Three Hours: Three Lessons
It's not often I feel wonder at the movies. I did with King Kong. Here are my top three story lessons. Feel free to add your own.
1. The movie takes itself seriously.
For some reason, I assumed there would be a certain level of irony and self-awareness to the film. Instead, we get dangers and passions and heartaches that are completely on the level. To love the film you have to believe in it. I didn't realize how much I had missed this innocence/forthrightness in contemporary movies until I felt it again. (As happened also with the LOTR trilogy.)
2. I care about the characters.
How does the story make me care about the characters? The characters care about each other. It's all over the place-- people trying to save the people they love, and people mourning the loss of good friends.
3. An almost-wordless third act.
The table is set so well that by the time we're into the third act, nothing needs to be explained. We get bits of dialogue when we're learning about the Kong show, and as Jack watches his play and realizes he needs to find Ann... but after that, there's hardly anything. People shut up and start doing stuff. We watch with heart instead of head. The lack of dialogue also allows for the biggest possible impact when Kong and Ann agree that the city is "beautiful".
Inspiring, all.
Of course, to the person who saw the movie with me and said "Best second act ever"-- I can't exactly disagree.
Can you?
It's not often I feel wonder at the movies. I did with King Kong. Here are my top three story lessons. Feel free to add your own.
1. The movie takes itself seriously.
For some reason, I assumed there would be a certain level of irony and self-awareness to the film. Instead, we get dangers and passions and heartaches that are completely on the level. To love the film you have to believe in it. I didn't realize how much I had missed this innocence/forthrightness in contemporary movies until I felt it again. (As happened also with the LOTR trilogy.)
2. I care about the characters.
How does the story make me care about the characters? The characters care about each other. It's all over the place-- people trying to save the people they love, and people mourning the loss of good friends.
3. An almost-wordless third act.
The table is set so well that by the time we're into the third act, nothing needs to be explained. We get bits of dialogue when we're learning about the Kong show, and as Jack watches his play and realizes he needs to find Ann... but after that, there's hardly anything. People shut up and start doing stuff. We watch with heart instead of head. The lack of dialogue also allows for the biggest possible impact when Kong and Ann agree that the city is "beautiful".
Inspiring, all.
Of course, to the person who saw the movie with me and said "Best second act ever"-- I can't exactly disagree.
Can you?
posted by Jennica at 10:51 a.m.
3 Comments:
I watched the 1933 version the week before going to see this. I'm so glad I did. There are so many bits - hommages - to the old film, it made the experience that much more rich. For example, the wardrobe for the native ceremony in the theatre at the end is the exact wardrobe used in the 1933 version when they landed on the island. Essentially, the movie Denam is making in the 2005 version is the 1933 version. Excellent.
Cheers,
Ryan
King Kong really is a wonderful movie. Peter Jackson managed to pay tribute to the original while fleshing out the characters. Better than that, he really understood that the original King Kong was a tragic love story.
This is how we should learn to write Act 3:
"People shut up and start doing stuff. We watch with heart instead of head."
I mean, isn't that perfect if we've got acts 1 and 2 right?
(I keep stopping by to see if Chris has stopped by to try to take you to the woodshed over King Kong. He wasn't a huge fan. I'm cracking up just thinking about it. I would go prompt him, but that's probably against the Blogging Prime Directive. I can't weigh in. I've not seen the movie. Yeah, I know, me and the prisoners at Gitmo.)
Regardless, thanks for the post.
Adam
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