Into the Wild

How could you not get excited when the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are premiered? Seeing Maurice Sendak’s creatures come to life at the hand of Spike Jonze, to the transcendent strains of The Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” was absolutely thrilling to anyone who grew up on the book.

That said, adapting a ten-sentence story into a feature-length film is a huge challenge. Jonze’s movie explores Max’s back story as a lonely single parent child with an overactive imagination and anger issues. And when the boy eventually makes the journey to the realm of the Wild Things, the characters spends a long time there, living amongst the creatures, slowly realizing that he belongs back at home with mom.

Jonzes uses the creatures to explore the facets of Max’s emotional turmoil, with Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini) as the symbol of childhood frustration turning into destructive rage, then regret and sorrow. As Jones takes us through Max’s imagination, he unveils all kinds of larger-than-life sequences and images tied into the things that little boys are made of. Dirt clod fights, pile-ups, fort-building, running through the forest, discovering secret places, screaming and causing general destruction are all on the menu.

Yet, I found myself checking my watch. The adventures-as-character study plot becomes repetitive, and the Wild Things are completely impressive overall but the awe soon wears off. I think 20 minutes shaved off the 101-minute running time would’ve suited the film well.

The original story was just a brief excursion into the protagonist’s imagination, so it’s no wonder that there are a bunch of animated shorts that adapt Sendak’s tale. I came across a bunch of ‘em on YouTube over the past week, as well as some other essential viewing material for the longtime Where the Wild Things Are fan.

Rumpus away…

Here’s the official animated version of the story from the ‘70s, which uses Sendak’s illustrations and brings them to life. The soundtrack is pretty dated and the animation less than ambitious, but it’s still cool. Love the narrator’s voice (composer Peter Schickele) too.

A claymation adaptation done as a school project. Max and the monsters look fairly cool but the animation itself is crummy at times.

Wow, I had no idea that Disney was using the Sendak story to do early computer animation tests. This video from 1983 shows how Disney animators were experimenting with vector-based computer animation to bring a section of the book alive. Well, that’s not quite, true… Rather, this is a Disney-fied version in which Max is drawing on the walls in marker and then playfully chases the endearing family dog around. Sendak doesn’t have a cheesy Disney sensibility by any means, though, and I think this would’ve been pretty lame.

Here’s a rather neat rendering of the story using shadow puppets, from Wales. It’s a little herky-jerky but I do like how the creators interpreted the monsters in their own way. The volcano is pretty sweet too.

Animation doesn’t get much cruder than this one, and what are those Teletubbies things playing the drums? It’s a pretty weak effort, although the trippy soundtrack has its charms.

This one’s a video of Montreal band Patrick Watson (also the name of the singer) performing “Where the Wild Things Are” off the group’s new album Wooden Arms. The disc was recently shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize.  I love the playful, hypnotic tone and howling vocals, which capture the spirit of the story. This song would’ve been great for the end credits of Jonze’s film.

This apparently leaked test footage from the film shows a scene with Carol being portrayed by an actor in a suit – Muppets-style. Obviously the filmmakers were trying to get their heads around how best to depict the creatures.

Here’s my favourite short film version, an ambitious stop-motion claymation take on the tale with shades of Nick Park (of Wallace & Gromit fame) yet more rough and sparse (e.g. where are the vines the narrator says are growing in Max’s room?), and much darker. In fact, this has some downright frightening moments when Max glowers, and later the Wild Things do the same thing (making the important connection between the boy and his monsters). It’s the first time I’ve seen the creatures look actually frightening, which fits the theme of childhood angst that permeates the book. The world music soundtrack really works here too. One more thing to note: like the feature film, this one dispenses with the sea monster Wild Thing. That guy (girl?) just doesn’t seem to be too popular.

Lastly, if you’re sick of all this kid stuff, here’s a Wild Things chaser.