As Fantastic Mr Foxopens in cinemas today, DONALD CLARKEasks why children's films must have the hippest scriptwriters, the indiest soundtrackers and the coolest directors. Is it because they're not for children?
THIS WEEK, Jason Schwartzman provides the voice for a young fox in Wes Anderson's stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr Fox. So, I guess he just turned up at the studio and muttered his lines into a microphone? "We did it with all the cast together in various locations and acted it all out," he says. "Wes wanted to get the ensemble all together in the right environment. So sometimes we were all outside and when my character kicked something he really kicked it. It was just like acting, but without cameras."
It seems Anderson, director of such hip entertainments as The Royal Tenenbaums, had the likes of Meryl Streep, Bill Murray and Adrien Brody rolling round in leaves and running up and down ladders. He also got Jarvis Cocker to do the songs. Hey, Mr Fox sounds way cool.
Hang on, though. It doesn't sound nearly as cool as Spike Jonze's upcoming Where the Wild Things Are. The director of Being John Malkovichand Adaptationhas used a combination of computer graphics and lo-fi liveaction to bring Maurice Sendak's brief children's book to the screen.
Think Jarvis Cocker is cool? Get out of here. The soundtrack to Wild Thingsis written by Karen O from Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the achingly trendy art punks, and features contributions from members of such Boho holy troupes as Deerhunter, Liars, The Dead Weather and The Raconteurs. It could only be more fashionable if Dave Eggers wrote it. What's that you say? The publisher of McSweeneys and writer of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Geniusdid indeed adapt Where the Wild Things Are. This film is, without doubt, the hippest entity – whether book, painting, film or pastry – that has ever been set before a grateful public.
Let's take a breath for a moment. Weren't the source novels for Fox and Wild Thingsintended primarily for children? Surely both Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Brothers, the studios behind the two films, are trusting that gangs of tykes – not just young teens, but those under-eight – will demand to be taken to the films. Yet none of the artistic decisions above seems calculated to attract anybody born in the current century.
It would be interesting to see Spike Jonze try an experiment. Let him stroll round to his nearest kindergarten and tell the morning assembly that he's making a film featuring contributions from arch shoegaze pioneer Bradford Cox and the author of You Shall Know our Velocity.
Now, it's certainly possible that the odd child might say: "Eggars is all right, I suppose, but I find his discursive tributaries a little overworked. Wasn't George Saunders available?" Maybe a bright young lady might express excitement that the musician behind Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See but Cannot Feelis working on her favourite book. It seems, however, more likely that Jonze would be greeted by impatient mutters and puzzled stares.
No. One gets the sense that Anderson and Jonze are aiming the films more at their suave friends in Ye Olde Brooklyn Tavern (est. 2002) than at any children they've met recently. For all the hype behind Where the Wild Things Are, there's every chance (quite genuinely) that Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquelwill take more money over the Christmas period.
None of this is to suggest that Wild Thingsand Mr Fox are bad films. The Wes Anderson piece is reviewed positively elsewhere in these pages. This writer has yet to see Mr Jonze's movie, but it has received some breathless raves in the United States ("A movie lover's dream," the Wall Street Journalexclaimed.) It will, however, be interesting to see how the marketing men cope with products that – to paraphrase an overused cliché – do not appear to do what they say on the tin.
It is true that the men at Pixar have always claimed they make films for themselves and, if those pictures happen to appeal to children, then that is all well and good. Sure enough, some parents (though fewer children) complained that the opening suburban, sections of The Incredibleswere not fantastic enough for younger folk and that the extended prologue in Upwas far too sad for that same audience. Indeed, in a recent discussion on BBC Radio 4, Mark Lawson declared that he simply would not take his 10-year-old to Upbecause he was afraid the child would be upset.
Yet Upsomehow managed to become the third biggest film in the US this summer and, released later outside America, has every chance of occupying a similar position in the global chart by the end of 2009. The key, of course, is that the folk at Pixar, unlike Anderson or Jonze, have always had artistic sensibilities that tend toward the childlike. Bright, sophisticated men (and very occasionally women), they nonetheless grew up consuming animation with their Froot Loops, hotdogs and peanut butter sandwiches.
When they make films for themselves they are making films for children. Anderson and Jonze, on the other hand, are making films for a particular class of youngish adult. Good luck to them.
Well, against the odds, early indications suggest that the strategy may work after all. Last Friday, Where the Wild Things Aretook in an extremely impressive $11.9 million (€8 million) at the US box-office and, in so doing, broke the October record for a PG-live action film.
Now, this might suggest that we are all succumbing to infantalisation and that adults – still playing video games, still wearing cartoon-emblazoned T-shirts – are no longer inclined to behave like adults. Perhaps. But it seems more likely that the film’s initial success indicates that the old restrictive categories trouble punters less than they used to.
Okay, Wild Thingsand Mr Foxmay look superficially like kids' entertainments, but Eggers-reading, Deerhunter-listening grown-ups no longer feel ashamed at dabbling in those waters. After all, if manure like Love Happensor Couples Retreatis now the adult alternative, then any sane person is going to go with the talking foxes and the cuddly monsters. Quite right, too.
- Fantastic Mr Foxopens today.
