King Kong
—1. Overview (multimedia)
—2. Overview Basic (dial up speed)
—3. Reviews and Blogs
—4. Cast and Crew
—5. Photo Pages
—6. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—7. Posters
—8. Production Notes
—9. Spiritual Connections
—10. Presentation Downloads
Let me address the obvious criticism first: Was this movie an over the top, overly long, self-indulgent piece of filmmaking? You bet it was. And thank God for that. After all, this is a story about a 25-foot gorilla that winds up on top of the Empire State Building batting planes out of the air. This is no time for restraint. It’s also a project that director Peter Jackson has dreamed of working on since he was a kid. Peter Jackson, boys and girls—the man who is to directing what Jim Carrey is to acting—so what else did you expect? Sure, doubters will complain that some scenes, such as when Kong fights three dinosaurs while falling through a web of vines, go on for too long. But that only shows lack of appreciation for the sheer breath of imagination and industry required to create such moments. As for me, about midway through the cavalcade of brontosaurs and humans, I wanted to stand up and cheer. King Kong is the blockbuster of all blockbusters. It’s the reason why megaplexes exist. It’s Hollywood at its best. Its all systems go. It’s $207 million well spent. And I loved it!
What made me love this film even more was the depth of insight and emotion Jackson managed to extract from his source material. Like Jackson, I’ve been a huge fan of King Kong since I was a kid. I even stayed home from a family camping trip one summer so I could catch the 1976 remake on TV. Despite my fascination, I never really thought of Kong as anything but a cool, effects-driven monster flick. However, in Jackson’s hands, King Kong becomes a powerful parable about our schizophrenic relationship with the environment, a dire warning that we ignore at our peril.
The parable begins when filmmaker Carl Denham—played with delightful panache by Jack Black—speaks boldly and eloquently of his desire to “view the beast unshackled” in the wilderness, something only a few brave souls like him are willing to do. But after a brief, firsthand taste of Kong and Skull Island’s other monstrous, unshackled inhabitants, Denham’s romantic ideals are quickly scuttled by the drive to survive, subdue, and, perhaps, to profit.
Meanwhile, Anne Darrow, the woman offered up to Kong by the terrifying natives of Skull Island, begins to develop the strangest case of Stockholm syndrome you’ve ever seen. And who can blame her? The blustering, bellowing ape is irresistible. A triumph of animation and characterization, to see Kong is to love him. Whether he’s ripping dinosaurs in two, beating his chest in triumph or taking time out to enjoy the sunset, Kong is truly a king among beasts. Despite his ferocity, Darrow is uniquely able to appreciate him as such.
Sadly, Denham and his companions are not similarly gifted. Rather than respond to Kong with the awe and respect he deserves, they seek only to subdue him, to tame him, to kill him if they must. That they are able to bring him down at all is truly a triumph of Man over Nature. But for some reason, this accomplishment evokes little urge to celebrate. “We’re millionaires, boys,” says Denham as he stands over Kong’s unconscious form. Perhaps, we wonder, but at what cost? Nothing less than the wonder and awe that drew Denham to Kong in the first place.
Listless and lifeless, when Kong is put on display in New York, he is nothing but a grim shadow of his former self. The fire that drove him previously has all but gone out. Tragically, when that fire is reignited again, we know it can only lead to his doom. New York is no place for an artifact of unbridled nature like Kong, after all. And it is only a matter of time before Kong meets his fate atop the pinnacle of humankind’s triumph over the very essence of what he represents.
As I see it, Darrow and Denham signify two sides of our split personality regarding the environment. On the one hand, we love and appreciate nature in all of its unfettered beauty and power. But few of us can leave it at that. The drive to subdue and exploit is irresistible. While we tend to celebrate our ability to do so, this film seems to question whether or not we’ve gone too far. King Kong is a call to repentance, a call to return to a sense of wonder and awe in the face of nature. It is also a warning that if we continue our attempts to shackle nature, as Denham attempted to do, sooner or later it will come back to bite us.
With such a strong environmentalist message embedded throughout the film, I was a little confused about why Jackson retained the original film’s final line about how it “’twas beauty that killed the beast.” Clearly, it wasn’t beauty but greed that was responsible for Kong’s death. Or, as another character put it, it was Denham’s “unfailing ability to destroy the things he loves.” Perhaps this was simply a case of sentiment trumping theme. The real question though is where our unfailing ability to destroy comes from. Why this love/hate relationship with our environment? Why are beauty and wonder so often overcome by fear and greed? As I pondered this, I was drawn back to another classic tale of Man and Nature—the Garden of Eden. If you pay close attention to the curse God utters to Adam and Eve just prior to expelling them from the Garden (Genesis 3:14–19), you will note that their disobedience ruptured their relationships on three levels: God and Man, man and woman, and Man and Nature. Where there used to be harmony, trust, and love, there was now conflict, distrust, and hatred. Where Man used to be able to sit back and enjoy the bounty of Nature, now he had to work and toil for every scrap.
Not a pretty picture. But the story doesn’t end there. If it took an act of disobedience to rupture these relationships, it follows that an act of obedience may be all that’s required to make them right again. So perhaps our inner “Carl Denham” doesn’t have to win the day after all. All we need to do is unleash our inner “Anne Darrow.”
—Overview
—Reviews and Blogs
—2. Overview Basic (dial up speed)
—3. Reviews and Blogs
—4. Cast and Crew
—5. Photo Pages
—6. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—7. Posters
—8. Production Notes
—9. Spiritual Connections
—10. Presentation Downloads
Let me address the obvious criticism first: Was this movie an over the top, overly long, self-indulgent piece of filmmaking? You bet it was. And thank God for that. After all, this is a story about a 25-foot gorilla that winds up on top of the Empire State Building batting planes out of the air. This is no time for restraint. It’s also a project that director Peter Jackson has dreamed of working on since he was a kid. Peter Jackson, boys and girls—the man who is to directing what Jim Carrey is to acting—so what else did you expect? Sure, doubters will complain that some scenes, such as when Kong fights three dinosaurs while falling through a web of vines, go on for too long. But that only shows lack of appreciation for the sheer breath of imagination and industry required to create such moments. As for me, about midway through the cavalcade of brontosaurs and humans, I wanted to stand up and cheer. King Kong is the blockbuster of all blockbusters. It’s the reason why megaplexes exist. It’s Hollywood at its best. Its all systems go. It’s $207 million well spent. And I loved it!What made me love this film even more was the depth of insight and emotion Jackson managed to extract from his source material. Like Jackson, I’ve been a huge fan of King Kong since I was a kid. I even stayed home from a family camping trip one summer so I could catch the 1976 remake on TV. Despite my fascination, I never really thought of Kong as anything but a cool, effects-driven monster flick. However, in Jackson’s hands, King Kong becomes a powerful parable about our schizophrenic relationship with the environment, a dire warning that we ignore at our peril.
The parable begins when filmmaker Carl Denham—played with delightful panache by Jack Black—speaks boldly and eloquently of his desire to “view the beast unshackled” in the wilderness, something only a few brave souls like him are willing to do. But after a brief, firsthand taste of Kong and Skull Island’s other monstrous, unshackled inhabitants, Denham’s romantic ideals are quickly scuttled by the drive to survive, subdue, and, perhaps, to profit.Meanwhile, Anne Darrow, the woman offered up to Kong by the terrifying natives of Skull Island, begins to develop the strangest case of Stockholm syndrome you’ve ever seen. And who can blame her? The blustering, bellowing ape is irresistible. A triumph of animation and characterization, to see Kong is to love him. Whether he’s ripping dinosaurs in two, beating his chest in triumph or taking time out to enjoy the sunset, Kong is truly a king among beasts. Despite his ferocity, Darrow is uniquely able to appreciate him as such.
Sadly, Denham and his companions are not similarly gifted. Rather than respond to Kong with the awe and respect he deserves, they seek only to subdue him, to tame him, to kill him if they must. That they are able to bring him down at all is truly a triumph of Man over Nature. But for some reason, this accomplishment evokes little urge to celebrate. “We’re millionaires, boys,” says Denham as he stands over Kong’s unconscious form. Perhaps, we wonder, but at what cost? Nothing less than the wonder and awe that drew Denham to Kong in the first place.
Listless and lifeless, when Kong is put on display in New York, he is nothing but a grim shadow of his former self. The fire that drove him previously has all but gone out. Tragically, when that fire is reignited again, we know it can only lead to his doom. New York is no place for an artifact of unbridled nature like Kong, after all. And it is only a matter of time before Kong meets his fate atop the pinnacle of humankind’s triumph over the very essence of what he represents.As I see it, Darrow and Denham signify two sides of our split personality regarding the environment. On the one hand, we love and appreciate nature in all of its unfettered beauty and power. But few of us can leave it at that. The drive to subdue and exploit is irresistible. While we tend to celebrate our ability to do so, this film seems to question whether or not we’ve gone too far. King Kong is a call to repentance, a call to return to a sense of wonder and awe in the face of nature. It is also a warning that if we continue our attempts to shackle nature, as Denham attempted to do, sooner or later it will come back to bite us.
With such a strong environmentalist message embedded throughout the film, I was a little confused about why Jackson retained the original film’s final line about how it “’twas beauty that killed the beast.” Clearly, it wasn’t beauty but greed that was responsible for Kong’s death. Or, as another character put it, it was Denham’s “unfailing ability to destroy the things he loves.” Perhaps this was simply a case of sentiment trumping theme. The real question though is where our unfailing ability to destroy comes from. Why this love/hate relationship with our environment? Why are beauty and wonder so often overcome by fear and greed? As I pondered this, I was drawn back to another classic tale of Man and Nature—the Garden of Eden. If you pay close attention to the curse God utters to Adam and Eve just prior to expelling them from the Garden (Genesis 3:14–19), you will note that their disobedience ruptured their relationships on three levels: God and Man, man and woman, and Man and Nature. Where there used to be harmony, trust, and love, there was now conflict, distrust, and hatred. Where Man used to be able to sit back and enjoy the bounty of Nature, now he had to work and toil for every scrap.
Not a pretty picture. But the story doesn’t end there. If it took an act of disobedience to rupture these relationships, it follows that an act of obedience may be all that’s required to make them right again. So perhaps our inner “Carl Denham” doesn’t have to win the day after all. All we need to do is unleash our inner “Anne Darrow.”
—Overview
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11 Comments:
Beauty kills Kong in the same way that Kong kills us. He appreciates the beauty, just like Denham does - at the beginning. Denham starts as an enthusiastic artist trying to capture the wonder of a hidden side of nature. But when he gets close enough to beauty - to Kong - he cannot merely appreciate. He must possess. And possession leads to destruction; "His unfailing ability to destroy the things he loves." Don't we all destroy the things we love as soon as we try to completely own or control them?
Similarly, Kong must possess his own prize in the form of Darrow.
Derek: I hear what you're saying. I especially like your use of the word "possess." But that just brings things back to greed, doeen't it? If we say beauty killed the beast, aren't we saying that beauty has a sinister side? That beauty is dangerous? I don't believe that to be true. As you point out, it's not beauty but our desire to possess beauty that does us in. Even Kong was done in not by Anne's beauty but by his desire to keep her for himself.
Yeah, "Kong" is violent. Yeah, Kevin likes it.... I can see the connections now!! So I can!
(Ever tried the word "tease", Kevin? Rather than that overused and now staple Internet Americanism, "bait"? As previously known in words like "Redbaiter" and suchlike! How I dislike the fact that people who write for the Internet prefer to do so, often, in their own new jargon of buzzwords - which are actually meaningless words because they apply them to too wide a variety of situations.)
My countrymen/women don't bait, they tease.
Yeah, I like the "look" of "King Kong", too. The bronzed sunsets, the colouring, the detail.. did he use any kind of digital cameras? And the fact that the director chose to set it in the 30s again, unlike that 70s-era flop.
But Peter Jackson can't make everything...
No, he can't, but you should probably go out to see everything he does make. Here's a good experiment for you: If you have most of a day free, try going to the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and after it's finished, go right into a screening of King Kong. The contrast should make the problems with LWW quite clear in terms of entertainment value.
Right Kevin, Greed and a desire to possess are virtually the same thing (according to the dictionary, anyway). Yet I feel like I need to work out some jots and tiddles, because I perceive a distinction between greed and a desire to possess in this film. So entertain this:
Denham's moral problem comes out most strongly not in his greed so much as the method of how he goes about being greedy as his falls further and further into moral degeneracy.
His greed starts as a desire to show the world this mysterious island. He wants others to experience awe as they watch the film he is going to produce on this island. Later we find that he was always probably also greedy for the dollars or status that the public's awe could afford him. Nevertheless, he's looking to share images of the world with people. And he's greedy about it - not just passionate, but greedy. We know he's greedy because he's unreasonable and unkind and deceptive in how he goes about getting it.
But his all-or-nothing methods, which lead early on to other people getting inconvenienced or hurt - are what really do him in. When he can no longer share mere images (when the camera breaks), he decides to share Kong himself - he decides to USE Kong instead of merely OBSERVING him. He is no less greedy before he chooses to capture Kong than after. His greed is constant - he wants money and status and to share this wonderous creature with the world. But his method led him to possession, instead of reproduction (on film). But he can't possess Kong. The wildness of the beast that he filmed is gone in New York; Either gone or wildly destructive. That's the difference between greed and possession in this character.
And for us, its the difference between following a dream (which is the kind way of saying "trying to get what we want") while maintaining some basic respect for others, even following a dream hard into morally shaky ground, and following it into the highly destructive ground of possession. Its the difference between using, and using up.
You are right to say that beauty is never evil. But what are we going to do with beauty? Ahh...my modern roots are exposed in that very question: how am i TO DO anything with beauty? Can anything, with beauty, be done?
What are we going TO DO with the earth and its natural resources?
Good questions, all, Derek. I think I'm just going to let them hang there for a while...
"What are we going TO DO with the earth and its natural resources?"
See them as partners and in some way, equals... rather than as just "things" to exploit??
Increase our sense of empathy? (And have a sense of humour?_
Not be quite so White, Male and Capitalist? (And stop letting same run our society.)
There's some suggestions.
I'm wary about using stereotypes, but if that's the ground that we're going to play (or battle) on, I'll give this a try:
The good thing about the stereotypical male person of europian descent who lives and thrives in capitalist economies, is that he has a tremendous drive to discover. He is seemingly driven by a sense of wonder, and a deep appreciation for the mysteries of nature.
My father, for example, owes his life to the medical discoveries of "white male capitalists," as do many other people I know - some of them female, non-europian in ethnicity, and poor. Capitalism provided the system by which medical science has soared to new heights, and millions have been relieved of suffering and have lead dramatically better lives as a result of these "white male capitalists."
Yet the bad thing about this stereotypical person is that he often despoils the very wonder he seeks by exploiting, or needing to control, that which he discovers.
Thus the colonial desire to control Africa (not always capitalist, but close enough) over the last few centuries has done immense damage to people there. Medicine may prolong the lives of many Africans but those lives are sometimes quite miserable because of the poor decisions of the same capitalists who worked toward eliviating suffering in other ways. The same capitalistic drive that leads people to map the human genome drives them to patent certain parts of it, allowing them to legally bind others from using "their" patented genes to help eleviate suffering.
Without the ambition and ingenuity of europian male capitalists, the island in this movie wouldn't have been reached at all. Would that have been better? Or is it simply that Denham took the whole enlightenment tendency to explore and discover too far? Was it ok to film this new world, as long as he stayed a "non-intrusive" observer? Or was it wrong in itself? Or was it not wrong in itself, but wrong because of what it would lead to (the probable exploitation of the island once he brought this to the greater world)?
These are important issues as we make increasingly astounding scientific and medical discoveries. It seems as though nobody wants to map the human genome unless they can also patent, and therefore control and make profit from, their discovery.
So, Liz, you ask for empathy. That seems like a good place to start. But empathy where? Empathy not to start the search? Empathy to "leave things be," including diseases which cause massive suffering? Where does exploitation start? How much ignorance is bliss?
(PS: Liz, a mere suggestion for you to leave or take: If you want more empathy in the world, you may want to start by being a little less flippant in your remarks about "white, male, and capitalist" people. I percieved your remarks to be racist, sexist, and classist. I happen to be a male of mostly europian descent, and a capitalist, and I didn't feel much empathy from you.)
Heh heh! Derek W wants sympathy (empathy?) for the White Male Capitalists. Ha ha! THAT's a rich one!
So, Derek... who are we supposed to feel the largest degree of "empathy" (or sympathy) for?? Columbus (in your view) or the Indians he had murdered??
The problem with conventional history is that it did (and still does, apart from a bit of hand-wringing) have rather too MUCH sympathy for the WMCs.
Yeah, as for capitalism... you can ask any Marxist and they'll tell you that it advanced society onto the next stage of production, or however they put it in that jargon of theirs...
BUT there comes a time when everything loses its usefulness.. when the losses outreach the gains, whatever. (Well, in truth, they always DID, for the non-privileged groups. How much it advanced the human species as a whole is still to be debated.)
Yeah, I get what you are saying, about these white male explorer types, being always the ones to discover (inventors, no doubt, too).... and always the ones to despoil.
Hate to break it to you as a feminist, but it is MEN who do that. Primarily. (Not just white men, but historically it HAS mainly been white European men)... and NOW you touch upon a subject which has been running through my head all throughout the festive season... and THAT is, how much the Enlightenment and its establishment of science (ITS kind of science, which turns everything into "subject and object") is to blame; and how far THAT view of science was caused/enabled by the witch burnings of the Middle Ages, which effectively ended women's participation in things for many hundreds of years... Northern European pagan societies had some degree of equality between the sexes, you see... this even comes through in early medieval Christianity. But since the Burning Times no more!
(And that is *my* chosen "dividing moment" for the beginning of real disaster in history.)
As a pagan and a feminist, of course...
Yup. That was the REAL fall of mankind... the EXCLUSION OF WOMEN; which has been happening to an extent since the development of agriculture (and early systems of capitalism which turned women into property, basically because the men so desperately needed to know who was the father of which child, so that they could pass on their land holdings only to the products of their own loins. That was the beginning of selfishness, and domination. See Friedrich Engels, Sharon Smith...)
But, in my view anyway, the process wouldn't have been completed.. things wouldn't have been so bad... women wouldn't be second-class citizens as they still are today (and anyone who denies that is a fool!)... IF those "witch-burnings" hadn't taken place.
You all have a lot to answer for. If some of the black writers on this site can still blame whites for what they did concerning slavery, then I think I am entirely justified in blaming males for whatever they have done since the middle ages at least.
(The irony is that I actually like men! Though it sometimes may not sound like it!)
Hey Derek... why does your name on here provide a web link to a page which can't be accessed?
BTW: "WMC" is just a good shorthand... I could use one which another (male) feminist seems to have coined, namely: "Stupid White Men"... if you prefer!
I'm feeling militant this year!
Many good points, Liz. I would almost agree that the fall of man was exclusion of women...I would say instead, however, that the fall of man is selfishness and a desire to be alone, which is generally first expressed in the exploitation of those aorund us. Since those around us are generally firstly members of the opposite sex, that's where the primary symptoms of "the fall" first show up.
Most societies (notably among them pre-Christian pagan Europe - if Christianity has Witch-trials as the skeleton in its closet, Europian Paganism has a bloody history of sacrificing humans - often women or slaves - to some of their gods as well) have treated women poorly. Besides some of the details (such as the one in my parenthesis above) I just can't argue with you.
So, we are agreed that men have oppressed women. Such is the terrible way of things. I would add that this is a human problem - every difference between humans is used to try to get an advantage. Many women oppress men when they get the chance - in fact, millions of women are doing so right now through racism and classism.
Enough with the nuances. I think we basically agree that white male capitalists have often been very oppressive in the past.
What i was getting at in my last statement was that, while you don't need to 'break it to me' that most of these enterprising scientists and explorers were male (I had already said that myself), I would like you to suggest what you would have these men do, or be. Because of how they were, because of their drive to objectively classify and discover, the same drive that seems to lead them to exploit, billions have access to medicine and food and culture and many other things that, without their drive, we would not have.
I think we can agree that these discoveries, before they turned to exploitations, were good things. How do we go about making discoveries like this without exploitation? In terms of this film, what drove Denham beyond simple discovery to exploitation?
on the subject of blame: you can blame all you want. It may help you a bit. But you have to move past it at some point. Good luck with that.
on my dead link: i have no idea why that doesn't work. my blog is iliketheiroldstuffbetter.blogspot.com . I believe there are a few of my feminist articles on there. I'm one too.
"what drove Denham beyond simple discovery to exploitation"... ooh... that's a good one!!
I'd say it was pride. And lack of empathy. And always wanting to be "the top". Males have too strong egos! They don't just want to relax and mind-meld with things... unless they're Spock the Vulcan, of course!
No: with blame, I think it's always good to find the right people/things/systems to blame...
As for this "pagans sacrified people" thing. Yup, they did. But I think that in almost every case you will find that it was a male or male-dominated priesthood that was responsible!
I feel certain that prehistoric (and matriarchal) society and religion included very few sacrifices. This really all started with agriculture and the development of what you might call "big society"; when religion became more organised, less intituitive; when "weather gods" had to be "appeased" to grow the grain... when the first masses of people had to be impressed and intimidated by groups of priests, into doing what the priests wanted... THAT was when your "fall" all started, I intuit.
Human sacrifice also would have been a very good way of getting rid of "dissidents"; all the people the priesthood didn't like or who they found a threat.
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