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Not familiar? Here's what 'Wild' newbies should know
Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis (France 2007), 95 minutes, feature film based on the graphic novel by the same name. Satrapi’s directorial debut film is the story of a young girl coming of age in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Awarded Jury Prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, and Academy Award Nominee for Best Animated Feature.
Marjane Satrapi was born in Rasht, Iran, and grew up in Tehran. She is currently based in Paris. She has written and illustrated the award-winning graphic novels Persepolis 1-4, Broderies and Poulet aux prunes. Persepolis (co-director, 07) won a Jury Prize ex-aequo at the Cannes Film Festival.
Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis (France 2007), 95 minutes, feature film based on the graphic novel by the same name. Satrapi’s directorial debut film is the story of a young girl coming of age in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Awarded Jury Prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, and Academy Award Nominee for Best Animated Feature.
Marjane Satrapi was born in Rasht, Iran, and grew up in Tehran. She is currently based in Paris. She has written and illustrated the award-winning graphic novels Persepolis 1-4, Broderies and Poulet aux prunes. Persepolis (co-director, 07) won a Jury Prize ex-aequo at the Cannes Film Festival.
Hiba Bassem’s Baghdad Days (Iraq/UK 2005), 35 minutes, is a diary of the director’s move from Kirkuk to Baghdad in order to finish her film studies at the Institute of Fine Arts. The war disrupted her life in Kirkuk where her family lived in harmony with the Kurds. In Baghdad, she struggles along with her classmates to finish her studies in the semi-destroyed city, find a place to live, find a job, and deal with family problems. Winner of a New Horizon Silver Award at the 2006 Al Jazeera International Film Festival in Doha and a Golden Award winner at the 2006 Rotterdam Arab Film Festival.
Hiba Bassem was born in Baghdad in 1982, but her family moved to Kirkuk, where she grew up. She returned to Baghdad to study cinema at the Institute of Fine Arts. This film, her first, was completed as part of a documentary course at the Independent Film & Television College in Baghdad.
My first glimpse of the new movie “Where the Wild Things Are,” was at a preview a few months ago. I saw a kid running through the woods in a wolf suit. I knew that wolf suit. My heart quickened.
They finally did it. After almost half a century, they’ve finally translated Maurice Sendak’s classic picture book, a source of so many wild fantasies and nightmares from my childhood (and my sons’ childhoods), into a feature film.
I’m both thrilled and worried. Those who grew up with the book understand. For those who are new to it, here’s a quick primer to catch you up.
About the book
The 1963 children’s picture book had only 20 pages, with only nine sentences.
It’s about a boy named Max who wears a wolf suit and makes so much mischief in the house, he’s sent to bed without his supper.
Here’s where things get interesting: He journeys to a land of monsters and fantasy. But he doesn’t get there by crawling through some wardrobe or flying through a tornado. His trip begins in his own bedroom, the place where he feels most secure. His walls begin to fade, and in their place, a forest emerges.
What a creepy and wonderful thing.
When Max gets to the home of the Wild Things, he’s scared. But, through his own nerve, he becomes king of these frightening looking, but ultimately kind-hearted creatures. His rule is short, however, as homesickness kicks in and he longs for his bedroom and a nice home-cooked meal.
Behind the book
Sendak originally planned to make the Wild Things giant horses, but his publisher suggested he change to more varied monsters because Sendak had trouble drawing horses. Sendak has said the inspirations for the faces on these wild things came from his aunts and uncles in Brooklyn.
The book became a near-instant classic, winning the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award and the Caldecott Medal. It was also named an American Library Association Notable Book.
The movie
The book has been adapted into an animated short and a children’s opera, but Sendak wanted to see it become a live-action film. He’s been working on it since the early ’90s.
It wouldn’t be easy. Spike Jonze of “Being John Malkovich” fame approached Sendak and the author thought he had the quirky vision to bring his book to film.
But it’s a dark story, and when adapted into a screenplay, it tends to get even darker.
Jonze was originally making the film for Universal, but the studio and the director clashed about the approach. So, he took the film to Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. execs liked the idea, but when they saw an early cut, they realized it might be much less family-friendly than they’d imagined. They wanted Jonze to reshoot the whole thing. Instead, both sides made some compromises, the studio gave Jonze more money and time, and audiences will ultimately judge how well the adaptation works.
Aside from the creative clashes, there were major technical issues. Jonze wanted the Wild Things to seem tangible, not computer-generated cartoons. So, who do you call: the Jim Henson Co., of course. The muppet people would create Wild Things by stuffing actors into 6- to 8-foot tall costumes.
The problem was, with all the animatronics to make the eyes move and the faces morph into a variety expressions, these costumes were tremendously heavy.Only one of the actors was able to walk in a straight line wearing the costume.
The Henson people ended up tearing apart the 50-pound heads and taking out the remote-controlled eyeballs, and the filmmakers had to use some computer-generated-imaging for facial expressions.
