Book to film adaptations are nothing new for Roald Dahl's novels, but what separates the movie "Fantastic Mr Fox" from other Dahl films is not just the adaptation of a different art style, but the screenplay for the film is essentially a retelling. The new script was written by Wes Anderson and long-time collaborator, Noah Baumbach, and includes many typical features of a Wes Anderson screenplay. His style of humour is present, which consists of very dry wit and smug, smart alecky dialogue. Film critic Mark Kermode has highlighted the example that "comme ci comme ca" (French for "so and so") does not seem like the usual nonsensical Dahl vocabulary, such as "snozzwangers", "wangdoodles", "snozzcumbers", etc. The dialogue in the film (released in 2009) also seems more updated than in the original book, first published in 1970. The dialogue is heavily Americanised to appeal to the US market, as are the casting choices including George Clooney and Meryl Streep. However, the human characters (the villains) were played by British actors including Michael Gambon as the primary villain, Franklin Bean. This is a stark contrast to the book's sense of timelessness, and the idea that the book is not set in one specific location and has a universal appeal. Only one rhyme in the film during the first ten minutes serves as a true reminder of Dahl's writing style ("why couldn't I be a tree, a beagle or a bald eagle?"). Like the book, however, the film is divided into short chapters - possibly in reference to the story originating from a novel.
The film's title card also serves as a reminder the film was adapted from a Roald Dahl book. It's also another example of Anderson's smart alecky humour, literally pointing it out to the audience.
The film often shows everything quite literally to the audience in the exact same manner, another example of Anderson's humour. In one scene, a character is explaining how a game of "Whack Bat" is played at the same time it is described via visuals on screen.
As a result of Anderson's smart alecky humour and more adult vocabulary such as "cuss", the target audience has changed. The Dahl book was aimed purely at younger children, but now more adults are likely to watch the film and enjoy it. Further examples of adult humour include a cameo from Jarvis Cocker, who more mature audiences will recognise but kids will see him as simply a background character who just sings part of the story to move it along.
The original book was also too short to stretch out into a 90 minute feature, so, much like with "The Grinch" and "The Cat in the Hat", new material was added to the script to develop the original story and expand on the character's personalities. In the book, Mr Fox has four sons who he teaches to steal chickens, but in the film, he only has one son named Ash. This allows more focus onto one character who feels he is ignored by his father, particularly when his cousin Kristofferson arrives and steals all the attention. This highlights a strong father-son relationship in the film - another typical feature of Wes Anderson's films and screenplays - which was not present in the book, which was written for pure entertainment. Anderson's film adaptation has more depth and meaning, due to the character's personalities being expanded upon. Mr Fox himself is made into a much more sympathetic character, because he has an obsession (stealing chickens) which he knows he shouldn't commit to, but he cannot help himself.
The art style and stop-motion animation in the film was also Wes Anderson's choice. He liked the idea of everything looking hand-made but also incredibly realistic, like it was set in a real world. He started developing the look of the film with Henry Selick (director of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Coraline"), because he felt that if he tried to contact any other director or studio, they wouldn't support his vision and turn it into CGI - a more common and less attractive art style, in Anderson's view. The art style deviates largely from the cartoony drawings illustrated by Quentin Blake, which are as famous as Roald Dahl's written material and tie in perfectly with Dahl's wacky and inventive style. However, Anderson still adapts some of the book's most iconic images, which I found more powerful than copying every single image from the original book. For me personally, the stop-motion style was the highlight of the film because it's beautiful to look at and has great detail, especially with the movements and the fur on the animals, which makes them look very realistic.
Other factors of the art style which make it stand out as Anderson's include the colours. The film is full of yellows and oranges, with occassional greys, whites and blacks, all colours you would see in the autumn, in the countryside and on the fox animal itself. Anderson also uses his favourite (trademark) font everywhere in the film - Futura.
In the film, the animals move around very slowly when they are talking, and move extremely quickly when they are walking, running, jumping around, etc. This was accomplished through shooting on double frames (12 per second) then changing to single frames (24 per second) when moving about quickly.
The film's cast and crew choices also include frequent collaborators from other Wes Anderson films, much in the same vein as how often Roald Dahl collaborated with illustrator Quentin Blake. Writer Noah Baumbach wrote the screenplay with Wes Anderson, and actors Owen Wilson, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Eric Chase Anderson and Willem Dafoe have all worked on previous Anderson films. Wilson and Murray have worked with Anderson 7 times each - one away from the same number of times Tim Burton has worked with Johnny Depp! In the case of Owen Wilson, a character (Coach Skip) was created especially for him to have a voice role in the film.
The film's music also ties in with its country theme, with excessive use of banjos and country themes, composed by Alexandre Desplat ("The King's Speech"). The one exception is the "Boggis, Bunce and Bean" song, performed by the choir at the London Oratory School and following the same lyrics as the original Roald Dahl rhyme from the book.
No comments:
Post a Comment