The time of man

Time of Man ends with AMNH anthropologist Harry L. Shapiro, renowned primatologist and author, posing the question of man's ability to develop a wisdom which will allow him to maintain his environment and survive. The main question being presented here is, "Can man survive?" The film opens with primates in the jungle and cuts to shots of automobiles in crowded cities choked by air pollution. The film presents man as an endangered species and, through film clips and interviews with AMNH scientists, pleads man's case. Man is seen as manipulating his environment, forgetting that he, too, is a part of it. The history of creation, from the "big bang" to living cells, is traced. Clarence Lavett Smith, AMNH ichthyologist, discusses fish communities and their ability to share available resources in harmony with their environment. Then we see how man has hunted many species to extinction. The Gobi Desert footage, taken during the Third Asiatic Expedition led Roy Chapman Andrews, is seen here with the discovery of the "perfect dozen" dinosaur eggs. At Lands Creek, Wyoming, Malcolm McKenna, AMNH paleontologist, discusses the dinosaurs' lack of adaptability, the reason for their extinction, and the adaptability of mammals during the 1960-1962 drought. The history of man and his adaptability is explored by Shapiro as he discusses the progression from hunting and gathering to technology. Jane Goodall's (renowned primatologist) films are used to illustrate the social organization of chimpanzees as a suggestion of what early man's might have been like. Through film, Colin M. Turnbull, AMNH anthropologist, contrasts the Bambuti pygmies of the Ituri Forest, Zaire, who change and adapt successfully, and the Ik of East Africa, who cannot live without violence and are losing to their humaneness. The warring ways of the Dugum Dani of Irian Jaya are examined in an excerpt from Dead Birds, and Margaret Mead, AMNH anthropologist, addresses the slow but progressive deterioration of the Manus people of Papua (now Papua New Guinea), through acculturation over the years from 1928 through 1965. The next sequence is a fast moving journey through a collage of the twentieth century which is awesome in its negative vision. The wars, the dictators, the concentration camps, the depression, the depressed, and the assassinations are interspersed with popular figures like Elizabeth Taylor, the Beatles, and Humphrey Bogart. Some positive elements like space exploration are included, but not enough to counteract the bleak indictment of contemporary man. This film was made by Metromedia Producers Corporation in association with the AMNH. Actor Richard Basehart narrates the script written by Marshall Flaum, who also produced and directed the film.