I remember hearing about this movie back in early 2006. Warner Bros. Studio hired Avant-garde director Spike Jones to helm the adaptation of one of my favorite children’s book, Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. Spike Jones last films were a quirky comedy Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. Both these movies were very well made if just a little too quirky for your average viewer.
At the time I felt the book's themes of anger, lost and fearlessness in a strange new world was appropriate for our times. The books main protagonist is a young child named Max, who is struggling with issues of anger and shows young readers that strength and fearlessness will tame any problems.
In 2006 we were enduring the 3rd year of an Iraq war that seemed to have no end. Many Americans were angry about the mess this war had become. So a movie that dealt with anger issue in a land far far away seemed completely logical and appropriate. But just like the war the Spike Jones’ production became a quagmire, requiring multiple rewrites and re-shoots .* The difficulty on the set and in production pushed the movie to a point where, only until last week, has the 80 million dollar movie been given a release date. (10-16-2009)
Movies are made to reflect the attitudes of our times 6 months from now. Producers and Studios try to predict what peoples attitudes will be a few months out. Most of the time it is fairly easy. The most obvious example is the seasonal/holiday movies, but another category is relevant movies, for example every four years the industry rolls out movies about the presidential elections. So a movie that stumbles through production and is delayed for four years many times has past its relevancy.
Today our problems have somewhat shifted from the desert thousands of miles away to our own pocketbooks and the movies themes and fears maybe to close for comfort. I don't think that many Americans are in the mood for dark childhood angst and pathos right now. Paper monsters are one thing but real ones are another.
Where the Wild Things Are is not a hopeful or happy story to begin with, and the movie adaptation‘s script (pirate the script on any torrent site) is far darker than even the book. In the book we only see monsters in Max's imagination. Yet in the movie and trailer we see the monster also exist in the real world, represented by his teacher and mothers new boyfriend.
There is also a problem with bringing monsters in the book too life. The monsters in the book are two inches high and don’t move. In the movie they are bigger than we are. That simple difference changes the playfulness and safety of the story. The monsters are now more real and we can’t hide under our blankets at the mega-plex.
Max does teach us one thing, that when one comes face to face with monsters one should not be afraid and we like Max should face them head on. Because in the end the Monsters are just as afraid of us since we are as Sendak wrote "the most wild things of all." This is why the movie still intrigues me and I hope that it still intrigues you. I hope that we can find the time to see it or at least download a copy so you can watch it in the comfort of your own bedroom with the security of your blanket
Good luck Max I hope you make it home from the island
Links will redirect you out of this site*Re-shoot problems
Maurice Sendak
Where the Wild Things Are WIKI
Spike Jones WIKI
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