King Kong: Everything Old Is New Again

Anyone who reads this blog (hello...anyone???) knows I am kind of ambivalent about remakes. I love nostalgia on the one hand and think it's always fun to revisit works of art from days gone by, hopefully to glean some new nugget of insight into the work itself. On the other hand, I worry that we're all getting a bit lazy with our creative impulses and are becoming content to just mine themes and characters that have already made an impression on our hearts and minds. So when deciding to make a remake I think the creators really need to have a strong reason, something significant to add or exemplify that has never been included before. If not, the work ends up begging the question "why?", since the original is often complete and fine on its own and needed little or no expansion.

"King Kong" is a work that might be an exception, in that while the original was really quite successful in its own right, we now have the 1976 remake in our minds as well, a film that I didn't think was awful, but cannot be considered the definitive version of the tale. Given that, and the new advances in technology, I think another Kong remake wasn't really out of the question. The trouble always come with answering the question "how are you going to A) make it different and B) remain true to all the elements that made the original successful."

Peter Jackson's answer to that question seems to have been to concentrate more strongly than ever on the pathos and tragedy in the relationship between Kong and Ann Darrow. He spends more time than any of the previous directors on their relationship, and helped by the magic of special effects, seems to mine more emotion from it as well. That seems to have been the major stamp he has left on this remake; nearly everything else, the plot, the characters, and the setting (mercifully returned to the Depression era) are basically unchanged.

Is it enough to warrant an entire new film? Sure, why not? I was very impressed with Naomi Watts in this film, going from a somewhat naive struggling actress who is becoming desperate to put food on her table to a young woman who finds herself unable to sell out this massive beast that has touched her heart, even at the expense of fame and fortune. She really grows in that jungle, and discovers herself, unlike most of the men, who remain dedicated to their goal of getting rich and/or famous, at nearly any cost.

I think placing the film in the 30's is key to this underlying theme of greed vs. conscience. In the 70's version, where the economy wasn't nearly as bad, you didn't quite have the same kind of empathy with these desperate souls who seem to be just greedy on the surface but are really being propelled by desperation and fear into risking their lives and souls for the sake of a dollar. Most of the main characters are either unemployed or nearly so, and all are eager for some kind of financial security. That of course doesn't excuse the way they exploit Kong, but it does go a long ways toward explaining their behavior and making them human for the audience.

There are a few other slight differences betweent this film and previous versions. This film's Jack Driscoll, while still heroic, doesn't seem to register as strongly as past versions (in this respect I think Jeff Bridges Driscoll may be the strongest of all, to be honest). For some reason Brody's Driscoll just seems to be more restrained and quiet than other versions; the one thing I remember most is his seemingly endless supply of long, longing gazes at Driscoll. I never felt as though I knew him like I knew Carl Denham or Ann Darrow.

Also, Kong is less savage in this version. While previous Kongs wantonly murdered innocents on the streets of New York, this Kong just seems to push things and people out of the way, and seems less angry than confused and irritated. Each time he grabs a girl that he mistakenly thinks is Darrow, rather than killing them he just kind of tosses them aside softly. The older Kongs might have bitten their heads off!! This is again probably a wise choice by Jackson; it makes his final stand on the Empire State Building all the more tragic because it just doesn't seem like he really has to be killed. It's kind of hard to argue that with previous Kongs who were chewing up and crushing people left and right.

The adventure scenes in the film are obviously much more sophisticated than past versions. The brontosaurus stampede, the fight with the T Rexs, the creepy crevass scene and the battle between Kong and the giant bats were all visual feasts. Though I have to say at times the film kind of suffered from "Indiana Jones" disease, that is, it kept throwing obstacles and near misses at the characters at such a breakneck pace your suspension of disbelief was really taxed. I won't give too much away, but there were moments in a couple of those scenes that just seem way too stylized and choreographed to me; the characters would have died had things happened that way in real life, period.

I guess I come away from the film thinking that while I didn't glean a lot of new insight into the story, a whole new generation of kids might have been exposed to something they wouldn't have been otherwise. It's highly unlikely modern children would bother to rent the older versions, and here we have basically the same themes with modern pacing and packaging. That is probably a good thing. I think any time people are exposed to themes of greed vs. virtue and the corruptive influence man can have on nature, it's a net gain. And these themes are powerfully conveyed in the 2005 "King Kong".

King Kong: In Defense of Carl Denham

"King Kong" has always been sort of the quintessential "beauty and the beast" story. A huge hulking prehistoric ape is wrenched from his home island and taken to New York, where he flies into a murderous rage at the sight of Ann Darrow, an actress he is smitten with. Eventually, he is killed by airplanes atop the Empire State Building, after which filmmaker Carl Denham observes that "it was beauty killed the beast". Conventional wisdom has always been that this story is really about the power of a beautiful woman to soothe, tame and perhaps doom, a beast that was previously savage and uncontrollable. The exploitation and destruction of a natural force by modern man is another oft cited theme of "King Kong", with Carl Denham, the shameless, greedy self-promoter taking the mantle of de facto villain who forcibly removes poor Kong from his island paradise and in doing so, condemns him to ultimate death.

These themes are easy to see and I can't say that I would even disagree with them. But after seeing Peter Jackson's latest version of the story, I feel compelled to argue from a different perspective, one that places Denham's character is a somewhat more understandable, if not less guilty, light.

Jackson's remake returns the Kong story to 1933, during the heart of the Depression. Some very effective opening scenes reveal an America that is desperate and destitute. Many thousands of men are without work or income, and many of those lucky enough to be employed have at best, tenuous grasps on jobs. Ann Darrow, for instance, is an actress whose show is closed down and whose mentor has decided to return to Chicago. She is on the verge of sinking to burlesque work when Carl Denham discovers her and asks her to join in his film. Denham is in likewise desperate straits, having the funding for his film pulled at the moment he has chartered a ship to take him to a mysterious island that is to be the location of his new film.

It is through this prism of desperation that I viewed Denham's character in the new version. He is undoubtedly shameless and always on the lookout for financial opportunities; often his pursuit of fame and fortune seem to cloud his better judgement (witness the scene where he withholds the lowering Darrow and writer Driscoll's escape bridge until Kong is close enough to ensure his possible capture). And his epitaphs for his fallen filmmaker comrades don't seem particularly sincere, in fact, they come out as almost humorous.

However, the key to my new interpretation lies in the decision by him and later the ship's captain and crew to try to capture Kong and put him on display. This decision has always been placed in a very negative context, and it's pretty easy to see why. You've got this incredible, unique (one of a kind?) creature that exists in a small pocket of land that seems to have defied time, and you take him out of that environment and put him on display for the wealthy masses of New York City, where he is drugged, disoriented and apparently, on the verge of utter despair. He is made to suffer for the entertainment of others, and that is not an action that is easily defensible.

However, consider the world that Carl Denham (and in fact, all the characters) live in, and what type of life they would have gone back to had they NOT taken Kong with them? Denham would almost certainly have gone to prison, and many of his film crew with him. Darrow would have probably had to actually perform in burlesque, a venue she may not have had the intestinal fortitude for and which may have left her jaded and prematurely old. She might have struck up a romance with Driscoll, but if he's writing screenplays for Denham his prospects probably aren't too great either. In any event, it's easy to see why Denham and the film and ship crew may have felt justified in capturing Kong. After all, they hadn't had the experience with him that Darrow had; they hadn't been privy to his private moments of near humanity and nobility. To them, Kong was no different that a huge crocodile or tiger or any other animal. I don't think they meant to inflict harm on him; more likely they just saw the end of their own personal financial misery and didn't think much beyond that.

Again, this is not intended to defend what they did, but perhaps to at least explain it. I felt terribly for Kong, particularly in this version where he seems to be much less murderous than in past versions and really only kills when he is attacked or threatened in some way. But from Denham and the others' point of view, Kong's presence would mean vastly improved circumstances not only for themselves and whatever family they may have.

Now one may argue that it wasn't only Kong that would have ensured riches for the crews. Any one of the dinosaurs or prehistoric creatures that lived on Skull Island would have had roughly the same effect, though they wouldn't have had the ready made "backstory" that Kong did by falling in love with Darrow. Perhaps Denham considered this and rejected it because Kong was so close and his capture was made possible by his connection to Darrow. And again, he probably didn't differentiate between Kong and the other creatures, or even between mammals and reptiles. All these beasts were just potential dollar signs in his eyes, and Kong was the one he was lucky enough to get.

Granted, this leaves his final line all the more puzzling. Was it really "beauty" that killed the beast? Uhm, not really. If Darrow had had her way, Kong would have remained safe and sound on Skull Island. And if she had had her way in New York, Kong would probably have been drugged in a similar way as he was previously and then shipped back to the island, again safe. I understand that Denham is getting at Kong's obsession with Darrow as the reason he was able to be captured in the first place, but without his own greed there would have been no capture! So, even here, Denham is in character, abrogating his own responsibility the consequences of his actions by diverting it to someone else. It wasn't "Beauty" that killed Kong, Carl...it was you!

Denham, in his own way, probably saw what he did to Kong as ultimately being very good for Darrow, Driscoll and all the others. He seems blind to their empathy with him and the wrongness of his exploitation of the giant ape. This is probably delving further into the tale than is necessary or prudent, but Denham is the type of person who has probably been scraping and fighting for every nickel he ever owned since he was very young. Denham's highest virtue is no doubt simple survival, and while I do think he has boundaries he wouldn't go beyond in pursuit of it (outright robbery, violence, murder, etc.), he probably sees his actions through the prism of a man who is alone in the world, working hard and possessing a vision that needs to be seen and appreciated. You get the feeling watching this version of "Kong" that Denham really starts to believe his own hype; all the stuff about pursuing a dream and bringing wonder to everyone for the price of an admission ticket...at times he almost seems like more like a revival preacher than a director.

Denham in his way, embodies both the romance (the wide eyed adventurer who yearns to trek the earth in search of great mysteries and make them come alive for others) and the reality (the broke, craven wannabe who is willing to sacrifice almost anything in pursuit of riches) of "King Kong". While it's easy (and understandable) to hate the guy, a reasoned examination of the circumstances of his life and his resulting philosophy compel us to see him as a man who truly thinks he's justified in what he does. While "King Kong" is in many respects a story of broad, easily defined morality and diametrically opposed forces, Carl Denham is the one aspect of the tale that seems to defy easy categorizing.

For that, if for nothing else, I welcome his presence in this fantastic, romantic, tragic tale.

Tomorrow: "King Kong", the review

Prisoner of the Mind

"Are you sure?"

How often do you hear that phrase? Daily? Every other day? And how often do you have any trouble answering it? Probably not often; after all, you are either "sure" or "unsure" right?

For those of us suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, the answer is never that simple.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, OCD for short, is a disease of the mind that somehow short circuits the natural part of the brain that allows people to be "sure" of something. This could be a moral question ("Did I do the right thing?") or a purely factual one ("Did I turn off the stove before I left today?"). Now these may seem like perfectly normal questions to you, and they are. Everyone deals with these types of questions everyday. The difference for OCD sufferers is that they don't seem to have the ability to be comfortable with a final decision on these matters. They aren't "sure". They need to "check" their behavior in some way. Sometimes this checking takes the form of the well known OCD behavior of "hand washing", which is a response to the question "Did I wash my hands enough?". Or it can take other, more bizarre forms, such as the impulse to continually drive around the block, checking the same spot of street to make sure you didn't unwittingly hit someone with your car. Checking doesn't have to be physical behavior either. Thought processes can exhibit checking behavior too; constantly mulling over the morality of your actions, or worrying that you may have said the wrong thing to your boss are both examples of non-physical checking.

OCD is a terribly frustrating disease in many ways. It attacks people who are otherwise intelligent and logical but for this one enigmatic inability to decide when "enough" is truly "enough". We all wash our hands, yes, but at some point in the process our brains "tell" us that the washing we have done is sufficient. Not so for someone with OCD. Repeating the process will probably provide some comfort eventually, but often not before a tremendous amount of time is unnecessariy wasted by needless uncertainty. Often, a hand washer will rub his/her hands raw before feeling safe, and sometimes not even then.

OCD is often associated with rituals, or what might be termed, "good luck actions" that need to be performed by the sufferer before he or she can feel safe. Hand washing is a ritual, as is repeating the same phrase or song over and over again in one's head, or touching a door in a certain way several times before actually exiting the room. In this way, the sufferer can somehow reduce the omnipresent threat of danger he or she feels about the world by enforcing a type of order on the chaos.

I suffer from OCD and I can say from first hand experience that generalized fear and uncertainty about your ability to confront the daily conflicts and risks that everyone faces is a big part of OCD. I was raised by overprotective parents, who loved me dearly but didn't allow me to face risks enough to feel comfortable with them. Thus, to me, even the smallest risk, that I might have said or even thought the wrong thing, became a huge issue. I was going to go to Hell for things I said or thought; I was worried I would go crazy and do something that would hurt someone I loved. I never did, and now realize that I never would have. But at the time I was a young, frightened little boy who didn't have enough experience with the world to truly be confident with my own ability to cope. So I thought, and I ran phrases and songs through my head to drown out the negative, troubling thoughts. In that day, there was no name for OCD so I had no frame of reference to draw from. I tried to tell my parents what I was feeling, but they were just as mystified as I. I suppose I could have gone to a therapist, but in the absence of any experience with the disease, it may very well have been misdiagnosed and I may have been better not going at all.

It was a problem I dared not reveal to others. Though I did tell my parents, particularly during episodes that became unbearable, I didn't run to them every time I had an "episode" or I would have been going to them every day. It stopped me from doing a lot of things, and hurt my ability to do others. I was afraid to be alone in the dark, I didn't like unfamiliar situations or conflicts I had to face alone. I got nervous or anxious in such situations and did my best to avoid them altogether. I learned to drive as a teenager, but never liked to go out of town, and certainly didn't feel comfortable driving in large cities with multiple lanes.

I covered up my problem with flimsy excuses. I didn't own a car because I didn't need one and it saved me money. I didn't date because I hadn't found anyone I felt that strongly about. I didn't go to a lot of social occasions because I thought they would be boring. In truth, I was afraid of change and doubted my ability to adapt to it.

A year or so after my dad died, I finall reached a point where I felt immobilized by my fears and I sought out counseling. Fortunately, I found a sympathetic, skilled therapist who recognized and correctly diagnosed my malady. She gave me books and articles to read, and set about informing me what OCD was and how to best combat it. I went to her for about eleven months, after which she was reassigned to a different location. At that point, I truly felt we had gone about as far as possible anyway, and was ready to try things on my own anyway.

Armed with this newfound knowledge, I tried to adjust myself to the outside world. I began to drive more, though still not as much as I should have. I took more risks, signed up for jobs at work I would have never signed up for previously. I became more assertive in my dealings with others, and took some more computer classes. I had a long way to go, but at least I was on the right road.

This past March, as anyone who reads these posts knows (uhm, anyone??), my mother died. It's not exaggerating to say this is the most defining (and awful) moment of my life. I had no idea how I would react to this, though as she had been in declining health for a while, I certainly had time to think about it. My fear and assumption was that I would simply cease to be able to function, basically losing the will and desire to live.

I came close.

But, in the end, I decided that whatever life had left for me, I might as well explore it as best I could. It's a cliche, but life truly is a gift, and had I decided to waste it I wouldn't have been honoring the memory or wishes of my mom. What choice did I truly have? It was life...or death. I chose life. But life was never going to be the same in so many ways. My OCD has been kicking in at high gear for a long time; my mom was diagnosed with severe emphysema and lung cancer a year or so before she passed away, and things were very stressful for the remaining period of her life. Her daily care was largely my responsibility, and things at my place of work were likewise very stressful. It was a struggle to get through each day with my sanity somewhat intact.

I am once again seeing a therapist on an irregular basis. He knows about my OCD and is trying to help me confront the issues of my new life. The future is very uncertain, as it is I suppose for everyone. On the downside, my mom, the person I was always closest to in the world, is gone. She 's not coming back, ever. As silly as that last sentence may seem, I can assure you that you might find yourself needing to repeat it if someone important to you dies. I guess losing the most important person in the world is so big you can't ever imagine it really happening. In my case, it was so big I could never imagine myself still being here after she was gone. Sometimes I still can't. It's like half of you is just...gone, and the remaining half spends much of its time searching for the missing half. And that, too, can get to be an obsession.

There are medications that can help people with OCD; I tried one but it really didn't do anything for me, other than give me uncomfortable side effects. The conclusion my therapist reached was that my condition was more than likely not a chemical but behavioral one and that "talk therapy" was probably going to be more useful than medication. I was rather hoping the meds would work; it's always easier to have a "silver bullet" than to have to slog your way through all that personal examination. But, I am what I am, and this is the situation that I have to deal with.

I read somewhere that even after OCD sufferers are diagnosed and treated, it is always hard for them to really trust their decisions because they have gone so long without really confronting risks in a mature, reasoned way they don't have most people's experience with conflict resolution. As a result, their decisions may vary from extremely cautious to extremely reckless. It's hard for them to effectively judge risk. And I find that that's true for me. You want to make your own decisions, but you need to seek out advice on things you aren't familiar with. And once the decision is made, you can't help but mull it over again and again. I've tried and had some success with, just telling myself that no one really has a monopoly on wisdom and that we all make mistakes, and that most of them are instructive and have no terrible consequences. And I try to tell myself that oftentimes indecision is ultimately worse because you end up squandering opportunities for growth.

So, I take my baby steps and I plod my way gently into the world that now seems so big and so cold and uncaring, and I try to get through each day with the knowledge that I am not perfect and that whatever I did or didn't do in the past is done and all that is left is the future. I am unsure of so many things; where I will ultimately live, what my job will be, who will be around me for companionship, what my finances will be, what my health will be like. But I know that I want to keep on living and growing as best as I can. My mom would want me to, and I owe to it myself as well.

THAT I am sure of.