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