Anticipating Scorsese's Hugo

Trailers for Hugo suggest the film has great possibilities for being a wonderful holiday family filmHugo (Asa Butterfield) and Isabelle (Chloë Moretz) in Hugo (2011)..  When I first heard about the film, I thought it a little unusual that Martin Scorsese would be directing Hugo and filming it in 3-D.  The book is a visual treat.  It  was the first chapter book and graphic novel to receive the Caldecott Award.  Yet, the idea of turning it into a film seemed charming, but worrisome.  Chris Van Allsberg's holiday picturebook The Polar Express became rather creepy in the film version that used high tech animation that made the characters seem less like people and more like robots.  Many teachers like this book, and film, because, perhaps, it allows them to talk about the Christmas holiday in the classroom without bringing in Christianity but still bringing in the related ethics.  On the opposite end of the religious spectrum, The Golden Compass film of 2007 based on the first book in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series has a haunting, dark world that is not at satisfying as the way it's described in the books. 

Ben Kingsley in Hugo.So, we'll see about how Hugo does.  The early reviews from the New York Film Festival in October are positive; looks like the film appeals to adults as well as kids. Scorsese's interview with The New York Times suggests that turning the book into a film had to be appealing for him on several levels, including the opportunity to re-create George Méliès’s glass studio. Scorsese said, "We started replicating scenes from Méliès films as best we could. ...With Méliès’s films, especially the hand-colored ones, it’s like illuminated manuscripts come alive. We shot Méliès shooting his films for five or six days. It was one of the best times I’ve had shooting a picture."

I do think that this is probably going to be a film for children 8 and up and very appealing to tweens.  The complicated storyline is not one that young children may be able to easily follow.

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Fairy Tales re-imagined on TV, part 2

Last Friday, we watched NBC's new Grimm, another contemporary spin-off based on fairy tales. 

At least the new NBC TV series Grimm encourages doing primary research in books.

This one is much more grisly and similar to all those Law & Order/S.V.U. type shows.  (S.V.U. always looks suspiciously like S.U.V. to me).  Obviously, this show is supposed to be creepy and scary with a contemporary sensibility.  There are overtones of Twin Peaks here as well, but very tepid echoes. The links to fairy tales did not seem as compelling or as well constructed.  The friendly neighbor turns out to be a human who can transform into a wolf, but he is able to control himself after years of working on that, kind of like a reformed alcoholic, it seems. 

The show is called Grimm because the main character is supposed to be descended from the Grimm brothers who were supposed to be able to see the real monsters.  It's a special sight that's only available to the family members.  That seems a difficult premise to accept if you think about it.  If there are lots of monsters roaming about all over the world, then why wouldn't there be lots of people who could see them as well?  Even in fantasy worlds you have to have some logic that's believable.  And that brings me to the point that Grimm is fantasy based on fairy tales.  However, fantasy and fairy tales are different as well.

  One of the problems with fantasy is that authors make up rules for how characters can act, but then have a tendency to break those rules.  To make it believable, you have to stick within those rules.  I think that was one of many reasons why Twin Peaks worked -- the rules, in a weird convoluted way, made sense and were quirky enough to be creepy even for those who are too cool to be scared.  Grimm just wants to scare people without trying too hard to do anything else.  And maybe that's all lots of viewers want now.

In the meantime, Once Upon a Time seems more interesting perhaps, but this, too, is a rather convoluted fantasy based on fairy tales.

Fairy Tales re-imagined on TV and in books

Mix up traditional fairy tale characters such as Snow White, Prince Charming and Rumplestilskin with literary fairy tale characters such as Pinnochio, the Blue Fairy and perhaps someone from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with a dose of contemporary fantasy and modern sensibility.  One result is a new television series on Sunday nights on ABC, Once Upon a Time.  This show is for families and fantasy fans while on the darker, flip side fairy tales get the law-and-order, violent treatment with Grimm beginning this Friday night on NBC.

Once Upon a Time intends to draw in readers of Harry Potter as well as the many YA, middle-school and adult books, such as Brandon Mull's Fablehaven series, E. J. Patten's new Return to Exile series, Gail Carson Levine's Ella Enchanted and her subsequent princess books, Shannon Hale's The Princess Academy series, Cressida Cowell's How to Train a Dragon series, the Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series in chapter book and graphic novels, etc.  Combining fairy tales with fantasy and contemporary realism has become a popular story well to mine, accompanied by the elves and dwarves who know the way through the tunnels.Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow White/Sister Mary Margaret

Once Upon a Time stars Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow White and Josh Dallas as Prince Charming who are cursed by a wicked witch played by Lana Parrilla.  The witch's curse seems to be that the characters are transformed into the creepy world of 21st century Storybrook, Maine.

Not that long ago some book publishers, librarians, and adults directing children to books decided that kids did not want to read fairy tales or fantasy.  J.K. Rowlings opened up the floodgates by proving them wrong.  Kids enjoy the excitement, dark turns with usually happy endings, romance, and swashbuckling adventures in these kids of books.  So, it seems that it's about time that television has figured out that a series that interweaves these kinds of tales while still having a PG sensibility might work. 

Obviously, I've just seen one episode and the series is laying the groundwork for the complicated material that is bound to come later.  I do want to point out that there is a significant difference between  traditional fairy tales that the Grimms and others collected and literary fairy tales created by one author, such as Lewis Carroll or L. Frank Baum.  It's just a little unsettling to see the two mixed up so freely here.Josh Dallas as Prince Charming in Once Upon a Time

It's not surprising that Once Upon a Time has roots in the mysterious series Lost; two of that series writers – Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis -- are the creators of this show.  They also worked on the tightly crafted Felicity.

"We love the mish-mash,” Kitsis told the Hollywood Reporter last summer about scenes in which Geppetto interacts with Grumpy, etc. Maybe so, but the mish-mash may become a little confusing as viewers make the connection between fairy tale time and contemporary times.  For instance, Snow White becomes the beloved teacher Sister Mary Margaret in Storybrook.  Or remembering Rumplestilskin from the Shrek films and then from fairy tales and then trying to remember exactly why he was bad.

Maybe there's a need for a fairy tale quick guide. 

Mary Blair Googled!

Today would be Mary Blair's 100th birthday and to celebrate Google created a Google Doodle inspired by Mary Blair's art.  Very cool! 

Just wanted to mention again that I have a chapter in my book, The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children's Literature, on the Alice in Wonderland book that uses  Mary Blair's original artwork for the Disney film and Jon Scieszka's adaptation. That chapter essay, "Show Me, Don't (Re)Tell Me: Jon Scieszka Revisits Wonderland" is available in .pd format here.  Blair's work continues to show an amazing imagination but the usually funny and clever Scieszka seems a little intimated by adapating Carroll's work.  I'm working on a few other ideas related to Mary Blair's art as well.

Go Mary Blair! 

The Mary Blair Google Doodle.

more artwork from Mary Blair Disneyland exhibitFrom the Mary Blair exhibit at Disneyland in Summer 2011

Mary Blair exhibit at Disneyland & Matisse influences

Mary Blair's amazing artwork for Disney is the topic of the  Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' 17th Marc Davis Celebration of Animation lecture tomorrow night.  Looks like a fun, interesting panel the creators from Disney and Pixar who've worked on Toy Story 3, Monsters, Inc., Aladdin, Up, Pocahontas and more. Of course, the panel is already sold out, but it would be great to be a fly on the wall.

I'm fascinated by Blair's work. I included a chapter in my recent book, The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children's Literature, about the re-working of Alice in Wonderland by Jon Scieszka using the art that Blair created for Disney as an inspiration for his animated film.  Not the best Alice adaptation because Scieszka doesn't bring his usual humor and confidence to Blair's dark and stylized work.

When we were in Disneyland during the summer, we were able to see an exhibit on Mary Blair's work.  I thought that the panel talk would be a good opportunity to post some of the photos from that exhibit.  The exhibit was near the entryway to Disneyland in the area on Main Street devoted to the history of Walt Disney and the theme park.  It's one of my favorite sections because the older Disneyland is the one that seeped into my imagination while watching the Sunday night Disney television and The Mickey Mouse Club.

Looking at the photos again, which are obviously not perfect photos, reminds me how much Mary Blair was inspired by Henri Matisse cutouts.

Matisse's La Tristesse du roi (Sorrows of the King), 1952Matisse is noted as saying "To look all life long with the eyes of a child."

Anfitrite, 1947The Eschimo , 1947

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