{ "id": "epm9zmcqqv", "slug": "chang-a-drama-of-the-wilderness", "title": "Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form", "label": "Films by genre, form, and subject", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary", "label": "Documentary and biographical films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary.documentary-feature-works", "label": "Individual documentary feature films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary.documentary-feature-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary.documentary-feature-works.nature-science-and-environment-documenta", "label": "Nature, science, and environment documentaries", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary.documentary-feature-works.nature-science-and-environment-documenta" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.asia.t1800.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Asia (other) · 1800 to 1945: Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1800.culture.performance.screen", "path": [ { "id": "geo.asia", "label": "Asia (other)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t1800", "label": "Asia (other) · 1800 to 1945", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1800" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t1800.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1800.culture" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t1800.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1800.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t1800.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1800.culture.performance.screen" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (1927) is a silent documentary-drama by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, filmed over eighteen months in Siam (Thailand), released by Paramount, and named to the National Film Registry in 1997.", "snippet": "Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (1927) is a silent documentary-drama by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, filmed over eighteen months in Siam (Thailand), released by Paramount, and named to the National Film Registry in 1997.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.documentary.documentary-feature-works.nature-science-and-environment-documenta", "markdown": "# Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness\n\n**[Chang](https://www.edgepedia.org/chang-1927-film): A Drama of the Wilderness** is a 1927 American silent documentary-drama directed and produced by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, filmed in the jungles of northern Siam (now Thailand) and released by Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation on 29 April 1927.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG) The title is the Thai word for elephant. It was the second collaboration between the two filmmakers, after *[Grass](https://www.edgepedia.org/grass-1925-film): A Nation's Battle for Life* (1925), and it preceded their best-known work, *King Kong* (1933).[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG) • [2](https://www.moreliafilmfest.com/en/peliculas/chang-a-drama-of-wilderness)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Release | 29 April 1927; Paramount Famous Lasky Corp.; silent, black and white[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG) |\n| Directors and producers | Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack; cinematography by Schoedsack[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG) |\n| Filming | About eighteen months in the jungles of northern Siam, near the village of Nan, using an all-metal Debrie camera[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG) |\n| Length | 69 minutes per the AFI Catalog; the Silent Era list gives eight reels, 6,536 feet[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG) • [3](https://st.silentera.com/PSFL/data/C/ChangADramaOfTheWilder1927.html) |\n| Cast | Kru (the pioneer), Chantui (his wife), Nah (their son), Ladah (their daughter), Tahn (friend of Kru), and Bimbo the monkey; all credited as natives of the wild[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG) • [3](https://st.silentera.com/PSFL/data/C/ChangADramaOfTheWilder1927.html) |\n| Cost | $70,000, as listed in John Douglas Eames's *The Paramount Story* (1985)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG) |\n| Recognition | *Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life*, not this film, was selected for the National Film Registry in 1997[4](https://homesteadmuseum.blog/2021/07/15/thats-a-wrap-with-million-dollar-news-from-the-million-dollar-theatre-los-angeles-15-july-1927/) • [9](https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9712/nfr.html) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Story and staging\n\nThe film follows Kru, a Lao tribesman farming at the edge of the jungle, who defends his cattle from leopards and tigers with traps and hunting. He captures a baby elephant and tries to domesticate it, but the calf's mother finds it and destroys Kru's home, driving the family to seek help from neighbors for a collective elephant hunt.[2](https://www.moreliafilmfest.com/en/peliculas/chang-a-drama-of-wilderness) The San Francisco Silent Film Festival's notes describe the scale of the climax as 500 native hunters and 400 elephants, along with tigers, leopards, pythons, and other animals.[5](https://silentfilm.org/chang-a-drama-of-the-wilderness/)\n\n**Staged authenticity.** Cooper and Schoedsack kept fictional elements to a minimum by the standards of their time and made an effort to stay authentic when recording local customs, but the film is a constructed drama rather than unmediated record: the cast performs a scripted story built around real villagers and real animals.[6](https://trailersfromhell.com/cinesavant/silent-adventure-grass-chang/) A scholarly paper on the film, \"Staging Authenticity in the Jungle of Siam,\" locates *Chang* in the history of Western filmmaking activity in Siam and examines how it represents the nation.[7](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339586881_Staging_Authenticity_in_the_Jungle_of_Siam_Chang_-_A_Drama_of_the_Wilderness_USA_1927) The question of how such \"natural dramas\" represented their subjects was already current in the industry's own era: in 1933 [Franz Boas](https://www.edgepedia.org/franz-boas), chief anthropologist at the [American Museum of Natural History](https://www.edgepedia.org/american-museum-of-natural-history), wrote to Will Hays of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America proposing collaboration between Hollywood and science, arguing such films \"might have been ever so much more interesting if a person had been consulted who knows the social life of the people intimately.\"[5](https://silentfilm.org/chang-a-drama-of-the-wilderness/)\n\n## Production\n\nCooper and Schoedsack had made their name with *Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life* (1925), filmed with journalist Marguerite Harrison among the migrating Bakhtiari tribe of Persia.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG) • [2](https://www.moreliafilmfest.com/en/peliculas/chang-a-drama-of-wilderness) In March 1926 Paramount agreed to produce their second film, then titled *Hazards of the Jungle*, for the studio's 1926-1927 release season.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG) Filming was underway near Bangkok by May 1926, and modern sources place the actual location at the village of Nan in northern Thailand.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG) The shoot lasted about eighteen months, and the filmmakers used an all-metal \"Debrie\" camera, as a camera dealer's advertisement in the 15 May 1927 *Film Daily* noted.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG) The onscreen credits state that the film was \"Produced in the jungles of Northern Siam\" with a cast of \"Natives of the wild: who have never seen a motion picture\" and \"Wild Beasts: who have never had to fear a modern rifle.\"[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG)\n\nThe Silent Era film list describes the picture as an early example of production on panchromatic film stock, which recorded tonal values closer to human vision than earlier orthochromatic stock.[3](https://st.silentera.com/PSFL/data/C/ChangADramaOfTheWilder1927.html) Intertitles were written by Achmed Abdullah, and the released print carried a musical score by Hugo Riesenfeld.[3](https://st.silentera.com/PSFL/data/C/ChangADramaOfTheWilder1927.html) • [2](https://www.moreliafilmfest.com/en/peliculas/chang-a-drama-of-wilderness)\n\n## Reception and afterlife\n\n*Chang* was released in Bangkok in 1929, but the San Francisco Silent Film Festival notes that no information is available in English about what the Lao thought of the film.[5](https://silentfilm.org/chang-a-drama-of-the-wilderness/) In 1997 Cooper and Schoedsack's earlier film *Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life* was chosen for the Library of Congress's National Film Registry, identified there as the second film of its type after *Nanook of the North* (1922), a film Cooper and Schoedsack were unaware of while pursuing *Grass*.[4](https://homesteadmuseum.blog/2021/07/15/thats-a-wrap-with-million-dollar-news-from-the-million-dollar-theatre-los-angeles-15-july-1927/) • [9](https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9712/nfr.html) Film historians place *Grass* and *Chang* in the lineage running from Flaherty's *Nanook* to the expeditionary and ethnographic traditions of documentary, and note that both films were distributed commercially by Paramount.[8](https://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/37114068/2019faullje.phd.pdf)\n\nThe film's makers went on to more famous work. Cooper became head of production at RKO, where he produced *Becky Sharp* (1935), the first three-strip [Technicolor](https://www.edgepedia.org/technicolor) feature, and began a partnership with director [John Ford](https://www.edgepedia.org/john-ford) that lasted through *The Searchers* (1956); Schoedsack made his last film, *[Mighty Joe Young](https://www.edgepedia.org/mighty-joe-young-1949-film)*, in 1949. Cooper attempted Technicolor versions of both *Grass* and *Chang*, but neither was completed.[5](https://silentfilm.org/chang-a-drama-of-the-wilderness/) Milestone Film and Video has re-premiered *Grass* and *Chang* as a double bill of silent-era documentaries.[6](https://trailersfromhell.com/cinesavant/silent-adventure-grass-chang/)\n\n## References\n\n1. [Chang (1927), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/3244-CHANG)\n2. [Chang: A Drama of Wilderness, Morelia International Film Festival](https://www.moreliafilmfest.com/en/peliculas/chang-a-drama-of-wilderness)\n3. [Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (1927), Progressive Silent Film List, Silent Era](https://st.silentera.com/PSFL/data/C/ChangADramaOfTheWilder1927.html)\n4. [That's a Wrap with \"Million Dollar News,\" Million Dollar Theatre, Los Angeles, 15 July 1927, Homestead Museum Blog](https://homesteadmuseum.blog/2021/07/15/thats-a-wrap-with-million-dollar-news-from-the-million-dollar-theatre-los-angeles-15-july-1927/)\n5. [Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness, San Francisco Silent Film Festival](https://silentfilm.org/chang-a-drama-of-the-wilderness/)\n6. [Silent Adventure: Grass + Chang, Trailers From Hell](https://trailersfromhell.com/cinesavant/silent-adventure-grass-chang/)\n7. [Staging Authenticity in the Jungle of Siam: Chang - A Drama of the Wilderness (USA 1927)](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339586881_Staging_Authenticity_in_the_Jungle_of_Siam_Chang_-_A_Drama_of_the_Wilderness_USA_1927)\n8. [Faull, J. (2019), PhD thesis, Royal Holloway, University of London](https://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/37114068/2019faullje.phd.pdf)\n9. [New to the National Film Registry (December 1997) - Library of Congress Information Bulletin](https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9712/nfr.html)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Documentary and biographical films › Individual documentary feature films › Nature, science, and environment documentaries*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/chang-a-drama-of-the-wilderness", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/chang-a-drama-of-the-wilderness.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/chang-a-drama-of-the-wilderness. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness](https://www.edgepedia.org/chang-a-drama-of-the-wilderness)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/chang-a-drama-of-the-wilderness](https://www.edgepedia.org/chang-a-drama-of-the-wilderness). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/chang-a-drama-of-the-wilderness. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness is a silent documentary-drama by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B." }