In Contention

Tag: Maurice Sendak

  • Oscilloscope nabs Sendak doc

    Maurice SendakOne of my smaller disappointments of last week’s Oscar nominations was the failure of Spike Jonze and Lance Bangs’s lovely “Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak” to secure a nod in the documentary short category. (You might remembert Kris’s enthusiastic endorsement of the film back in October.)

    Admittedly, I have not seen the five films that did make the cut — chances are they’re all highly worthy. But the Sendak short was a captivating portrait of a truly singular artist, simple in construction but touched by its subject’s one creative energy. Moreover, a nomination would have been a nice way for the Academy to indirectly recognize Jonze’s extraordinary work on “Where the Wild Things Are,” recipent of one of the most undeserved ducks of awards season.

    Anyway, spilt milk and all that. But I’m pleased to report that one of my favorite new indie outfits, Oscilloscope Laboratories, has acquired the short, and will be releasing it on DVD to coincide with the DVD release of “Where the Wild Things Are.”

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  • Sendak doc makes for a beautiful portrait of an artist

    Maurice SendakI sat down this morning to watch Lance Bangs and Spike Jonze’s “Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak,” which originally aired on HBO last night, expecting little more than a swift, arbitrary look at the author and perhaps a nice companion piece to Jonze’s adaptation of “Where the Wild Things Are.” Boy was I in for a surprise.

    The film (which is on Oscar’s short list for documentary shorts) is instantly one of the 2009’s great joys, a compelling, insightful study from the perspective of the genuine article.  And Sendak is indeed the genuine article, a directly honest man who has transformed his take on the world into profound art for most of his 81 years.  And at that healthy old age, he seems equally awed by, and bored with, the realities of the world.

    Filming began in 2003 at Sendak’s home in Connecticut.  The seasons zip back and forth, spring sunshine to winter snowdrift, as Bangs and Jonze piece together the meat of Jonze’s conversations with the author.  The title stems from Sendak’s opinion that there should be no demarcation when it comes to age.  “I don’t believe in childhood,” he says.  “Like, ‘You mustn’t tell them that,’ ‘You mustn’t tell them that.’  You tell them anything you want…If it’s true, you tell them.”

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  • Sendak on ‘Wild Things’

    Maurice SendakThe best read of the day is Scott Timberg’s substantial LA Times profile of “Where the Wild Things Are” author Maurice Sendak, which traces the vast influence he and the book exerted on children’s literature — as well as a certain young Spike Jonze.

    As someone who was heavily raised on Sendak’s work — “Wild Things” apart, I could recite his entire “Nutshell Library” back-to-front in my kindergarten days — I’m glad to see the 81 year-old author foregrounded amid the swell of hype for Jonze’s film. Obviously, Timberg devotes much attention to the boundary-breaking darkness and psychological grounding of Sendak’s work; more surprising, however, is this interpretation of the book’s cinematic properties:

    In “Wild Things,” a single sentence can take pages to unfold, its meaning changing slightly with each image. And this book with numerous wordless pages ends with a half-sentence and no accompanying image. Sendak works similarly to the directors of the French New Wave, who used jump cuts and other techniques to dislocate their editing.

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  • ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ featurette

    It originally appeared at Apple and I’m just getting around to posting it.  A nice discussion with author Maurice Sendak with added commentary from Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers:

  • PAGE TO SCREEN: “Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak

    Cover of Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice SendakOf all the literary adaptations reaching our screens this year, none is as seemingly impossible – and yet, simultaneously, rife with possibilities – as Spike Jonze’s long-awaited realization of “Where the Wild Things Are.” A work that occupies multiple positions within the popular culture pantheon – grade-school standard, highbrow literary classic, cult hipster item, fine-arts touchstone, pop psychology standby – it arguably nourishes a broader audience than any children’s text published since.

    As such, Jonze’s film has been complicated throughout by shifting lenses of expectation: as a family film perhaps more eagerly awaited by parents than their children, as a mainstream entertainment aiming to appease art house mavens and indie kids, it is essentially required, like its literary source, to be all things to all people.

    His own artistry notwithstanding, Sendak achieved such catholic appeal through the sparseness of his approach. With a narrative of fewer than 400 words – not even half the length of this very article – “Where the Wild Things Are” is an exceptionally porous feat of storytelling that accommodates a wide range of interpretations and identifications from the reader. It is plainly a metaphor-driven story, yet there isn’t enough text to articulate or prescribe the symbolism that is otherwise so lavishly illustrated.

    Sendak employs minimalism to expansive effect: the unadorned narrative allows the imagination to  roam, enabling the reader to take only what s/he wants from the story. Yet a literal reading thereof – such as may be absorbed by younger readers – is no less compelling in terms of tension and atmospherics, than one more interpretive.

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  • Wild thing

    USA Today recently offered another taste of “Where the Wild Things Are” — Susan Wlosyzczyna’s article (essentially a brief chat with child lead Max Records) doesn’t reveal much, but a bunch of new (and some old) stills sure do.

    With every glimpse I get of this film, I’m more impressed by how Spike Jonze seems to have found the appropriate visual textures to enliven Maurice Sendak’s all-but-untouchable imagery, without resorting to slavish or contrived imitation. Seriously, how gorgeous does this thing look? More pics here.