KING KONG

Nobody was clamoring for remakes of some of these other recent films. But even after almost 75 years filmgoers never seem to tire of the King Kong cultural phenomena. This time Hollywood gets it right with an epic that has plenty of thrills along with its heart.

by Kevin J. Walker, Film Critic
thewordnetpaper @excite dotcom

Don't you remember when you first saw the original "King Kong?" When that large dark Something came crashing through the trees of the mysterious island, bending and snapping them like balsa wood! Even watching it on a small black and white screen I remember my young wide-eyed amazement!

So did Peter Jackson, the ten year old boy who later grew up to be the director of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

At the Oriental revival and art house theatre here in Milwaukee they had the practice of featuring films that had long been on television in their natural environment, such as the "Wizard of Oz." When the farmhouse door is opened onto the colourful land of Oz people in the theatre forgot to breathe.

Similar is the shock and awe that those in 1933 felt seeing a forty-foot screen filled with the gaping mouth of a 30 foot Kong chewing down on a hapless villager (in the uncensored version) after he has broken down their gates seeking the Golden woman he has been given, stolen by the little pink men with their bang sticks who will and must slowly die at his hands!

There are few better than Jackson to entrust with bringing to life the story of a doomed creature who couldn't adapt in the face of changing circumstances, and fell to the scurrying little creatures he once terrorized after he was taken from his kingdom to Civilization and their concrete canyons, noise, and machines. Some of their machines even flew in the air, like birds!

Don't worry, I'm not going to reveal the ending of "King Kong." That would be too much like telling the end of "Titanic." (The big boat sinks, and a lot of people drown. Oops!, I sorry).

The problem of dealing with a respected money-making director with a big project is that the studio is afraid to tell them "Enough, already!" This is often seen in the multi-tasking works of Spike Lee. Jackson's often shot-by-shot recreation of "King Kong" is three hours long, which is a good half hour past what it should be. There are too many atmospheric shots of Depression-era New York City; too many long takes aboard the Venture, the tramp steamer that leaves in the dead of night when the idealistically driven but crooked impresario and director Carl Denham tries to stay a step ahead of a pack of creditors fast on his heels.

"Psycho" was roundly criticized for its identical but in colour camera work and scenes. I grew aggravated when I could mouth the words for Denham ahead of him. This is not very far removed from Ted Turner's Colourization of classics

It is in the arrival to Skull Island that the bulk of the action in "King Kong" happens, and Jackson makes it count, with frightened rampaging brontosauri racing past puny humans, with some of them getting smooshed in the jumble. One thing they got right this time was not making a swamp Brontosaurus as a meat eating predator, which even as a child made me wince. Everybody knows they're vegetarians, even before "Jurassic Park."

This aspect also was a welcome updating from "King Kong's" recycled footage from the unmade "Lost World," a legendary silent movie in film circles whose structure and title was used for part of "Jurassic Park 2" This was to correct the historical wrong, also hinted at during a cigar smoke-filled dissection of Denham's latest nature film

Naomi Watts is more widely known to the public from "The Ring" horror movies. She is the newest addition to the top-heavy ranks of female action adventure stars. The Driscoll character is played by the lanky unathletic Adrian Brody, more known for his artistic films such as the Academy Award he got for "The Pianist." The sad-eyed actor became known as the "Kissing Bandit" after he laid an exuberant juicy one on Oscar presenter Halle Berry.

Jack Black again gets a lead role that shows his skills, and as the unscrupulous Denham this is the first dramatic role he's had in a big budget film. He's starred in "School of Rock" and "Shallow Hal" and had bit parts on "The Jackal" and "Enemy of the State."

Kong will take Manhattan, as the doomed surrogate symbol of Enslaved Africans is dragged in chains to America after he pursues the Golden Woman and loses everything including his kingdom, his freedom, and eventually his life.

This is not your parents and grandparent's Kong. Here he is dangerous and cruel, fast, agile and deadly. Peter Jackson has crafted a thrilling but long adventure story that for the first time includes a real brotha. Evan Dexter Parke ironically had a part in “Planet of the Apes.” He also appeared in the soaps “As The World Turns” and “All my Children,” as well as “Alias” and “CSI.” The Jamaican born Parke is the major character First Mate Hayes, replacing Jack Driscoll's 1933 original in one of many recast characters in “King Kong.”

Hayes was a soldier during World War I, and his battle skills and sense for danger pull the band of freebooters and unwilling explorers out of the jaws of death several times. His number one concern is his surrogate shipboard son Jimmy. A foundling/stowaway onboard the Venture about 12 years before, his origins are unknown.

In a sort of literary homage that "King Kong" is rife with, you could say that Jimmy is Huck Finn to Haye's N-Jim. Jimmy furthermore is seen reading and trying to decipher Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," the allegorical tale of adventurers in a savage upriver trip on a tramp steamer in colonial Belgian Congo in central Africa.

Question: what are these minor diversions even doing in a Monster Action Adventure movie? Just this: it is what makes for a good film. The Human Condition and all that.

The long windup in New York city even plays a part. When Anne is being eyed by Kong in his cliff top lair and her fate is being weighed, it is her Vaudeville, slapstick and juggling skills that help save her from Kong's wrath. "I make people laugh. I'm good at it" she tells the playwright. She puts extra work into her performance when she sees the teeth and feels the hot breath of a hollering Kong!

Similarly, we know his motivation when Driscoll creeps into the lair of the beast to steal Anne back when we sit in our seats, clenching and inwardly whispering "No! Go back!," but alternating with "Quiet, now... get her and just go!"

The action and adventure isn't being shortchanged, and Jackson's movie spends a great of good time on skull Island. Here is where most of the movie's diversion and augmentation from the original occurs. Characters are swapped out and their attributes are changed, but it makes for a better movie although a lengthy one as stated before.

The three Matrix and two volumes of "Kill Bill" movies came in multiple parts because the filmmakers had a story to tell that couldn't be told in one sitting. This happens. Biblical epics have been like that since the 1950s.

This is not your parents and grandparent's Kong. Here he is dangerous and cruel, fast, agile and deadly. You will know why he is the ruler of skull island, and when he beats his chest it is entirely justified! Those of who are steeped in science know that the Cube Root Law would limit the size of such a creature on land, not to mention its movement.

But we also know of the fossils of Gigantopithicus, the 8 foot giant ape/humanoid. Movies and plays are all about the suspension of belief. Okay, we'll suspend it long enough to allow a giant ape whose size varies from 25 feet in the jungles of skull Island to over 35 when he's tossing streetcars around when he runs amuck in Manhattan.

If Andy Serkis doesn't get at least an Oscar nomination this time out after being cheated for his fine work as Gollum in two "Lord of the Rings" it will show the Academy Awards for the fraud they are! Serkis gets even more onscreen time as the slop-slinging ships cook Lumpy, whose masterpieces are not looked toward for more than basic sustenance.

The story of Kong, whose crown lies heavy on his head as ruler of the prehistoric Skull Island has held a grip on the American imagination for three quarters of a century. There are reasons for this, having to do with the vicarious attraction of faraway lands untouched by civilization, and the possibility of adventure in a world that has been tamed and dammed and manicured and sprawled

The forgettable Dino Delaurentis "King Kong" production of 1976 had the battle of Kong vs. technology take place atop the World Trade Center's twin towers. He leaps from one to another as he battles attack helicopters, and the Jack Driscoll character is also an ally, played by an idealistic ecology activist in Jeff Bridges ("Starman", "Tucker").

It actually spawned a sequel! It picks up after Kong falls from atop the World Trade Center. But he's not quite dead. In the previous version, Kong's heart is still beating, vibrating the asphalt as he lay dying in the street: "Boom-BOOM! Boom-BOOM! Boom… boom... booooom... " Like that. They revitalize his heart with a giant shock-thingee. Hey, if the Japanese can make "King Kong" and "Godzilla" movies by the dozens why not over here?

Peter Jackson also directed "The Frighteners" which was a movie I like and favourably reviewed. Jackson's smaller movies are receiving renewed attention. His style is a throwback to the visionary Auteur Hollywood Director, one who like Jack Black's Carl Denham is driven by a vision and project that she or he loves.

This attitude has collapsed in the last generation because of some spectacular film FUBARs by tunnel-vision directors who think studios should be made to pay and people should be made to watch, multimillion dollar expositions of their inflated egos. Think director David Fincher who redeemed himself well after the studio shuttered and shut-down his fiasco that was "Aliens III" with "Fight Club", "The Game" and "Seven." This is why many directors come from the ranks of music video and Independent Cinema, who know a thing or two about film economy.

But here in "Kong" Jackson has backed it up. When I first heard he was shooting one of the best Monster Movies ever made I just thought it was interesting. I wasn't particularly optimistic, after all I winced with many others when I remember the hit and miss mess that was "King Kong 1976."

The film made a star of Minnesotan Jessica Lange (“The Postman Always Rings Twice”, “Blue Skies,” and the Patsy Kline biopic “Crazy.” Along with Sigourney Weaver's portrayal of Ripley in "Alien" for which Weaver received an Academy Award nomination, Lange’s “King Kong” role went a long ways in getting top name stars to accept Action Adventure, Science Fiction and Fantasy film roles, thus reinvigorating the genres and improving their quality and marketability with stars like Wesley Snipes, Eddie Murphy, Rosario Dawson, Kevin Costner, Kate Beckinsale; and Oscar winners such as Mel Gibson and Charlize Theron.

One thing that the 1976 version got right was the willingness of its Anne Darrow-type character to be with Kong. There is a tender scene in that version where Baker's Kong gives her a bath in a waterfall, and blow-dries her with his super breath. Faye Wray in 1933 just screamed and ran away from the big, black brute. Jackson's Anne Darrow, understandably malleable under the threat of constant death on an unbelievably lethal prehistoric Skull island brimming with vicious predators, logically sees in Kong not only salvation but eventually a Friend.

After Kong saves her from becoming a snack for some roving dinosaurs when she ran off into the jungle he walks away in a pique. Listening to the growls of the wildlife -- not to speak of the giant-size mosquitoes! -- she screams after him "Wait! WAIT!" She knows the deal.

Presented the way it is after she eludes snapping V-Rexes (the toothy ancestors of T-Rex) it is understandable, in much the same way that the book version of Clarice Starling's conversion towards Hannibal Lecter is conceivable in "Hannibal." After all, Hannibal the Cannibal is a formidable psychiatrist. Call it Stockholm Syndrome or whatever you want, its real. Besides, don't women admire and gravitate toward strength?

So too is the conversion of the brooding Works Progress Administration writer Jack Driscoll into an unlikely action hero, willing to push on after the creature. All he wants to do is get Anne back after she's made the star of a sacrificial ceremony to Kong. Like a cruel cat he plays with his captives, who he eventually rips apart for his sick pleasure while listening to their terrified and pitiful screams before he tosses the pieces to join with the pile of bones that so alarms Anne.

The character of Jack Driscoll like several others in King Kong underwent some much needed alteration from 72 years ago. Instead of an action-oriented ships First Mate he is a playwright hired by the federal WPA during the Depression, and whose work the near-starving Vaudevillian Darrow adores as she dreams of acting in real plays on stage downtown instead of rows of guffawing jokers in Tin Pan Alley.

Driscoll has found love, and he finds within himself the ability to face down death. I can speak from experience that this part is pure fiction! Writers like sitting behind a desk, in buildings with air conditioning and electricity, in a nice, quiet, safe zone. My activities as "Wisconsin Walker"
and the Chronicles and Adventures of the Travel Griot
notwithstanding.

Just as we can still enjoy Shakespeare's plays even after knowing the plotlines after four hundred years so too can we enjoy seeing how other perspectives are reflected on a popular and eternal work. There have been Gangster and All-Black versions of Shakespeare's "MacBeth" and "Richard III," to be explored in a future article on Brother Shakespeare's enduring appeal, although to be sure his works are much better understood in the original Swahili.

There are lots of undertones to the story of Kong. They incorporate Racialism; Colonialism; Man vs. Machine; Primitivism versus Industrialism; Jungle Fever; and the righteous revolt and vengeance of the Downtrodden on their persecutors once they are unleashed.

Oh, you think I'm reading way too much into what is a simple Monster Movie? Then why is the Anne Darrow/Faye Wray character always played by a European Descended blonde, and is the sole female?

Why does the action always take place on a South Sea island populated from the African Descended?

Once Kong gazed into the eyes of the Golden Woman who he should not want and cannot have, his fate was sealed. His strength vanishes along with his resolve and he is a beaten-down captive.

The primal creature Kong is brought to America in chains, shackled for their amusement. But once free he now terrorizes them, finally taking his vengeance upon his tormentors. If not for his unnatural attraction to the Blond Woman, he might have still lived out his years on Skull Island instead of dying at their hands, aided by their strange machines.

This just isn't the flight of fancy of a Great Lakes Midwestern writer.

In his Black Web Portal Wire Division
article, columnist Arthur Lewin has also decoded the undertone of the King Kong cultural phenomenon.

In an essay by X.J. Kennedy of the 1950s he makes many of the same points, even noting how in the segregated theatres of the South Black audiences cheered for "Brother Kong!" They knew.

There will continue to be versions of the saga of Kong. The basics of the story are too alluring, too rife with potential. After all, if they can take the macho icon of the Western cowboy and turn him into a rump wrangler then anything is possible.

I just had a very disturbing thought: Someday someone's going to make a movie about a Gay Kong, falling for his paramour and enduring all to pursue his love which Dare Not Speak Its Name. They might call it "Brokeback Island" or something.

CAST OF KING KONG:

Evan Park -- First Mate Hayes

Naomi Watts -- Anne Darrow

Andy Serkis -- Kong; Lumpy The Cook

Adrian Brody -- Jack Driscoll

Jack Black -- Carl Denham

Jamie Bell -- Jimmy

Kyle Chandler – Bruce Baxter

Colin Hanks -- Preston

Thomas Kretschmann -- Capt. Englehorn

Director: Peter Jackson

Milwaukee WI USA 53201-1324