|
By
NICK ZEGARAC
King Kong (1933) was and,
arguably remains, a marvel of stop motion
animation. Directed by the tag team of visionary
maverick Merian C. Cooper and adventurer, Ernest
B. Shoedsack -- the tale is that of the great ape
-- the eight wonder of the world. Oversized, burly
and with a penchant for human sacrifice and erotic
love (at least with Fay Wray), Kong is sought
after by filmmaker, Carl Denham (Robert
Armstrong). Actually, Denham's more interested in
exotic realism and the idea of transforming the
down-to-earth Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) into an exotic
creation of a mystic isle. However, when Denham
and his cast are found out by the native tribe of
headhunters, who mean to use Ann as a human
sacrifice for the towering simian, Denham gets a
better idea. He tranquilizes Kong and transports
him to New York City…oh yeah, smell the disaster.
At a lavish gala unveiling the ravenous reporters
generate a barrage of flashbulb activity that
infuriates Kong. He breaks his chains, reclaims
Ann and climbs the Empire State Building where,
sadly, he meets with his untimely end.
For years several key sequences of this
melodramatic horror/adventure yarn lay on the
cutting room floor -- thanks to the Breen/Hays
censors who thought them too scandalous for
contemporary folk. Perhaps the most revealing (no
pun intended) of these excised pieces is a moment
early on in the jungle where Ann, having passed
out in the hairy fist of her captor, lies helpless
while the curious primate peels away layers of her
dress to see what's underneath.
An interesting bit of trivia finds that the famous
dinosaurs that inhabit the island, and battle with
Kong on several occasions, are actually holdovers
from an abandoned project at RKO entitled
'Creation.' Revolutionary for its day, Kong
continued to inspire Cooper and others over the
years -- primarily because RKO had a colossal
super hit on their hands and thought that they
could cost cut and output some lousy sequels with
the same revenue attached.
Warner's newly minted DVD King Kong is and isn't
what one would hope for. Before delving into a
critique of the quality put forth herein, there is
a basis of contention that this reviewer would
like to put forth and then let the chips of public
opinion fall where they may.
Aside: a while back, several key figures in
Warner's restoration process went on record for
another classic film, claiming that they could
effectively clean and remove all the grit and
grain from old movies and make them smooth and
'new' looking -- but that that was not the point
of film restoration. Rather, the point -- so we
are told -- is to render the image comparable to
what it must have looked like the year the film
was shot.
This reviewer would disagree with that assessment.
If we were talking about the restoration of a
classic theatre and someone suggested that the
upholstery should not be recovered because then
the vintage allure of coffee spills and greasy
popcorn stains would not show through, one would
find the argument totally insane. The idea in
restoring a classic theatre would of course be to
bring back the state of the art splendor of the
room as it appeared on the night before a single
human butt was allowed to be seated.
And, in terms of film restoration, this reviewer
is not talking about generating internal digital
intrusions onto the original film elements (ergo,
inserting mattes or removing or adding details
which did not exist in the original film). But
printing and reproduction processes of the period
in which any film from the first half of the last
100 years was shot in were, arguably, inferior to
those at our disposal today.
With HD DVD looming large on the horizon, it
behooves the purveyors of classic archives to
remember that what the home consumer is most
interested in is a pristine image above all else.
It also behooves the restoration expert to recall
that when an 'old' movie first premiered -- it
most likely did so in an almost pristine condition
-- free of dirt, most grain and all scratches that
time has inserted throughout the years.
Now, on the subject of grain: film grain on a film
format is more that acceptable since film itself
is an organic substance. But grain transferred
onto a digital format and projected onto a
high-resolution television monitor is not natural
looking. More to the point it is highly
distracting and rarely appears as it did or should
during a theatrical presentation. If anything,
film grain on a television monitor misrepresents
the original image as unstable and unappealing.
Having stated the obvious I return to Kong: the
black and white image is hardly pristine. Though
looking light years younger than it ever has --
and thanks to an exhaustive investigative research
for lost elements that extended to archives around
the world -- Kong is better looking now than it
was before. But grain is obtrusive throughout.
Age-related artifacts riddle the print. Yes, they
are more subdued than they have ever been in the
past -- but they are not absent as they should be.
As a result, one finds the eye visually distracted
to portions of the screen where grain and
artifacts are most highly concentrated. The added
degradation inherent in the stop-animation
process, plus excessive layering of matte artistry
and multi-layered effects, as presented on DVD
generate an image quality that is 'busy' on the
eye with seemingly too much to look at in every
frame. On smaller monitors this distraction is
minimal. But on 60-80 inch displays (both
television and projection monitors) the image on
Kong is decidedly painful on the eye. The audio is
very nicely cleaned up and presented at an
adequate listening level.
Extras include an audio commentary, the marvelous
documentary "I Am Kong" that charts the life and
times of Merian C. Cooper, as well as the
extensive making of Kong that is divided into
sections that thoroughly encompass the production
of King Kong. There's even a laborious recreation
of 'the lost spider sequence' meticulously
reconstructed by Peter Jackson -- whose new Kong
movie makes this 1933 version look like the Bible
according to Planet of the Apes. Bottom line: King
Kong is resplendent sci-fi drama with a good story
and some genuinely interesting moments. That it
appears here to probably the best effect we are
likely to see as home consumers is indeed a let
down -- since restoration (at least by this
reviewer's estimation) is supposed to take a
crumbling piece of art and restore it to a level
that anyone can enjoy. |
