The Wild Things Are Here

The long-awaited Spike Jonze-directed Where the Wild Things Are arrived in theaters on Friday, and the film—based on the beloved 1963 book by author and illustrator Maurice Sendak—topped the domestic box office over the weekend, grossing an estimated $32.5 million from 3,735 theaters, according to Variety.

Just like the classic children’s book, which won Sendak the Caldecott Medal, the PG-rated movie’s appeal extends far beyond contemporaries of its main character: those over the age of 18 comprised 43 percent of the audience this weekend, while families accounted for a mere 27 percent. While I’ve yet to see Where the Wild Things Are, it will likely get me to a movie theater for the first time in about two years. (So there’s no misunderstanding, I love movies and watch a lot of them, but I simply prefer to do so from the comfort of my couch with conveniences of home, i.e., wine.)

Obviously, Where the Wild Things Are is one of the hottest topics on the Web in recent weeks. More importantly, the book and the movie both seem to inspire creativity, awakening that sense of pure imagination that resides within all of us.

So, The Madness of Art offers this roundup of all things wild.

Trailers, Reviews and Such

Along with its early box office success, Where the Wild Things Are has been received fairly well by most critics. Negative reviews, however, are not difficult to find: some slamming the film for not living up to the book, others criticizing it for being too dark and scary, or too slow-paced, for children. But overall, as indicated by its “69-percent Fresh” Tomatometer rating and Metascore of 71, the reviews are generally positive.

Rolling Stone‘s Peter Travers gives it four (out of four) stars, writing:

Forget every sugary kid-stuff cliché Hollywood shoves at you. The defiantly untamed Where the Wild Things Are is a raw and exuberant mind-meld between Maurice Sendak … and Spike Jonze … who honors the explosive feelings of childhood by creating a visual and emotional tour de force. The movie barrels out at you like a nine-year-old boy filled to bursting with joys, fears and furies he can’t articulate.

Manohla Dargis, of the New York Times, calls the film an “alternately perfect and imperfect if always beautiful adaptation,” adding that Jonze “has made a work of art that stands up to its source and, in some instances, surpasses it.” Entertainment Weekly‘s Lisa Schwarzbaum raves, calling Where the Wild Things Are “[p]rofoundly beautiful and affecting.” Grading it an A, Schwarzbaum concludes:

In his transcendent movie adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are, Spike Jonze not only respects the original text but also honors movie lovers with the same clarity of vision. This is one of the year’s best. To paraphrase the Wild Thing named KW, I could eat it up, I love it so.

Film and culture writer Kim Morgan loves Where the Wild Things Are as well, commending Jonze for blending the best qualities of an “art film” and “authentic kid’s movie”:

It’s a hero’s journey that’s oddly real, truly childlike and yet uniquely adult while remaining fantastical all at once. Not an easy feat, but one Spike Jonze conquers brilliantly. This movie is personal, and though I sense many critics will be disappointed by the places it doesn’t go, I loved the movie for its elusive, human and animalistic beauty — a beauty that will occasionally make you gasp and, in certain moments, cry. And not because you feel sappy, but because, quite perfectly, you feel wild.

CNN’s reviewer says the film “gets it right.” USA Today‘s Claudia Puig writes, “Where the Wild Things Are is a fiercely innovative film with surprising texture and nuance. It captures the joy and exuberance of childhood without shying away from its very real pains and woes.” Time‘s Mary Pols praised Where the Wild Things Are for much the same reason, writing of Jonze’s adaptation:

He has broken one Hollywood doctrine: the notion that children’s cinema is best devised for miniature couch potatoes who require a steady stream of laughs, action sequences and references to flatulence….The beauty of Where the Wild Things Are is that for all its fantastical elements, it’s a work of realism, an exploration of mood and emotion. Like Sendak’s book, which on initial publication was considered too edgy and creepy by some critics and libraries, the movie is dark, but it is perhaps even more richly cathartic.

Echoing the initial reaction to the book’s release decades ago, some criticism–or debate (if you can call it that)—focuses on the fact that the film is too dark and too scary for children, to which Sendak recently responded, “Let them wet their pants.” Most reviewers, however, when it comes to the “too frightening for kids” issue, seem to agree. As NPR’s David Edelstein writes,

I think the scary charge is nonsense, though: Kids like to be scared. And these wild things, in the end, are human, a family in all its imperfections, which is what this boy needs. Unlike the childish carnivores of Sendak’s book, these movie beasts just wouldn’t eat their own.

The AP, highlighting concerns about potential fears among young viewers, writes that Where the Wild Things Are “certainly is more challenging, and potentially more rewarding, than many family films.” Others, like the Washington Post’s Ann Hornaday (whose review is overwhelmingly positive), deem it too emotionally intense and complex for them to even understand, never mind reap any rewards:

Viewers expecting a consoling, soft-focus version of an anodyne children’s story should be forewarned: Jonze takes the story to the dark and edgy place where devotion slips into aggression, where loneliness and fear are indistinguishable from liberation and desire. This isn’t to say that ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ isn’t suitable for children; it’s just that it will probably be most enjoyable to children with a working knowledge of Bruno Bettelheim’s ‘The Uses of Enchantment’ and psychoanalytic theory.

Co-star Catherine Keener had a different take on all the fuss about whether or not the film is “appropriate” for children. “I totally think the parents are more afraid,” she said. “They’re projecting a lot of stuff.”

For a society where children are “trained on slam-bam action animation” (as Roger Ebert put it), often filled with not-so-subtle violence (Astro Boy, to use a current example), it’s interesting that this is even a discussion, let alone a controversy.

Michael Phillips, of the Chicago Tribune, in his glowing review, echoes Keener’s take on the matter:

I suspect kids will go for it more than their parents; in my experience, it’s parents who tend to get fussed up about material they perceive, often wrongly, as ‘too dark’ or difficult. There’s a certain amount of pain in ‘Where the Wild Things Are,’ but it’s completely earned. The movie fills you with all sorts of feelings, and I suspect children will recognize those feelings as their own.

Andrew Romano, in a brillant Newsweek.com essay, makes a strong argument that—in a “culture that wants to coddle children rather than challenge them”—kids should be exposed to Where the Wild Things Are (and other such movies) for the very reasons some deem it “controversial”: because the film is “bolder, deeper, and much, much more interesting” than most family movies, because it is intense, scary, dark, and difficult. Romano writes:

Nor is it to say that every kid will like, or get, or even be able to tolerate Where the Wild Things Are. They won’t.

But some will, and they deserve the opportunity to be provoked….In fact, the occasional dose of disorientation, of wrestling with things that are difficult to understand may even be healthy.

But for all of us who aren’t kids and aren’t bringing any to the theater with us, none of this matters. What matters is whether or not the film works for us, as both entertainment and cinematic art. Along with many others, Phillips says it does:

Truly, I am madly, deeply in love with the film version of ‘Where the Wild Things Are.’ Not since Robert Altman took on ‘Popeye’ a generation ago, and lost, has a major director addressed such a well-loved, all-ages title. This time everything works, from tip to tail, from the moment in the prologue at which director Spike Jonze freezes the action (Max, fork in hand, tearing after the family dog) to the final scene’s hard-won reconnection between Max and his mother at the kitchen table. Warner Bros. Pictures should be applauded for such a nervy and breathtaking achievement—the rare adaptation that goes deeper, not dumber, in its page-to-screen translation of a children’s classic.

Check out more than a dozen other teasers and spots on the official Where the Wild Things Are YouTube Channel, or head over to VBS.TV and meet the creative team—from the creature designer to the cinematographer. Click here, here and here for peeks behind the scenes.

A Wild Trio

Transforming a 338-word, 10-sentence, 33-page timeless children’s book, which made an indelible impression on several generations of young and old readers alike, into a full-length feature film is an unenviable task for even the most creative soul. Attempting to do so would be crazy, wouldn’t it? Or perhaps courageous? Or some mix of both. Spike Jonze, the innovative director of the wonderfully original Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, was the perfect filmmaker to tackle the project. After finally finishing the screenplay in 2005, collaborating with writer Dave Eggers, Jonze began shooting the wild rumpus in 2006, fighting to keep their creative vision intact along the way.

Here’s a list of profiles, interviews and other links to help you keep up with Jonze:

• Last month Saki Knafo profiled Jonze in the New York Times Magazine, offering an in-depth look at the director while highlighting the battle between Jonze and Warner Brothers over the tone of the movie.
• Jonze talked with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air last week about his initial concerns, his inspiration and other details about the process of bringing the film to the screen.
• Recent interviews with Jonze, presented Q&A-styles: Film.com, the San Francisco Chronicle, Pitchfork, and The Daily Beast.
• GQ offers an in-depth profile of Jonze in its October issue.
• Paste Magazine looks back at Jonze’s early work: music videos and short documentaries.
• We Love You So—Jonze’s Wild blog—is what you’d expect from this particular filmmaker: all manner of fun oddities (some connected to the film, others not), random recommendations (from Web sites, books and movies to writing tools and art exhibits), build-a-fort contests, Wild toys and costumes, and “many of the small influences that have converged to make this massive project a reality.”

Dave Eggers, who burst onto the literary scene in 2000 with his lightly fictionalized, self-consciously self-conscious memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (a Pulitzer Prize finalist), co-wrote the screenplay for Where the Wild Things Are with Jonze. His debut as a screenwriter came this summer with the release of Away We Go, which he co-wrote with his wife, Vendela Vida. His oeuvre is as wide-ranging as it is prolific, from the aforementioned post-modern memoir and hit screenplays to novel-based-on-real-events (What Is the What), short stories (How We Are Hungry), and fiction (You Shall Know Our Velocity). He also edits the Best American Nonrequired Reading series, founded McSweeney’s, and founded what has become the nonprofit 826 National.

Zeitoun, released in July, expands the Eggers bibliography to include a must-read example of straight reportage and long-form journalism. The book captures the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina—revealing some of the lesser known details of those few days in 2005—through the horrifying tale of one man and his family.

If all that (and more, really) isn’t enough, he’s penned a novelization of the screenplay based on the Sendak classic. The book, titled The Wild Things, is available, appropriately enough, in a faux-fur-covered edition. (McSweeney’s has issued a challenge inviting readers to style their Wild Things.) Read an excerpt, “Max at Sea,” published by the New Yorker, which also featured a Q&A with Eggers on its Book Bench blog. Perhaps even riskier than telling the story through the vehicle of a Hollywood film, Matt Compton writes on Flavorwire writes that it “is easily the best book ever adapted from a movie that was adapted from a picture book— but it also succeeds in its own right.” The Boston Globe‘s Steve Almond, among others, also had high praise the novel:

As should be evident, Egger has written a book for readers of all ages, without dumbing down his prose. But his highest achievement is in having found a fresh way to tell us a story we already know so well, about the monstrous forces of love and hate that mark every childhood—and pursue us howling into adulthood.

Here’s some recent interviews with Eggers: NPR, The Times of London, Rolling Stone, and The Rumpus.

But without Maurice Sendak, who has been called the Picasso of children’s literature, and his enduring creation, there would be no movie adaptation, of course. Without Sendak, who declined hundreds of requests from filmmakers through the years and eventually approached Jonze about undertaking the project, this particular version of Where the Wild Things never would have been made.

So what inspired Sendak’s most famous story? Not being able to draw horses, horrifying relatives and his own experiences as a boy, as he explains in an engrossing 2004 interview with Bill Moyers. (Check out this 2002 interview with Jeffrey Brown of the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and the story about a museum for the art of children’s books.)

It’s not often that an author, especially one of children’s books, is profiled by Rolling Stone, let alone land on the cover. In 1976, however, one of Sendak’s Wild Things graced the cover (the previous issue featured Jackson Browne, while Rod Stewart appeared on the next) of the last issue that year, which included Jonathan Cott’s profile of the “King of All Wild Things.”

In the coming weeks, we’ll get an updated picture of the man, when Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak—a documentary directed by Lance Bangs and Spike Jonze—airs on HBO.

Newsweek recently rounded up the Where the Wild Things Are brain trust—Sendak, Jonze and Eggers—for a group interview conducted by Andrew Romano. Read a portion of the interview that didn’t make the Newsweek version on his blog. Another group interview—this one with Jonze, Eggers, Keener, and Records—can be found at The A.V. Club. Over at Paste Magazine, Charles McNair attempts to understand “The Call of the Wild Things”: What secret spell has this book cast on generations of readers? What’s the real reason for its lasting popularity?

Music, Arts and Other Wild Things

And, to conclude this wild rumpus, here’s a rundown of some other wild links:

• The soundtrack (iTunes, Amazon) consists of original songs composed by Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who enlisted members of her band, Deerhunter, the Raconteurs, and a chorus of children. Check out the first single, “All is Love,” on MySpace. Read a brief interview with Karen O about the project, watch a video about the making of the soundtrack, and read the Rolling Stone review, which called it “haunted but playful.”
• See the Wild Things come to life, from Sendak’s page to Jonze’s screen, with this slideshow.
• Enjoy the work of 24 artists inspired by the story at Vice Magazine’s special site, and be sure to download the WTWTA Mini-Mag.
• Need some inspiration for your WTWTA Halloween costume? Check out Christian Joy’s crazy creations, featured at LA’s Space 15 Twenty pop-up shop celebrating the release of the film. If you couldn’t make it, many of the items (from graphic tees to pillows and wall art) on display—save for the costumes—are available at Urban Outfitters.