I was about to make a comment on the last Spirit post and then I decided to make a post about it instead. I think this whole thing is going to turn out badly for the most part, but I hold out a teensy bit of hope that something worthwhile will happen, too.
If you go here you can see both Spirit trailers that have come out so far. They look kind of weird, but I think the potential is there for the onscreen emergence of some of the visual and narrative punch that makes Frank Miller such a unique talent in comics. (I included the image above because love of Converse Chucks is so Miller). Comic books are the closest thing to a motion picture without the actual motion; I think the cinematic possibilities of any great graphic storyteller are worth sniffing out.
While the first trailer looks mostly like more Sin City footage, the second one has a ton more diversity, color and just plain wackness. Yes, it might play like art house gone bad, and it might play like a too-literal translation of a Frank Miller comic. (The shots of Samuel Jackson in the Nazi outfit have me wondering if there's an extensive hallucination sequence or two on the way, it smacks loudly of the Sin City story Hell and Back.)
It might also be the wrong way to turn a graphic novel into a movie. Movies like Creepshow and Ang Lee's Hulk get it wrong, in my opinion, trying to make the movie look like a comic book, with panel borders and stylized colorful backgrounds. The shots in trailer #2 of Jackson whipping around ninja style with animated speed lines behind him look pretty much just like that. But are they? Trailer #2, when I saw it on the big screen, made me think that perhaps the bizarre chemistry he's going for will work. Perhaps.If you're still with me so far, then you should probably go ahead here and watch the actual clip shown at Comic-Con. It's terrible, and it adds an entirely new element to Miller's approach that has me completely baffled. So everything I just said is kind of out the window.
And while I'm being so negative, I thought this poster campaign was awful. The idea is fine except that the words are printed on the actress's faces. I find that terribly jarring; I mean... think how gorgeous Scarlett Johansson would look in this picture without them. I only hope it was the idea of the marketing department and not anyone making the actual movie. While I'm at it, I hope the Comic-Con clip was a hoax.To end on a more positive note, Jordan posted a half-dozen sample pages of the original Spirit comic here. They're not from the same story, but they do provide a great look at William Eisner's influential style. (Jordan posted these for me back in April, and I just looked at them today... for some reason I thought he'd scanned, like, lots and lots of pages and never thought I had the time to look at them. Silly. Anyway, thanks dude.)
2 comments:
One thing I always love about you, Octopunk is your eternal optimism about things. For me, after getting past the lame posters, two trailers that made it look as if all the action takes place on a cloud, and that bizzare Comic Con footage, any initial enthusiasm I had about this project has been deflated. I mean, Comic Con is where people go to cock tease the audiance with upcoming product. The polite clapping/laughter heard during the presentation suggests that this film is going to hit the floor like a led balloon. Christ, even Frank Miller was apparently bored, cranky, and overall just an asshole.
Yeah, thanks.
I have a feeling Miller's going to come off something like Tim Burton when he's at his worst: basically a glorified art director who somehow got to be a film director.
Those posters would be awesome if they moved the type off the faces.
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