I’m not done with this subject yet. Some things interrupted this series earlier in the year, but I love the stuff we’ve published, and I have more things to share with you before the very, very, very end of 2007.
I’m just glad to see that the idea that 1982 was a particularly important year for film geeks has caught on and spread as this year’s worn on, and one of the greatest joys of having just set up both a Blu-Ray player and an HD-DVD player in the house is knowing that I have both THE ROAD WARRIOR and THE THING available now in the very best versions commercially available.
I’m so glad Elston Gunn finally sent this to me, and as with each of these so far, I’m genuinely pleased to present this to you. I hope it means as much to you as readers as it does to me as an editor:
Sometimes it's the subtle things within the pop culture works we revere for which we're grateful. Personally, I love that Norman Bates eats candy. I love the simple way Ringo brings the band back into the song underneath the guitar riff 1:21 into "I Feel Fine."
And I love that some Muppets have eyelids.
Yes, that's right. Eyelids. Not many of them, sure, but a few. Gonzo and Rizzo have them, some Fraggles, couple of SESAME STREET characters every now and then, Statler and Waldorf have a bit of a squint. Others have brows, eyelashes, interesting pupil placement. Janice is all lid and lash, no eyeballs. Bunsen Honeydew - pardon me, DOCTOR Bunsen Honeydew - has no eyes at all, but apparently very well-functioning glasses. So, it varies.
"For me I think the single most important person probably was the person doing the eyes of the puppet. Because without those eyes working it doesn't live." - Kathryn Mullen, performer/puppeteer.
Jim Henson knew exactly what he was doing in that respect. It's all in the eyes.
"We usually built in a blink - a widening and narrowing of the eye. So much of the personality is dependent on that and you read the changes of emotion through the eyes."
So says the man himself in the documentary about the making of THE DARK CRYSTAL, which opened wide in theaters on December 17, 1982.
I was six years old and in my little kid brain I went into that film thinking this was an interruption between Muppet movies. I was pretty Muppet obsessed. I knew 'em all. Knew most of the muppeteers' names, too, from studying the Muppet albums' sleeves and reading the movie and television credits. My parents loved watching THE MUPPET SHOW with me. I was a member of the fan club, had some Muppet stuffed animals, Muppet Colorforms and Muppet ShrinkyDinks (I remember being bummed over Sweetums getting overcooked).
But enough about me and my Muppet fan credentials. The point is even though I was just as much into the SUPERMAN movies, I didn't have a clue who Richard Donner and Mario Puzo were at the time. I did, however, know the names Jim Henson and Frank Oz and that's really all it took to get me to the theater to see THE DARK CRYSTAL, which they co-directed.
"Another world, Another time... In the age of wonder."
No real spoilers for the uninitiated. It's the simple story of a raised-by-Mystics Gelfling named Jen who must reclaim the Crystal of Truth from the evil Skeksis on Thra, a planet which has thrice the suns we do. And since the Crystal was cracked by the urSkeks then later stored in the Skeksis' castle, it became known as the Dark Crystal. Jen, who thinks he's the last of his kind, meets the female Gelfling, Kira, who was raised by Podlings. She joins him on his journey along with her furry pet named Fizzgig, whose entrance in the movie I specifically remember made me jump out of my theater seat.
It's chocked-full of the mythical and mystical. There's a one-eyed seer, murderous Garthim, fun long-legged Landstriders, a volcanic pit and creepy essence zapping by the Skeksis emperor - which freaked me out a little. Sometimes you have to remind yourself that if you can get through life without having your essence sucked out by a Skeksis emperor, then you've got a leg up on a few Podlings.
Ideas about religion, philosophies and art forms went into the conception, but, fundamentally, it's an incredibly imaginative "chosen one" story with a lot at stake for the good guys. What's even more fascinating is THE DARK CRYSTAL was advertised as the first feature-length live-action motion picture without any human characters on screen. The sheer ambition of that. Mo cap what now? CGI don't know what the hell you're talking about. No humans unless they're in costume, operating a creature or giving it a voice.
Jen: "I don't have wings."
Kira: "Of course not. You're a boy."
Henson began with the creature development. Creatures first, then story. He enlisted artist Brian Froud to do the sketches. Froud went on to write and illustrate THE WORLD OF THE DARK CRYSTAL, which was released in conjunction with the film, and then collaborate with Henson again on LABYRINTH. Skeksis and Mystics were conceptualized, Podlings were based on potatoes. (Interesting to note Froud and LORD OF THE RINGS designer Alan Lee live in the same English village, which Froud has said is probably the reason their work resembles one another.) Locations were located, scripting duties were given to writer David Odell and soon it would be time for Henson's Creature Shop to do what they do. Actualize.
It's difficult to fathom - much beyond a making-of documentary, anyway - all of the sketching, conceiving, concocting, creating, engineering, refining, scrapping, constructing, destructing and deconstructing that has to happen in order to pull something like this off. We call it "practical effects" and yet in this Digital Age it seems anything but. Ultimately, though? It's electric anyway. It's tangible. You can touch it. Those things moving? They're really moving. Now, to be sure, I'm not going to be one of those to knock CGI at all - especially for the sake of knocking it, or for any nostalgia for any kind of "good ol'" days. I'll take my creatures and features any way I can get them. But there's something to be said about the craftmanship of and within this particular kind of storytelling. There's a lot of brutal physicality going into it. And whether it's Kermit riding a bicycle in London, or Gelflings on Landstriders soaring through otherworldly landscape, it happened. It's all in the frames. And that's pretty awe-inspiring.
One can argue a great case for the auteur theory, even here, but film is still a collaborative medium. THE DARK CRYSTAL epitomizes that and it's there on the screen. Not only, of course, the collaboration between Henson and Oz, but everyone. From producer Gary Kurtz (STAR WARS) to the puppeteers to the set painters to the maker of Aughra's eye for that "more visceral effect" to the Fizzgig wrangler. Interesting to note cinematographer Oswald Morris (FIDDLER ON THE ROOF), who shot eight of John Huston's movies, retired after THE DARK CRYSTAL. What a challenging way to go out. (Or refreshing as there weren't really any actors to bitch about the lighting.) All of these people bouncing ideas around and working all hours to make a universe that didn't exist before and inject life into objects.
Kira: "Prophets don't know everything."
Jim Henson's dark fairy tale was finally finished and released in 1982... in the shadow of another big fairy tale. I won't say its name but its initials are E.T.
That's okay. There's room for both. I think it would be hard to make either film today. If so, they'd probably be a little more homogenized. A little less charismatic. Some critics dismissed the film, but THE DARK CRYSTAL won the Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film that year and it has won the interest of a cult audience in the past quarter of a century. There may be moments that miss the mark or feel dated, but Henson and the filmmakers made something interesting, different and put something good into the world. Like it or not, they did it and it's out there.
"I like to think of DARK CRYSTAL as sort of a work of art and it feels to me like it is. But it's not a personal work of art - it's not just something I did - but something that, you know, Frank and Brian and Gary and all the performers [did]. So, hundreds of people created this thing and as a work I think it's something we'll always be happy with." - Jim Henson
I remember sitting in study hall in eighth grade on May 16, 1990, waiting for the bus and making small-talk with a few people.
"Hey, did you guys hear that Sammy Davis Jr. died?"
"Yeah. I heard that. Jim Henson, too."
"What?"
"Yeah, he died, too."
"No way."
"That's what they said."
"Who?"
"It was on the news."
"Nah, I don't believe it."
"Yep."
"Nah. Hope not, anyway."
Later that evening, Peter Jennings confirmed it. Jim Henson, dead at 53.
"Pneumonia?" "I can't believe it." "How sad," you'd say.
"Too young." We went on a trip to D.C. not too long afterward and the Kermit on display at the Smithsonian had a black armband around his arm. Kind of a surreal image, really. This inanimate puppet that once...
But, again, the work was done and out there. The means were put forth for an end that is, for now, endless.
The on-again-off-again sequel, THE POWER OF THE DARK CRYSTAL, is apparently on again. Lisa Henson, Brian Froud and David Odell are involved, and Genndy Tartakovsky is slated to direct. It will combine animatronic with CGI. I'm anxious to see where that will take us. We'll have to wait 'til at least 2009. I await a great comeback from Kermit and gang. There have been some wonderful missed opportunities.
Elsewhere, the existing Muppet movies and TV show seasons acquire space on DVD shelves all over the world. SESAME STREET, at nearly 40, is still going strong and EMMETT OTTER is naturally a favorite this time of year. Henson's gifts to us still endure and will continue to do so. The characters are alive. The stories. The ideas.
And, believe it or not, some Muppets still have eyelids.
"Life's like a movie, write your own ending.
Keep believing, keep pretending,
We've done just what we've set out to do.
Thanks to the lovers...
the dreamers...
... and you." - Kermit & The Muppets.
Elston Gunn
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