All posts by James Humphreys

Tinseltown Throwdown – Hunger Games vs. Battle Royale

hunger games battle royale

It’s inevitable that sometimes two or more movies are going to be so similar that they’ll raise suspicions from audience members of idea theft.  The Young Adult novel adaptation craze has been the foundation of a current swath of similarly themed movies, and it’s one that currently is being dominated and dictated by the success of the Hunger Games franchise.  Based on the book trilogy by author Suzanne Collins, Hunger Games is a post-apocalyptic tale focused on the destinies of a select group of young fighters that are forced into combat for the benefit and amusement of their oppressive political system.  Both the novels and the films have become monumental successes and are continuing to inspire many like-minded franchises based around many of the same themes, like this year’s Divergent  and The Maze Runner.  But, even though The Hunger Games is a standout series, many people have questioned it’s own originality, and have even gone as far as to claim that it was a complete ripoff of another popular story.  That story happens to be the Japanese made Battle Royale series.  Originally created in Manga comic form in 1999, the book quickly inspired a film adaptation that was released in 2000, which also spawned a 2003 sequel.  Battle Royale precedes Hunger Games by nearly a decade, and it’s very clear that there are some strikingly close similarities between the two.  They both depict young people forced into combat by an oppressive government, they both have a central love story between it’s main heroes, and they both show the characters working the system in their favor in order to undermine it.  But, even with all the similarities, did Hunger Games real steal the idea, or did it do enough to differentiate itself from Battle Royale.

A simple argument in Hunger Games favor is that Battle Royale isn’t all that original either.  In fact, the basis for these stories goes back a long way, as themes of oppressive governments and conformity gone horribly wrong has been present in literature and media for centuries.  Just look at George Orwell’s 1984, and you can see the inspirations for much of the Hunger Games visual aesthetic.  Likewise, Battle Royale’s setting on a deserted island far off the Japanese mainland recalls a similar backdrop from the Richard Connell 1924 short-story The Most Dangerous Game, which of course was all about the hunting of human beings.  Other literary inspirations include the 1948 Shirley Jackson short story, The Lottery, which very directly served as an inspiration for both Hunger Games  and Battle Royale.  In The Lottery, a small American town selects one of their youngest citizens at random out of a basket of names to be ritually sacrificed in order for them to have a prosperous harvest season.  Obviously, that random choosing from a lottery of names sounds familiar to any Hunger Games fan out there.  Another influence on these movies could also be the 1982 Stephen King novel The Running Man, which later spawned the 1987 Schwarzenegger headlined film adaptation.  That film not only influenced the human vs. human combat seen in Battle and Games, but it also inspired some of the sharp satire of the media seen in each, to varying degrees.  Suffice to say, both Battle Royale and Hunger Games are following a long line of similarly themed stories, so to say that one is stealing from the other is ignoring the fact that they’re all part of the same trend.  In the end, it’s not about the same ideas but how well they execute them in their individual stories that makes these movies distinct from one another, and as a result, they are much more different than you might think.

hunger games 1

“May the odds be ever in your favor.”

One way in which the two are very different is in terms of scale.  Battle Royale is ambitious, but is also crafted on a modest budget.  Everything takes place in the same location and the visual effects are kept to a minimum.  In some cases, the only effects that Royale actually employs are pyrotechnics and specialty make-up on the actors.  Hunger Games on the other hand has all the visual splendor of a grand scale Hollywood epic.  It’s clear that Hunger Games benefited from a full studio treatment when you see all the work put into the set design, the visual effects, and even the costumes.  The dresses worn by actress Elizabeth Banks as the flamboyant character Effie Trinket probably boasted of a seven figure budget alone.  But, all this works to the different movies’ strengths.  Battle Royale feels very immediate and closer to reality, so a smaller scale helps to make that feel more authentic.  Hunger Games is otherworldly, so it’s got to reflect that by immersing us into sights unseen, and that obviously costs a lot of money in the end.  Overall, it’s the big advantage that Hunger Games has over Battle Royale.  It does a much more effective job at world-building, or to put it more directly, presenting us with the why, where and when of the film’s setting.  With the help of Suzanne Collins novels as the groundwork, we get a better sense of how the titular Games fits within the society, and how the characters’ struggles fit within the larger picture.  Couple this with the fact that Hunger Games also retains it’s own identity because of it’s unique setting and by how well the filmmakers have brought that to life.  Less capable hands may have not brought out the subtlety in the material and would have let the movie’s visuals run amok, but Hunger Games has thankfully transported us while still feeling firmly grounded.

Battle Royale doesn’t have the same amount of time, however, to explain the details of why these events are taking place.  The movie quickly takes us right to beginning of the battle without presenting too much in the way of context.  All we see are a group of 40 teenage students all gathered together in a rundown school on a deserted island where they’re all told that they will be thrown into forced combat with one another.  Any attempt to disobey and try to escape will result in their death and the last survivor will be granted their freedom.  We get just the basic outline of the rules, laid out by the overseer of the Battle, Kitano-sensai (Takeshi Kitano), who represents in a subtle way the embodiment of government oppression that’s forcing this cruel act on these kids.  And it’s this subtlety that works very much to Battle Royale‘s advantage.  It doesn’t waste any time plunging us into this strange new world.  Instead, it lets the audience piece together all the rules and has us discover the intricacies of the plot as they happen.  I particularly like how character details that weren’t apparent before come out in interesting ways as the characters are pitted against one another.  Hunger Games allows character moments to happen as well, but they feel a bit more telegraphed due to the fact that the they’ve been established long before the Games even begin.  When characters are thrown through an ordeal like this, different emotions come out and the characters turn to more animalistic instincts in order to survive.  Battle Royale shows this in a much more interesting way, and I think that’s partially due to the blank slate that we are given with these characters from the beginning.  In this case, the more visceral, small scale approach gave this type of story the edge it needed.

battle royale 2

“Life is a game. So fight for survival and see if you’re worth it.”

The same subtlety also works well with depicting the theme of government oppression.  Both stories do a good job of presenting the competitions as a means of dehumanizing the less fortunate and offering them up as fodder for the upper classes’ amusement.  What I believe Battle Royale achieves to a better degree than Hunger Games is showing the face of that oppressive body on screen.  In Royale, the government body is brilliantly humanized in the form of the character Kitano.  Takeshi Kitano brilliantly portrays the inhuman coldness of an oppressive government through his portrayal of an unforgiving social servant.  Once a school teacher to all the same students forced into competition, Kitano applies the same attitude to this inhuman practice that he would apply in the classroom.  Throughout the film, he is constantly talking down to the kids, as if he was still delivering them a lecture, which is a great subtle way to reinforce the idea of how governments can devalue human life in order to get them to do what they want.  Hunger Games is less subtle with it’s depiction of government oppression, showing the whole fictional land of Panem ruled over by President Snow (Donald Sutherland), a pampered aristocrat who rules with an iron fist from his lofty palaces in the Capitol.  It’s made very apparent from the beginning who the bad guys are in the story, and there’s no sense of any other interesting layers with the antagonists in the Hunger Games; although Sutherland still performs the hell out of the role, and is a joy to watch.  I think the reason the theme of oppression works better in Battle Royale is because of how unexpectedly it comes out of the story.  It’s an added layer to a violent story-line that is very well appreciated.

hunger games 2

“I don’t know how else to put this: Make sure they remember you.”

But, what Hunger Games lacks in one theme it makes up for in another.  One thing that I did appreciate a lot from the story was it’s very shrewd observations on the role of media.  The influence of propaganda is particularly focused on in the story, as is how different parties can manipulate the media to their own advantage.  What I particularly like about this aspect of Hunger Games is that it works both as a subtext to the story and as a functioning element in the growth of the characters.  Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is depicted throughout the story as a the most skilled and resourceful fighter in the entire games, but throughout the story, we also learn her one weakness, and that’s the ability to fit within society’s expectations.  Once she becomes a part of the games, Katniss must not only be a good fighter, but also be beloved by the public as well.  Considering her rebellious attitude, as well as her awkwardness in  front of a camera, this becomes a challenge for her.  And considering that her livelihood inside the games is dependent on her ability to find sponsorship, it becomes a life and death situation as well.  This is a great way to make the theme of propaganda and media manipulation work both as satire and as a plot thread in the story-line.  The film does a great job of skewering the way media works, especially with the absurdity that we find so abundant in reality television.  But, it also helps to define the characters as well.  With it, we see that even Katniss has flaws, and by overcoming them, she’s better able to be a true hero.  This is something that is only hinted at in Battle Royale, and never truly explored or explained.  I’m not even sure the whole event is even televised.  Only a subplot with computer hackers gives us any hints into this kind of theme in the film.  So, it’s definitely a case where Hunger Games presented something very different and interesting.

There is one plot thread that did manage to become a part of both story-lines, and that’s the romantic subplot.  The romantic plots are so similar in fact, that it probably is what has sparked so many claims of plagiarism among many Battle Royale fans.  Both stories find two of the combatants from the same background and social class linked together from early on and bound together to the very end, relying on each other for survival.  And in each story, they are also the last two to survive, subverting the rules of the competition as a result.  In Battle Royale, it is love that bounds the two survivors Nanahara (Tatsuya Fujiwara) and Nakagawa (Aki Maeda) together, though their relationship is played up in an innocent way.  In The Hunger Games, the love story is more complicated.  Katniss has had one love back home (played by Liam Hemsworth), but during the competition, she finds herself more drawn to her friend and fellow competitor Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), whom she relies heavily on for comfort and assistance as the Games grows more deadly.  Though Hunger Games has a love triangle in it’s story-line, it’s the relationship between Katniss and Peeta that drives the heart of the story more, and in that sense, it feels as much the same as Battle Royale.  Both work to varying degrees, but are never the main focus.  I don’t believe that it represents Hunger Games being a copycat in terms of story, however.  Suzanne Collins drew inspiration from a lot of other love stories built around adversity, so the fact that it feels so similar to Battle Royale is just a byproduct of the fact that some themes have universal meaning and usually wind up going towards the same places.

battle royale 1

“What’s wrong with killing?  Everyone’s got their reasons.”

So, with two similarly plotted movies, is it true that one stole from the other.  I think that history has shown that this kind of story has been done many times before, and neither is really as original as either of their fan-bases would claim.  Still, they are close enough to draw comparisons and some of their similarities work better in one over the other.  I do admire the subtext underneath both, showing that they are more than just a collection of brutal action scenes.  But, based on my own personal tastes, I would actually give the edge to Battle Royale over Hunger Games.  Games is a beautifully constructed series of films that does translate the material in a smart and engaging way.  Battle Royale does, however, feel more visceral and it gets away with a lot more.  Hunger Games feels like it’s shackled by the PG-13 rating that is standard for all blockbuster franchises from Hollywood.  Battle Royale, on the other hand, displays everything in full graphic detail.  Whenever a character dies in the movie, you feel the full impact of the horror of the moment, no matter how minor the character is.  Hunger Games feels tamer because so much happens off-screen.  In fact, most of the other combatants in Games remain nameless to us, and are therefore more expendable, as the movie only focuses on the main characters.  That works to The Hunger Games advantage, but for me it didn’t have the same impact.  Battle Royale is a very interesting import from Japanese cinema and presents a very interesting look into their culture.  After all, Government oppression is something that is all too familiar in Japanese history, so it’s not surprising that they would have such a grounded view on the theme.  Hunger Games by contrast plays it safe, and that’s it’s disadvantage.  So in a direct competition between the two like-minded films, it turns out that the odds fall into Battle Royale‘s favor.

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Keep it Rolling – The Art of the Unbroken Long Take Shot

michael keaton birdman

Recently I went to see a new film called Birdman: or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), directed by Mexican auteur Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (21 Grams, Babel) and starring Michael Keaton, who of course is best known for playing the role of Batman back in the 80’s.  The film was absolutely outstanding and will probably be near or at the top of my best of  the year list.  But, as I was watching the film, I was struck by not just the story, which cleverly derives from Keaton’s own career as an actor trying to move on after playing a famous superhero on film, but also by the technical wizardry involved in it’s making.  The film is low key and features very little in the way of visual effects, but what it does feature is some truly awe-inspiring camera work.  While not apparent in the trailer, what you’ll soon discover watching the movie Birdman is that it makes extensive use of the technique of long, unbroken takes.  In fact, the entire film is made up of long takes, stitched together so brilliantly that you’ll almost think that the whole thing was made in one two hour long continuous shot.  It’s a remarkable visual experience and it perfectly compliments the story being told, which centers around a group of actors led by Keaton’s Riggan Thompson as they put together a new play on Broadway.  Stage actors of course must put on a performance live without cuts or retakes, so a movie that let’s the cameras keep rolling reflects that same style in the best possible way.  It may not seem like a difficult thing, especially when applied to a modest budgeted movie like Birdman, but anyone who works in film will tell you just how extremely difficult this kind of technique is, because it’s time consuming and it requires a lot of things to go right all at once.  Still, it is a favorite technique for many filmmakers to undertake and an even better experience for audiences to enjoy.

The reason why the technique is such a difficult one to pull off is because of the amount of choreography that needs to happen.  It may look effortless on the screen, but what the audience doesn’t see is the stress that a long take puts on the crew and the cast.  Actors must hold their composure and hit their marks exactly so as to keep up with the pace of the camera movements.  If they are thrown off by anything, like an extra getting in their way, or suddenly forgetting their line or start to laugh uncontrollably, then the set-up must go back to square one to reset.  And every time the shot resets, it puts more strain on the crew who are trying their hardest to keep the shot running smoothly.  Imagine being the cameraman through all of this, as you have to carry heavy gear on your back and you’re also under the pressure of keeping everything in frame for an extended amount of time.  Because of the extensive amount of movement involved, most long takes are usually handheld.  And when the camera is being carried around the set, it puts more stress on the crew to stay hidden as the scene plays out.  Needless to say, there’s a lot that could go wrong while composing the scene.  Usually a lot of rehearsal is needed to pull these shots off, and when it works, it looks spectacular.  There are risks involved, however, such as the technique appearing pretentious if the material it is trying to present is not all that interesting.  That and a poorly choreographed and composed shot may just end up boring the audience rather than exhilarating them.  Thankfully Innaritu is a capable and experienced enough filmmaker to pull off the technique of long takes, and his work in  Birdman represents a great addition to a long tradition.

The technique of long takes extends back to the early days of cinema.  Buster Keaton would let his cameras roll for protracted amounts of time in order to get those amazing stunts of his fully covered.  Similar to what Innaritu does with his shots in Birdman, Buster Keaton would stitch together different shots in a way to give the illusion that everything was done in one take, which was used spectacularly in the dream sequence of Sherlock Jr. (1924).  Beyond the silent era, long takes became less commonplace, although film editing in that same period was more relaxed than it is today.  Today’s quick paced, music video style editing is markedly different than the style of Hollywood’s Golden Age, which is probably why long takes stand out so much today.  Back then, movies would play out a scene with stage-like steadiness, relying less on close-ups and fast-paced editing and letting the actors and dialogue guide the action instead.  But even with the more relaxed editing style of the period, there were some filmmakers who enjoyed making elaborate long take shots for their movies.  Probably the most famous example would be the opening shot of Orson Welles’ 1958 masterpiece Touch of Evil.  The movie opens on the image of a criminal carrying a makeshift bomb, and then pulls out to reveal the criminal running through a parking lot.  The camera then swoops across the rooftops and drops down onto a street full of pedestrians.  Once there, the camera then zooms in on our main characters (played by Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh) as they are walking down the street.  A moment later, the car carrying the bomb passes by them.  The two characters stop for a moment to kiss, but are interrupted by the blast of an explosion.  It’s at that point that the movie sees it’s first cut to another shot, which is remarkable considering all the activity that we saw in the previous shot.  It’s an amazing, groundbreaking shot that has continued to influence filmmakers to this day.

Long take shots matured in the decades since Welles, and were particularly popular with filmmakers from overseas.  The long take became a popular technique for the Kung Fu genre in Asian cinema.  Naturally, Kung Fu films wanted to showcase the amazing stunt work of their actors, so letting the cameras roll without cutting the action was the best way to present that.  This is true with a lot of Jackie Chan movies from the 80’s and 90’s.  By letting the action play out, Jackie Chan was better able to convince audiences that he was the real deal as the scenes progressively became more and more elaborate as they went along.  This tradition of long, unbroken takes in Kung Fu and martial arts movies continues to this day, with recent classics like Oldboy (2003) and The Raid: Redemption (2011).  One particular director who put his own noteworthy stamp on the technique at this time was Chinese director John Woo.  While more of an action film director than a martial arts director, Woo managed to be influenced by the films of this genre as he prepared some of the more elaborate scenes in his movies.  Probably his most famous long take is the amazing Hospital scene from the movie Hard Boiled (1992).  Although only 3 minutes in total length, this spectacular scene involves so many technical effects and precisely timed stunts that it is a wonder to behold as it plays out.  There’s even a moment where the film’s star Chow Yun-Fat enters an elevator and proceeds to continue his shootout on the next floor without interruption.  This was accomplished through a rapid fire redress of the same set that you don’t see on screen.  It just shows how some filmmakers have managed to push the technique farther than ever before and continue to raise the bar.

Today, that bar has been raised to the point where long shot takes no longer have to be complex, they have to be spectacular.  In many ways, it has turned into the ultimate challenge for directors, and only the boldest ones out there are willing to take the plunge.  Thankfully, today the tools needed to pull off the process have become less cumbersome.  Digital cameras are much lighter than their film based fore-bearers, and are less distracting to the actors as well.  Stanley Kubrick brought the Steadicam into the film-making process, when he employed it on The Shining (1980), which made it easier to follow the action on foot without having to hide any of the wiring and heavy equipment attached to the camera.  This was used to great effect with the scenes showing young Danny Torrance riding his tricycle through the Overlook Hotel’s long hallways.  Also, digital manipulation has helped to mask some of the imperfections of lengthy one-shot takes, and even gives the audience the illusion of a long take when it really isn’t one.  Alejandro Innarritu’s friend and colleague Alfonso Cuaron has included many such long takes in his movies, and often they are so complex that there’s no way to make them workable without digital reinforcement.  This is true with scenes from some of Alfonso’s most spectacular films like the Time Turner sequence in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) or the amazing 12-minute opening shot of Gravity (2013).  Both of those moments called for digital enhancement, because there was no way they could be done in reality, and yet they still look like a seamless one-shot take.  It’s a brilliant example of how to make the technique work today with new technologies and still feel like they’re worthy of the legacy.

That’s not to say that every long take shot needs to be full of energy and movement.  Sometimes the most captivating long takes are ones that just lets the action play out in real time, helping to absorb the audience into the scene and forget that they are watching a movie.  Many indie filmmakers are particularly fond of this kind of technique.  Paul Thomas Anderson in particular has made great use of the long take in his films, which he frequently uses as a way to establish a setting or a character in the most elaborate way possible.  And for Anderson, the artistry is not in the way that the camera is moving, but what is captured in the frame that matters.  You look at the long shots from movies like Boogie Nights (1997) or Punch Drunk Love (2002) and you can see all the intricate detail that’s put into the characters actions on the screen, even sometimes when it’s something they are doing in the background.  Quentin Tarantino also lets his scenes play out as a way to build character and mood, like the spectacular long take of Leonardo DiCaprio’s dinner scene monologue in Django Unchained (2012).  But one of the most amazingly restrained examples of a long take shot that I’ve ever seen in a movie was in the film Hunger (2008), directed by Steve McQueen of 12 Years a Slave fame.  In it, there is a scene where Irish activist Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender) is visited in prison by his priest (Liam Cunningham) during a hunger strike.  The two men sit down for a conversation that lasts over 10 minutes and the shot is from a wide angle, with both actors occupying either side of the frame.  Amazingly, the camera holds on this wide shot for the entire scene (all 10 minutes of it) and never cuts to a close-up.  This could have failed if the dialogue wasn’t interesting, but both actors feel so natural and the lines they deliver are so well written that the moment ends up being captivating.  It’s remarkable that an un-moving camera can have such a captivating effect, but director McQueen pulled it off.

There are many ways to make the technique of unbroken long takes work in a film, and the amazing thing is how many different ways it can work.  Pretty much, you can put the technique into any film and any scene and it would still work; it’s not about where you place it, it’s just how well you execute it.  Sometimes, when a long take becomes your signature style, it’ll end up finding it’s way into any story you wish to tell.  That has been true with British director Joe Wright, who has managed to put at least one long take into each of his movies, which range from adaptations of classic romance like Pride and Prejudice (2005) and Anna Karenina (2012) to action flicks like Hanna (2011).  Probably his most famous long take shot was in the movie Atonement (2007), which was a 6 1/2 minute trek along a war torn beach, featuring several vignettes of action played out in front of the camera as it passes by.  That spectacular shot had to involve months of planning to pull off as the action pieces needed to happen at precisely the right moment in order to make it into the shot.  Alfonso Cuaron also has made the technique part of his signature style.  His most famous example of the technique is probably the 4 minute shot inside of a moving car in the movie Children of Men  (2006), which was accomplished with a specialty rig built on the roof of the vehicle and was done with almost no digital manipulation.  Cuaron continued to build upon his already amazing camerawork in that film when he made the spectacular Gravity last year, which features some amazing shots that continue on for nearly 10 minutes in length apiece.  That spectacular camerawork earned both him and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki well deserved Oscars, showing that techniques like the long, unbroken take can help to gain a skilled filmmaker the notoriety that they deserve.

Indeed, if I were to point to a film technique that I enjoy the best, it would be the long, unbroken take.  There is just something purely cinematic about it.  It displays what I think is the pinnacle of cinematic artistry, because it requires so much work, patience, and skill to pull it off.  And thankfully, with film-making tools becoming much more reliable and less cumbersome than in years past, more filmmakers are gaining the confidence towards wanting to try their own take on these shots.  This technique is even making it’s way to television, as was witnessed with an amazingly well choreographed long take shot seen in an episode of HBO’s True Detective.  Hopefully, more filmmakers look at these amazing scenes in movies and become inspired to include them more often in the years ahead.  It certainly works more effectively than the fast paced editing that you see in movies nowadays.  For one thing, I was certainly glad to have witnessed a movie like Birdman which not only made use of the long take technique, but crafted the entire film around it.  Some of it was done through clever editing or unobtrusive visual manipulation, but you can tell that there were many parts of the movie that had to have been done purely without cutting the shot.  Probably the most spectacular one would be a scene where Michael Keaton’s character is accidentally locked out of the theater while still in his underwear.  In order to get back in to perform his scene on time, Keaton  runs around the building, crossing through traffic in a busy Times Square atmosphere, and reenters through the front lobby.  In all, the shot I would estimate is ten minutes long, and considering all the mayhem he and the crew would’ve had to cross in order to get that shot done right, the end result is incredibly impressive.  The whole movie is a brilliant showcase for the long take technique and I’m sure everyone who sees it will be just as engrossed as I was.  It’s amazing to think that fewer edits in a movie can make it more harrowing, but this is proof that it’s possible.

Interstellar – Review

interstellar matt

The vast openness of Space has inspired some of the greatest works of art known to mankind.  Whether it is in paintings, or literature, or film, contemplating the cosmos has driven people to dream big and that ability to dream in turn inspires others to go further.  Jules Verne’s classic novel From the Earth to the Moon conceived of a journey to the moon out of a capsule fired from a giant cannon.  This imaginative story of exploration then inspired French artist and filmmaker Georges Melies to craft his own take on the story with 1902’s A Trip to the Moon, which was one of the early benchmarks of silent cinema.  Melies imaginative film has since become one of the first of a whole new genre that we now know as Science Fiction, and it’s a genre that continues to inspire not just the minds of other like-minded storytellers, but also those in the scientific field who work hard to create fiction into fact.  Jules Verne probably never would’ve believed that only 100 years after his novel was first published that it would become a reality, but that’s exactly what happened when Neil Armstrong took his first step on the lunar surface.  But, even after conquering the achievement of landing on the moon, mankind still has a thirst for further exploration of space that is very much reflected in the art of the 20th century and beyond.  Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) took the boldest step forward in theorizing where mankind would head next in our quest to learn about the fabric of Outer Space, and his movie continues to remain influential to this day.  And just like how Verne inspired Melies to carry the dream of Space travel further, Kubrick’s masterpiece has inspired other filmmakers to look to the skies and imagine even greater tales to tell.  And one such filmmaker who has taken up that challenge is Christopher Nolan with his new grand scale picture, Interstellar.

Interstellar is unmistakably inspired by Kubrick’s 2001, with many references throughout the movie; some blatant, some subtle.  It’s clear that Nolan is particularly fond of Kubrick’s movie, and Interstellar may in fact be the biggest and most expensive fan film ever made.  But, although Nolan’s directorial mark is all over this movie, it actually didn’t start out as one of his projects.  The script was initially written by Christopher’s brother Jonathan Nolan (whom he has shared writing credit with on 2001’s Memento and the films in the Dark Knight trilogy) with Steven Spielberg attached to direct.  Spielberg remained involved in the development of the project for many years, but ultimately he dropped out in order to pursue other projects.  Jonathan hoped to have another prestigious director pick up his ambitious script quickly thereafter, and luckily his own brother became available soon after the completion of The Dark Knight Rises (2012).  After a rewrite with both Nolans involved, the project moved ahead towards completion.  What’s interesting about this collaboration is that it marks a significant departure for both Christopher and Jonathan.  Most of their work up to now has been grounded in reality, with maybe The Prestige (2006) being their only previous work of Science Fiction, and that one still had a very earthbound footing.  Inception (2010) had it’s flights of imagination, but it existed in the realm of dreams, which helped to place the film in a still realistic place and time.  Interstellar departs significantly from previous Nolan films in that it takes us beyond the natural world that we know and understand and explores the unknown, albeit in a very scientifically minded way.  Did this departure create something bold and new for the Nolan brothers or was Interstellar a gamble that didn’t pay off?  Like the movie itself, the answers are not all that simple.

Though the movie has an original story-line, it’s concept is actually based on the writings of theoretical physicist Dr. Kip Thorne, who has become a leading voice in the study of Wormhole and Black Hole physics, and the developer of the “warped space-time” theory.  Thorne has theorized that Wormhole anomalies in Outer Space are capable of transporting matter across great distances, essentially by folding time on itself.  If mankind were to cross through the threshold of a black hole, they would come out on the other side in a part of space that would be far out of reach in the short life-span that human beings exist within.  It’s a theory that opens up many possibilities about what and where human beings in the future may explore and that is the central basis that Interstellar follows through most of it’s plot.  In the near future, the Earth is slowly becoming inhabitable because of climate change, and the remaining humans on Earth are running short on time.  What remains of NASA hopes to explore possible livable worlds that exist in another galaxy that has become accessible to them through a wormhole sitting next to the planet Saturn.  Expert pilot Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is selected through an extraordinary set of circumstances to lead the expedition.  Accompanying him is physicist Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway), the daughter of the head scientist (Michael Caine) who conceived the overall mission in the first place.  Cooper leaves behind his life and family in the hopes of finding a way to save the future for all mankind.  The mission takes them to the limits of Space, testing both their resolve and their grips on reality, especially when one visit to a planet cause time to accelerate to the point where one hour to them equals ten earth years.  At one point, Cooper watches the life of his family forward in an instant, and the daughter he left behind has now become the same age as him; played as an adult by Jessica Chastain.

The movie definitely creates the scenario laid out by Dr. Thorne perfectly, making the exploration scenes the real standouts in the film.  Unfortunately, the movie also suffers from an unfocused main plot, as it tries to be to many things all at once.  I think that this is mainly due to the transition between this starting out as a Spielberg project and then turning into a Nolan project.  There’s no doubt that some of the grittier, more information driven moments are perfectly handled by Nolan as a director, but they are interspersed with sentimental moments dealing with Cooper’s relationship with his daughter.  The sentimental moments in the film would’ve been absolutely nailed by someone like Spielberg, who has become a master at sentimentality in movies.  In Nolan’s hands, they seem a little less effective.  Not that he does a bad job with them, but in Interstellar, they feel a little disjointed from the rest of the movie.  I believe that when the movie went from one director to another, there was an attempt to try to preserve what was there before, and unfortunately Christopher Nolan just can’t do sentimental the same way that Spielberg does.  The moment when Cooper says goodbye to his family, in particular, feels rushed and less realistic than it should be, especially given all of Nolan’s attempts to make this movie feel as authentic as possible.  Though none of these moments completely derail the experience, they nevertheless make what could have been a great story feel more like an okay story-line, and that’s somewhat of a letdown for a director like Nolan who has become such a groundbreaking storyteller over the years with unconventional plots found in movies like Inception and Memento.

But, what the movie lacks in story, it more than makes up with it’s visual experience.  Nobody out there right now does epic scale better than Christopher Nolan, and Interstellar is a visual experience that is unlike no other.  Believe me when I say that you will be taken on a ride with this movie, especially if you watch it in IMAX.  Christopher Nolan has been a long time champion for large film formats, and Interstellar is no exception.  Filmed in true 70MM IMAX, Interstellar must be seen on the biggest screen possible in order to get the full experience.  When you see the vastness of the outer reaches of space depicted in this movie, it will take your breath away.  And Christopher Nolan deftly handles the huge scale of this production with incredible precision, whether it is the quiet cruising past the orbit of Saturn (which feels very Kubrickian) or the harrowing perils that the explorers face as they investigate each new world.  The scale of the movie is as massive as you would expect it to be, and really only the IMAX format can capture the true experience that Nolan was trying to convey with this picture.  If you thought the city-scape folding in on itself in Inception was breathtaking, than wait until you see tidal waves the size of mountains or clouds frozen in midair, which Nolan vividly brings to life here.  Even if the plot is lacking in some areas, there are going to be very few complaints about the visuals in this movie, and it will deservedly be up for many technical awards at the end of the year.  What’s more amazing is that Nolan tried to use as little digital effects as possible, instead shooting as much as he could with physical elements.  This is very impressive work, especially in the scenes within the cockpit of the space ship.  The aural experience of the movie also helps to heighten the overall film.  Believe me, many theaters across the world better have a good subwoofer in their auditoriums, because it will get a workout with this movie.  Pretty much everything you can say about the look and feel of this movie can be summed up as massive.

But at the same time, the movie does manage to give us characters that we can care about.  Apart from Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, his movies haven’t been really driven by the characters that exist within them, but were instead defined by the actors that portrayed them.  Interstellar is no differently, featuring a well-rounded cast of A-List stars all holding their own against the vast scale of the production.  Coming out of his recent Oscar-winning past year, McConaughey continues his recent resurgence with a very restrained performance as the main protagonist Cooper.  Within this role, McConaughey makes Cooper more than just a good pilot, but also a very thoughtful and intelligent human being who is more than capable at getting the impossible done.  It may not be Christopher Nolan’s most standout character, but he doesn’t need to be.  He doesn’t have many demons to overcome and his strength is more in his unwillingness to give up, which McConaughey delivers perfectly.  One particularly powerful moment that the actor nails is when he watches videos of his family captured over the last 20 years that he had missed during the exploration.  There were very few dry eyes in the theater that I was at when this scene played.  Even better though is Jessica Chastain’s wonderful performance as Cooper’s daughter Murph in adulthood.  The character is a tiny bit underwritten, but Chastain makes the most of her time, delivering a performance that really in fact balances the whole movie.  Showing us what’s going on back on Earth, her story works perfectly in conjunction with what’s going on in space.

There are also a pair of robots that help Cooper’s team on their mission, both of which were clearly inspired by Kubrick.  Sort of combining the artificial intelligence of HAL 9000 with the stark rectangular shape of 2001‘s enigmatic monolith, the robots are interesting characters of in of themselves.  The most notable one is named TARS, and he is programmed with a sense of humor setting, which makes him a much needed comic relief in the movie.  Voiced by actor Bill Irwin, TARS is the exact opposite of HAL 9000, being resourceful and good-natured as opposed to homicidal.  The other robot CASE (voiced by Josh Stewart) is less defined, but works off of the wise-cracking TARS perfectly.  Nolan regular Michael Caine is perfectly fine in his limited role, and actress Ellen Burstyn delivers a memorable moment in the film as an elderly Murph near film’s end.  There’s also an appearance from a big A-List actor half-way through the movie that took me by surprise, as this person remained un-credited through most of the production.  Unfortunately, the actors who seem to get the short-end of the stick are Cooper’s fellow crewmen.  Anne Hathaway does her best, but her character is the most thinly drawn of the whole film.  The same goes for the other members of the team, who are obviously being set up as the casualties.  But I think the fault is more in the writing and less in the actual performances, as every does the best they can.  Overall, the performances are excellent and help keep the movie grounded, which is impressive given the scale of everything.

So, the movie overall is a solid effort, if not an absolutely perfect one.  I still had a extraordinary experience watching this movie, and I strongly recommend it for that alone.  But the movie is already starting to have it’s detractors out there, and I would be lying if I said that they weren’t making some valid points.  The story-line is a little shaky and it is less assured than some of Christopher Nolan’s other movies.  I still view Inception as his masterpiece, and his Dark Knight trilogy is still a monumental achievement.  But even if it is B-grade Nolan, that still means that it is far better than most other movies out there.  I think that Nolan has just become a victim of his own high standards and for some good enough is not nearly good enough anymore.  But even still, the movie is a visual wonder and is still an expertly crafted piece of cinema.  Like Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity, it portrays the emptiness of space better anyone had before, and perfectly portrays mankind’s tinniest controls over it.  Whats more, it also inspires that same sense of wanting to explore further that has also inspired the likes of Verne, and Melies, and Kubrick.  Space is definitely the final frontier for mankind, and hopefully a film like Interstellar inspires other to take that next step forward as well.  It’s amazing to think that a dream imagined on cinema could become a reality in the span of less than a century, but we  saw men walk on the moon, so hopefully Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar will inspire the explorers of tomorrow as well.  If that can be possible, Interstellar could end up being Nolan’s most important film in the long run.  Regardless, it still stands as an impressive, albeit imperfect, cinematic experience that has to be seen to be believed.

Rating: 8/10

Who You Gonna Call? – 30 Years of Ghostbusters and the Joys of Comedic Horror

ghostbusters

Whenever we round out our favorite comedies of all time, the film Ghostbusters (1984) is almost certainly at or near the top of that list for anyone in my generation.  Crafted from the minds of writers and co-stars Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, and directed by Ivan Reitman, Ghostbusters is a classic in every way, and even 30 years after it’s initial release, it is still a strongly influential comedy.  That’s because of the fact that it takes a strong concept, that being a ragtag band of paranormal scientists forming a ghost extermination agency, and exploits that premise to it’s full potential.  That and it’s just incredibly funny.  The perfect casting is also what has made this movie so beloved.  Initially conceived as a follow-up to the popular Blues Brothers film, the movie was written to star Aykroyd and John  Belushi as a pair of titular Ghost Busters.  Unfortunately, Belushi’s untimely death forced a re-imagining of the script, which proved to be a blessing.  The team was expanded to include co-writer Ramis as the exceptionally nerdy Dr. Egon Spengler, as well as Ernie Hudson as the bewildered temp assistant Winston Zeddmore.  But, the true keystone to the whole cast proved to be the addition of Bill Murray in the role of Peter Venkman, the cocky one-liner spewing hot shot that Murray was tailor-made for.  Indeed, what most people love about this movie is just how well this cast works off each other, and just how funny they all are throughout.  Murray almost steals the movie away on his own.  But, what is interesting about the movie’s legacy after 30 years is how it modernized and redefined the way dark and scary themes can work as the basis for some hilarious comedy.

Though no one would ever define Ghostbusters as anything other than a comedy, it is interesting to note that there are moments in the movie that are downright creepy, and would feel at home in any authentic horror movie.  What’s more, nothing in the movie feels out of place.  Every scary moment works, and the hilarious comedic bits fit right alongside it, sometimes even helping to punctuate the moment.  None of the transitions in tone are jarring, and it all makes the film that more of a unique experience.  That fine line between horror and comedy can easily be mishandled if the filmmaker goes too far in either direction.  Ghostbusters is expertly crafted to the point where the movie crosses that divide effortlessly multiple times.  Case in point, the depictions of the ghosts differ primarily between the frightening and the goofy, depending on what the film requires at the moment.  The scene where the Ghost Busters encounter Slimer is more of a comical scene, so the look of Slimer the Ghost is obviously more cartoonish than scary.  However, when the movie shows the heroine Dana (Sigourney Weaver) being abducted and possessed by the demon Zuul, the creature is rightfully depicted as a terrifying monster.  Whatever the story calls for at the moment, the movie adjusts the tone and the scares accordingly, and Ghostbusters always seems to hit that tone perfectly.  It even gets a funny one-liner in every now and then during a terrifying scene, like Venkman’s quip about Zuul’s “lovely singing voice.”  But even though Ghostbusters modernized this kind of balance between the profane and the light-hearted, it was still one of many touchstones in the long history of Comedic Horror.

Mixing the two genres together actually has been around since the early days of cinema.  Even in some of the classic Monster movies of Hollywood’s Golden Age do you see some examples of adding levity to many dark films.  Universal’s classic adaptation of Mary Shelly’s Gothic novel, Frankenstein, was a notably dark movie with very few moments played for laughs.  However, when director James Whale was tasked with creating a sequel to his macabre classic, he chose to go in a very different tonal direction by injecting a lot of camp humor into the story.  The result was The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), which has gone on to become a beloved classic in it’s own right.  The movie is still frightening for the most part, with Boris Karloff still menacing as the Monster, but there are decidedly more comedic moments in this movie as well, primarily with the dimwitted townsfolk who hunt after Frankenstein.  Mel Brooks would exploit that comical tone more when he made his own homage to the Horror classic, Young Frankenstein (1974), following James Whale’s own style, but removing all subtext and adding a whole lot more silliness.  This kind of campy horror would become more prevalent during the 50’s and 60’s when the B-Movie phase began to dominate the cinemas.  Just watch the works of Ed Wood and Roger Corman and tell me that their intentions weren’t to make their audiences laugh out loud between the screams of terror.  But, despite the intentions of the filmmakers, there’s no doubt that a light sprinkling of comedy helps to make the horror feel more rewarding.  That’s something that future Horror film master Sam Raimi definitely took to heart when he created his Evil Dead series of films, which skirt the line between scary and funny quite frequently.  Even today you see many films try to make that balance work, although few have pulled it off as well.

I think the reason why Hollywood has become accustomed to the idea of mixing Horror and Comedy together is because they have the same effect on the audience.  For the most part, these are the kinds of movies that must be seen with a crowd, because the reactions you get out of the theater during a comedy or a horror film is also part of the entertainment.  If a horror movie makes someone in the audience scream out loud, it will almost always get a laugh out of someone else and that usually is why most people love the communal experience of watching Horror movies.  It’s the same kind of reaction we get out of a comedy movie too, and indeed sometimes the most laugh out loud moments we’ve seen could have come from a movie that was trying to be scary.  Case in point, in Friday the 13th Part 8, there’s a scene where Jason faces a championship boxer whom he wears down by being  un-phased by all the blows he delivering.  When the boxer says he’s had enough, he asks Jason to “take his best shot,” which he does by knocking the boxer’s head off in one punch.  It’s a hilarious moment in a place you didn’t expect it, and yet it doesn’t suddenly make the movie into a comedy.  A recent film like Gone Girl also has a moment that goes from horrific to hilarious in the blink of an eye, showing just how much those two emotions work well together.  It doesn’t work all the time, and indeed it more or less has to do with how well the tone is managed in a movie.  For one thing, none of the films in the Scary Movie franchise are particularly scary; or for that matter funny.  But it has been a formula that has proven itself countless times mainly because these are the kinds of movies that are perfectly geared to drive up box office numbers.

The movies that we commonly associate with this formula are Dark Comedies.  They are not primarily built around Horror tropes, but nevertheless they revolve around darker themes like death and suffering, while still playing moments and situations for a laugh.  Again, Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead series is so outlandish, that you could argue that they were made to be comedies first and horror films second, especially with Army of Darkness (1992).  But subtler dark comedies also manage to present that fine line in interesting ways.  The Coen Brothers’ Fargo (1996) is a great example of comedy and horror working together to create a truly memorable experience.  I mean, you had to have chuckled when you saw Steve Buscemi’s disembodied foot poking out of that wood chipper, just before you felt the dread of what that situation was actually meant.  Human behavior gone horribly awry is what characterizes most dark comedies, with movies like Mary Harmon’s American Psycho (2000) and Peter Berg’s Very Bad Things (1998) also showing hilariously over the top moments of horror on screen.  But, what makes these movies memorable is not by how outlandish they are, but by how effective they’re shocking moments elevate the rest of the film surrounding them.  Sometimes the best way to do that is to subvert the audience’s reactions, and make them appreciate the unexpected.  If you’re too predictable, and add humor or horror in places that didn’t need them, then you have confused and unpleasant messes like Jennifer’s Body (2009) or Death to Smoochy (2002), both of which didn’t know what the hell they wanted to be.

But, not all comedies need to be dark in order to have scary moments.  Ghostbusters never actually stops being funny throughout it’s entire run-time, and it underlines every genuine scary moment with something hilarious.  It’s something that I think Ghostbusters defined better than any movie before and since, and most Horror comedies today follow along a similar tone that the movie established; giving us genuine frights while never missing the opportunity to crack a joke.  If I could point out a movie of this current generation that has become the Ghostbusters of it’s time, it would probably be Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead (2004), which itself is celebrating a 10th anniversary this year.  Shaun managed to do for zombie flicks what Ghostbusters did with haunted house movies, and that’s by making a acceptable entry into the genre while at the same time lampooning it at every turn.  Like Ghostbusters, Shaun is built more around the hilarious interactions of the characters, with the horror setting used mainly as the backdrop for all of their goofy antics.  Stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost clearly have an affection for zombie movies, and their inept buffoonish characters work very well in this setting, which is depicted in a very straight forward way.  But, at the same time, the movie never falls into true horror, and is laugh out loud from beginning to end.  Plus, it’s the only movie I know of with a zombie attack choreographed to the music of Queen.  Most Dark Comedies can sometimes be mistaken as quirky Dark Dramas, but there’s no mistaking movies like Ghostbusters and Shaun of the Dead for anything other than a Horror Comedy.

So, 30 years have gone by and Ghostbusters is as fresh as ever.  Very little in the movie feels stale or dated.  Even today, it is still the highest grossing film ever made by Saturday Night Live alum, and that’s quite an achievement.  Considering that the movie started out as an excuse for the two stars of the Blues Brothers to team up again, it’s amazing to see how it has evolved since then.  It spawned a less effective, but still entertaining sequel, as well as an animated series and a lucrative toy line.  I think I remember there being a glow-in-the-dark Stay Puft Marshmallow Man doll in home many years ago, showing just how wide a range of audience this movie reached over the years, even becoming a part of the lives of the youngest viewers out there.  There have been rumors of a third Ghostbusters film for years now, which I don’t think will ever see the light of day, especially now with the recent passing of co-star Harold Ramis.  To be honest, there’s not much that can be improved upon; the original is just a perfectly crafted movie and it’s hard to recapture that same kind of effectiveness.  For one thing, Ghostbusters was groundbreaking in how it took the Horror Comedy to new heights, especially in terms of the level of it’s hilarity, and also in the scale of it’s production.  It’s easy to reach the goal, but rarely can you top it’s impact.  Shaun of the Dead manages to follow in the movie’s footsteps with it’s level of effective humor, but done on a much smaller scale with a different kind of sub-genre.  For Ghostbusters, it was a product of it’s time and became a definite touchstone that would define the look and feel of both comedies and horror movies for years to come.  It’s often imitated, such as with similar toned movies like Gremlins (1985), but few have ever managed to come close to it’s ambition.  And most importantly it still remains a great cinematic experience.  Can it be scary?  Absolutely, but in a very fun way, because after all, “I ain’t afraid of no ghost.”

Off the Page – The Shining

shining finale

You’ve heard the old adage about movies adapted from other material; that the book was better.  In many case that is almost certainly true.  Books and movies live by different rules, and when the story itself is highly complex, it’s more than likely that a book will more satisfactorily accomplish what the story needs to do.  With books, the reader return to a story through multiple sittings, and absorb all of the material at their own leisure.  Movies on the other hand have to accomplish the same feat, but within an unyielding two hour time frame; three hours if they’re lucky.  To make this happen, the filmmaker has to do the drastic move of cutting or just outright changing whole pieces of the story in order to make it fit within the confines of it’s run-time.  Some things are easy to get rid of, like a character’s inner monologue, but then again, a filmmaker also runs the risk of changing the wrong things, and completely changing the intent of the story overall.  It’s a tricky tightrope for filmmakers to accomplish, and yet adaptations have dominated the Hollywood landscape since the very beginning.  Indeed, it seems like today that Hollywood is more likely to adapt an already proven bestselling title rather than come up with something completely original.  But, on the other hand, there are novels that lend themselves perfectly over to film and one hopes that it falls into the hands of the right filmmaker.

Given all this, I have decided to begin a new series of articles where I look at some of the more famous translations between the written word and the big screen.  With these articles I hope to showcase the many interesting ways that stories evolve between the two mediums.  Also, to make this series a little more interesting, I will also be reading the source novels beforehand as well as watching, or re-watching the movies.  Primarily, I want to read books that I haven’t read before and see how much it and the movie line up together.  More than likely the books I read will be from movies that I have already seen, but there might be cases in future articles where I will be going into both cold, which might give me a very different reaction to both altogether.  For the most part, I just want to use this as an incentive to get me reading more books and allow me to share my thoughts on both with you the reader, in the hopes that it will help you see the value in each, and how the process of adaptation works.   For this inaugural article, I took it upon myself to look at an appropriately dark and Gothic story that fits very well the mood of this Halloween season.  It’s Stephen King’s 1978 classic, The Shining, which of course was turned into an equally renowned 1980 film adaptation of the same name directed by Stanley Kubrick.  The reason why I chose to look at these two is because of the differences between the two; differences of which created a rift between the filmmaker and the author.  Did Kubrick change too much of King’s novel?  Did he change enough to make the film better or less than the novel?  Is the book indeed better than the movie?  After reading both the novel and re-watching the movie, the results surprisingly are more complicated than you’d expect.

shining overlook

“Some places are like people; some shine and some don’t.”

The truth is that both are brilliant pieces of work in their own right, though neither will give you the entirely same experience of the other.  They are like two different views of the same events, told in their own author’s particular style.  Kubrick removes some of King’s more famous supernatural elements, while at the same time adding some of his own.  And while that may tick off some King purists, many people have actually seen Kubrick’s additions as improvements.  I won’t lie and say that during my read of the novel, I was actually looking for those famous moments from the movie, and was just a bit let down when they didn’t appear.  But, that’s not to say that the book itself let me down.  There was a lot of things that the novel itself had that made me wish they were in the movie.  In particular, Stephen King conveys a lot more of the evil presence of the Overlook Hotel in his novel, with vivid descriptions of all the noises and disembodied voices that haunt the main characters throughout the story.  It’s unfortunate that stuff like that gets lost in translation, but at the same time, you can easily see why Kubrick made the changes he did.  Kubrick himself was very selective with his choices of projects, and usually he was more inclined to work outside the Hollywood system and make movies with risque themes and content.  But, with King’s novel, this became a rare case where Kubrick could take on a commercially proven property and still satisfy his artistic tastes.  And indeed, Kubrick’s mark is all over the finished film, creating a truly memorable and chilling adaptation of the novel.

Unfortunately, one of the film’s biggest detractors was Stephen King himself.  He didn’t like Kubrick’s version of his story at all and for many years he dismissed the project as a perversion of his novel.  Years later, King would himself undertake an adaptation in a three part miniseries made for TV.  The 1997 miniseries starred Steven Weber of Wings fame and it stuck much closer to King’s original vision.  Though King himself was satisfied, audiences were not, and the miniseries was critically panned.  The unfortunate thing for Stephen King was the fact that Kubrick’s movie had become such a beloved classic overtime, with many of the most memorable moments becoming ingrained in our pop culture.  Stephen King may have satisfied his own artistic intent, but he failed to recognize the artistry that Kubrick had put into his adaptation, and King’s more standard looking miniseries failed to resonate with it’s visuals.  But that’s not to say that Stephen King can’t tell the story better than Kubrick.  Kubrick is a visual artist, and can create images through the lens of a camera that will stick with you forever.  But Kubrick is only building upon the foundation that King had laid out for him.  What King is brilliant at is painting an image in the mind’s eye, and indeed, much of the strength of the novel is the remarkably vivid atmosphere.  King also lays out the internal struggles within the characters, giving the reader a deeper understanding of the character’s motivations.  Kubrick in turn has to work through shortcuts and reliance on his actors to achieve the same, which does work remarkably well.  In time, King began to understand Kubrick’s impact, and though he still retains reservations about it, he nevertheless now respects Kubrick’s work.

shining twins

“Come play with us Danny.”

In the end, you can watch one and read the other, and still get a satisfying experience.  Both give their audience a wonderfully disturbing descent into darkness, and both accomplish the feat of just being the most epic of ghost stories.  Essentially, all of the elements that matter are present in both.  You’ve got the Torrence family snowbound in the ominous Overlook Hotel during the winter, as they all try to keep themselves from going insane due to the isolation and the fact that the Hotel is also haunted.  The ghosts are mostly the same, though there are exclusions and inclusions of note, and the descent into madness by Jack Torrence (a memorable performance by Jack Nicholson) is roughly about the same.  Where the two depart the most is in how much of an influence the Hotel is having on it’s characters.  In the novel, the Overlook Hotel itself is a sentient entity, infecting the minds of it’s inhabitants, and leading them towards committing heinous acts, thereby collecting more souls into it’s collective body.  Though King never explains how the Hotel came to have a mind of it’s own, it nevertheless comes across in a very vivid way, especially when it takes control of Jack’s mind and leads him towards murdering his family.  We can see that same influence also take hold of Jack’s wife Wendy and his son Danny, as they are tested by the Hotel’s illusions as well.  Kubrick’s movie hints at this, but never overtly states that it’s the Hotel itself that is making Jack turn murderous.  Instead, Kubrick makes Jack much more responsible for his own murderous intent, which diminishes the impact of the evil presence of the hotel, but makes Jack a more frightening character as a result.  It’s one of the many cases where something that’s lost at one point in the story is gained somewhere else.

For the most part, Kubrick makes the Overlook Hotel more of a standard haunted house rather than a collective body of evil power working it’s magic on others.  In the hands of a lesser filmmaker, this could be a move that can otherwise miss the mark of the original story entirely.  Thankfully, whenever Kubrick made a change in the story, it was for all the right reasons.  Notably, he removes some of King’s sillier attempts at scares, like party favors and balloons appearing in the elevator and a fire hose turning into a snake, and replaces them with some truly horrific images, like the elevator full of blood.  He also gives the different ghost of the Hotel much more defined personalities, thanks to some very chilling performances.  British actor Phillip Stone in particular is a standout as the deeply sinister Delbert Grady in what is probably the movie’s most chilling scene. Kubrick also added the presence of Grady’s murdered daughters, standing creepily at the end of a long hall in what has since become one of the most iconic images in movie history.  The “All work and no play” scene was also an addition, and it represents probably Kubrick’s biggest departure from the book, as it makes Jack more self aware of his own murderous intent.  By doing this, Kubrick makes Jack a much more frightening villain; something that Jack Nicholson plays up with amazing gusto in his performance.  When the results work this well, it’s easy to see why many people look to the film as their favorite version of the story.

shining jack

“Here’s Johnny!!”

But if there is something missing in Kubrick’s film, it’s the slow burn to that moment of psychological breakdown.  The movie is limited by it’s runtime, and even at nearly 2 and 1/2 hours long, it still has to cram in a lot.  King’s novel is allowed more time to establish the history of the Torrence family and show how things have gotten to the state that it’s at.  By showing all this, he makes Jack’s descent feel more natural, and helps the reader get a better sense of how easily he’s taken in by the hotel.  Danny Torrence is also better defined in the novel, as the book also works as a coming of age tale for the gifted boy.  In the movie, the character of Danny is limited by how well he is played by the actor, and though young Danny Lloyd does a fine job with the role, he’s still is limited to the common inexperience that you see in most child actors; mainly reacting instead of actually acting.   The relationships between father, son and mother make up the bulk of the novel and King makes it clear how the bonds of family is the primary theme of his novel.  Kubrick’s movie removes much of the slow build-up and instead pushes us into the darkness much quicker, which is exactly what helps to keep the pacing more taught on the big screen.  It’s not until the last half that the book and the movie flow along a more parallel path, and at this point it’s clear why both versions took the needed routes that they did.  Movies need to be more visceral and to the point, while novels can round out the details, and both versions of The Shining illustrate this difference very clearly.

Probably the thing that separates the two artists the most is their outlook on the stories and characters, especially with regards to where they leave off.  Stephen King puts his characters through a lot of darkness, but ultimately they make it out triumphant, having overcome evil.  This is true in The Shining as Danny and his mother escape the Hotel as it explodes due to an explosion from it’s basement boiler, taking the possessed Jack and all the evil spirits down with it.  The heroes live; the villains die.  Kubrick on the other hand doesn’t let things end on such a positive note.  Danny and Wendy still escape, but not without sacrifice.  Dick Hallorran, the Overlook’s cook, arrives to save the family thanks to a telepathic connection between him and Danny, and he escapes with the two, helping them down the mountain.  Played by Scatman Crothers in the movie, the same character does not make it out alive, instead falling victim to an ax in the stomach from Jack, who was hiding in the shadows.  Still his sacrifice gives Wendy and Danny a way out, but it also gives the movie a surprising twist that I don’t think any reader or viewer saw coming.  Also, instead of the movie ending with the Hotel destroyed, Kubrick instead takes the conclusion outside into the icy bleakness of a frozen garden.  There Danny eludes Jack, leaving the maniacal father to freeze to death.  The movie ends with Jack dead, but the Hotel still intact, leaving on a final image of a vintage photo of the Overlook Hotel.  The only difference is that Jack Torrence is now shown in the same photograph, having now joined all the other souls that have come before him.  It’s one of the only indicators of King’s idea of the evil presence of the Hotel, and Kubrick leaves his audience with the chilling conclusion that states that the Overlook has added to it’s collection and is lying in wait for the next one to come.  Where King sees a light at the end of the tunnel, Kubrick only sees more tunnel.

shining danny

“REDRUM”

So, having looked at both, it’s clear that both stand on their own merits.  It’s hard to tell if one has more worth than the other.  Since I was already very familiar with the film by Kubrick, my reaction to the novel may have been a little muted.  I did find the slow deterioration of Jack Torrence’s psyche fascinating to read, especially when you learn read the story through the character’s own perspective.  But at the same time, I already knew where the story was going, even though the road to the end deviated somewhat from what I was expecting.  Overall, if some of you are approaching the story of The Shining entirely cold, than I can tell you that either format will still give you a satisfactory experience.  Fundamentally, The Shining is just a solid story from beginning to end, and though Stephen King may have found the changes troublesome, he should still see it as a true honor that an artist like Stanley Kubrick managed to bring the story to the big screen in such a grand and visceral way.  Let’s face it, there are some things that translate well into celluloid, and other things that should just remain on the page (living hedge animals, for example).  Kubrick’s changes were risky, but they still retain the atmosphere of King’s novel and fit well within the story.  Some of them may even be seen as improvements, like the vivid portrayals of the ghosts and the spookier imagery.  But, overall, comparing the two only makes you appreciate both in the end.  It’s one of the rare examples of both pieces being brilliant works of art, while still remaining markedly different.  In future installments of this series, the same may not be true as either the book will clearly be better or the movie may be the greater of the two.  In this case, you won’t find a better spooky tale to entertain you this Halloween season than The Shining.

Top Ten Scary Moments in Family Movies

evil queen disney

Off all the emotions that we love to feel at the movies, the one that seems to be the most popular is fear.  That’s probably why Horror movies are always great communal experiences.  There’s nothing better than watching an audience react all at once to some unexpected jump scare, even when it comes in movies that aren’t meant to be scary.  It’s manipulative, yes, but when done right and put into the right moment, it can actually help to enrich the movie as a whole.  But this is also tricky as well, because as audience members grow up, they become harder to scare, especially when they’ve become so used to it.  While Horror attempts to scare us with the grotesque and the shocking, our reactions as an audience usually differs based on the tolerance level that we have towards such images.  What is particularly interesting about this is that depending on experiences in childhood, we react to horrifying images in movies differently.  This is usually because some of the things that were passed off to us a kid-friendly entertainment sometimes features some truly terrifying moments themselves.  It is surprising how many movies from our childhood have featured some dark and scary moments, whether it was in animation or in colorful live action fantasies.  Family entertainment has become more sanitized over the years, but in years past, filmmakers were not afraid to test their younger viewers with moments of terror.  One wishes that more filmmakers would take that kind of risk today, because it does show a degree of respect to young audiences that I think they would appreciate in the end.

For this article, I am choosing to highlight some of the most noteworthy examples of movies intended for young children that were not afraid to drift briefly into darkness.  In particular, I’ll be highlighting the moments that stood out in those movies and rank them based on their effectiveness and their noteriety.  Some of these moments are pretty legendary, and have been scaring young children for generations now, but others are some brief WTF moments of terror that stand out in otherwise cheerful movies.  Most importantly, what makes these scenes noteworthy is how they contrast against the brightness of the scenes around them.  What you won’t find on this list are family movies that already had a scary tone to them in the first place; so sorry, no Secret of NIMH (1982) or The Neverending Story (1987) on this list.  For these moments to stand out, they have to really come out of nowhere.  It’s moments like these that made us close our eyes in fright as kids, and at the same time, they also helped to enrich our experience and ingrain that love of being scared that we now carry over into our adulthood.  So, with that, here is my pick for the top scariest moments in family movies.

10.

CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG (1968) – THE CHILD CATCHER

This character makes it onto the list mostly because of the creep factor.  A secondary villain in this light-hearted musical, the Child Catcher is a surprisingly terrifying presence in an otherwise harmless movie.  The character is hired by the film’s main villain to kidnap the children of the fictional land of Vulgaria after their presence there has been made illegal.  While this is a dastardly deed to begin with, the creepiness comes more from how the Child Catcher seduces the children into his clutches; with candy and clownish dancing.  But, it’s clear to anyone of all ages that this is a dangerous character under the cheerful facade.  There’s something about the way he says “Come and get your lollipops” that just sends a shiver down your spine in the wrong way.  Pretty much, this is a prime cinematic example of the “stranger danger” scenario played out, and while the film never goes into that direction entirely, you can imagine a character like him being a possible representation of a pedophile or child killer in a more horrific story-line.  Indeed, there are other cinematic examples of characters like the Child Catcher in films like in Fritz Lang’s M (1931), but the fact that a character like this exists in a movie as sweet as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang just makes the idea of what he does all the more terrifying.  Ian Fleming (of James Bond fame) wrote the original book, but the creation of the Child Catcher actually goes to screenwriter Roald Dahl, who himself was known for creating stories for children with dark undertones.  Not surprisingly, the Child Catcher feels like a very natural creation from this notably dark  author.

9.

SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARVES (1937) – THE EVIL QUEEN’S TRANSFORMATION

No other filmmaker left his mark of family entertainment more than Walt Disney, and for the most part, many of his movies are easy-going fare for all audiences.  That being said, even he wasn’t afraid to take his film’s into dark places once in a while, which was especially true for some of his earlier work.  What is amazing about the darkest moments in Disney movies is just how vivid they are.  Walt Disney was not one to miss an opportunity, and when a story-line called for a terrifying or dark moment, he did what was best for the story.  This is something you see in many early Mickey Mouse shorts like The Haunted House (1931) or The Mad Doctor (1933), which featured some really macabre visuals that could chill audience members of all ages.  But, when his films became more sophisticated and complex, especially when his studio began working on features, Walt Disney still was not afraid to push a few buttons.  That’s clearly evident in his first feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.  The movie is a light-hearted musical romp, but what people remember most vividly is the terrifying, villainous Queen at it’s center.  Her character is chilling enough through most of the film, but it is this scene where she transforms herself into a crone that people remember as being truly terrifying, especially when they were kids.  Probably the most legendary scary moment in any family film, though not the most particularly frightening,  this vivid portrayal of dark villainy would go on to inspire many more moments like it, like with the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz or countless other Disney villains since like Maleficent or Ursula.

8.

CORALINE (2009) – “OTHER MOTHER’S” DEN

In a time when it’s become increasingly difficult to make children’s entertainment chilling and dark, the Laika studios have helped lead the way, creating refreshing new scares for younger audiences to enjoy.  They pulled that off particularly well with their first feature film Coraline.  The movie is more grim in tone than the average modern animated movie, but it’s darkest moments don’t come until the final stretch.  Before then, the movie is charmingly surreal and delightfully comic, albeit with a tinge of the macabre always present.  However, what makes this movie most notable is the primary antagonist that goes by the name “Other Mother.”  Other Mother creates a fantasy world for the main hero, Coraline, that is the embodiment of all her dreams.  But over time, Coraline learns the dark side of this dream and soon realizes that Other Mother is actually a child-eating monster named the Beldam.  Created by author Neil Gaiman, and directed by Henry Selick, Coraline is a superbly dark fairy tale that’s not afraid to be terrifying, but is also smart enough to know when to bring on the scares.  It’s not exploitative, and in fact it uses it’s scares sparingly, helping to make their impact all the more effective.  The final confrontation in the Beldam’s den is particularly chilling and makes perfect use of it’s atmosphere.  I particularly love the spider-like motif of the character, and her sultry, devilish way of speaking (provided by Teri Hatcher of all people).  Other stop motion animated films lend themselves well to the bizarre and the frightening (Nightmare Before Christmas for example) but Coraline managed to go even further, helping to create a scene that can bring out terror in any audience member, young or old.

7.

PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE (1984) – LARGE MARGE

Now you would think that a Gothic filmmaker like Tim Burton’s first feature would be as dark and macabre as some of his later work.  But in reality, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure is a fun, quirky comedy; albeit still firmly in the realm of the bizarre.  For the most part, the movie is colorful and harmless.  That is until we get to this scene.  During Pee Wee’s travels, he gets lost in the woods in the middle of the night and has to resort to hitchhiking to get where he needs to go.  He is picked up by Large Marge, a deeply disturbed lady trucker, who recounts to Pee Wee her story of the worst traffic accident that she has ever seen.  Told like a campfire ghost story, Large Marge spares none of the gruesome details, and shows in what is probably the film’s most hilariously frightening and out-of-nowhere moment what the truckers corpse looked like when it was pulled from the wreck.  In that moment, Large Marge’s face transforms into a bizarre mess of hellish proportions, and then returns back to normal like nothing had happened.  In this moment, we see the kind of storytelling that Tim Burton would become notable for years later.  Here he manages to distill terror and shock into something funny, without sanitizing it at the same time.  This is something that he would take to more extremes in his next film, Beetlejuice (1988).  The Large Marge scene however still stands out today due to it’s unexpected nature and it’s hilarious payoff.  The fact that it comes out of nowhere is what makes the fright feel all the more rewarding, especially when it’s played off of Paul Reuben’s innocently naive Pee Wee Herman to hilarious effect.  Remember, tell them Large Marge sent ya.

6.

ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN (1989) – CHARLIE’S DREAM

Animation director Don Bluth got his start working for Disney Animation during the transition period following Walt Disney’s passing in the late 60’s.  During that time, Bluth became increasingly frustrated by the aimless direction of the company, which was increasingly relying on soft, harmless fare that he felt restricted the possibilities of the medium.  He felt that animation should not be afraid to explore some darker themes, and as a result, he left Disney Animation to start his own studio in order to make this ideal come true.  And indeed, many of the earlier films made by the Bluth Studio were much darker and more mature than anything else that was coming out at the time.  Films like The Secret of NIMH (1982) and The Land Before Time (1988) pushed the boundaries of animation into darker realms, and it earned Bluth the notoriety of being a respected filmmaker who took chances.  But perhaps the scariest moment in any of his movies comes from one of the least likely places.  It happens in All Dogs Go to Heaven, which is itself primarily an animated comedy.  It does deal with death in a direct way, but mostly played for laughs.  However, when the main character Charlie cheats death only to fall back into his bad habits, he soon has a dream that brings out his subconscious fears.  What follows is a surprisingly vivid portrayal of Hell, complete with demons, fire and brimstone, and the fear of no escape.  In this scene, Don Bluth best represents his ideal of animation being unafraid to go into dark places.  Sadly, most of his later films like RockaDoodle (1991) and Anastasia (1997) would play it more safe, but All Dogs Go to Heaven’s most notorious scene still has the power to frighten, and it shows that it helps to be a little dark sometimes.

5.

FANTASIA (1940) – NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN

We now turn from a subconscious Hell to a literal Hell on Earth, brought to life by Disney Animation in it’s early heyday.  Fantasia was created as a blending of two artistic mediums, animation and classical music.  The result gave us many beautifully drawn renditions of orchestral masterpieces.  While many were easy listening like Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Sweet and Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, Disney made the peculiar decision to craft a sequence of the film around Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky Gothic orchestral piece Night on Bald Mountain; a notoriously dark sounding piece of music.  Disney pulled no stops with it’s rendition of the composition, and the result is one of the most vivid pieces of Gothic and macabre animation ever created.  The segment is littered with ghosts, goblins, ghouls, and at the center of it all is one of Disney’s best remembered villainous entities; the demon god, Chernabog.  Pretty much a representation of the Devil in the segment, Chernabog is a striking creation, showing off some of the best character animation that Disney was churning out at this time.  Much of the segment’s resonance comes from the moments that he’s on screen, and he remains a terrifying presence.  The segment is foreboding, without ever being truly terrifying, but it’s still remarkable to see an animated movie portray evil in such a vivid way.  In the end, it provided a perfect match for Mussorgsky’s dark music and it represents another example of early Disney animation taking some chances by going into grim and unyielding places.

4.

THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER (1983) – THE NIGHTMARE

One thing is pretty clear.  The Brave Little Toaster is one weird little movie.  Charming, and also a little brilliant, but very very weird.  On the surface, the movie is a very colorful and humorous musical about household appliances setting out into the open world in hopes of finding their old owner, a little boy that they refer to as “Master.”  Sounds like a trial run for the story line of Toy Story, which wouldn’t be far off; future Toy Story scribe Joe Ranft also worked on this story as well.  But what this movie also has is a large number of surprisingly dark moments throughout.  The main characters in this movie go through some very harrowing moments of peril, and in some cases end up becoming brutally maimed in the process, including electrocution and being crushed by giant gears.  But perhaps the movie’s darkest moment comes in this particular dream sequence, which is unbelievably frightening and creepy, even when re-watching it as an adult.  The titular toaster dreams of good times spent with the “Master,” until he starts to catch fire and looses his friend in the smoke.  But the nightmare hits it’s zenith when the horrifying Fireman arrives in the form of a demonic clown.  Why is it always clowns?  I remember this moment really messing me up as a kid, and even watching it as an adult, I still get that unsettling feeling when I see that clown appear.  It’s like something out of the darkest recesses Stephen King’s imagination.  This movie is still an excellent animated flick that deserves a second look and the fact that it doesn’t shy away from some really dark moments works very well in it’s favor.  Just keep in mind that there are some moments in the movie that will almost certainly scare your little kids.

3.

WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT? (1988) – JUDGE DOOM REVEALED

Who Framed Roger Rabbit? has become a beloved comedy classic over time and it’s largely due to it’s mature story-line and themes, which contrasts perfectly with the wilder cartoonish segments in the movie.  But, at it’s center is also a memorably dark villain named Judge Doom (brilliantly played by Christopher Lloyd).  While Doom is depicted with brooding menace for most of the movie, the true nature of the character comes out during the final confrontation between him and the movie’s hero, Eddie Valiant (a remarkable Bob Hoskins).  Thought to have been crushed to death by a runaway steamroller, it is suddenly revealed that the notorious toon-hater is actually a toon himself.  And not only that, but the same maniacal toon that murdered Eddie’s brother.  This revelation is especially frightening when we see the blood red cartoon eyes appear on Christopher Lloyd’s face, making Doom more monster than man; and it looks terrifying.  This scene has all the terror of a scary monster movie, without feeling like it’s out of place in this mash-up of cartoon lunacy and film noir mystery.  I give the filmmakers and Mr. Lloyd a lot of credit for pulling off that revelation perfectly.  Handled differently, I don’t think the moment would have had the same kind of power that it does.  The high pitched screaming by the character especially heightens the terrifying quotient of this scene even more.  And, appropriately enough, Doom’s death is played out in gruesome detail, as he is literally melted away by the same chemical “Dip” that he was going to wipe out the city of Toontown with.  It’s a fittingly grim ending for a character that managed to creep us out right to the bitter end.  Even today, this scene still manages to be creepy, and that’s all because of how well executed the scary aspects are.

2.

WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (1971) – THE WONKA FACTORY TUNNEL

The best scares in movies, even in the ones that aren’t supposed to be scary, are the moments that come completely out of nowhere.  Usually it is by design, and then other times it comes from strange artistic choices.  Case in point, this truly WTF moment from this classic musical based on Roald Dahl’s children’s novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  As part of Willy Wonka’s (a perfect Gene Wilder performance) tour of his factory, the characters take a boat ride on a river of chocolate.  Things go gently at first, until they reach the tunnel, and that’s where all the really messed up stuff happens.  The characters are never in any real danger, but they are bombarded by images on the walls of the tunnel displaying some really frightening and grotesque stuff.  Willy Wonka may be the only G-Rated movie in existence to show a real chicken’s head being chopped off by a cleaver.  But that’s not the only creepy part of this scene, because as the boat ride continues, Wonka himself seems to be slipping into madness when he starts singing, and then reciting macabre poetry and then finally screaming hysterically.  It’s at that point where you start to wonder if Willy Wonka is really a harmless candy maker or something far more sinister.  The whole scene is one of the best trippy moments ever put on film, and it’s only made better by Wilder’s incredibly unhinged performance.  According to the actors who filmed the scene, Wilder’s performance was so convincing that they actually believed he had really lost his mind.  Roald Dahl was very notable for injecting dark elements into stories meant for kids, and while most of Willy Wonka seems like a sanitized version of his novel, this scene definitely feels true to the author’s own style.  And it’s an excellent example of how to make a dark turn in a light-hearted story work to a film’s advantage.  Yes, the danger must be growing.

1.

PINOCCHIO (1940) – THE DONKEYS OF PLEASURE ISLAND

Of course the scariest moment ever in a family-friendly movie had to have come from the imaginations of the Disney animators.  Pinocchio may very well be the darkest single movie in the entire Disney canon, and it is largely because of scenes like this.  Truth be told, the original book by Carlo Collodi was far more violent than Disney’s film, but give Disney credit for going absolutely as far as they could go.  The movie itself starts off much lighter in tone, as the innocent and naive Pinocchio experiences the larger world for the first time, but the second half of the film takes a considerably dark turn, especially when Pinocchio finds himself on Pleasure Island.  The island seems like a fun place to be at first, but pretty soon the awful truth is revealed.  As all of the boys on the island indulge themselves in their bad behavior, they literally make Jackasses of themselves, and are rounded up by the villainous Coachman who intends to sell the transformed “donkeys” to circuses and mines all over the world.  This is horrifying to begin with, but the revelation hits it’s apex in this specific moment, where Pinocchio witnesses his friend Lampwick transforming before his very eyes.  The scene is played out in horrifying fashion.  The moment when Lampwick’s hands turn into donkey hoves is just as disturbing as anything you’ll see in a horror movie.  And his final cries for his mother just brings an extra level of despair to the moment that leaves a chill in the spine of every viewer.  Another horrifying aspect about the scene is the helplessness of the characters.  Pinocchio is powerless to stop this from happening and he’s only saved by making a run for it.  No such salvation exists for the other boys.  This scene is the best example ever of how to implement  a terrifying moment into a family friendly movie, and it has rightly received that distinction among many animation fans for many years.

So, why do we still accept horrifying moments in movies and shows that are meant to entertain younger audiences.  You would think that many filmmakers would rather not alienate their audience too much, and indeed there are many filmmakers who do take that into consideration.  I think that scenes like this exist because they help kids understand at a young age the importance of a happy ending.  Before you can appreciate the light, you need to go through a lot of darkness, and that’s what these moments are meant to do.  We need frightening monsters and moments of terror in our fairy tale adventures in order to see why it was all worth it in the end.  It’s an essential way of teaching young kids the value of happiness and the differences between right and wrong.  Even still, scary moments can be entertaining in themselves, and what I’ve found is that the darker the moment, and the bigger the contrast it has with the rest of the movie, the more likely it will be appreciated by audiences for years to come.  I hope that more filmmakers in family entertainment take those same kinds of chances and not be afraid to go a little dark sometimes.  Sometimes you have to walk that thin tightrope, but the end result could become all the more satisfying.  And indeed, some of those dark moments in movies from our childhood become our favorite movie moments as adults.  Those classic dark moments in Disney animation are still celebrated today, and the Willy Wonka tunnel scene still resonates with audiences.  And in this bewitching time of year, audiences of all ages are in the mood for a good scare, and these moments show that they can be found in even the unlikeliest of places.

Evolution of Character – Count Dracula

dracula vlad

Every year when the Halloween season comes around again, we start to spotlight and celebrate the iconic monsters that populate the traditions of the holiday.  You’ve got your zombies, your demons, your Frankenstein monsters, and your warewolves.  But the monster that is the most iconic of the bunch seems to be the vampire, which is currently seeing a resurgence (for better or worse) in pop culture.  Thanks to stories like those in the Twilight series, younger audiences in particular are now looking at vampires as not only fascinating monsters, but also as desirable role models as well; which unfortunately is a sad reduction of the real menace and attraction that vampires have had in pop culture in the past.  Vampires have made far better villains in the past than instead of being the superheros that they are in today’s young adult driven media.  And no better vampire figure made menace and evil look so good on the big screen than the great Count himself, Dracula.  Though Dracula is larger than life and among the most imaginative monsters around, he is actually based off of a real life historical figure.  Vlad Tepes III, Prince of Wallachia, ruled his kingdom in modern day Romania in the late 15th century, becoming a valuable ally for christian Western Europe in repelling Turkish invaders.  However, though he was a popular king in his time, history has instead focused more on the brutality he showed towards his enemies, much of which has defined the legend around him.  Dubbed Vlad the Impaler, due to his common practice of impaling people on spikes outside his Transylvanian stronghold, the man’s legacy became one of blood-soaked terror.  Legends soon sprang up around the man, including one’s where people believed that he drank the blood of his enemies.

Like most legends, these were exaggerated accounts, but over time they managed to catch the interest of a gothic Irish novelist named Bram Stoker, who distilled all of the legends of Vlad the Impaler and crafted them into his now legendary 1897 novel, Dracula.  Taken from the name of Prince Vlad’s ancestral house name, Draculesti, Bram Stoker crafted what would eventually become the first true literary representation of a modern vampire.  Though vampirism had been present in literature for centuries before, Stoker is the one who set much of rules and mythology behind the creatures.  The idea of vampires being immortal and able to infect others once they are bitten came from Stoker’s novel, as well as the ideas that vampires rest during daylight in coffins and cannot cast a reflection in any mirror.  Whether he planned it or not, Stoker’s novel would become the Bible to which all future depictions of vampires would follow, and over a century after the novel first premiered, it’s influence is still apparent in most if not all vampire stories today.  And the reason for this is probably because the central monster of his story, Count Dracula, is such an iconic and unforgettable creature who can still send chills down the spines of audiences both young and old.  As far as vampires go, there are none who are as frightening, or as seductive, or as commanding as the Count.  And though his character has changed little overall since Stoker’s original novel, it is interesting to see how Dracula has been adapted and re-adapted again to connect with audiences over time, while still maintaining his most essential elements.  In this article, I will be looking at some of the most notable cinematic iterations of the character, and see how well they have adapted and redefined the character over time.

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MAX SCHRECK from NOSFERATU, A SYMPHONY OF TERROR (1922)

The first cinematic telling of the tale came from groundbreaking German expressionist director F.W. Murnau.  Though Murnau sought to adapt the original novel for his movie, he was denied the rights by Bram Stoker’s estate, since they believed that the new cinema art-form was nothing but trash and unworthy of a story like Dracula.  But Murnau was determined to get his vision of the story on the big screen and he worked through a loophole where he could make the same story as long as he changed the names of the characters and the location of the setting.  Therefore, Count Dracula became Count Orlock and the setting moved from England to Bavaria.  But make no mistake, it’s still the same story and Murnau proved exactly why the movie needed to be made in the first place.  The film is remarkably creepy and Gothic, which was quite a feat to accomplish back in the early days of cinema.  Murnau especially makes great use of the shadows to get the more horrific moments of the movie across in subtle ways.  But, what really sells this film is the intensely creepy performance by Max Schreck as Count Orlock.  His performance is so perfect here that it actually led to speculation at the time that the man was an honest to goodness real vampire; something that provided the inspiration for the movie Shadow of the Vampire (2000), starring Wilem Dafoe as Schreck.  I especially love the whole vampire bat motif that the character embodies, which makes him a truly grotesque movie monster.  Though there were objections to the portrayal of Dracula on the big screen beforehand, there were none after seeing the brilliant results in Nosferatu.

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BELA LUGOSI from DRACULA (1931)

Although Murnau’s take on the character may have set a foothold in cinematic history, it was Hollywood that truly made Count Dracula an icon.  Directed by Hollywood shockmaster Tod Browning (Freaks), 1931’s Dracula brought Stoker’s famous character to life better than anyone could have expected, and that is largely thanks to the absolutely perfect casting of Bela Lugosi as the Count.  Lugosi has probably had more influence in defining the character of Dracula than anyone else, other than Bram Stoker of course.  His ability to deliver such menace in his eyes and the simple gesturing of his claw-like fingers brings so much out of the character and it helps to sell the idea of the true horror that this vampire inflicts without ever having to show it.  Bela’s appearance would also influence the character, with his floor length cape and slicked back hair.  But it was his voice that would have the most impact overall.  The movie was made in the early days of recorded sound in movies, and no one had any idea what Dracula would sound like, so it seemed natural that Bela’s deep Hungarian accent would stand out in the film; giving the character an almost melodic and seductive tone to his voice, which fit perfectly for the character.  Every depiction of Dracula since has taken some inspiration from Lugosi’s version, whether it’s the accent or the costume, which shows just how iconic his performance is.  Unfortunately, it was a character he never was able to grow out of, and his latter career found the man typecast in cheaper knockoffs of the original tale.  Still, his performance in the original is beloved today and has made Bela Lugosi a fan favorite to people all over the world.

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CHRISTOPHER LEE from HAMMER PICTURES’ DRACULA SERIES (1958-1973)

While Bela Lugosi’s take on Count Dracula may be the most iconic, famed British actor Christopher Lee’s version would become the most prolific.  Lee portrayed the Count in nine different movies over a 15 year period, as well as portraying vampires in many other films as well, helping to cement his reputation as the go-to-guy for vampire movies for a long time.  Made by the England-based Hammer film company mostly during the mid to late 60’s, these Dracula movies were more stylized and graphic than the previous Hollywood versions of the story.  Where Hollywood would imply the horror offscreen, Hammer would display it in all it’s bloody glory.  Indeed, Hammer Films brought out more of the monster in the character of Dracula and helped to cement him as one of cinemas most truly horrifying creatures.  That’s not to say that he was completely savage either.  Hammer was wise enough to cast a quality actor like Christopher Lee in the role, who manages to balance the refined and seductive elements of the character with the more horrific.  He really captures the humanity of the character well in the movies, but is also not afraid to indulge in the animalistic terror that the Count also possesses.  One of the best touches that they added to the character in these films was the way that Dracula’s eye burn red whenever he’s ready to feast on his victim.  It’s a remarkably terrifying take on the character, and this role no doubt helped to shape Lee’s reputation as a memorable heavy in horror movies; something he would bring with him in later roles like Saruman in the Lord of the Rings movies and Count Dooku in Star Wars.  Not only that, but he also managed to give the character the update that he needed in a less innocent time, while still staying true to the character’s roots.

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FRANK LANGELLA from DRACULA (1979)

After the gorier versions of Dracula made by the Hammer films, this version directed by John Badham tried to bring the character back to his more Gothic, Victorian roots.  The results were well crafted, if a bit stale.  By no means a bad retelling of the original tale, this one still feels a little lacking mainly because it departs so much from what had made the character so popular over the last few decades.  Instead, this version of Bram Stoker’s tale wants to tell the Masterpiece Theater version of the story, with lush production values and refined, theatrical dialogue.  That’s not to say that they water down the character at all, and indeed the best element of the movie is still it’s central monster.  Frank Langella definitely plays up more of the seductive side of Dracula’s character, making him both charming and alluring.  But, when he does go into full vampire mode, he does manage to come off creepy and menacing.  A break-in scene where he hangs upside down like a bat outside of his victim’s window is an especially frightening moment, and he manages to pull off the dead eye stare very well in that moment.  Unfortunately, the movie is also dialogue heavy in the wrong places, and it would have served the character better to have had a lot more moments play out silently like that creepy break-in scene did.  Interestingly, this is one of the more youthful depictions of the character, showing Dracula as less of the lecherous older man that he had been in previous versions, and more like a dashing young bachelor who can more convincingly seduce his female victims, which Langella embodies very well here.  It’s a flawed retelling, but one where the character still shines through.

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KLAUS KINSKI from NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE (1979)

Departing from the Hollywood image of the Count that had become more or less standardized over the years, German director Werner Herzog decided to take the character of Dracula all the way back to his cinematic beginnings and undertake a remake of F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu.  While many people would scoff at the idea of wanting to remake a beloved classic like Nosferatu, it actually seems like the perfect project for an unpredictable and button-pushing director like Herzog.  Add to the mix a performance by the equally experimental and temperamental German actor Klaus Kinski as the titular vampire and you’ve got a remake that is worth seeing.  The end results are mixed; amazingly the movie is only half as scary as the original, which is not good given all the advancements in cinema since the original was made.  And I think that’s largely due to Herzog’s inability to make this movie stand out against it’s predecessor.  You can sense the director’s affection for the original, but by emulating it so much, his film lacks any identity in itself.  However, where the movie does excel is in Kinski’s performance as Count Orlock.  While not as creepy as Max Schreck’s version, it is still nevertheless a bizarre and engaging performance that’s well suited for the character, as well as for the notoriously oddball actor.  He embodies the character perfectly, and even manages to find some depth in the performance that wasn’t there originally in Schreck’s portrayal.  As far as remakes go, the movie could have done a lot worse, and it does still works for the most part by staying true to the depiction of it’s central vampire.  Still, if you had to choose between the two, I would still recommend the original, and only check out this version for Kinski’s performance.

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GARY OLDMAN from BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA (1992)

Lugosi may have set the standard for the character, and Christopher Lee may have given the character his frightening backbone, but if I were to pick the greatest single portrayal of the character of Count Dracula, it would be this remarkable performance by Gary Oldman.  Oldman truly proves why he is one of the greatest actors of our time with this multi-layered, nuanced, and just downright terrifying portrayal of Dracula in the movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola.  In many ways, his performance is an amalgam of all the previous versions of the character all put into one.  His early scenes as the incredibly creepy, ashen-faced vampire contains echos of Lugosi and Lee’s versions within it, played out in a wonderfully over-the-top fashion that’s all Oldman’s own.  And then when the movie shifts to it’s London-based second half, we see Oldman embody the seductive, youthful version of the character that Frank Langella first brought to the screen.  And Gary Oldman manages to infuse all of these elements together perfectly in a remarkably soulful performance.  This is a Dracula that brings in all the familiar elements, but is brought to life in a way that we’ve never seen before, making this version feel wholly unique.  If only the movie surrounding the performance was better.  While not terrible by any means, Coppola’s movie does feel disjointed at times, especially when Dracula is not front and center.  It’s also a really bizarre movie too, with many scenes taken to such outlandish extremes, that it sometime feels exploitative (not to mention that it features Keanu Reeves embarrassingly trying to work a British accent into his performance).  Still, Gary Oldman is the absolute highlight of the movie, and elevates the piece as a whole.  It’s probably well suited that the movie is a little on the messy side, because it makes his groundbreaking work in the role stand out all the more.

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ADAM SANDLER from HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA (2012)

Certainly an odd pick to include with all the others in this article, but I chose to highlight this version of the character because it illustrates the impact that the character has had in pop culture and on Gothic horror tropes in general.  This animated film focuses on a luxury resort run by monsters for monsters, with Dracula himself is the owner and caretaker.  Naturally, there are in-jokes to be had regarding the monstrous inhabitants of the titular hotel, and the filmmakers actually show off a particularly extensive knowledge of all the different monsters that they are spoofing.  Like many people have said, spoofing is the highest forms of flattery, and that’s exactly what goes on in Hotel Transylvania.  While nowhere near Disney/Pixar in quality, this film is surprisingly better than it has any right to be, especially considering that it features Adam Sandler in the role of Dracula.  The reason for this is because of the quality of it’s humor.  Hotel Transylvania does an effective job of taking many notable elements of Dracula’s persona and turning them on it’s head.  And indeed there are clever nods to past versions of the character, like Sandler laying on the thick accent that Lugosi made popular, or the glowing red eyes that Christopher Lee had introduced.  It all brings together a version of the character that can exist within a PG-rated cartoon, without feeling like an insult to previous versions.  Indeed, this movie does a better job of poking fun at Dracula movies than what Mel Brooks failed to do with his Dracula, Dead and Loving it (1995); a rare misfire for the usually reliable humorist.  Is Hotel Transylvania a great movie?  No, but it serves as a fine introduction to the character for younger audiences.

Dracula has had a long history as an icon for both cinematic and literary horror, and his legacy shows no signs of stopping.  Even this very week we are getting a new film called Dracula Untold (2014) which gives the vampire the Game of Thrones treatment by drawing upon more of the historical figure of Vlad the Impaler and infusing him with all of the famous tropes of the modern Dracula character.  What is interesting about the character today, however, is that he’s managed to become not just a defining character within his own story, but pretty much the symbol of the Halloween season itself.  Dracula has managed to outshine all other Halloween monsters to become the leader of the pack, and is usually depicted as such in many Halloween themed films; particularly the ones aimed at kids.  The fact that Dracula has become an accepted movie monster in kids entertainment just shows you how far flung his influence has been.  And the reason why Dracula has had such a deep impact in our pop culture is because of the many great cinematic incarnations he’s had.  From the creepy re-imagining of Nosferatu to the iconic portrayals by Lugosi, Lee, and Oldman, he’s a character that has deservedly “staked” his claim in our collective imaginations.  And what makes him so interesting is the fact that he embodies all the things that we fear the most; the danger of the unknown and loss of innocence.  No one else embodies the idea of vampirism better than the Count and one wishes that his creepy, seductive presence would take a hold once again over all of these recent cinematic vampire wannabes.  You know why true horror fans always gravitate towards Count Dracula in the end?  Because Dracula doesn’t sparkle.

Gone Girl – Review

gone girl ben

Taking on an adaptation of a runaway best-seller novel can be a daunting task for any filmmaker.  On the plus side, you are bringing something to the big screen that already has name recognition, but the downside of this is that the same audience is going to hold the material up to high standards, putting a whole bunch of extra pressure on your translation.  That almost certainly had to be the case with David Fincher’s recent adaptation of author Gillian Flynn’s 2012 novel Gone Girl.  The novel was a smash hit when it first was published, spending eight weeks at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.  And while the novel itself certainly has been branded within the mystery thriller genre, it has also often been praised by fans and critics alike for it’s unexpected twists and unconventional plotting.  Naturally, this instant success led to an immediate acquisition of the film rights by 20th Century Fox, who quickly moved the adaptation of the novel into production.  Flynn herself was hired on to adapt her own work into a screenplay.  Naturally, for such a high profile adaptation of the novel, Fox would want to get someone on board who could do the material justice, without alienating too much of the built in audience.  Fincher is already a well respected filmmaker, but Gone Girl seems like a departure for the man who brought brilliant oddball features to the big screen like Seven (1995) and Fight Club (1999).

And yet at the same time, Fincher is actually perfect for the film.  For one thing, he has become the go to guy for bringing almost un-adaptable novels to big screen and making them work.  That was definitely the case with the gonzo Chuck Palahniuk novel Fight Club, or the oddly themed F. Scott Fitzgerald classic The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008).  These two novelizations almost defy any filmmaker’s notions of trying to make them into a coherent movie, but Fincher managed to find a way.  He has also proven himself to be qualified to take on popular best-sellers as well, as he did with The Social Network (2010) which was based on the popular Ben Mezrich novel The Accidental Billionaires, as well as his 2011 adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  But, unlike these other novels, Gone Girl is far more conventional and less flashy.  Some would say that Gillian Flynn’s novel is more or less an “airplane read;” good for passing the time, but nothing that really defies conventional standards otherwise, like the majority of Fincher’s adaptations usually do.  But in the hands of David Fincher, audiences will soon learn that there is more under the surface in Flynn’s novel than meets the eye, and it shows how one artist can actually elevate the work of another, and bring out the best of both worlds.  Indeed, Gone Girl may seem like another conventional thriller on the surface, but in the hands of some truly talented people in front and behind the camera, it becomes anything but conventional.

The story involves a failed writer named Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) and his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) as they try to make life in small town America work after Nick has lost his cushy job in New York City.  Naturally this has put a strain on their marriage.  One day, on the eve of their fifth year anniversary, Nick comes home to find his living room in shambles and his wife nowhere to be seen.  He contacts the police and is soon visited by Detective Rhonda Boney, who quickly begins an investigation into the disappearance of Amy.  The investigation quickly gains traction in the press, due to Amy’s status as a quasi-celebrity, being the inspiration for a protagonist in a series of childrens’ books written by her mother titled The Adventures of Amazing Amy.  Nick remains cooperative with the authorities and the media, but after a couple of days, he soon discovers that the focus has shifted away from finding Amy and more towards pointing the finger at him.  Soon accusations start to fly at Nick, which he is unable to shrug off, and dark secrets about his marriage start to come to light.  Even his twin sister Margo (Carrie Coon) begins to believe the worst.  It all leads to where you might expect a typical missing person scandal would go, but as readers of the novel know, all of this is just half of the story.  From the point where Nick seems to hit a wall and appears to be the untrustworthy psycho that the whole world believes him to be, the story suddenly shifts focus and we soon learn that there’s a whole other side to the story that I can really get into without spoiling some of the most unexpected plot twists.  Suffice to say, there’s a reveling exchange that sums up the whole story when Det. Boney is told by her deputy that “The simplest answer always seems to be the right one” to which she answers, “Actually, I’ve never known that to be true.”

So, as far as adaptations go, was David Fincher the right man for the job here.  Though the material may be more conventional than the typical Fincher flick, he still managed to make this film adaptation work for him.  There are plenty of Fincher touches throughout, though he seems to have abandoned the flashy camerawork that defined most of his early career.  Here, his style comes through in the editing and the composition of shots, which are all exquisitely done.  Fincher has achieved that rarefied place in cinema where his style can work with just about any story-line, and Gone Girl is no exception.  Indeed, if any other director was tasked with adapting this novel to the big screen, I don’t think that it would’ve gone over as well as it does here.  Probably one of the most helpful elements in the adaptation was having the author around to help shape the story to fit Fincher’s vision.  Gillian Flynn started out as a television critic for Entertainment Weekly, so she already knows the game about taking material from one medium to another, so it probably led to fewer conflicts of interest that usually plagues many big screen adaptations.  And indeed, both director and author have managed to work together well here.  Fincher gets to satisfy his cinematic intentions while Gillian Flynn’s story is maintained with all of the memorable twists and turns preserved.   And when those twists come to light, it is exploited perfectly by the film.  The third act in particular is where the movie really crosses over into Fincher territory, with some truly unexpected flourishes that helps to make this movie stand apart from other mystery thrillers.  Some may be put off by where the left-field turns this movie makes, but I for one felt that it was what ultimately elevated the movie as a whole in the end.

If there’s one thing that Fincher’s adaptation manages to improve upon in his adaptation, it’s the commentary about the media.  Flynn’s novel also touches upon the abuses of tabloid journalism, but Fincher brings those themes to new light by presenting the full extant of their impact on the ordinary citizen.  Indeed, the harshest criticism of the movie is saved for the vultures in the media who exploit crime investigations for ratings and those who pass judgment on a case without taking in all the facts, which anyone who has seen the cable news networks in the last couple of years will know what I’m talking about.  In fact, there is a character in the movie named Ellen Abbott (played perfectly by Missy Pyle) who is obviously supposed to be a very thinly veiled representation of notorious media vulture Nancy Grace, complete with Southern drawl, which helps to relate this movie with the media’s disgraceful current state.  While the plot has it’s own intrigue to it, it’s the underlying message that really resonates in the end, and for a movie made by a studio owned by a giant new conglomerate itself, that’s a very bold position to take.  But it’s not just the media that the movie points the finger at; it’s us the audience as well.  The brilliant part of the movie is that it shows us that there are multiple sides to every story, and by showing us only parts of it at a time, through some truly brilliant story-editing, we soon realize how easy it is to be swayed by our own prejudices.  It’s the kind of manipulation that the media preys upon, giving us only the side of the story that they want to satisfy their own agendas.  Overall, I’m very glad that someone like Fincher took the opportunity to take that aspect of the novel and bring it too it’s fullest potential.

Another aspect that has always characterized Fincher’s films is his exceptional choices in casting, and Gone Girl continues that trend.  Ben Affleck has had a hard time convincing people of his skills as an actor, given that his early career was plagued by a lot of bad choices in roles.  But in recent years, he’s been reversing that characterization very effectively, and Gone Girl may be his best role to date.  Let’s face it, he’s perfectly cast here, as someone who is hounded by the media and judged unfairly due to his celebrity status.  Affleck has lived in this world for a long time, and he draws from that perfectly to create a memorable performance as the heavily-scrutinized Nick.  But, an even more revalatory performance comes from Rosamund Pike as Amy.  The British actress has been around for a while, appearing in supporting roles from 2009’s An Education  to Edgar Wright’s The World’s End (2013).  Here, she is elevated to lead status, and she manages to give a knockout performance as the always mysterious Amy.  The brilliance of cutting between Amy and Nick’s stories, and seeing the crime from both points, is that it shows how unreliable they are as protagonists in the film, and both actors brilliantly exploit the flaws and quirks of each character.  Rosamund Pike especially creates a truly memorable and strange character in Amy, and ultimately it’s her performance that sells the movie’s twisted plot and makes it work.  The supporting cast is also great here, especially Kim Dickens as Det. Boney.  And Fincher managed to do the near impossible by getting a good performance out of Tyler Perry (creator of the Madea films), who is actually perfectly cast as high-priced celebrity lawyer Tanner Bolt.

If the movie has a flaw at all it would be in some of the pacing.  It’s something that usually plagues films that are told in non-linear ways, and while it’s not too distracting and doesn’t hurt the movie as a whole, it does detract the film a little in the beginning.  By going back and forth between the past and present in the opening hour of the film, we the audience are bombarded with a lot of information and misinformation, which does lead to a lot of intrigue in the story-line, but it also lags the film as well.  And that can be a problem for a film that runs 149 minutes.  While the first act is interesting, it isn’t until we reach plot twist #1 that the movie starts to find it’s footing, and indeed, the movie becomes a fascinating roller-coaster ride from there.  Not a huge problem, but it does make the film feel just slightly disjointed and makes this film just a little less than perfect.  It does come very close to being perfect however, especially when the movie goes into some truly out-of-left-field places, but when stretched out to 2 and 1/2 hours, there’s bound to be a little flab in the way.  Again, it’s the only flaw that I could see in an otherwise astounding presentation.  Taking a best-selling novel, even a conventional one, and making it work as a film can be hard work, and Fincher’s skills as a filmmaker really come out to shine here, particularly when it comes to staging.  Other directors may have played it too safe or would’ve gone way overboard with adapting something like Gone Girl.  Fincher finds that right balance between reigning in the flourishes at crucial times in the story, while at the same time letting loose when it absolutely needs to go there.  And it’s that balance that ultimately helps to iron over some of the more notable flaws in the overall story.

It may not be perfect, but I can think of few other movies out there right now that will really challenge it’s audience to think as well as Gone Girl does.  Like the mystery at it’s center, there’s more to this movie than what’s on the surface.  And indeed, I do think that this was a great exercise for David Fincher.  It may not be as flashy as something like Fight Club or The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, but that’s only because the material here needed to be brought to the screen with a subdued tone.  I actually look at this movie as Fincher’s Hitchcockian film.  It’s got the languid pacing, the unexpected twists, and even a mysterious blonde at it’s center just like most Hitchcock films.  And like Hitchcock, Fincher is a director who loves to play around with it’s audience.  The best part of the movie is that it’s unafraid to take it’s audience through all sorts of different emotions.  At some points you’ll feel un-eased and horrified by what’s going on in the plot and then by the next scene you’ll be laughing hysterically by the wild turns that that the plot takes.  That certainly happened in the audience that I watched this movie with.  Again, the wild third act may throw some people off, but judging by the audience reaction that I saw, it looks like Fincher managed to tap into something good here.  I admire a filmmaker who can do that to an audience and that’s why I continually put my trust into David Fincher’s cinematic choices.  Gone Girl may not be the kind of movie you would expect from a director of his caliber, but after seeing the final results, it’s clear that there was no one else better for the job.  And that’s no mystery.

Rating: 8.5/10 

 

Focus on a Franchise – Hannibal Lecter

hannibal mask

Horror has always been largely considered a niche genre in the film industry, relegated to the fringes and often ignored by critics when awards season comes around.  And for the most part, it’s easy to see why.  Most horror movies are low-budget schlock-fests that usually just cater to a certain type of audience; mainly those who just want to have a good scare while in the theater.  But, that notion can be challenged whenever a filmmaker undertakes their own spin on the genre and creates a masterwork that includes all the elements typical of the horror.  Such is the case with the series of movies based off of the Horror novels by Thomas Harris.  The books themselves are hard to pin down genre-wise.  They follow the same principal outlines of most popular crime novels, but are at the same infused with Grand Guignol imagery that gives the readers a very macabre picture of the crimes the stories are focused on.  Obviously, adapting Harris’ novels to the big screen would require very careful direction to get the twisted tones right, which is something that this particular series has thankfully benefited from; for the most part.  But of course it’s not just the visuals and the plotting that has defined the franchise.  Each of Harris’ novels are their own standalone mysteries, but they’re linked together by the presence of one of the most memorable characters in literary history; and the main reason why this series has become as popular as it has.  That character of course is the notorious cannibalistic serial killer, Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

Hannibal is unique among popular franchise characters.  While most series tend to focus on their heroes, the Hannibal Lecter series is one that’s centered entirely around it’s villain.  That helps to classify this series within the horror genre, because most horror franchises also center around their antagonists; such as Jason Voorhies and Freddy Kruger to name a few.  But, even among his horror brethren Hannibal is unique.  He’s intelligent, perceptive, cultured and above all else, seductive.  These character traits are particularly what makes him so terrifying.  No other character in film or literature has made evil seem so refined and appealing.  Like a well hidden predator, he lures you into a false sense of comfort with his graceful nature, but once he’s got a hold of you, then the savage animal is unleashed.  And boy, Harris’ novels and the movies they’ve inspired have not shied away from some of the gruesome details.  Indeed, Hannibal Lecter has deservedly earned his place as not just one of the horror genre icons, but also as one of cinema’s overall greatest characters.  Thus far, Thomas Harris has written four novels around the character and that has in turn spawned five film adaptations.  Though Hannibal is featured in all five movies, it’s the three that star legendary Welsh actor Sir Anthony Hopkins which stand out as the most notable.  And though Hopkins had the most influence in defining the screen presence of the character, he was not the first to play the part, nor the last.  I will be looking at the franchise as a whole in this retrospective (remake and prequel included) to get a good sense of how the series evolved over time and how it ended up becoming one of the most defining series ever in both horror and cinematic history.

hannibal manhunter

MANHUNTER (1986)

Directed by Michael Mann

Dr. Lecter’s first appearance on the big screen came in the form of this adaptation from Thomas Harris’ first novel, Red Dragon.  Director Michael Mann, coming off of his stint as the producer and showrunner of Miami Vice, undertook the daunting task of adapting Harris’ gruesome work to the big screen.  Part of that process included stripping down some of the more horrific elements of the novel, and instead focusing more on the characters and the investigation central to the plot.  As a result, Manhunter plays more like a thriller than as a horror movie.  That’s not to say that the film is any less effective.  Indeed, it actually works perfectly as it is, mainly due to Mann’s assured direction, which is not flashy and is consistently well-paced.  The story follows FBI profiler Will Graham (William Petersen) as he searches for a deranged serial killer named Francis Dollarhyde (Tom Noonan), aka “the Tooth Fairy” killer.  Graham, who runs into a lot of hurdles trying to identifying his ruthless target, takes the unorthodox approach of soliciting help from a former colleague and now incarcerated felon Hannibal Lecktor (Brian Cox), who understands more than Graham the mind of a killer.  Michael Mann did an admirable job of adapting the novel, but at the same time it’s not all that groundbreaking; it just stands as a solid crime thriller.  Petersen makes a good lead, and Noonan in particular steals the movie as the “Tooth Fairy” killer.  But, what is most interesting is Brian Cox’s take on Hannibal, with the name Lecktor re-spelled for some reason.  His Hannibal keeps in tone with rest of the movie, played much more natural than over-the-top, while still keeping the character true to the novel’s interpretation.  While still a great film, the focus remained away from the character of Hannibal, which served this movie probably for the better.  The same would not be true for the rest of the series.

hannibal lambs

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991)

Directed by Jonathan Demme

Here we now have the groundbreaking movie that not only set the standard for the rest of the series to follow, but also became the genre defining title that helped put Dr. Lecter on the cinematic map.  The Silence of the Lambs may not only be the greatest horror movie ever made, but also the best crime thriller and best detective story ever brought to the big screen; though that’s up for debate.  There’s nothing in this movie that doesn’t work perfectly, from the direction by Jonathan Demme, to the outstanding and grim cinematography and art direction, to the career defining performances.  Perhaps the reason why the movie works so well is that it fearlessly adapts Harris’ second novel in the series to the fullest extant, with all the macabre elements intact.  Not only that, but it’s unafraid to go over-the-top as well, creating images that we the audience will never forget, as well as images we wish we could forget.  Hannibal returns again (now played by Hopkins), this time is called upon by FBI rookie Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) to help her track down a serial killer by the name “Buffalo Bill” (Ted Levine), who skins his victims before killing them.  Lecter and Sterling form an unlikely bond over the course of the story, somehow gaining each other’s respect because of their intelligence.  Even when Lecter makes his horrifying escape from prison, she knows immediately that he’ll never come after her, because he would “consider it rude.”  It’s that bond between the characters that ultimately elevates this film above all others, and thankfully the movie exploits every element of the characters’ progression to the fullest.  Hopkins’ over-the-top performance as Lecter is phenomenal and is perfectly complimented by Foster’s subdued work as Clarice.   Both actors deservedly won Oscars for their performances in this movie, and the film itself accomplished the impossible feat of being the first horror flick to ever win an Oscar for Best Picture.

hannibal 2001

HANNIBAL (2001)

Directed by Ridley Scott

Because of the popularity of The Silence of the Lambs, demand was high for a sequel to both the novel and the movie; which is funny considering that some people view Lambs itself as a sequel to Manhunter.  Still, Thomas Harris released his follow-up novel in 1999 under the name Hannibal, and Universal pictures quickly put the film adaptation into production with top tier talent involved.  Jodie Foster declined to return as Clarice Starling, but she was replaced with well respected and Oscar-nominated actress Julianne Moore.  Hopkins thankfully returned to the role that he came to own as Hannibal and direction was given over to one of Hollywood’s greatest visual artists, Ridley Scott, coming off of his huge success with Gladiator (2000).  The screenplay adaptation was done by none other than David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross) and Steve Zallian (Schindler’s List), and the cast was rounded out by big names like Ray Liotta, Giancarlo Giannini, and an un-credited Gary Oldman as a man without a face.  With all this amazing talent assembled, how could this movie possibly fail.  Well, it did; critically anyway.  The movie was still profitable, but almost immediately it suffered a strong backlash from critics and fans alike, saying that the movie failed to capture the brilliance of Lambs and instead focused way too much on the gory details of the original novel without purpose.  Indeed, the movie is a failure in adaptation and execution and that’s partly due to director Scott not being a good fit for the material.  The movie does look pretty, but there is no meat to the plot at all.  The tone is unfocused, and that’s mainly because Scott put too much emphasis on showing the gore in the movie.  Lambs and Manhunter proved that less is more, because it helped to make the shocking moments stand out better and have more impact.  Hopkins is still great as Hannibal though, and it is a treat to watch him here.  If only the rest of the movie was worthy of his performance.

hannibal red dragon

RED DRAGON (2002)

Directed by Brett Ratner

Only a year and a half after Hannibal had alienated audiences and readers alike, Universal quickly released this follow-up which again returned Anthony Hopkins to the role as Dr. Lecter.  Made almost as an apology for the previous film, Red Dragon was a return back to basics for the series, using The Silence of the Lambs as it’s source for inspiration.  Strangely enough, instead of moving forward with more sequels, this movie actually takes us back to the beginning, adapting the first Hannibal Lecter novel of the same name, which was also the source for Michael Mann’s Manhunter.  Some may think that it was a cheap way to keep an already waning franchise going, but by taking the remake route instead, the end result proved to be surprisingly effective.  I think the biggest reason why this movie worked as well as it did is because the screenplay was adapted by Lambs scribe Ted Tally, who has proved better than anyone that he’s the best person out there to capture the mood of Harris’ novels in a cinematic form; other than possibly Hopkins that is.  Also, the supporting cast helped out a great deal as well, with big names like Edward Norton, Harvey Keitel, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Emily Watson, and Ralph Finnes all filling out the roles.  Brett Ratner has had a shaky reputation as a filmmaker, but here he actually delivers well enough direction to make the movie work effectively.  If the movie has a flaw, it’s that it’s trying to hard to be just like The Silence of the Lambs.  Not that the movie is trying to be a knock-off, but it unfortunately causes the film to lack any identity apart from it’s predecessors.  By using the same sets as well as similar lighting and cinematography, it’s almost difficult to watch this movie and not feel like you’re also watching a scene left on the cutting room floor from Lambs.  The movie still works as a whole, but the fact that it’s still reminding you of a superior film is a detriment nonetheless.  But, at the very least, it gave us yet another oppurtunity to watch Hopkins at work, and it did blow some of the stench off of the series after Hannibal failed so miserably.

hannibal rising

HANNIBAL RISING (2007)

Directed by Peter Webber

Prompted by a threat from uber-producer Dino DeLaurentis that he would make another movie about Hannibal Lecter without the involvement of the author, Thomas Harris quickly drafted yet another Hannibal novel, only this time focusing on the character’s youth and origin.  Naturally a film adaptation followed, but what is interesting this time is that Harris took it upon himself to do the adaptation of his own novel for the screen.  Although Harris is a remarkable and peerless novelist, screenplay adaptation is a whole different style of writing, and this movie definitely shows Harris’ amateur status in this field.  The movie is very dull, lacking all of the macabre Grand Guignol excess that helped to define the series in the previous installments, and instead it feels like a grim period drama rather than a horror classic.  Though there are some horror moments thrown around here and there, none are particularly noteworthy.  It also lacks the presence of Anthony Hopkins, who obviously couldn’t play the role this time, considering that the film focuses on the character as a young man.  Instead, we get young French actor Gaspard Uliel in the title role, who has the evil stare of the character down, but none of the same charisma.  At this point in the franchise, it was clear that the character was played out, and even Thomas Harris was ready to let the character go.  This film was only prompted as a way for the original author to still keep control over the development of his most famous creation and nothing more than that.  So, in the end, it was still a positive exercise for Thomas Harris.  If only something better had come out of this other than an obligation of a movie.  It may be the final time we will ever get to see any new cinematic adaptations of the Hannibal Lecter, and it’s sadly a lackluster and forgettable way for such a great character to go out on.

Overall, the Hannibal Lecter series has a pretty turbulent record in quality, with one truly great masterpiece of a film, along with two pretty solid adaptations of the same story and two truly terrible sequels around it.  But then again, which horror franchise can you recall having as much an impact as this one.  The Silence in the Lambs in particular redefined all notions of what makes a movie a Horror film.  Parent studio Universal even was apprehensive about calling it a horror movie, instead calling it a “psychological thriller” in the hopes that it would gain more prestige from critics who usually looked down on the Horror genre.  In that respect, it probably worked, but Thomas Harris and director Jonathan Demme clearly stated that they intended their work to be considered part of the Horror genre, and indeed that argument has proven out over time, no matter what Universal says.  And this is largely part to the building of a franchise that has truly embraced it’s gruesome nature.  Michael Mann’s subdued take on the material is commendable, as is Brian Cox’s performance as the Doctor, but we all know that no one else brought out the best in the series better than Sir Anthony Hopkins.  His performance in Silence of the Lambs is truly one of the all-time greats; milking every ounce of potential out of the character and making it seem like a lot of fun at the same time.  It’s a performance that managed to redefine the way serial killers are portrayed in movies, and it’s often imitated but never matched.  How many scenes do you see now in movies where the main villain toys with his captors through a glass wall prison cell.  That’s all thanks to this series.  Harris’ novels and the film adaptations remain influential to this day, influencing everything from X-Files to True Detective, and has even spawned a critically acclaimed series on NBC.  And it’s all thanks to the charming cannibal at it’s center, who I’m sure would feast on all of this popularity with some Fava beans and a nice Chianti.

Walrus Yes – Tusk and the Rise of Fan Driven Cinema

tusk parks

Social Media has moved political movements, public event awareness, and even budding careers into places unseen faster than ever before, but what is most interesting about social media today is how it allowed the average person to have a say in what’s going on in their culture.  And there is no other place that has exploited that accessibility to an audience better than the entertainment industry.  Whenever you see a movie or a TV show advertised, it often includes a web address listed to entice you the audience to visit their home page and learn more about their product.  That or it will include a “hashtag” phrase that you can link to on Twitter and/or other social media sites to let your friends or the actual  film companies know that you are directly talking about their show.  It’s obviously a marketing ploy by film executives to generate interest and excitement over their new projects, but it also represents an interesting new trend in Hollywood, where interactivity between the filmmakers and the audience is now more closely entwined than ever before.  Social media offers a very direct link to gauge how a large group of people is feeling at the moment, and that has helped the entertainment industry figure out what are the trends that matter to which they can directly market.  Not only that, but social media also motivates large groups of people instantaneously, which is helpful if what you want to market comes out of more of the underground of pop culture, and you need to grow awareness in a quick and cheap way.  But, though films have used social media for a while now as a tool for marketing, it has only been recently that it has actually influenced the actual inceptions of movies.  And naturally, when the Twitterverse inspires the creation of a new film, it’s got to be something that is very much “underground.”

Enter renowned comedy filmmaker Kevin Smith, who’s become noteworthy not just for his canon of flicks, but for being a unique personality both on screen and on social media.  After his film career turned a little rocky in the late 2000’s, bottoming out with his horrible experience directing 2010’s Cop Out, Smith turned his attention away from Hollywood and towards a new passion, which turned out to be his weekly podcast.  What started out as a modest show where Kevin and his buddies could discuss topics freely in humorous, unhinged discussions soon developed into a vast network of multiple shows, and soon Kevin Smith’s “Smodcast” became a launching point for a new phase in Kevin Smith’s career as a filmmaker.  With a wide reaching show like his, he could promote his new projects in ways that he was never able to before, which became helpful when he decided to abandon the traditional route of film marketing to promote his 2011 film Red State.  But, what he soon learned on his podcast was that he was able to generate new ideas for stories and actually go directly to his audience for feedback, knowing that most of his fans were indeed already listening in.  This was something that happened during an episode of his Smodcast called “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” where he and his longtime producer and co-host Scott Mosier discussed a bizarre article they found online, about an ad put into a British newspaper inquiring for a new roommate to help a person with their rent and care-taking.  The catch; the new tenant had to wear a walrus costume at all times.  This of course spurned on Kevin Smith’s imagination and the whole episode of the podcast involved Kevin and Scott playing out that scenario in a hilarious but twisted way.

This was in no way different than most of the many other discussions Kevin and Scott have had on their show, but what made the episode special was the fact that Kevin saw potential in the idea.  Indeed, within the same episode, Kevin Smith wondered if he could actually make the movie that they were dreaming up on the spot.  He knew he had the means and the connections to make it happen, but what he didn’t know was whether or not he should.  So, he asked his audience to go to Twitter and let him know specifically if he should make the movie or not; all they had to do was either tweet #Walrus Yes or #Walrus No.  Not surprisingly, nearly everyone who follows Kevin Smith tweeted in the affirmative, and Smith didn’t hesitate to make good on that promise.  He quickly drafted a script, got the funding and the cast lined up in no time, and within a years time, he had a film ready for the spotlight.  And indeed, every weird thing that Kevin and Scott jokingly dreamed up on the podcast made it to the screen, in every disturbing and hilarious detail.  The final film itself, Tusk (2014) may not be anything groundbreaking on the surface, but the fact that it came from such an unexpected origin is what ultimately makes it groundbreaking.  Had Kevin Smith not put the idea up to a vote on his Twitter page, the movie would never have been made.  This is what makes the existence of Tusk so interesting because it is 100% a film motivated by social media.  It’s not just another film that uses Twitter as means for promotion.  We wanted to see this movie happen, we used social media to make it happen, and now it’s playing nationwide in our local cinemas.  Kevin Smith’s savvy-ness with social media may have given him a fun exercise in film-making, but the means to make it happen may be more groundbreaking than anyone realizes.

Back in the early days of Hollywood, the only way that audiences could influence what came out of the entertainment industry was to speak with their wallets.  If a film was bad, audiences could just ignore it, but after a while, Hollywood found a way to work around this and they used marketing tricks to make even their most inferior products sell well at the box-office.  Trends would come and go with the passing years, but whatever films were being made were still dictated by the aspirations of the directors, the producers, and/or the studios.  The audience never could have a say in what stories they wanted to see; it was merely down to the choices of whatever films were available at the moment.  Thankfully there’s so much variety out there in the film market that anyone could still find something that interests them at their local cinema, so it’s not like audiences have been cheated by this system.  But that prompt to have a say in what films actually get made has been largely been left out of the public’s hand.  Instead, the choices made by Hollywood have been more about guessing what audiences want than actually knowing what they want.  Indeed, even with social media being as widespread as it is now, it’s still difficult to gauge exactly how everyone will react to something.  Back in the early days, the studios would sometimes rely on polls and surveys to see what audiences wanted in their movies, but polling only reaches a handful of people and it’s mainly slanted one way or another depending on how the survey’s were conducted.  Also, Hollywood has made the big mistake of having focus groups and test screenings determine some of the final cuts of films, which again is relying on a very narrow margin of people to influence and compromise someone’s vision.

The reason why Tusk is groundbreaking is because it removed the guessing game part of the equation and puts the idea up to audiences before any movement can be made on the film at all.  Kevin Smith’s fanbase spoke up and indeed said that “we want this to happen,” and the rest was up to Kevin to fulfill.  He didn’t have to test screen the footage to see if it would appeal to a wider audience, or get rebuffed by studio executives who thought the idea was too bizarre to be made.  Here, thanks to the response on Twitter, Kevin Smith had the voice of the audience behind him, telling him directly that this story needed to be told.  Indeed, by letting the audience in on the process at the very beginning, you have this ability to get people behind it early and generate excitement for it before it even sees completion.  It actually works better that way than any kind of marketing, although that certainly helps as well.  And it thankfully let’s audiences know what to expect and not feel like they were duped by the studios into feeling excited for something that didn’t deserve it.  People know what to expect with Tusk, because they’ve been following Kevin Smith’s whole journey with it.  In fact, the whole lead up to the movie’s release, documented through Kevin Smith’s own correspondences on Twitter and his podcast, has helped to generate even more interest in the film.  Though Kevin Smith may have just wanted to connect with his audience for some well intentioned feedback, he may have also started a whole new trend in film marketing that studios may be following in the years ahead.

Though Tusk came about through an already built-in brand that it’s already famous creator has built over the years, it does show how some underground film-making can use social media to help gain exposure for their products.  This is something that has been growing over the last few years and independent film-making is seeing new life today thanks to new forms of crowd-source funding that has also arisen from social media.  Today, websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo are allowing filmmakers who have visions that exist outside the norm find the funding they need in order to make it a reality, and it’s all made possible by getting the word out directly to the audience.  The great thing about the crowd-sourcing trend is that it puts the power directly into the hands of audiences to actually make a movie happen.  For most filmmakers, finding the funds is the hardest part of the process, so by going online and soliciting funds from the fans directly, with perks like screen credit attached of course, they are able to bypass the whole process of trying to woo less interested investors.  Though many films like these will be micro-budgeted even with strong fan response, it nevertheless will give the audience a financial say in what they want to see.  Sometimes, when the fan-base is strong enough, a film will get the funding it needs in a big way.  Take for instance the Kickstarter fund set up for the making of a movie based on the series Veronica Mars.  The Veronica Mars movie managed to raise $4 million in a short amount of time, and with that show of goodwill from a dedicated fan-base, the production team wasted no time making the movie a reality.  That’s one example where a film that could never have gotten made the old-fashioned way, due to lack of interest in the industry, suddenly became possible due to the financial support of it’s own fans.

Although there are many benefits to programs like Kickstarter to help fledgling filmmakers get the funding they need or help unique voices be heard outside of the system, there are still drawbacks to audience driven productions.  When filmmakers take to Kickstarter, they need to be sure that they are listening to their audience, and not just using the site as a means for some easy cash.  If audiences are investing in something, it’s because they want to see something very particular, and not just what the filmmaker believes the audience deserves.  Like with more high profile investors, filmmakers have to be beholden to those who invested money into their projects, including taking in creative input that those same investors suggest.  When your film comes from thousands of investors like it would from crowd-sourcing, the same should also apply.  This probably matters little when the movie that is getting funded is bringing an already familiar property to the big screen, like taking the Veronica Mars series and turning it into a film, but when the film is something new, the filmmaker owes it to their audience to include them in on the creative process.  Filmmaker Spike Lee ran into trouble recently when he took to Kickstarter as a way to fund his next film so that he could avoid having to appeal to studio investors.  The complaint from audiences came from the fact that Lee was using crowd-sourcing as little more that means to fund his movie, and that he was still going to do things his way without the input from his fans who invested their money in it.  It could be said that just by funding the movie, the audience would have already spoken out on supporting Spike Lee’s project, but even still, one has to recognize that there’s more to that process than just finding a quick source of money.

Kevin Smith’s Tusk had the benefit of coming from a filmmaker who indeed had the connections and was listening to what his audience had to say.  Though Kevin Smith’s movie may be a small oddity, it nevertheless provides us with an early outlook at how movies may be developed, produced and sold in the future.  Today, audiences now have more say in what kind of movies get made than they ever have had before, and it’s all thanks to the new advances made in social media; and also thanks to people in the media who understand how to use those tools well.  Not only are we getting filmmakers emboldened with new avenues of finding ways to reach their audiences, but the audiences themselves are beginning to also strong-arm the filmmakers into making the movies they’ve always wanted to see.  Even rumors are now influencing film-making decisions, as some people in the media are using places like Twitter to gauge public reaction to potential film ideas before they even exist.  Not long ago, word spread online that Disney was working on a third Father of the Bride movie that was centered on gay marriage.  While this caused an uproar almost immediately, it was revealed later that no plans of any kind were being made by Disney on such a project, but because the feedback on the rumor was so strong, there is actually real development now on that idea that could potentially see the light of day if the curiosity remains out there.  That’s a kind of audience power that has never been seen before, and it will probably spurn on development for movies in the years ahead that may have struggled to get off the ground before.  If there’s an audience out there for it, those movies will be made, and social media has helped to make that link between audiences and filmmakers that much stronger.  Time will tell if it leaves a lasting impact on film production as a whole.  I know for one thing is that something like Tusk could only have become a reality because of this special link.