File puptcrit/puptcrit.0911, message 9


From: "Paul Fantini" <pfantini33-AT-comcast.net>
To: <puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org>
Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 13:02:34 -0500
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Wild Things Redux


Should I take my 6 year old or is it too much input for him?

-----Original Message-----
From: puptcrit-bounces-AT-puptcrit.org [mailto:puptcrit-bounces-AT-puptcrit.org]
On Behalf Of Stephen Kaplin
Sent: Sunday, November 01, 2009 12:45 PM
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Wild Things Redux

So did you like it?

I think I did like it in the sense that the imagery stuck a deep chord  
in me and the whole was a well made move. I didn't  like it because it  
it made kind of precious and morallistic the wild child-like mental  
anarchy and made the lavish brilliant fantasy of the book kind of  
pedestrian and sub-urban.


On Oct 31, 2009, at 8:15 PM, Paul Fantini wrote:

>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: puptcrit-bounces-AT-puptcrit.org [mailto:puptcrit-bounces-AT-puptcrit.org 
> ]
> On Behalf Of Stephen Kaplin
> Sent: Saturday, October 31, 2009 10:00 AM
> To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
> Subject: [Puptcrit] Wild Things Redux
>
> Just got a chance to see "Where the Wild Things Are" last night and
> want to throw out some ideas.
>
> I was not so much disturbed (as per last go-round of this thread) by
> the adult voices of the Wild Thing as I was by the genuine realness
> and solidity of them. Having grown up with the Sendak book and
> absorbed those richly crosshatched b& w drawings into my adolescent
> consciousness,  it was a bit disturbing to look at those Wild Things
> close-up with every pore revealed and facial muscle twitching.
> However, I must say that whoever  it was at the Henson Creature Shop
> who thought to add the ever-dripping snot from Conrad's nose was
> either a genius or a 6 year old kid (or both.)
>
> I was awfully disappointed that my most favorite part of the book- the
> series of drawings that wordlessly depicts the transformation of Max's
> bedroom into a jungle- was left out of the film. In Jonez's film
> version, Max has to run away outside to find the Wild Zone. Why is
> this?  That sequence was what made the book most real to me-- that I
> could conceive the same thing happening to my my bedroom.
>
> I think as a whole the film is a rumination on the child psych as
> filtered through the nostalgia of a middle aged man ( point brought
> out and elaborated on in several critiques of the film). It's
> interesting in this regard to compare it to those Victorian chestnuts
> of the same genre  like "Peter Pan" and "Alice in Wonderland". Peter
> never comes home, therefore never integrates the wildness that he
> rules over in Neverland into his later life (except of course in the
> late 20th century film remake, where Robin Williams plays the middle
> aged Peter trying to reclaim his lost childhood, but that's a
> different story.) And Alice, unlike the wild boys in Peter Pan" , is
> relatively passive-- she remains through out the two books just a
> tourist passing through and remarking wryly on the "curious" goings
> on."Wild Things" seems to me to be a sort of 21st Century update of
> the Peter Pan and Wonderland mythos, where the proper integration of
> wildness and creativity, with a big heaping teaspoon of L-O-V-E (as
> the outro music reminds us) is paramont to becoming a happy,
> productive, adult film director. Yay Jonezie!!
>
> Okay chew on that for breakfast, wild ones.
>
> Stephen
>
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