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Spike Jonze reimagines ‘Where the Wild Things Are’
09.10.09

In an era when Hollywood special-effects supervisors seem to be engaged in a game of Can You Top This? (regardless of how the whiz-bang element serves the story), “Where the Wild Things Are” feels like a movie full of potentially lethal stuffed animals. Or your aunts and uncles playing around in plush pajamas.

Technically speaking, it’s a modest movie, especially given the elaborate ends to which Jonze went to give the monsters personality, by filming the entire movie with just the vocal cast, and using Styrofoam in place of real props.

“We had remote mikes so we could move freely and we were surrounded with 20 something cameramen – a lot of them were ‘Jackass’ crew, so they tried to kill themselves between takes,” O’Hara laughed. “We had fun – there’s a mud fight in the movie, so we shot a bread-roll fight that went on for days. But that’s why I’m kind of delusional about being more a part of the movie than I am, because I was there and being Judith and we played our roles for the camera.”

Jonze said he showed those tapes to the actors inside the costumes and “they were able to emulate the intention. Puppeteering and animation can be over the top when they get too elaborate about everything. We wanted every movement of the Wild Things to come from an intention, or a thought, from inside the characters.”

And, perhaps, from inside the author. Maurice Sendak, the now-81-year-old Brooklyn-born illustrator and author was “intimately” involved, Jonze said, in the latest version of “Where the Wild Things Are” (veteran animator Gene Deitch collaborated with Sendak on a 1973 short).

“He was a major force in making the movie,” Jonze said of Sendak. “He was the one who came to me and asked me to do it and gave me freedom to do what I did with it. He said from the beginning that I needed to take the book and make something that was mine, something personal, something that didn’t pander to kids. And that set me on the path.”

Spike Jonze and others who came from all directions

By John Anderson

Special to Newsday

Director Spike Jonze’s foray into beloved bedtime stories may seem odd – his filmography includes the fantastical but sophisticated “Being John Malkovich” and “Adaptation” – but it’s no stranger than his transition into Hollywood features from the world of music videos (for R.E.M., Bjork, the Beastie Boys and Weezer). Some other directors with eclectic backgrounds:

Julian Schnabel – The director of “Basquiat” (1996), “Before Night Falls” (2000) and “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (2007) was one of the more successful painters / plastic artists during the ’80s art boom. He was nominated for a best director Oscar in 2008 for “Diving Bell.”

Nora Ephron – A one-time intern in the Kennedy White House, Ephron was a reporter for the New York Post and freelance magazine writer before moving into scripting – and then directing – motion pictures, which have included “Sleepless in Seattle” (1993), “You’ve Got Mail” (1998) and “Julie & Julia” (2009).

Terry Gilliam – The sole non-British member of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Gilliam created the signature animation for the troupe’s series, and made his solo feature directing debut with “Jabberwocky” in 1977. He was nominated for a screenplay Oscar for “Brazil” (1985) and has also directed “The Fisher King” (1991), “Twelve Monkeys” (1995) and “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” (1998).

Woody Allen – People forget, but the much-honored Allen was a successful standup comic and fixture of late-night talk shows when he made his directing debut with ‘What’s Up, Tiger Lily?” in 1966.