With Sir David Attenborough’s 100th birthday later this week, Danny Chau delivers an encomium for the father of modern nature documentaries. From his patience to his curiosity to his voice (that voice) Attenborough finds himself being lovingly scrutinized from every angle imaginable—not unlike the gorillas, snakes, birds, and countless other creatures whose exploits he spent decades narrating. I dare you to finish the piece and not queue up the Planet Earth.
Where most narrators invoke an air of credibility through vocal prowess alone, Attenborough’s authority enshrouds him like an aura. He knows more about the systems that govern the six kingdoms of life today than he did when he was 80, and infinitely more than he did when he first began presenting in his late 20s. His sense of duty as the face of new documentaries with bleeding-edge findings and camerawork affirms his commitment to science’s never-ending mission toward acquiring understanding. His mere presence imbues a sense of trust in the story.
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