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pauraque_bkI was quite eager to see Peter Pan, and it didn't disappoint. It really *gets* what the story is about and isn't afraid to tell it, unlike the rather toothless animated version. When you watch the cartoon, you don't understand why the kids wanted to go home. In this version, you do, and it's clear that that's the central conflict. The theme of passing over the threshold of puberty, back and forth, is restated and elaborated in several layers (the teddy bear!), which works very well.
What beautiful performances from Jason Isaacs and Olivia Williams (Mrs Darling). We already knew JI has no problem playing "non-serious" roles to the hilt, and the two do a great job of making the parents into characters that feel real, yet distanced enough to successfully serve as archetypes of adulthood and unconditional love.
The sexual elements of the story can't really be called subtext -- they're basically text. As I said, the story is about puberty, about approaching an understanding of sexual/romantic love. Children feel just as passionately as adults, the focus and nature of that passion simply transform. Pan and Hook's mutual obsession is passionate in the childlike sense, yet, as Hook acknowledges, Pan and Wendy's romantic love would leave Hook abandoned -- there isn't room for both. Hook and Wendy are in similarly ambiguous positions -- because he's a product of her imagination! The push-pull between the characters is also that between childhood and adulthood, taking place in Wendy's mind.
All the same, I love the way everything in Neverland looks a bit brighter and smaller than it would in real life, so it's understood that it's a child's fantasy, not an adult's -- it's a world that's just dangerous *enough*, but not so much so that the children themselves wouldn't believe they could handle it.
Now, it must be said, I have a thing about amputees and prosthetics (cf Alex Krycek, Peter Pettigrew, Jet Black), so the lingering over Hook's, er, hooks, and the elaborate metal and leather apparatus that holds them... Okay, that was good shit, so I was primed to like this character from a few different angles. It definitely works beyond the squee value, though. James Hook is one of the two literary characters that primarily shaped the romantic pirate archetype, Long John Silver being the other. You can look at it as Silver being the good side of the romantic pirate, the humble origins, the heroic nature; and Hook being the dark side, the surprising intelligence and education (Hook went to Eton, of course!), the real danger.
These tropes have been repeated in pirate literature ever since; they're certainly evident in PotC -- if Jack is a bit reminiscent of Silver (with quite a lot of the trickster archetype mixed in), Barbossa is *very* reminiscent of Hook. Intelligence, cruelty, obsession, physical disability -- and Hook is also cursed in a way, by Pan, in the form of the ever-pursuing crocodile. The quiet cabin scene between Barbossa and Elizabeth is a close match to that between Hook and Wendy.
But getting back to the movie, if I have a complaint, it's that Pan seemed a bit miscast. Jeremy Sumpter is the only American in the movie, and is given British dialogue (straight from the play, I'd imagine) that sounds rather odd coming out of his mouth. I'm not sure why he was cast; he wasn't bad, but he didn't have the kind of presence that would merit casting him over a Brit.
It's still quite a good movie, though, as an adaptation and in its own right. I'd certainly recommend it.
What beautiful performances from Jason Isaacs and Olivia Williams (Mrs Darling). We already knew JI has no problem playing "non-serious" roles to the hilt, and the two do a great job of making the parents into characters that feel real, yet distanced enough to successfully serve as archetypes of adulthood and unconditional love.
The sexual elements of the story can't really be called subtext -- they're basically text. As I said, the story is about puberty, about approaching an understanding of sexual/romantic love. Children feel just as passionately as adults, the focus and nature of that passion simply transform. Pan and Hook's mutual obsession is passionate in the childlike sense, yet, as Hook acknowledges, Pan and Wendy's romantic love would leave Hook abandoned -- there isn't room for both. Hook and Wendy are in similarly ambiguous positions -- because he's a product of her imagination! The push-pull between the characters is also that between childhood and adulthood, taking place in Wendy's mind.
All the same, I love the way everything in Neverland looks a bit brighter and smaller than it would in real life, so it's understood that it's a child's fantasy, not an adult's -- it's a world that's just dangerous *enough*, but not so much so that the children themselves wouldn't believe they could handle it.
Now, it must be said, I have a thing about amputees and prosthetics (cf Alex Krycek, Peter Pettigrew, Jet Black), so the lingering over Hook's, er, hooks, and the elaborate metal and leather apparatus that holds them... Okay, that was good shit, so I was primed to like this character from a few different angles. It definitely works beyond the squee value, though. James Hook is one of the two literary characters that primarily shaped the romantic pirate archetype, Long John Silver being the other. You can look at it as Silver being the good side of the romantic pirate, the humble origins, the heroic nature; and Hook being the dark side, the surprising intelligence and education (Hook went to Eton, of course!), the real danger.
These tropes have been repeated in pirate literature ever since; they're certainly evident in PotC -- if Jack is a bit reminiscent of Silver (with quite a lot of the trickster archetype mixed in), Barbossa is *very* reminiscent of Hook. Intelligence, cruelty, obsession, physical disability -- and Hook is also cursed in a way, by Pan, in the form of the ever-pursuing crocodile. The quiet cabin scene between Barbossa and Elizabeth is a close match to that between Hook and Wendy.
But getting back to the movie, if I have a complaint, it's that Pan seemed a bit miscast. Jeremy Sumpter is the only American in the movie, and is given British dialogue (straight from the play, I'd imagine) that sounds rather odd coming out of his mouth. I'm not sure why he was cast; he wasn't bad, but he didn't have the kind of presence that would merit casting him over a Brit.
It's still quite a good movie, though, as an adaptation and in its own right. I'd certainly recommend it.
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-07 12:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-07 01:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-07 07:06 am (UTC)Ah, courtesy of http://www.jeremysumpter.com/ ...
Jeremy Sumpter, born on February 5, 1989, in Carmel, California, has spent most of his childhood in a small town in Kentucky. He now, of course, lives in CA.
I'm guessing he's got a family that's been trying to get into showbiz for years.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-07 05:22 am (UTC)Those whacky producers.
You never know: the talent (and/or squeeableness) could have tipped the scale (I haven't seen it yet). Or someone may have decided it was brilliant to cast a non-Brit precisely to make Pan seem more "other" (I was going to say "exotic," but American dialect doesn't cut it....).
Favorite example is Richard III with casting of Annette Benning and Robert Downey Jr. -- deliberate casting of Hollywood "outsiders" as the glamorous but unpopular whatjujiggies (Woodvilles?) I loved it. (But then, I loved most of Richard's soliloquy [taking place at the urinal....)
no subject
Date: 2004-01-07 03:15 pm (UTC)Ha, excellent! I haven't seen that version; it sounds like I would probably enjoy it.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-07 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-07 06:12 am (UTC)You missed the third pirate archetype: the nobleman fallen low, who uses a brief spell as pirate captain as a way of clawing himself back up to his former station. He usually manages to weave a magic spell over his crew as well, so that they become lovable rogues rather than the usual mangy, dirty, cutthroats and thieves. Oh, and he almost always retires from piracy when it's got him back where he wanted to be. Prime example: Captain Blood. Or pretty much any other pirate captain of Hollywood's first 50 years other than Hook or Silver.
PotC equivalent: Will Turner. You see, we have all three archetypes in the same movie! Plus the feisty heroine, although as she almost always went hand in hand with archetype #3, that's not too surprising.
Memo to self: must go and see Peter Pan while the pirate mood is upon me... :-)
no subject
Date: 2004-01-07 06:14 am (UTC)(And Daddy-Governor is always appalled, of course, but he generally doesn't get much say in the matter.)
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Date: 2004-01-07 09:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-07 08:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-07 03:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-07 08:23 am (UTC)I really, really loved this about the movie. What's amazing to me is how they were able to remain so faithful to the book (I went back and re-read it, and there are only a small handful of discrepancies), and yet totally re-focus the whole thing. The book is so bitter and sarcastic, and while it does focus on Wendy growing up, I think the book is more about the roles of adulthood, the rules, games, societal expectations (e.g. Wendy happily 'complaining' about envying spinsters as she 'slaves' over her motherly duties). The movie, though, as you say, is all about feelings, sex, love, longing, discovery. Comparing the two is almost like looking at one of those optical illusion pictures, where if you look *this* way it's an old crone in a scarf, but if you look *that* way it's a beautiful young woman in a fashionable hat.
have a complaint, it's that Pan seemed a bit miscast
I actually had the opposite reaction! I wasn't terribly thrilled with the still shots of him that I saw prior to the movie, so I was stunned by his screen presence. I loved his sly, wicked little smiles, and I think he had incredible chemistry with the girl who played Wendy.
I'd also read somewhere that casting an American was a way of making Pan seem more exotic and otherworldly. If you look at the movie as a manifestation of Wendy's coming of age fantasies, it's possible that Pan could be 'based' on a real American boy she's actually met and is crushing on -- he would look and sound like that boy, but have Wendy's words in his mouth. (Okay, I know that's reaching, but that's the way my mind works!)
no subject
Date: 2004-01-07 03:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-07 11:35 am (UTC)my reaction pretty much echoed
more on the movie as an adaptation - it is Better than the book. the book is like an exact combination of this movie and the most wacked-out, nonsensical, childishly ridiculous version you can imagine... The movie crafts real characters whose action makes sense. It's all derived from the book, moreso than any other version, but I for one am utterly gobsmacked at how much they managed to incorporate while maintaining a logical storyline and character development.
for example, in the book, peter is british. raised by birds, mind... but i think making him seem american was a stroke of genius.
also, the 'mineral? vegetable? man? boy?' scene in the book paints hook as a buffoon... in fact, throughout the entire book, hook alternates between sexy as hell and completely ridiculous, prompting Many of my 'barrie what the hell >_<' reactions.... **will stop ranting** but you get the idea...
also also wick wick
Date: 2004-01-07 11:44 am (UTC)overly optimistic of me
Movie-Wendy OWNZ Book-Wendy's ass. what they did was they made her sort of a combination of john and wendy and also made her the central character by making everything her fantasy, which was in the book, but barrie just didn't pull it off, IMO. she contradicts too much of what goes on, she's too much of a mother rather than a playmate. maybe it made sense to the victorians... But, today, it just doesn't work. Giving Wendy some of John's attributes is absolutely the right, perhaps the only, way to go...
***more love for the adaptation***
i'd also like to say that mr. darling... they kept the pathetic, ridiculous characterization... but restrained it to make him utterly sympathetic.... <3 <3 <3 God. I want to find every person responsible for this movie and bake them each a cake....... <3 <3 <3
Re: also also wick wick
Date: 2004-01-07 03:37 pm (UTC)I'm not entirely sure why Sumpter didn't work as well for me. It reminded me a bit of Tom Felton's performance in SS/PS -- just too young-seeming, not quite sure enough, not completely woven into the fabric of the story. I didn't feel like he *believed* his lines the same way the actress who played Wendy did.
But what about the apples?
Date: 2004-01-07 03:48 pm (UTC)I hate talking in movie theatres, but it was all I could do not to lean over to my partner and mutter "and the apples-- have one of those next."
There's got to be something with the threatening/impressive father/pirate figure offering the younger girl food... sometimes linear language doesn't seem up to the task of describing the interactions between characters, since I'm wanting to make some kind of connection between food and sex, between father=threat and father=provider, and the extra poignancy given to the Barbossa/Elizabeth scene by the fact that he was acting the voyer, essentially, as he could not, himself, eat. Then there's the fact that both girls are acting with a sense that they can take down this figure-- are proven quite spectacularly wrong, but then, in the end, proven right. Is the victory in the end only a fantasy, something to sustain the subconscious that knows that most of the young girls knuckle under in the end?
The more I think about this the more I'm convinced that the writers of PotC more than had Wendy in mind. Her niavete (why can't the blacksmith call me Elizabeth), impending marriage (growing up), survival with an almost courtly elegance in the face of what logically should have been her demise and the (temporary, in Elizabeth's case) return to the world of her parents... if there had been apples in Peter Pan, or fairies in PotC, I would have a watertight case for this. (And in the 21st century we take the fantasy a little further than Barrie did-- Elizabeth again leaves the world of her family, instead of settling back in to the family routine as Wendy did.)
As it is I am mostly just squeeing all over your comparison, and it's been a long day and I'm growing incoherrant, so I'll desist.
Re: But what about the apples?
Date: 2004-01-07 04:24 pm (UTC)I'm really enjoying reading these analyses.
Re: But what about the apples?
Date: 2004-01-07 08:09 pm (UTC)Yes, and don't forget that Hook's feeling towards Wendy in his scene is also one of intense jealousy, because she holds Pan's attention. The dynamic is extremely similar. And there's definitely a sexual element in both -- a connection between obsession and sex for Hook, and between food and sex for Barbossa -- in each scene there's a quasi-sexual desire for what the girl has, and what the man never gets.
And in the 21st century we take the fantasy a little further than Barrie did-- Elizabeth again leaves the world of her family, instead of settling back in to the family routine as Wendy did.
Yes, Elizabeth's story has a more modern sensibility. PotC can be read as a sexual awakening for both romantic leads -- the image of the too-tight corset, which effectively sets the story in motion, and coming to terms with one's own nature and desires, as Will does.
The thing is that the Peter Pan story only allows one avenue in the process of growing up -- you either conform to society's idea of what an adult does, or you stay a child. PotC permits a fork in the road to adulthood: You can conform, or you can seize your own sexual freedom. Despite the fact that they choose not to return to conformity, Will and Elizabeth have changed and matured from where they started, and that's presented as a valid choice.
Will and Elizabeth change...
Date: 2004-01-07 09:24 pm (UTC)I'm sure that Disney is not keen on the idea of someone saying "the hat signifies something" and degrading their happy ending from there, but no matter what they intended the question is still there.
There is a sequel. And I am willing to bet it does not show Elizabeth living, disillusioned, the life of a blacksmith's wife with a child clinging to each hip.
Re: Will and Elizabeth change...
Date: 2004-01-08 06:46 pm (UTC)There is a sequel. And I am willing to bet it does not show Elizabeth living, disillusioned, the life of a blacksmith's wife with a child clinging to each hip.
Agreed. Maybe I'm not taking your meaning, or you didn't take mine, because I wasn't suggesting anything other than what you just said. And I'm not sure what degrading the happy ending has to do with it at all.
I was the kid in the back of the library yelling WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
Date: 2004-01-08 07:11 pm (UTC)I'm not a nasty cynical person, really, I'm not, but I distrust happy endings of the Disney variety. I would much preferred the film to end with Will and Elizabeth prisioners (willing or not) on the Interceptor, with Jack supercilliously snapping the compass shut on the "Yo Ho!" while we see Will and Elizabeth huddled, drenched and a little the worse for wear, still lovey but now thinking what the hell did we get ourselves in to.
Short of Port Royal becomming a Spanish port, piracy is not going to ever come under the banner of "things it is a-ok to do." If Will were really a pirate, in the literal sense, Norrington and the mayor would be duty-bound to persecute him. Elizabeth has thwarted the clasp of "duty," and for both Will and Jack (as well as her) to be released from that very real hold totally free is too much to believe, even if we're suspending our disbelief. But add a screen kiss and some swelling music, and we're ready to believe that it ends happily, or happily enough for now. There is that "one day's head start" comment to remind us that the story doesn't end just because the text does.
It's an idea that is sexy as all get out, that we have these huge sweeping choices, throwing over not only the bounds of our own making but societal ones as well, that we can make with very little consequence. Who didn't leave that film believing in derring-do, true love, and the ultimate importance of the indiv
Re: I was the kid in the back of the library yelling WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
Date: 2004-01-08 10:03 pm (UTC)It's Disney, savvy?
Date: 2004-01-08 10:32 pm (UTC)Anyway, the importance of the individual is heady and intoxicating (you forgot one very important thing, I'm Captain Jack Sparrow), and we want that happy ending, not just for the individual characters but for ourselves, and there's something about it I don't trust as a story-teller.
I seem to remember writing something to the effect that the change that takes place in Peter Pan takes place on a binary level-- you either grow up, or you stay a child forever. But the latter is not really and truly a choice, so you either grow up or your life [as you know it] ends. What chance does Wendy really have to be a novelist, as opposed to a factory worker or a prostitute? PotC speaks to a 21st century ideal that Elizabeth has more choice than simply Good Daughter/Cast Out Of Society, and shows her instead Choosing To Leave That Society, but her stasis on the battlement wall makes it almost impossible to imagine what happens next in any coherrant narrative way, meaning that all that hard fought for change in her and Will's characters is going to be, perhaps, for ill or naught.
And I have the deepest affection for the film, and the story. Yet there is something nefarious about the way that Disney spun the ending of this tale, and I hope my mistrust of it doesn't come off as gratuitous.
Re: It's Disney, savvy?
Date: 2004-01-08 11:05 pm (UTC)Okay, I think I see where you're at now -- you're interpreting the magical (or at least nonrealistic) elements of these stories as *strictly* metaphorical. But taking the Peter Pan universe at face value, Wendy does literally have that choice. Likewise, the truth of the PotC universe includes the idea that piracy is indeed a-ok -- if you're "a good man" like Jack or Will.
Though I like your ending too, the reason I don't have a problem with the ending in the movie is that it strikes me as *internally* consistent. The characters live in a fantasy world, and they react to that environment, not to our reality. Admittedly, that's "fanfic-style" analysis, not literary analysis, but there's truth in both. A fantasy doesn't need to simultaneously be a metaphor for society *and* to conform to society's real logic and rules for me to accept it.
Re: But what about the apples?
Date: 2004-01-08 04:20 pm (UTC)Ah, but don't forget the strong symbolic connetion between fairies and apples! I'm having a hard time putting it into words, exactly, I have a very deep intuitive feel for fae symbolism that I can't always articulate.
In a somewhat peripheral, but at least easily articulated connection, there's always Avalon: which is both a fairy realm, and, etmylogically, the Isle of Apples.
Re: But what about the apples?
Date: 2004-01-09 06:00 am (UTC)It's a bit of a stretch, but I was thinking of Hades and Persephone. And all the stories about "never eat the food of fairyland, because then you'll have to stay"--spinoffs of the same myth? My two cents.
Mary Anne
Re: But what about the apples?
Date: 2004-01-09 09:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-07 06:32 pm (UTC)Kids these days. No patience at all.
Anyway, you think the movie is good enough for a non-pirate lover to go see by herself?
no subject
Date: 2004-01-08 06:37 pm (UTC)