and around 1,500 lb (680 kg). He died of cancer on 10 May 2000.
