Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

[Anton Gramscescu]

What gives? WHAT GIVES?

No one should be allowed to touch Where the Wild Things Are. No one! I don't care if it is Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers (who ordinarily would be a pretty cool combination). And, OK, Gandolfini and Forrest Wihttaker and Catherine Keener all are pretty cool actors.

But COME ON! Rip my fucking heart out why don't you? This is the greatest 350 words in children's lit - you can't screw with that.

I am going to be angry all day.

[EIM]

Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

I'm with you here, AG, as I tend to be more and more often these days. Check out 'book' in my profile for proof.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

I *knew* you`d be first in here, mate. I saw it on your profile ages ago.

I haven't read it since Benito was about 4, but I can still recite it from memory.

[EIM]

Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

It's one of the books that shaped my childhood. One of four, the other three being 'Peace At Last', 'Dogger', and 'The Boggart'. Brilliant, it was.

I've not clicked your link as I saw it was an imdb page, and I'd rather not know about it. The TinTin film I am looking forward to. This one, I am not.

[Mumpo]

Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

Where The Wild Things Are is one of my favourite books to read to the kids. So few words, so beautiful to say. I think I am one of the best people in the world at reading Where The Wild Things Are out loud.

We've got Peace At Last, too. Those bags that accumulate under Mr Bear's eyes are kind of scary, in a Tex Avery sort of way. All haggard and mutated. I think if I was little, seeing that happen to his face would scare me, and I'd get an anxiety complex about sleeping.

Steven 'did Blink and all the best new series Doctor Whos, at least until this season, when Russell Davies did a better one' Moffat is writing Tintin, of course.

[Reed John]

Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

I disagree. I think the book is so well known and liked that a film adaptation couldn't do anything to besmirch it's legacy. If the film is bad, people will just forget about it and only remember the book.

With the cast and crew they've got lined up, there's a good chance it will be a good film. I'm interested to see what they come up with.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

I think the book is so well known and liked that a film adaptation couldn't do anything to besmirch it's legacy.

Unduly optimistic I think. Disney, for example, has done a pretty good job of mutating English children's classics to the extent that the original author's contribution is degraded beyond recognition. Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh and Alice in Wonderland spring immediately to mind but there are others.

[Andy C]

Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

I think I know the answer, but what about the opera by Oliver Knussen?

[Reed John]

Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

Unduly optimistic I think. Disney, for example, has done a pretty good job of mutating English children's classics to the extent that the original author's contribution is degraded beyond recognition. Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh and Alice in Wonderland spring immediately to mind but there are others.

Maurice Sendak is listed as one of the producers on this film, so I doubt it's going to deviate too much from the source. He's 80 now.

I don't think Disney degraded any of those particular stories too much. The authors of all of them are still well known and, as I recall, the original texts were in high demand at my school library because of, not despite, the popularity of the Disney treatments. In fact, AA Milne's original version of the characters have been merchandised very successfully (by Disney and others) and his books are still in print, I believe.

Disney has sanitized a lot of traditional Grimms Fairy tales and other bits of myth and folklore, especially in their early years, but those stories probably wouldn't have been very well known in the US at all if it weren't for Disney so it's not really a direct comparison. Beside, the original versions of stories like Cinderella weren't really appropriate for a rated G film.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

The authors of all of them are still well known and, as I recall, the original texts were in high demand at my school library because of, not despite, the popularity of the Disney treatments.

The authors may be well known among adults, but not so much among kids. Ask a 7 or 8 year-old if they know who Barrie, Milne or Carroll are; as compared to, say, J.K. Rowling. In any case a children's book is much more than its text, it is also the sound of the characters' voices (supplied often by a parent) and, particularly the images of them. These have been lost, film takes them away and necessarily supplies only inferior ersatz renderings.

Arguably for generations of kids, E.H. Shepherd and John Tenniel had as strong a claim on the "experience" of, respectively, Pooh and Alice, as Milne and Carroll. No longer. Disney "owns" the image rights to the Pooh stories for example, so outside the books themselves their version of the characters — not Shepherd's or Milne's — must be portrayed. For example, ten years or so back Canada Post issued a set of stamps to commemorate Pooh (who was, of course, originally Canadian.) The preference was to use the Shepherd illustrations but Disney prevented it. After much negotiation one stamp in the series was allowed to depict Shepherd's Pooh (appropriately he's waving goodbye to his friends.)

Disney has had similar fights with other authors and their estates — recently most notably J.M. Barrie's. The fact that Maurice Sendak is still alive and, perhaps, has some sort of control over the depiction of his characters is a plus, but I wouldn't breathe a sigh of relief yet.

[Reed John]

Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

Why has Disney come into this discussion? Are they producing this film? The only producer on the list I recognize other than Sendak is Tom Hanks.

I have confidence this will at least be to Sendaks' satisfaction. I find it hard to believe that this is the first attempt to make this into a film. I imagine there have been many efforts, so this probably represents the only one that Sendak felt ok about.

Disney "owns" the image rights to the Pooh stories for example, so outside the books themselves their version of the characters — not Shepherd's or Milne's — must be portrayed.

Disney still markets stuff with the "Classic" Pooh and friends drawings, or at least they did a few years ago. I saw the pooh films before I read the stories as a child, but in my imagination, they're seperate. Besides, I think the Disney Pooh, at least the old films, were pretty good. Good animation, good voice acting, etc. Disney, for all of its faults, usually does a class job.* At least they did in the old days.

You seem to be suggesting that children's books shouldn't be adapted to film ever. Do you feel the same way about all books or just children's books? I think that film would be poorer if that rule would followed and a lot of very good childrens books would have gone out of print and not loved by nearly so many kids if they hadn't been adapted to film.

I don't see why a film is necessarily ersatz and inferior to a parent's reading. For me it was always supplementary. The difference between watching a match on TV and watching it live.

Of course, if parents try to make movies supplant reading with their kids, then that will be bad, but that's got nothing to do with film adaptations as such. If kids really like Where the Wild Things Are, their parents should let them read it over and over and over, as we did, instead of letting them watch the DVD over and over and over (an option we didn't have). It just requires a bit more effort by the parent, but it's not impossible.

There have been many good film adaptations of children's stories. The classic Grinch and some other Seuss stories that never seem to be on tv anymore, the classic animated Peanuts specials, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (I prefer the newer version, but the Gene Wilder version is also a classic), the Harry Potter series, Lord of the Rings, and some of the old Disney films, to name a few.

*Barrie doesn't really count because that was a play, wasn't it? Parents don't read that to kids, do they? For me, I think, the version of that story I remember most vividly was the Disney picture-book-with-cassette tape version. I suppose that proves your point. Because we read it over and over and over.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

Why has Disney come into this discussion?

Only because they produce the most consistently egregious examples. There are others, Spielberg's appalling Hook comes to mind.

Besides, I think the Disney Pooh, at least the old films, were pretty good. Good animation, good voice acting,

Eugh! Technically they are, of course excellent — they could afford to be. But from the fifties through the mid-eighties, their productions were for the most part arid, souless affairs that stripped the original stories of all their magic. But, you're right let's leave Disney out of it, they are after all only a symptom not the cause.

You seem to be suggesting that children's books shouldn't be adapted to film ever. Do you feel the same way about all books or just children's books?

This is core of the issue, and frankly I don't have an easy answer. Reflexively I want to say "yes!" At least when it comes to a few classic childrens' works but I can't conceive of way that could work, or should even be able to. However I do think the child/parent —story/image/character inter-relationship is exceedingly important and Not To Be Fucked With by outsiders, especially large corporations. It might perhaps help if certain works were acknowledged as "National Treasures" or something, to at least give them an official status that's commensurate with their (non-financial) worth. After all only very rarely does an nation sell off chunks of its physical heritage but its intellectual property seems to be up for grabs to the highest bidder.

There have been many good film adaptations of children's stories.

Of course, but quality is not really the main, or the only, issue. The melding of parental voice and child's imagination through a particular story not only helps to cement their relationship it forms a bridge between the oral, the pictorial and the literary worlds. A cycle that's both intimate and formative. It's also ice cool, in a McLuhanistic sense, highly participatory in a way that's precisely the opposite to films. Films are a problem when they either replace the storytelling in a child's life, or when that medium's characteristics infiltrate the storytelling environment. As a parent you can control former, however the latter is much more difficult to deal with but can be equally corrosive.

Barrie doesn't really count because that was a play, wasn't it? Parents don't read that to kids, do they?

Yes they do — or did. Peter Pan was a character in a story, then a play, then a novel — with illustrations by Arthur Rackham (eat your heart out Walt) — all in pretty quick succession.

[Reed John]

Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

Films are a problem when they either replace the storytelling in a child's life, or when that medium's characteristics infiltrate the storytelling environment. As a parent you can control former, however the latter is much more difficult to deal with but can be equally corrosive.

But I think that's a rather negative view of film that you're offering.

I understand that with small children especially, exposure to film and TV, with its constant image-switching and so forth, is problematic and that in people of all ages, of course, reading is critical to the brain's development. Obviously, film shouldn't replace reading.

How do the characteristics of film "infiltrate
the storytelling environment?" In what way can a parent reading a story be too "cinematic" in their approach? I don't know what you mean there.

Either way, what is so "corrosive" about learning to appreciate visual storytelling? That seems to be a very sweeping and damning indictment of film as a medium. If a story makes a good kids book it may, as my examples illustrate, make for a good children's movie. Why shouldn't kids learn to appreciate film in the same way they learn to appreciate books?

As I recall from when I was a kid, even at a young age, I enjoyed the "compare and contrast" game, as I do now. "What a great bit of casting there, they really shouldn't have changed that there, etc."

As a matter of liberty and artistic rights, I think the author should have the right to decide when, where and to whom to sell the rights of their work. If they want to whore it out to Hollywood, that's their right. Informed consent should always apply, of course.

It would set a dangerous precedent to confiscate those things. I believe in much stronger intellectual property rights than real estate rights. Land is ultimately given to us by God, or Mother Earth, or the cold meaningless universe. Ideas are part of what makes a person who they are.

I don't recall any of the Pooh films beyond the ones that were based on AA Milne's stories. Its not surprising that any "new" stories would be inferior. Not many writers are as good as AA Milne and writers are rarely able to understand characters they didn't create as well as their creator.

I thought Hook was ok.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

Ok I'll try to be clearer.

How do the characteristics of film "infiltrate
the storytelling environment?" In what way can a parent reading a story be too "cinematic" in their approach? I don't know what you mean there.

The parent's reading is not a problem and i don't think I used the word "cinematic" did I?

There is nothing wrong with children watching films. There's not even anything wrong with them watching Disney films, even the crap ones. Except when the methodologies of relating and rendering those films intrudes on the parent/child storytelling experience. Films are generally made up of thousands of frames of brightly coloured images that move very quickly. They are designed to be viewed in a very large dark room in the company of strangers, while you are doing nothing else — except eating popcorn perhaps. This, I'm sure you'll agree, is a very different environment from a child's bedroom at night. When images from a film are isolated and frozen, then placed in a bedroom environment they will affect this, to them alien, scene.

The Disney Pooh, for instance, is colour saturated with well defined outlines. He inhabits a fully technicolour world that fills the frame of the film. It surrounds and immerses the viewer within it. Contrast that with Shepherd's Pooh; thin, monochromatic line drawings that fade out onto the ground of the page. It's a world that invites the reader/listener inside. You can get lost in the details of Rackham and Tenniel's work (and Sendak's too) but a cell character, transferred to the page is a vapid, flat, lost looking object.

Intentionally or not, a parent reading to a child takes on the persona of the characters. With no other reference available a child accepts this without question. The parent, for a few minutes each evening, becomes hero, villain, fool, and much more. He or she is, in fact, introducing those concepts to his son or daughter by acting them out, with the help of the author. If the child has already seen the film however this is not as possible and comparisons are inevitable. I don't mean the kid is going to turn into Alexander Woollcott at your expense but it will be impossible to ignore one when he sees the other.

So, yes corrosive. Corrosive of the original work and the parent/child relationship.

As a matter of liberty and artistic rights, I think the author should have the right to decide when, where and to whom to sell the rights of their work.

Of course. But when they're dead they can't make those decisions. So what happens then? Should their descendants be able to sell off their inheritance like it was Dad's old Buick?

[Reed John]

Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

If they don't want their kids selling their work, they should be able to put that in their will.

The parent's reading is not a problem and i don't think I used the word "cinematic" did I?

No, you didn't. I don't know why I put that in quotes. You wrote "the medium's characteristics infiltrate the storytelling environment." I interpreted that as a "cinematic storytelling style" which doesn't really make sense in the context of reading a book to a kid.

If kid's see the film before reading the book, then I guess I can see how the voices of the actor invade the book. There's a lot of sense in what you're saying, but I don't remember the impact being so severe.

We usually read the book before seeing the movie anyway and if it was the other way around, there was usually a long time between the two so I didn't remember the voices in the film.

But in any event, I think you're going to have a hard time convincing anyone that that's a compelling reason not to make a film. It may, however, be a compelling reason for parents not to let their kids see a film version of something they've read until a while after they've read it.

I imagine kids' relationship to film is much different than when you and I were kids because we couldn't watch something whenever we wanted to. We had to wait for it to come back around to our theater or be broadcast on one of our three tv stations. Now kids can just get rent it or own it for cheap and watch it over and over and over. It's not as "special" and they can memorize it (although we had story books accompanied by a recording on vinyl. Those were cool).

I'm not sure how that matters but I imagine that it does.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

If they don't want their kids selling their work, they should be able to put that in their will.

One of our lawyers would be able to clarify this but it's my understanding that a will cannot define a legatee's actions after the death of the party who wrote it. In spite of shed-loads of books and films whose plots hinge on that very idea.

There's a lot of sense in what you're saying, but I don't remember the impact being so severe.

In most cases we don't really remember those bedtime stories beyond childhood at all, at least not in detail. Deeply internalized, they nonetheless forge links that bind family relationships, liberate imaginations and reveal the possibilities of art and literature for the first time. You're probably right in saying that the impact is lessened if a child is familiar with the book before seeing the film. Unfortunately you're likely also correct in suggesting it isn't like that any more, at least not as much. Ubiquitous home DVD and CD adds so many voices and images to a child's mental landscape that its often hard to be sure what, when and where they have seen or heard something.

[Jimski]

Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

I do wonder what sort of person i is who reads a book, loves it, and then immediately thinks "I know, let's make that into a film." If I've read a book, and enjoyed it, that tends to be exactly the last thing I want to happen to it.

Where The Wild Things Are - one of the defining books of my childhood too. I guess, being a picture book, they shouldn't be able to deviate too much from the look/feel of it, but then again that never stopped Disney. I shall make sure I avoid this as much as I can.

[Mumpo]

Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

I don't see how the film can do anything other then deviate from the feel of the book; if it was made in 'real time', it would only be five minutes long (excepting the "through night and day and in and out of weeks and almost over a year" bit).

[Reed John]

Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

it's my understanding that a will cannot define a legatee's actions after the death of the party who wrote it.

Right. To be clear, I meant that authors should be able to lock down the rights to their work in perpetuity and keep it out of their hands of their spoiled ungrateful spawn. Speaking of that, I recall that the real Christopher Robin had a lot of "issues" with his dad.

King Mob's point is right on. They'll have to pad it out somehow to make it a feature. This could be ok or not. Perhaps they can fill out the Wild Rumpus into an extended song and dance number.

The guy they have playing Max looks exactly like the kid in the book.

Didn't they alreay do an animated version of this story? I feel like I saw it as a kid in school or at the public library or something? It was pretty much exactly like the book, but moving and it had a narrator reading it. I seem to recall seeing lots of animated shorts based on picture books like that - Harold and the Purple Crayon, Corduroy, lots of Dr. Seuss, The Giving Tree, etc.

I do wonder what sort of person i is who reads a book, loves it, and then immediately thinks "I know, let's make that into a film."

I do that sometimes, but more with real life than books. I want me to be played by Jon Favreau or Christian Bale.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

Perhaps they can fill out the Wild Rumpus into an extended song and dance number.

With James Gandolfini???

[ursus arctos]

Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

There already is an opera (and has been for about 30 years).

[Reed John]

Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

With James Gandolfini???

Maybe he has hidden talents. Don't typecast.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Leave Maurice Sendak the Fuck Alone!

Look, Gandolfini's a good actor, but he's no William Shatner. I don't think he could pull a singing number, even with Joe Jackson on backing vocals.