The Wolfman 2010
Feb. 13th, 2010 11:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
phoenix64It was good but not quite great. I believe it very much wanted to be an homage not just to the original tale of Lawrence Talbot but to the classic Universal horror films in general, and I would say they had some success with that. There's also a definite nod to the classics from Hammer Horror. I liked it at least.
I can't help but wonder if we are for the most part too civilized these days to appreciate werewolf stories, or at least this particular variation of the tale. For one thing repression just isn't what it used to be. We are still subject to the expectations of polite society but it is rather less shocking these days for someone to tell polite society to go to hell and run wild as they wish.
But beyond this particular view of howling at the moon there is another one that the movie relied heavily one, one that we are even farther away from. The majority of people these days are city dwellers with very little sense of what it is to be a part of nature red in tooth and claw as a normal part of everyday life. Most of us don't hunt, we don't even raise animals ourselves for slaughter - we don't kill on a regular basis for food or protection. We are so far away from it that it is difficult to impart a sense of the dreads and temptations associated with it, which in this case I think may be part of the reason this movie can't succeed on that level. The relationship between humans and wild nature is very much a part of this movie. Lawrence's father, like many men of that time, wanted to be a conqueror of nature, a master of it. I think Lawrence just wanted to be at peace with it and himself, to understand so he could find that peace. While these concepts are certainly applicable to other circumstances or other settings I'm not sure the filmmakers realized that they should perhaps be using a broader brush to make that possible for their audience.
Oh, a couple of other things: Anthony Hopkins was so damn good here, and I was greatly pleased to see Rick Baker back in the werewolf biz. HAI RICK.
I can't help but wonder if we are for the most part too civilized these days to appreciate werewolf stories, or at least this particular variation of the tale. For one thing repression just isn't what it used to be. We are still subject to the expectations of polite society but it is rather less shocking these days for someone to tell polite society to go to hell and run wild as they wish.
But beyond this particular view of howling at the moon there is another one that the movie relied heavily one, one that we are even farther away from. The majority of people these days are city dwellers with very little sense of what it is to be a part of nature red in tooth and claw as a normal part of everyday life. Most of us don't hunt, we don't even raise animals ourselves for slaughter - we don't kill on a regular basis for food or protection. We are so far away from it that it is difficult to impart a sense of the dreads and temptations associated with it, which in this case I think may be part of the reason this movie can't succeed on that level. The relationship between humans and wild nature is very much a part of this movie. Lawrence's father, like many men of that time, wanted to be a conqueror of nature, a master of it. I think Lawrence just wanted to be at peace with it and himself, to understand so he could find that peace. While these concepts are certainly applicable to other circumstances or other settings I'm not sure the filmmakers realized that they should perhaps be using a broader brush to make that possible for their audience.
Oh, a couple of other things: Anthony Hopkins was so damn good here, and I was greatly pleased to see Rick Baker back in the werewolf biz. HAI RICK.
