In his groovy new iPhone app movie guide, my friend Leonard Maltin writes that "Where the Wild Things Are" "puts me in an awkward situation as someone who is supposed to deliver a clear-cut opinion of a film: I didn't love it, yet there are passages in it that are so magical I don't think I'll ever forget them." I'm with you there, Leonard. And because the lively discussion from my previous post about the movie, "Where the Mopey Things Are," has been so stimulating, I thought I'd offer excerpts from two impressive reviews -- one positive and one negative -- with which I (almost) completely agree. That is to say, I can absolutely see how people might come down on one side or the other, but I remain ambivalently in-between.
First, from Ty Burr at the Boston Globe:
Let's dispense with the preliminaries: What do the experts think of "Where the Wild Things Are''? As the end credits rolled, my 12-year-old daughter and her bestest friend turned to me with faces like the twin masks of comedy and tragedy on a Broadway playbill. One girl's eyes were wet with tears of sadness and profound joy; "I loved it,'' she sighed. The other looked as if someone had stuck an egg-beater in her ear and scrambled her brains. "That is not a children's movie,'' she growled.
They're both right. [...]... James Gandolfini turns out to have exactly the rough-tough-creampuff vocal inflections a child's best beast needs. When Carol sulks (which is a lot), it carries weight and it breaks your heart because that voice is so evenly split between menace and the cuddles. Gandolfini gives a great, awards-worthy performance and you never even see the man. [JE: Bravo!]
The original "Where the Wild Things Are'' is a parable about self-control for very young children - about the joys and dangers of letting fantasy run free, and about learning for oneself when to rein it in. Jonze's film (to which Sendak has given his blessing) visualizes the process of learning control, and its keynote is anxiety - the characters see and are saddened by the gap between what's broken and how little we can do to fix it. Told the owls will answer only seven-word questions, Max asks "How do I make everyone O-K?'' and the answer is an undecipherable squawk that means: Figure it out for yourself, kid.
Because Max is a boy and not a Wild Thing, we have faith he will. The moral is tucked away where you can't see it, but it's there. By this point you may have realized that this version of "Where the Wilds Things Are'' isn't about childhood at all but about childhood's end and what's gained and lost by it. That's why very young kids, dull Disney princesses, overprotective parents, and self-serious grown-ups should probably stay away, while the college students after the screening I was at gathered outside and talked in low, exultant voices. That's why the 12-year-old next to me wept: For everything from which she had so recently sailed away.
I love that. OK, I think the "moral" is so visible you can't get it out of your face, and I can't honestly know why the 12-year-old was crying (possibly because she was so bummed by the movie's emotions), but I appreciate the sentiment and (as I said in my original post) I have no doubt that kids will directly connect with the cruelty and sadness they see on the screen.
Now, for a contrasting view, Glenn Kenny goes back for a second viewing at The Auteurs:
Don't get me wrong: in terms of sheer filmmaking imagination and chops, it's damned impressive....
My friend James Rocchi has marveled that this is "a film that knows about confusion and reality and sadness." He is right, but then again, there's the rub--the film is very much concerned that you understand that it knows about confusion and reality and sadness, it's constantly tugging at your sleeve like a fidgety child to make sure of this. This concern is a hallmark of the work of "Wild Things" co-screenwriter Dave Eggers. When Eggers' McSweeney's periodical first began appearing, various critics noted its antic, iconoclastic, often snarky tone, and in some cases came to the horrified conclusion that Eggers and his claque didn't believe in anything. The thing is, he/they actually believed in plenty, that plenty often having something to do with childlike "wonder" and an eschewal of critical thinking. And when they did choose to tell you about something they believed in, they wanted to make sure that you understood that their sincerity in this regard was in fact almost painful. And what were YOU going to counter that with, huh?
That's the stance that is behind some of the film's most gut-churningly on-the-nose bits, as when the wild things actually ask their new "king" Max: "What are you going to do about, you know; what about loneliness?" and "What he's saying is, will you keep out the sadness?" Maurice Sendak's original book was about an awful lot of things (and with so few words!), one of which was the infectious fun of potentially destructive mischief-making. Here, the mischief is bombastic, ugly, and scored to Karen O's lameoid simulation of a Go Team! song. The film knows plenty about confusion and reality and sadness, okay; it knows almost nothing about a good time, and laughter. ("Does anybody remember laughter?"--R. Plant) I swear I laughed more during Tarkovsky' "Stalker" than at this film.
Talk about an awkward position. I don't take serious issue with either of those takes. J. Hoberman (who also made a "group therapy" joke about the Wild Things) in the Village Voice captured the way I thought about the movie while I was watching it:
As its title suggests, "Where the Wild Things Are" is a book about the Freudian id--and it's also a media saga, having served as the basis for an animated short, an opera, a ballet, and a museum exhibit, as well as a prop for child psychologists and some relatively discreet merchandizing. Thus tucked into a collective, multigenerational unconscious, the slender text exudes authority. Jonze has struggled to bring the book--which was to have been his first feature--to the screen for even longer than the eight years it took Sendak to finish it.
The result isn't labored, so much as well-behaved. It's difficult not to watch the movie as a series of decisions carefully made and problems responsibly addressed by Jonze and screenwriter Dave Eggers: Will the unruly protagonist Max remain a pre-literate five or be older? (Older.) Is the projection of his inner world best achieved through animation or puppetry? (Puppetry.) Natural or fantastic landscapes? (Both.) What sort of music will comment on the action? (Insipid indie rock.) But, mainly, if one is to make something more than a 10-minute short, how to open up the book?
So, what do you think about those decisions they made? To have Max literally bite his mom, for example? And to have him run away, rather than have his room change into a jungle? Or spend so much time on the semi-realistic boat journey over and back? Or to have the Wild Things embody different aspects of Max's home life? Or to emphasize, if you will, the psychoanalytical over the Jungian, the literal over the metaphorical? (Or maybe you don't see it that way at all...) Let us know.
Literally bite mom? Kinda silly.
Run away instead of the room transform into a jungle? Unforgivable.
Actually I agree with the Hoberman review pretty much.
See, this just ticks me off. It's *exactly* what I was afraid would happen:
"What's weakest is its blandness, the sense memory of a child raised on Sesame Street. The psychic environment is less King Kong's Skull Island than Fred Rogers's neighborhood: Where the Wild Things Aren't." -Hoberman
I'm not sure I have much more to add that I didn't already bring up in the other post (again, loved it loved it loved it), but a few thoughts on some of those specific decisions:
Max biting his mom and running away: This is one part where I can see the criticism of how it alters the original story of the book, since it means Max's mom doesn't get a chance to specifically punish him (sending him to his room). I think the decision was made primarily because directly translating the scene in the book where the walls melt away to the forest would have broken the more naturalistic tone they were going for in the film (I think that also explains the time spent on the boat trips -- to emphasize the physicality of Max's journey and ground it in a sort of reality, even if it was all mental).
On further consideration, it did occur to me they maybe could have had it both ways: Have Max sent to his room, he walks around for a bit in frustration, then sneaks out the window and runs away, or something along those lines. But while it alters the flow of the book, it doesn't weaken the movie for me. Primarily because...
On Max's age: ...Because the movie is fundamentally about something a little different than the book, but no less legitimately a part of childhood -- or, more accurately, about growing up. I think Ty Burr nails it when he writes that the movie "isn't about childhood at all but about childhood's end and what's gained and lost by it." And yes, that necessitated an older Max for that story.
Was that the right choice for this movie? I dunno. This is the movie they made, and I don't know what their film about a 5- or 6-year-old Max would have been like (maybe I would have loved it just as much). All I know is that I love this movie. It didn't bum me out one bit. In fact, I can't remember the last movie I saw where I smiled nearly throughout the entire thing. I don't even think I've been able to acutely explain why yet, other than that it was the result of gorgeous filmmaking in the service of a theme that struck a deep chord with me.
By the way: Back on the differences between the movie and the book, I think (appropriately) Maurice Sendak eloquently explains how Spike Jonze made his version of the story with certain big changes, and yet how the movie still feels like the book in the end:
More here.
JE: Kris: Damn, you're good.
Am I the only one who loved the Karen O songs? The unrehearsed sound of the music and the uninhibited and childish quality of her singing really mirrored the immediacy of childhood emotions and felt like a good fit with the movie, especially the way Spike was approaching the material.
Jim, your commitment to clear analysis continues to baffle and impress me. Don't you know this is the internet? Where's the sarcastic dismissal?
I'd like to start by saying I think pretty much everyone tackling this movie, including myself, are now officially guilty of being far more over analytical, self-serious, and pleased with our own maturity than the actual work itself. Even if we're all super writers. So there's that.
"To have Max literally bite his mom, for example?"
Not familiar with what the alternative was in the book, but it made sense to me in the film. He doesn't attack/hit her, he just gets carried away with his 'wolf' persona. I guess he could have simply 'threatened' her, but the impact/uniqueness of the situation would have been lessened. Methinks he's had this costume for a while, and shown his teeth before.
"And to have him run away, rather than have his room change into a jungle?"
Adds to the journey. Instead of escaping his feeling of being trapped in a room, he goes headfirst into the real world - he leaves his home behind, instead of transforming it. The ending would not have had the same impact if he just came downstairs instead of coming in from the dark and cold.
"Or spend so much time on the semi-realistic boat journey over and back?"
As soon as he sets out, we get a greater sense of, again, the uniqueness of the situation. If he just transformed his room, I as a viewer might have assumed the transformation/fantasy was something he did on a regular basis, but by taking the journey he is going somewhere entirely new and unknown. Going back, well, you gotta go the same distance back as you did coming there, right?
"Or to have the Wild Things embody different aspects of Max's home life?"
I wonder what the alternative might have been. Having them be completely unique and confounding characters? How could Max have come up with that? Home life is practically his only life.
Something I thought recently: by making this decidedly grown-up film, Jonze is communicating, even unconsciously, how questionable it is to teach your children through movies. He may be saying "don't take your young children to see this movie, but then again, why take your young children to see any movie when they can get so much more out of picture books?" He is not going to tell the story to your children, you must do that yourselves.
Thanks again, Jim.
I don't know why everyone is so down on Karen O's songs for the movie. I found them a jarring departure from normal movie music (out in front, but co-habitating with the picture,) but just as evocative of childhood bombast and acute sadness as Mark Mothersbaugh's collaborations with Wes Anderson, though toward completely different purposes.
Also, Jim, what about that opening sequence/title shot? I love it.
Jim, I don't see the film as "an adult's diagnostic reinterpretation of childhood" at all. This is one area where I really think you mis-read the film. I think Jones and Eggers crafted a film that is closer to the reality of a child's view of the world than any I've ever seen outside of maybe E.T. (though I find that childhood perspective to be very realitic, some of it does come by way of expressionism). That said, they only captured this feeling for one rotten day of a child, rather than a more typical one.
To me, the film presents the viewpoint of Max directly, not a skewed writing of that perspective of an "adult-looking-back" at what it meant to be that age. I think the typical scenario of an adult is to look back on childhood with nostalgia, how everything was always good when in reality, it wasn't always good. When you think back to snowball fights, you remember the fun, not that you overreacted to something (getting whitewashed, took a snowball in the face, or had your snow fort smashed) and ran crying to your mother. When you think of riding your bike you remember the wind in your face as you hauled ass down a hill, not the time you fell and scraped your knee. I think you're absolutely right when you say that "it's a corrective to all those stupid 'Isn't it wonderful being a kid?' movies that remember childhood through equally distorted rose-tinted lenses" but where you go wrong with your assessment is in not realizing that those "Isn't it wonderful being a kid?" movies are the movies that actually take an "adult-looking-back" perspective (where even the bad stuff is presented with action film or comedy sensibilities rather than ever presenting the terror that a kid would feel if they were in danger).
Where The Wild Things Are shows us how Max viewed the activities of the day and how he reacted to them. The perspective is very much in the moment. He is bored, starved for attention. He tries engaging his sister and her friends in the snowball fight so he'll have someone to play with. He chases the dog with a fork and later climbs on the table in a form of attention getting. I see this with my own kids--sometimes bad behavior is simply a way to get attention. To a kid, negative attention can be better than none at all. He's lonely, feeling hurt and rejected, and confused and made angry by his mother's physicality with her date. This is all shown from his view in the moment, not as a remembrance from the adult Max.
The film loses a lot of its energy once Max lands on the island but it still worked for me. The entire island portion of the film, just like the rest, is told in the now, from Max's point of view. The world of the Wild Things, is shown exactly as Max is seeing it, tapping into his stream of consciousness. The constant interruptions in their play occur because this is how Max's mind is working. He can't stay focused on his imaginary story where he actually has friends to play with because he's an emotional wreck from everything that happened before he ran away. His brain is trying to work through it all while he sits there (wherever he actually is) trying to imagine himself with playmates instead. I take issue with you statement that "Tempestuous feelings don't just pass over and through these kids (I'm including the Wild Things as big kids -- more in a moment), as they do with most children of Max's age" because the events of this film are not representative of the tempestuous feelings of a typical day of a kid. Max doesn't run away like this every day--this is a BIG meltdown and his feelings hang around because they are boiling over in his head. This is not a day of "commonplace childhood agonies." If it were, Jonze wouldn't have a story to tell.
That said, I can't help but agree with your sentiment when you describe your ambivalence to the film, even if I can't agree with the source. Me, I'm ambivalent to the entire island portion of the film (even thought I was also blown away at how well the giant "rubber suits" worked). I just can't put my finger on why I'm ambivalent about it.
JE: Thanks for all that, haggie. It wasn't until the "boyfriend"/blow-up scene, I think, that I felt the movie started going off-track. Again, I just felt it was dramatizing everything too literally. I understand what you're saying, though. I wish the movie didn't have all the analysis built into it already -- all the explicit talk about "feelings" with the Wild Things. That's why I say it's privileging Max's childhood from an adult point of view; it verbalizes Max's feelings instead of just allowing him to discover or come to terms with them.
I'm in the ambivalent camp too. There were a handful of really great moments in the film that cut waaay deep. And there was a lot of navel gazing crap. When I walked out of the film, I was thinking a lot more about Dave Eggers than about Max. Not good.
But the last 20 minutes were as good as any film I've seen in a long time. And the opening wasn't bad. Waaay too on the nose, but effective.
WTWTA is waay too interesting,in both its successes and in its failures, to dismiss, but for me, this seemed like the end of a certain school of "twee" pop culture. While I was in the theater, I realized that a certain kind of childhood obsessed pop culture movement (and Dave Eggers the pirate is certainly one its main representatives) was having a big ole death spam up there onscreen.
Time to move on boys.
JE: "When I walked out of the film, I was thinking a lot more about Dave Eggers than about Max." Well said! That's the way I felt, too. The "navel gazing" (psychobabble) got to me after a while, and I felt like the filmmakers were talking directly to the audience, rather than the characters relating to each other.
One more thing!
I just have to praise the acting and the direction. James Gandolfini really made me uneasy. His mix of extreme vulnerability, anger, resentment was really heartbreaking. Great work. And the kid who played Max was great.
Spike Jones never figured out this material (the problems are really at the script level if you ask me), but scene by scene, this was a masterful performance. That powerful ability wasn't good enough to fix some awkward structural stuff, but if you need proof that he's good the goods, this is it. Since his first two films were perceived by some as wacky novelties, it is nice to see how bravely he handled this deeper material, even if it is less successful film. ("Being John Malcovich" is great in my book by the way.)
I'd like to see him direct a more mainstream genre movie. Can you imagine his take on an Elmore Leonard story? I think it'd be great.
Or he could just turn "Sabotage" into a feature.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZATxD2aKDo8
Man, that guy can direct the hell out of a video can't he?
I have not seen the movie, only the trailers. I loved the book but mainly because of the beautiful drawings.Having grown up in the heyday of Freudian speculation, I have suffered for it all my life. I was asthmatic as a child in the 40's and fifties,and so was Mr. Sendak, who even came from my old neighborhood. So much blame was laid on the parents for asthma and other misunderstood childhood illnesses. So many people believed that the problems of adults could be laid at the doorstep of childhood repression. So, although the performances will be magnificent, of that I have no doubt after having seen the lead actors perform on TV, I am not sure that I will want to see the movie. I will have a lttle voice in my head all during the show that will be saying, " this is all outdated psychological theory". So, will I enjoy the costumes and the special effects as well as the great peformances, or will I find it overwhelmingly impossible to sympathise with the film's premise? I really don't know. I am still dealing with the fallout of freudian theories in my own life and I don't like films that tell me how to think.
it's interesting how polarizing this movie is, some people say WTWTA is the best movie of the year while others say it's the worst; i tend to lean toward the latter opinion just because it didn't really have a plot
Speaking of videos that Spike directed the hell out of, let's not forget the Y Control video starring Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the band fronted by the anemic Ms. Karen O. ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3zPbBMbnjI
As far as the metaphorical vs. literal stuff, I think that using the Wild Things as mouth pieces for Max's emotional issues worked just fine in service of the story, because Max still figured out that he needed to go back home on his own. The Wild Things certainly didn't do it for him. Also, I'd like to point out that not *all* of the Wild Things embody various aspects of Max's psyche and home life, with the most obvious example being Douglas. Douglas' personality seems to have no correlation to Max's home life or his emotional issues, unless you want to see him as representing the wisdom that Max comes to gain by the end of the film. Actually, that sounds about right now that I think about it, especially since Douglas is Wild Thing who tries to keep. Carol (the obvious representation of Max's id) grounded...
OK, so depending on how you look at it Douglas might just fit in with the psychoanalytical approach. Another possible outlier is Ira, who is meek and soft spoken, and I think we can agree that Max is neither of those things!But anyhow I think that it's valid to view it from the psychoanalytical perspective, and because Max comes to the realization on his own by observing the Wild Things behavior (he doesn't talk out his emotional revelation, something that the Wild Things would almost certainly do) and it's up to us to figure out precisely what lessons Max learns from the Wild Things. I have a clear idea of what those lessons are:that he is loved and does not have to act out in order to gain the love of those around him, that even though he can feel sad and lonely and confused it's all right because he is a better person for working through it with the support of his family, that even though the sun will die it's no reason to succumb to depression and self pity and throw hissy fits, and finally that it's really fun to sleep in a pile.
Right on, Frank! I think you saw the movie just about the same as I did -- it had a lot of morose elements in it, but also reaffirmed so much about what's awesome about being a kid (sleeping in great big piles just because, well, why not?).
(And it also occurs to me your description of the lessons Max learns is also the description of the process in which he decides not to become emo in his teenage years. Good for him.)
Also, one of the Wild Things I found most interesting was The Bull, who I believe (but may be wrong) didn't say a word all the way until Max left the island. My suspicion was that -- being the most imposing Wild Thing that Max gave the least to say -- if he had to represent anything from Max's life, it might be his absent dad. A friend of mine also had an interesting interpretation: "I would also question if it represented Max's acceptance that something grim in appearance isn't always as bad at first thought (i.e. the idea of the sun dying.)" In that throughout the whole movie it seems like the smallest affront could tip this big, mean beast off, but then it turns out he's actually quite pleasant -- a twist Max could have decided right then and there.
Or, maybe it was just another creation Max conjured out of pure imagination that had no purpose, but he created it anyway because, well, why not?