Billions of blue blistering barnacles!
As ya'll may remember, I'm pretty interested in the Tintin movie. Here, here, and here are previous posts on the subject. (Lj Archive's search function rocks...) The last I heard about the project, one of the studios was pulling out because they really didn't get what Tintin was all about.
At any rate, TS at All Intensive Purposes drew my attention to an an Economist article about Tintin. The article asserts that Tintin is really a European hero, which is probably why he hasn't ever had the widespread success that he's had in the States. I agree that if the movie is pulled off, that will change. Assuming that Tintin does end up the subject of a Hollywood blockbuster, many around the world will soon think he is American. Hergé’s heirs know Tintin’s fame will take on quite different, global dimensions, in a way that will be hard to control. That will mark a big change.
After Hergé’s death, his wife Fanny inherited the rights to his work. She remains in overall artistic control of the Hergé Studios in Brussels (day to day the studios are run by Fanny’s second husband, Nick Rodwell, a British businessman). The studios are known for the ferocity with which they guard the works, scouring the world for abuses of copyright from Hergé’s old offices on a smart shopping avenue.
Mrs Rodwell confesses to seeing risks in Hollywood doing Tintin. To her, the charm of Hergé’s work is absolutely “European”-more “nuanced” than an American comic strip. The American style of telling a story threatens that European “sensibility”, she suggests: American narratives are “very dynamic, but more violent, and are much more aggressively paced.”
Hergé wanted the risk taken. He died days before a planned face-to-face meeting with Mr Spielberg, but had been briefed on the director’s thinking by a trusted assistant, Alain Baran, sent to Los Angeles to open negotiations. Mr Baran later wrote that Mr Spielberg saw Tintin as an “Indiana Jones for kids”, imagining Jack Nicholson as Captain Haddock. Such talk did not alarm Hergé. He said a film-maker like Mr Spielberg should be given free rein, and told his wife: “This Tintin will doubtless be different, but it will be a good Tintin.”
Given what I know about the movie so far, I'm not quite sure that the hero will be American. They originally cast the kid from Love Actually to play the intrepid boy reporter, but the delay in filming caused him to drop out of the whole thing. I don't know who they're looking at to replace him with, though apparently they're starting filming next month.
The article then goes a little into the author's--Herge's--personal history, especially writing for a German run newspaper in Belgium during WWII, and concludes the article with the suggestion that Tintin's pragmatism in the face of overwhelming odds. Interviewed late in life, Hergé acknowledged the links between his wartime experiences and his moral outlook. The second world war lies behind a great deal in Tintin, just as it lies deep beneath the political instincts of many on the European continent. It matters a lot that the Anglo-Saxon world has a different memory of that same war: it is a tragic event, but not a cause for shame, nor a reminder of impotence.
Tintin has never fallen foul of the 1949 French law on children’s literature. He is not a coward, and the albums do not make that vice appear in a favourable light. But he is a pragmatist, albeit a principled one. Perhaps Anglo-Saxon audiences want something more from their fictional heroes: they want them imbued with the power to change events, and inflict total defeat on the wicked. Tintin cannot offer something so unrealistic. In that, he is a very European hero.
Given that I grew up with the series, I'm probably not the Anglo-Saxon to pontificate on whether or not Americans and Brits can really appreciate Tintin for who he is. I think the stories are easy to translate into any culture, as they're generally just swashbuckling adventure tales. I know a lot of people who, like me, grew up with the stories, though I know a lot more that don't know what the hell I'm talking about* when I get excited about the movie. I blame poor marketing in the US. I can't recall any US marketing outside of once seeing some Tintin toys at a speciality shop in LA. It's all over Europe.
The reason that Spielberg is involved in the movie version is that early reviews of Raiders of the Lost Ark compared that very American movie to the Tintin stories, and Spielberg became interested in the series he'd just been compared to. Hell, Herge didn't trust anyone but Spielberg to make the movie.
At any rate, despite the delays, I'm happy to see that they're moving forward. I can't wait to see what Spielberg and Jackson do with the film.
*I'm sort of used to people not knowing what the hell i'm talking about.
At any rate, TS at All Intensive Purposes drew my attention to an an Economist article about Tintin. The article asserts that Tintin is really a European hero, which is probably why he hasn't ever had the widespread success that he's had in the States. I agree that if the movie is pulled off, that will change. Assuming that Tintin does end up the subject of a Hollywood blockbuster, many around the world will soon think he is American. Hergé’s heirs know Tintin’s fame will take on quite different, global dimensions, in a way that will be hard to control. That will mark a big change.
After Hergé’s death, his wife Fanny inherited the rights to his work. She remains in overall artistic control of the Hergé Studios in Brussels (day to day the studios are run by Fanny’s second husband, Nick Rodwell, a British businessman). The studios are known for the ferocity with which they guard the works, scouring the world for abuses of copyright from Hergé’s old offices on a smart shopping avenue.
Mrs Rodwell confesses to seeing risks in Hollywood doing Tintin. To her, the charm of Hergé’s work is absolutely “European”-more “nuanced” than an American comic strip. The American style of telling a story threatens that European “sensibility”, she suggests: American narratives are “very dynamic, but more violent, and are much more aggressively paced.”
Hergé wanted the risk taken. He died days before a planned face-to-face meeting with Mr Spielberg, but had been briefed on the director’s thinking by a trusted assistant, Alain Baran, sent to Los Angeles to open negotiations. Mr Baran later wrote that Mr Spielberg saw Tintin as an “Indiana Jones for kids”, imagining Jack Nicholson as Captain Haddock. Such talk did not alarm Hergé. He said a film-maker like Mr Spielberg should be given free rein, and told his wife: “This Tintin will doubtless be different, but it will be a good Tintin.”
Given what I know about the movie so far, I'm not quite sure that the hero will be American. They originally cast the kid from Love Actually to play the intrepid boy reporter, but the delay in filming caused him to drop out of the whole thing. I don't know who they're looking at to replace him with, though apparently they're starting filming next month.
The article then goes a little into the author's--Herge's--personal history, especially writing for a German run newspaper in Belgium during WWII, and concludes the article with the suggestion that Tintin's pragmatism in the face of overwhelming odds. Interviewed late in life, Hergé acknowledged the links between his wartime experiences and his moral outlook. The second world war lies behind a great deal in Tintin, just as it lies deep beneath the political instincts of many on the European continent. It matters a lot that the Anglo-Saxon world has a different memory of that same war: it is a tragic event, but not a cause for shame, nor a reminder of impotence.
Tintin has never fallen foul of the 1949 French law on children’s literature. He is not a coward, and the albums do not make that vice appear in a favourable light. But he is a pragmatist, albeit a principled one. Perhaps Anglo-Saxon audiences want something more from their fictional heroes: they want them imbued with the power to change events, and inflict total defeat on the wicked. Tintin cannot offer something so unrealistic. In that, he is a very European hero.
Given that I grew up with the series, I'm probably not the Anglo-Saxon to pontificate on whether or not Americans and Brits can really appreciate Tintin for who he is. I think the stories are easy to translate into any culture, as they're generally just swashbuckling adventure tales. I know a lot of people who, like me, grew up with the stories, though I know a lot more that don't know what the hell I'm talking about* when I get excited about the movie. I blame poor marketing in the US. I can't recall any US marketing outside of once seeing some Tintin toys at a speciality shop in LA. It's all over Europe.
The reason that Spielberg is involved in the movie version is that early reviews of Raiders of the Lost Ark compared that very American movie to the Tintin stories, and Spielberg became interested in the series he'd just been compared to. Hell, Herge didn't trust anyone but Spielberg to make the movie.
At any rate, despite the delays, I'm happy to see that they're moving forward. I can't wait to see what Spielberg and Jackson do with the film.
*I'm sort of used to people not knowing what the hell i'm talking about.