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Notes on "Hook" and "Bugsy Malone"
"Hook"
Most attempts to film period design end up looking like total shit after a decade or so. Productions tend to let their own era’s aesthetics eat a period. Their efforts to gentle whatever they’re invoking make the quotation look half-hearted, adding a clashing layer of datedness. This 1991 staging of a Victorian house, however, still looks great. In part that’s because “Hook” shares an aesthetic sensibility with its late Victorian source material. There’s a Peake-ish, illustrative quality to the film’s composition (“Slaughterboard” comes to mind.). From the set-design to the wirework the frames are busy, but harmonious and intelligible.
Rufio’s death feels oddly timed—I spent the whole final scene thinking about it, wondering if it would ultimately be undone. Marita suggested that this could be the point, but agreed that it could also simply be badly-executed. The publication history of this text (even before extra-Barrie adaptations) is so complex that my sense of the degree to which this decision could be a comment on the source material is muddled. At one point I found myself wondering where I remembered Hook being an Etonian from. The book? The play? It wasn’t necessarily important, just indicative of how messy the version history is and the impact of that on my reception.
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"Bugsy Malone"
I had never seen this before. The script is pretty good, as are the songs. I had the weird feeling throughout that someone had written a solid 1930s gangster movie, but it was 1976 and no one would make it until the writer suggested casting it entirely with children (which doesn’t really change anything except the final fight sequence, but okay, sure). Apparently no: it was always conceived as pretty much what you see here.
- Per Wiki, the children do not sing. In fact almost all the singing was done by the songwriter, because the production was pressed for time.
- THAT’S JODIE FOSTER??
- Why shoot this in England? How many American kids did they have to fly over?
- The song about Bugsy does not describe Bugsy very well.
Most attempts to film period design end up looking like total shit after a decade or so. Productions tend to let their own era’s aesthetics eat a period. Their efforts to gentle whatever they’re invoking make the quotation look half-hearted, adding a clashing layer of datedness. This 1991 staging of a Victorian house, however, still looks great. In part that’s because “Hook” shares an aesthetic sensibility with its late Victorian source material. There’s a Peake-ish, illustrative quality to the film’s composition (“Slaughterboard” comes to mind.). From the set-design to the wirework the frames are busy, but harmonious and intelligible.
Rufio’s death feels oddly timed—I spent the whole final scene thinking about it, wondering if it would ultimately be undone. Marita suggested that this could be the point, but agreed that it could also simply be badly-executed. The publication history of this text (even before extra-Barrie adaptations) is so complex that my sense of the degree to which this decision could be a comment on the source material is muddled. At one point I found myself wondering where I remembered Hook being an Etonian from. The book? The play? It wasn’t necessarily important, just indicative of how messy the version history is and the impact of that on my reception.
***
"Bugsy Malone"
I had never seen this before. The script is pretty good, as are the songs. I had the weird feeling throughout that someone had written a solid 1930s gangster movie, but it was 1976 and no one would make it until the writer suggested casting it entirely with children (which doesn’t really change anything except the final fight sequence, but okay, sure). Apparently no: it was always conceived as pretty much what you see here.
- Per Wiki, the children do not sing. In fact almost all the singing was done by the songwriter, because the production was pressed for time.
- THAT’S JODIE FOSTER??
- Why shoot this in England? How many American kids did they have to fly over?
- The song about Bugsy does not describe Bugsy very well.