When it comes to drama, few things can top an angry African elephant running through a city before a barrage of gunfire finally ends the rampage.
Documentary filmmaker Stefan Moore instantly understood that when he learned about Tyke, the circus elephant who crushed her trainer to death in front of a screaming audience at the Blaisdell Arena on Aug. 20, 1994.
He saw mystery and allegory in the incident. And sadness, too.
The 69-year-old Moore hopes he can turn those themes into a powerful documentary that he’s directing and producing with his wife, Susan Lambert, and co-producer Megan McMurchy.
"Although it was almost 20 years ago now, it is an incredibly dramatic story that is vividly remembered," Moore said in a phone call from his home in Sydney, Australia. "There are very few instances that I can think of where thousands of people witness the loss — the violent loss — of two lives. One was an elephant trainer attempting to save the life of another person and the other was a huge magnificent animal shot down in the streets of Honolulu."
The incident, which happened on the last day Circus International was scheduled to perform in Honolulu, traumatized the city. Many of those in the audience were young children.
But dozens of other people watched, stunned, as Tyke fled through Kakaako for half an hour. And then they watched, tears streaming down the faces of some, as police opened fire with rifles. Some screamed at the officers to stop while others threw bottles at them. One officer wept.
Moore came across the story three years ago while doing research on a project on animal law. The incident made Tyke a symbol of circus tragedies and animal rights, he said. For Moore, the elephant’s story raised questions about the relationship between humans and animals.
"There is one part of Tyke’s story that is detective story: Why did she snap?" Moore said. "Was it an action of the trainer or the handler? Or was it her years in captivity and the possibility that she was abused over the years?"
Or were her actions, as an attorney for Tyke’s owner put it, "an unpredictable, irrational act of God, like a flood or a storm"?
Moore thinks that Tyke’s violent rampage — her third in 18 months — was prompted by trauma that began when she was captured in Mozambique.
"She witnessed her entire family killed in front of her," he said. "She was chained and flown to the U.S., where she spent the next 20 years of her life in captivity and made to perform."
MOORE has been making documentaries since 1972, when he worked on "The Irish Tapes," a black-and-white project about the violence in Northern Ireland. He was an independent producer in New York and wound up working the CBS series "48 Hours."
In 1995, Moore moved to Australia, where he and his wife began Jumping Dog Productions. The two serve as producers, writers and directors on their projects, which include films on China’s automobile revolution ("The Cars That Ate China"), Australian housewives who poisoned their husbands ("Recipe for Murder") and Japan’s underground dominatrix culture ("Tokyo Bound").
Their documentary about Tyke is in pre-production and they hope to be in Hawaii next spring to film interviews and locations. They also plan to interview Tyke’s former trainers and draw from news footage, home videos and photos taken that day.
But those images are certain to remind everyone of the trauma: the crushing of trainer Allen Campbell, the storm of bullets, too, and a blood-covered Tyke hoisted by a crane onto a flatbed truck for transport to a landfill.
If you have a Tyke story for Moore, email him at moore.stefan@ozemail.com.au.
AND that’s a wrap …
Mike Gordon is the Star-Advertiser’s film and television writer. Read his Outtakes Online blog at honolulupulse.com. Reach him at 529-4803 or email mgordon@staradvertiser.com.
