Six Filmmakers Who’d Have Made "Where the Wild Things Are" Better
Jane Campion: According to a recent New York Times Magazine profile, Spike Jonze is so infantile, one of his friend’s kids thought he was a kid, too. Which is why it’s so improbable that his Maurice Sendak adaptation is forced and only hypothetically devastating. (In the words of William Hurt in A History of Violence , how do you fuck that up?) There must be someone who could have nailed its mix of feral joy and bottomless, end-of-childhood sadness. Perhaps Jane Campion, who’d bring both her unique visuals and bizarre sense of humor. And maybe Harvey Keitel’s penis.
Claire Denis: Fans of Jonze’s Wild Things are emboldened that it’s a pricey studio picture that’s mostly plotless. But if Warner Bros. really wanted to delve into the ether they’d have hired this French sensualist, whose films ( Trouble Every Day, Friday Night ) boast sensual textures, a certain melancholy and a narrative allusiveness that borders on maddening.
Michel Gondry: Or they could’ve hired Jonze’s bastard doppelganger, also a childlike naïf who’s worked for Charlie Kaufman and does a better job segueing from whimsy to the pits of despair.
Terrence Malick: Now that he’s working again, the once-elusive Malick is perhaps too old to connect with the source’s childishness. But man, oh man, would he have brought the lyricism, making a film with a wafer-thin plot thrilling by the considerable power of his editing.
Olivier Assayas: This French great’s last film was Summer Hours , which bid a quietly upsetting farewell to childhood, all while concentrating solely on adults. Just imagine the tears he’d elicit if he made a sad childhood film with actual children.
Pixar: John Lasseter, before he was Pixar’s head honcho, chose Sendak’s book for a short film to test out then-nascent computer animation. They’re an obvious choice, but Pixar can do almost anything, even make a ’toon about cars tolerable. ■
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Where The Wild Things Are
By Sean BurnsWhat stays with you is the sadness. There’s an almost unbearable undertow of melancholy in director Spike Jonze’s awkward, arty adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s 1963 picture book, "Where the Wild Things Are," that is entirely unexpected.
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1. Anonymous said... on Oct 21, 2009 at 03:26PM
“my choices: sid and marty krofft”