J-Patt's Blog

In adapting Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are,” there are three approaches to the structure of the movie in comparison to the book.  The first type of adaptation is literal, a retelling of the book itself page-by-page.  An example of this is found in The Watchmen; though there were several liberties the vast majority of the lines as well as camera angles were taken directly from the source material. Second, the movie could attempt a strictly semantic representation of the book without necessarily using any direct references.  An example of this is “Forbidden Planet,” which is a thinly veiled retelling of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Although no characters or quotes carry over from literature to film, the meaning and symbolism carried over.

Spike Jonze chooses a third route in adapting the story to cinema: he keeps the original plot, while simultaneously expanding upon it using story arcs that embody the symbolism of Sendak’s vision.  Jonze allows the film to take advantage of what cinema does best without being held down by remaining true to the literal representation of the story.  Often when adaptations attempt complete synonymy of their written counterpart, the script falls flat because what is natural for a reader to read in terms of narrative does not necessarily equate to natural-sounding spoken word.  They come off as out-of-character; they break what John Gardner refers to as a “Fictional Dream.”  Jonze, however, used the major details of the book and expanded them in a way that better emotes the characters of a film—more familial interaction rather then a Morgan Freeman-style narrator as War of the Worlds attempted.  It is because of this refusal to succumb to using the book’s narrator as a crutch that the movie succeeds in an emotional and “believable” script.  Believable in the sense that you feel as though you understand Max’s imagination and why he is troubled.

The movie develops Max farther than the book, making him a character better suited for the movie schema.  Where Sendak’s work uses the sheets-and-pillow-fort to remind readers of their own childhood imaginations, Jonze adds the classic snowball fort early on.  This stays true to Sendak’s work, establishing that all Max wants is something to protect and support him as he perceives his family is unable to.  The scene capitalizes on the meaning of Sendak’s work without relying solely on its literal content.

Sendak never describes the voices of the beasts accurately in his work.  In this respect, Jonze has a huge decision that affects the entire tone of the movie.  Using a female’;s voice as KW, he establishes the fact that the yarn is entirely a production of Max’s imagination and problems, including his issues with his mother.  In this effect how he deals with the problems he has in his family.  KW is alienated and Max wishes to bring her back to the family of beasts, just as he is distant from his mother.  He creates a mental representation of his mother in order to cope with his inability to express his feelings, and in doing so learns how to face his real problems without becoming a “wild thing.”

A second point of character duality: Carol is the misfit of the Wild Things, the beast whom Max most relates to in his arrival to the island.  Carol wants to destroy when he is upset, much like Max at home.  In helping Carol heal, Max heals himself.

Overall, the movie is high quality creative fiction, and is something that shouldn’t be missed if you like movies that have more thought than action.  Do be warned, the movie is intended to make you sad; the subject matter is in itself the alienation of a child. An alienation that everyone feels at one point or another that forces them to search for escapism in some form to cope, whether it be videogames or books or sports or in Max’s case, making stories of his own that constructively express his sadness and frustration.

Five Liam Neesons out of Five.

The boy sits with his grandfather in a room that used to have red rugs hiding hardwood floors damaged by tables now residing dismantled in his father’s attic. The dragging depressions still scar the floor, but his grandfather explains that he has come to respect them as he does his own father’s pocket watch whose gears rusted from saltwater in the June of ’44. The sofa they lounge on smells like the sweaters with chewed sleeves in the boy’s dresser.  The cushions sag under him.

They do not speak for a long time. Not out of awkwardness or generation gaps or inauthenticity, but out of the grandfather’s love of the deaf air around him and the boy’s love of whatever his grandfather loves, except pulpous orange juice.

When Art bought the house in 1946 this room had a salmon carpet that went from end to end, stopping at the entrance of the hallway and was punctuated by a brass carpet stopper.  His wife commented that the carpet did not match the tan painted walls or oak frame windows.  Art did not want to spend the money to replace the carpeting because they had just bought the house and a brown couch to go flush against the wall.  They could not afford it.  The sofa covered half the wall’s length and could seat four people comfortably.  He turned it into his work study so that his wife would not have to see it as often. He built an oak desk and bookcase from extra lumber and set them up next to each other on the side wall of the room. Later he purchased a glass encasing to house his father’s rusted pocket watch and placed it on the top of the bookshelf. Art propped a framed picture of his father inside the case soon after. After his youngest son, Daniel’s father, turned six, he put a second television and a bureau opposite to the sofa so his sons could watch it when he did not need to work.

The boy’s name is Daniel and he does not like how the worn sofa forces him toward the edges of the cushions until he has to reposition himself to slide again, though this time he is surprised to find a creased and square paper between the cracks that reads, “ALLIED MILITANCE CURRENCY.” The rest is too faded to read. He shows it to his grandfather who says it is called Lira and it is a souvenir from when he was eighteen and travelled the world with a canteen and a Browning. Daniel hands over the Lira and his grandfather makes his way toward an oak bookcase. A row of individually labeled off-white binders are arranged along the top shelf. He places his finger on each label until he reaches a binder just-left-of-center.  Art brings it to the sofa. He squints at the Lira and shakes his head, then turns to Daniel.

“Can you read this number here?” His grandfather points to a smudge near the bottom-right of the Lira.

“SERIES 1943,” Daniel guesses. He is sure of the last number, but four looks like it could be a nine, too. He chooses ’43 because it looks too worn to be his age. He wonders how long the Lira resided between the cushions before he discovered it, and if his father ever tried to read its date just like him.  He repositions himself on the cushion.

“That sounds about right.” His grandfather thumbs labeled dividers until he hit “1943,” and opens the binder from that page. A four-by-six grid of plastic pockets holds different types of money, all with 1943 as their production date. They remind Daniel of his card collections, but it feels different to look at Art’s binder—mint condition does not seem to matter anymore. The idea of any being holographic suddenly sounds gaudy and unwarranted. His grandfather packs the Lira in an empty pocket and lets Daniel leaf through the pages.  Circular stickers on the hole-punches reinforce them after time and interest ripped them apart. Daniel notices his grandfather looking beyond the pages—focusing on something in the Lira’s direction but much farther away.

When Art’s oldest son, Daniel’s uncle, turned ten in 1955, his wife wanted to work as a secretary for a railroad company down the road.  They hired a nanny to watch over the boys when they came home in the afternoon.  She doubled as housekeep.  In the December of 1957 while vacuuming his work study, the suction tore the carpet from the brass stopper.  Art had tried to fix it but the ends were too frayed to repair.  He assured her that it was an honest mistake, and that his wife did not care for the carpet anyway.  That night he and his sons moved the furniture and threw the carpeting away. It took all three of them to properly move the sofa back.  Returning the tables and office furniture, Art admired how good the hardwood floor looked next to the oak décor. While he rested on the sofa his sons ran outside to play cowboys and Indians with the neighbors down the street before the episode Adventures of Superman aired.  Art liked Alfred Hitchcock Presents but thought it was too frightening for his children so he established its airtime as their bedtime, at nine o’clock.  His wife tucked them in while he turned the volume dial down and listened to Hitchcock explain the elements of horror he would utilize tonight.  He positioned himself on the center cushion of the sofa.

Art leans against the arm of the sofa so he does not sink like Daniel. He is too tired to be repositioning himself every few minutes. Seeing the sheets of printed money in Daniel’s hands reminds him of when his son, Daniel’s father, brought his brother’s triangular folded flag along with a sheet of 1966 đồng and fastened it inside the last binder on the oak shelf before moving his tables and putting in red rugs to cover their imprints. Daniel repositions himself on the cushion.

“The road?” They sit in the passenger seat of a car heading east to a boardwalk in New Jersey. It drizzles outside. Their parents are talking about the economy and how drivers on the highway talk on their cell-phones when changing lanes. Jason looks to his brother and breathes in through his nose, smiling. He exhales.

“No,” Jason taps his index finger on his forehead twice, “think again.” Robby looks around the car and inspects the fine grooves of the doors’ lining. He checks his shirt and sneakers and the portions of the dashboard that he can see from the backseat.

“The volume knob?” Robby thinks it looks gray enough. “No,” Jason exaggerates a yawn. Robby looks outside again. They are driving over the Ben Franklin Bridge and he knows they are half-way to Playland’s Castaway Theme Park where he and his big brother can see who is better at shooting a target with a water pistol until a balloon filling above bursts. He checks the lining of the seats, and then looks at the ceiling.

“The door handle?” Robby guesses with an impatient urgency. Their parents move onto discussing healthcare and how yesterday a café manager with asthma was beaten so badly in a train station that he could not manage to get his inhaler and died before paramedics arrived. Robby hopes he is tall enough to ride the roller coaster this year.

“Nope,” Jason elongates the ‘n’ and pops the ‘p’ as a show of confidence. Robby crosses his arms and bunches his brow. The manager closed late that night and waited for the R5 to take him home. Three men waited with him. One bet to the others that he could knock out the manager with the first hit. It is raining harder now and he hopes that the park will still be open.

“The clouds?” The first hit was not enough, so they continued. “No, do you give up?” Robby sighs and nods. He figures he can get payback when it is his turn to pick a colored object or later at the water pistol game. They pass the toll booth and continue eastward. A policeman was on the other side of the tracks and called the paramedics, but was too far away to stop them. “I spy with my little eyes your gray eyes.” The café did not open today.

Gratuitous Miximus

[Note: Updated since the May 17, 2009 Post]

The building is tinted and irregular—a quadrilateral with uneven sides that seem slanted from afar until he walks closer to inspect it and finds that the window sizes are inconsistent and progressively smaller, making it appear to move farther away with each story upward. He notes the architecture’s frigidness; unabashed defiance to ergonomics. The doors are flush against the front, only hinted to by a thin frame that holds the hinges of the tinted doors with a horizontal sheet of grey metal across their centers. It is better that way, or cheaper at least—no need for flair on a construct so strange. An engraving against the sheets of metal read “push,” with carvings of hands on either side of the word. He does not want to push it. He does not want to feel the coldness of metal against palms even if it is well polished and without noticeable damage. He does not want to know what is inside the building, though he wonders how the light passing through the tinted windows colors the lobby and if the people sitting in the waiting area can still read their newspapers that tell them how good we are.

Task: Write a single long sentence that encapsulates some emotion.

He liked the comforter of her bed, how when he held her its tenderness lofted them and gave them a home of woven strands that let them know things were okay and smelled vaguely of flowery dryer sheets, how when they leaned in close to each other the comforter molded softly around their figures into the shape of one uniform body—the comforter had no creases and rarely wrinkled if kept properly—that kept them close yet separate in warmth and in darkness to better understand themselves and how they could be so close to one another without coming together or coming undone leaving only the feeling of his fingers on her cheek, moist from the excitement of calmness and the mild fear of unknowing being overcome by the gentleness of the comforter.

Task: Take a sentence, “No one believed her and why should they have?” and make a story out of it.

No one believed her and why should they have? Time and lies had left her statements gaudy. She did not believe herself either—not for a long time. Her father’s portrait, illuminated by halogen lights that faded the corners of the image as well as the medals pinned to his jacket, loomed over the room as she pleaded with her siblings and mother.  The glass case containing her father’s pocket watch was empty, and the money it left behind was empty too.  She could still feel the watch’s profit crumpled in her pocket begging to be passed along, and she was sorry.  She was sorry for her stuffed hollowness and for her dried voice. She was sorry the hollowness did not speak and hungered from her trembling.

“There’s nothing I can do,” Anne slumped against the wall under her father’s portrait. The wall felt warm from the light being left on too long. Her mother rose from the couch.

“There’s nothing you can do,” distant and solemn her voice was not hollow.

The boy sat with his grandfather in a room that used to have red rugs hiding hardwood floors damaged by tables now residing dismantled in his father’s attic, next to a triangular folded flag left by the boy’s uncle. The dragging depressions still scarred the floor, but his grandfather explained that he had come to respect them as he did his own father’s pocket watch whose gears rusted from saltwater in the June of ’44. The boy thought the sofa they lounged on smelled sweaters with chewed sleeves in the dresser drawer of his parents’ room.  He could feel the cushions sagging under him.

They didn’t speak for a long time. Not out of awkwardness or generation gaps or inauthenticity, but out of the grandfather’s love of the deaf air around him and the boy’s love of whatever his grandfather loved, except pulpous orange juice.

His name was Daniel and he didn’t like how the worn sofa forced him toward the edges of the cushions until he had to reposition himself to slide again, though this time he was surprised to find between the cracks a creased and square paper that read, “ALLIED MILITANCE CURRENCY.” The rest was too faded to read. He showed it to his grandfather who said it was called Lira and it was a souvenir from when he was eighteen and travelled the world with a canteen and a Browning. Daniel handed over the Lira and his grandfather made his way toward an oak bookcase. A row of off-white binders, individually labeled, were arranged along the top shelf. He placed his finger on each label until he reached a binder just-left-of-center, and he brought it over to the sofa. He squinted at the Lira and shook his head, then turned to Daniel.

“Can you read this number here?” His grandfather pointed to a smudge near the bottom-right of the Lira.

“SERIES 1943,” Daniel guessed. He was sure of the last number. The four looked like it could be a nine, too, but he guessed ’43 because it looked too worn to be his age. He repositioned himself on the cushion.

“That sounds about right.” His grandfather thumbed labeled dividers until he hit “1943,” and opened the binder from that page. A four-by-six grid of plastic pockets held different types of money, all with 1943 as their production date. They reminded Daniel of his card collections, but it felt different to look at them—mint condition didn’t seem to matter anymore. The idea of any being holographic suddenly sounded gaudy and unwarranted. His grandfather packed the Lira in an empty pocket and let Daniel leaf through the pages. They had been flipped through so many times in the past that there were circular stickers on the hole-punches to reinforce them after time and interest ripped them apart. Looking to his grandfather, Daniel noticed him looking beyond the pages—focusing on something in the Lira’s direction but much farther away.

Art leaned against the arm of the sofa so he didn’t sink like Daniel. He was too tired to be repositioning himself every few minutes. Seeing the sheets of printed money in Daniel’s hands reminded him of when his son, Daniel’s father, brought his brother’s triangular folded flag along with a sheet of 1961 đồng and fastened it inside the last binder on the oak shelf before moving his tables and putting in red rugs to cover their imprints. Daniel repositioned himself on the cushion and told Art that one day he’d help and add new currency to his collection when he travels across the world just like him.

Walking, my eyes drift toward the shadow of a cumulonimbus that looks like a horseshoe crab nestled in the sand I saw once at a New Jersey shore when I was young and my father insisted on holding my hand as we walked the boardwalk, and we saw a dozen beached horseshoe crabs dead on the sand. He stroked its coarse husk and turned it over, taking care to describe its book gills and the fact that it had very little relation to crabs. He continued to explain how their blood helped astronauts, though I didn’t listen much, and he placed it back on its feet and could tell that it was young because its shell seemed freshly shed. On our way home, there was a grey cloud with sagging sounds creeping from the horizon of the passenger window, and my father explained to me that a cumulonimbus meant it would rain soon. It rained soon. When we returned to the beach the next morning, the sand still cold and hardened from moisture, a stray streak of lightning from a storm the night before had struck the burial site and the crab could be seen trapped in fulgurite.