Jonathan Livingston Seagull (film) Jonathan Livingston Seagull (film) Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a 1973 American drama film directed by Hall Bartlett, adapted from the novella of the same name by Richard Bach. The film tells the story of a young seabird who, after being cast out by his stern flock, goes on an odyssey to discover how to break the limits of his own flying speed. The film was produced by filming actual seagulls, then superimposing human dialogue over it. The film's voice actors included James Franciscus in the title role, and Philip Ahn as his mentor, Chang. Whereas the original novella was a
Richard Bach to the Ground (1963) described the deployment to France of his Air National Guard unit, and was well reviewed, for example by Edmund Fuller in the Wall Street Journal. In 1970, "Jonathan Livingston Seagull", a story about a seagull who flew for the love of flying rather than merely to catch food, was published by Macmillan Publishers after the manuscript was turned down by several others. It had been first published, free, in SOARING, the monthly magazine of the Soaring Society of America. The book, which included photos of seagulls in flight by photographer Russell Munson, became a number-one bestseller.