King Kong is big, and it’s still exciting 80 years after the
fact. The story pushes forward at a
dizzying pace with rapid development in NY quickly superseded by visual
extravaganzas like native ceremonies and culminating in the arrival of the colossal
special-effects beasts. And King Kong
doesn’t rest with the introduction of these monsters but goes eight on to
fights between the monsters and between people and the monsters. Then there’s the monster in New York. This is the breathless narrative that Steven Spielberg
resurrected in the 80s.
Action thrills is the focus here, so we don’t have real
characters. Instead, we have claymation
monsters that are oddly compelling. King
Kong’s fur may get ruffled irregularly while he stalks his island, but there’s
enough plausibility when he breaks the jaw of the allosaurus to still make today’s
audience wince. And then he gives it an extra thump to be sure it's dead. Things are even more
tense when he adn other animals are matted into shots with real actors. For 1933, the action is pretty seamless when
he tears a piece of fabric off of the dress of live actress Fay Wray and holds
it. And we feel a thrill after Kong
breaks into the village and a woman dashes in front of the monster foot to
snatch her child out of harm’s way. And
ditto when natives on a platform throw spears at him and he walks over to knock
the platform down. Live action and stop
motion merge well here, and generally to give the audience the thrill of the
uncanny confronting the normal.
The animation in King Kong also has a lot of
expressiveness. The scenes in Kong’s
lair capture the strained, unsteady Romanticism of a Doré print with their dynamic
light differences in foreground and background and their starkly vertical lines. More than that, the clay Kong emotes
sensitivity. He is curious, and he is
tender. His body language at the tragic
end of the film speaks of both his desire to continue protecting Ann and his
simultaneous recognition that he can’t. It’s
a posture of defeat and regret as good as any we might see from Charles
Laughton.
In fact, King Kong is a more developed character than any of
the people in the film. With the focus
on action, King Kong treats its characters as story elements and setting more than
anything else. Ann and John are the screaming,
shallow blonde and the distant, cool hero.
Our most annoying character is sociopath Carl Denham, and his failure to
get his just desserts is as painful to watch as is Kong’s demise. Denham ignores every caution, and when
society declines to place a woman at risk for a Denham project, he goes recruiting
among the vulnerable. He exploits Ann
for his purposes, putting her in harm’s way.
He manipulates the ship and crew, knowing they’d object to the danger he’s
putting them in and, in fact, ends up getting many of them killed. Ever with an eye on his glory and achievement,
Denham goes on to capture the noble Kong and cause the beast’s death, along the
major swaths of destruction. And at the
end of King Kong, he blames Ann as a femme-fatal who has destroyed Kong and
ends the film blameless.
King Kong is not deep, but it is a great, fun film with a surprisingly strong action narration. It's thrilling to be touched by such an old story with such old effects.
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