The King And I
Here's what I know about King Kong: not a lot. Will that stop me from yakking about it? Well....
It pains me to say that I am most familiar with King Kong through the Simpsons' "Treehouse Of Horror" parody. My most recent Kong experience was over the summer, renting the 1976 Jeff Bridges/Jessica Lange remake. Charles Grodin (!) is the evil capitalist, with Rene Auberjonois (!!) in full-on "drunken blather" mode as a geologist. Grodin's expedition is on its way to find new sources of oil when it picks up Lange, a starlet who's fallen out of a yacht. (Why, in 1976, couldn't she have been a geologist? Phooey.) The Lange/Kong relationship is ostensibly updated to reflect '70s sensibilities, so watching Kong '76, I started to wonder about Kong's normal rituals, and what happened to those un-liberated island women.
Near as I could figure from the movie, for however many years, the Skull Island natives kept Kong happy by periodic bachelorette sacrifices. Now, the strong implication is that Kong ate these women. This is a family blog, so I will not speculate on the mechanics of Kong accomplishing anything else with them; but just off the top of my head it doesn't seem like he could do much. In any event, we are not shown either Kong's harem or the graves of Kong's naturally-expired wives. Therefore, when the skinny blonde gets kidnapped, we care because she's in mortal danger -- but by the same token, when her friendship with Kong allows her to survive, she's does something different from her predecessors.
Although it's been at least six years since I watched the original King Kong (on AMC, back when AMC actually cared what movies it showed and how it presented them), the same analysis would seem to apply. In befriending Kong, Ann (or "Dwan," Lange's character) saves herself, but his protectiveness of her eventually dooms him. Yes, I know the swarms of armed aircraft are a more direct cause, but what else does "'twas beauty killed the beast" mean?
This remake also bothers me for its very fidelity to the original. Nobody wants to see another contemporized giant-monster movie (see also Godzilla '98), but the original has staying power precisely for its groundbreaking effects. Wouldn't the moviegoing public be more edified and enriched by appreciating that film than by seeing current technology applied to a very familiar story?
Even with all that said, I will probably still see King Kong '05, and odds are decent that I will be amazed and/or enthralled. Nevertheless, I am looking forward more to revisiting the original, and examining again what sparked fans across the decades to enshrine it.
It pains me to say that I am most familiar with King Kong through the Simpsons' "Treehouse Of Horror" parody. My most recent Kong experience was over the summer, renting the 1976 Jeff Bridges/Jessica Lange remake. Charles Grodin (!) is the evil capitalist, with Rene Auberjonois (!!) in full-on "drunken blather" mode as a geologist. Grodin's expedition is on its way to find new sources of oil when it picks up Lange, a starlet who's fallen out of a yacht. (Why, in 1976, couldn't she have been a geologist? Phooey.) The Lange/Kong relationship is ostensibly updated to reflect '70s sensibilities, so watching Kong '76, I started to wonder about Kong's normal rituals, and what happened to those un-liberated island women.
Near as I could figure from the movie, for however many years, the Skull Island natives kept Kong happy by periodic bachelorette sacrifices. Now, the strong implication is that Kong ate these women. This is a family blog, so I will not speculate on the mechanics of Kong accomplishing anything else with them; but just off the top of my head it doesn't seem like he could do much. In any event, we are not shown either Kong's harem or the graves of Kong's naturally-expired wives. Therefore, when the skinny blonde gets kidnapped, we care because she's in mortal danger -- but by the same token, when her friendship with Kong allows her to survive, she's does something different from her predecessors.
Although it's been at least six years since I watched the original King Kong (on AMC, back when AMC actually cared what movies it showed and how it presented them), the same analysis would seem to apply. In befriending Kong, Ann (or "Dwan," Lange's character) saves herself, but his protectiveness of her eventually dooms him. Yes, I know the swarms of armed aircraft are a more direct cause, but what else does "'twas beauty killed the beast" mean?
This remake also bothers me for its very fidelity to the original. Nobody wants to see another contemporized giant-monster movie (see also Godzilla '98), but the original has staying power precisely for its groundbreaking effects. Wouldn't the moviegoing public be more edified and enriched by appreciating that film than by seeing current technology applied to a very familiar story?
Even with all that said, I will probably still see King Kong '05, and odds are decent that I will be amazed and/or enthralled. Nevertheless, I am looking forward more to revisiting the original, and examining again what sparked fans across the decades to enshrine it.
posted by Tom Bondurant @ 7:44 PM
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