Thanks to the generous publicity team at Warner Bros., this week’s edition of FEAK won’t be the run of the mill here’s-what-to-see-with-your-kids-this-weekend post.
Instead, KidGlue had the opportunity to speak directly to the stars and filmmakers that made this week’s brand new film, “Where the Wild Things Are” and discuss with them how this landmark film should be viewed by both parents and kids alike.
Director Spike Jonze doesn’t have a lofty goal with his latest film, “Where the Wild Things Are.” He simply hopes parents view their kids in completely new way after seeing it.
“The one thing I would hope is that there be some conversations,” Jonze said earlier this month from the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, CA. “That a parent might actually be able to talk to their kid in a different way. Ask their kid what they think, not worry about how they are going to turn out but be curious about who they are.”
If anyone can make parents change their focus from the future to the present it’s Jonze, who took years adapting of one of the most famous (and sparse) children’s books of all time into a feature length film.
“We were just trying to make a movie that feels true to what it feels like, at times, to be 9 years old,” said the 39 year old director. In that aim he succeeded. The film, about a young boy named Max who finds freedom on an island populated with brooding and complex wild things, is both shot and told from a child’s point of view. The camera races along the ground like it’s being chased and we’re never force fed any grand message. It just is what it is: a cavalcade of emotions told simply and truly.
“It’s just sort of a natural stage of childhood, wanting to get some control and identify with the outside world apart from a parental kind of constraint,” explained star and co-producer of the film Catherine Keener.
The film represent that “stage of childhood” with the titular Wild Things who, according to actress Catherine O’Hara, are “like all the little things you go through in a day, especially for a child who is aware of their feelings and reacting to things for the first time.”
Dealing with those kind of emotions can be quite frightening. Jonze, however, believes kids are mature enough to handle it.
“I think as you are growing up your emotions are just as deep as they are as an adult,” Jonze said. “Your ability to feel lonely or longing or confused or angry, those emotions are just as deep. We don’t feel things more as we get older, we just have a better understanding of how to navigate those feelings.”
Keener agrees. “There’s more of a narrative too, when you are older. There’s more of a way to articulate it. To put it in some sort of form. But when you’re a kid, it’s just all over the place. It’s freeer (sp), more wilder.”
So, to them, “Where the Wild Things Are” is about representing a time in a child’s life when they are finally learning to deal with emotions. That still doesn’t answer if kids are going to understand that. For that answer, there’s only one person to talk to, the star of the movie Max Records. Max readily admits that when he was younger he couldn’t have seen this movie. It would have been too much. “I mean, it depends on the kid and it depends on the age” he said. “I know that when I was 7 or 8 or something I could not have seen this movie but my brother is 7 or 8 now and he totally could.”
And why is that?
“The movie and the book are pretty much the visual way to show anger and sweetness together, you know?”
We do now, Max. We do now.
“Where the Wild Things Are” opens in theaters today. For a photo gallery, click here and for a full review, click here.
And f you want to find tickets or show times for the “Where the Wild Things Are,” check www.fandango.com, www.moviefone.com, or www.movietickets.com. It’s also playing in IMAX.
Comments
Melea M. Mortenson
November 15th, 2009 - 3:17:43 AM
Too many typos in this article! Isn't someone editing these?