"I see little of more importance to the future of our country and of civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist. If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him."

Pauline Kael

Peter Jackson

October 31st, 1961 -  

I have to admit that my first impressions of Peter Jackson weren’t that great. But it was long before he made a name for himself as one of our most imaginative storytellers. The first Jackson film I saw was Heavenly Creatures. I thought it was just okay at the time, a little strange. The next film I saw was called Meet the Feebles. I had a crush on a guy who thought it was the best, most hysterical movie ever made. I had to track it down to rent it. I hated it. (I also hated his other favorite movie, Happy Gilmore. Clearly, the warning signs were there and I chose to ignore them.) A year before the first of his masterful Lord of the Rings films came out, I became a fan of Kate Winslet, who had just won me over with her work in Quills. It was only then that I was able to really appreciate Heavenly Creatures. There was no doubt after the Rings trilogy and his beautifully done remake of King Kong that Peter Jackson was one of my favorite directors. He just hasn’t always made my kind of movies.

Before The Rings, The Frighteners and Creatures, Jackson made a trio of low budget cheeky/gross pictures beginning with Bad Taste in 1987. Originally intended to be a 15-minute short, the project became feature length film about a group of Kiwi survivalists fighting off a group of aliens (including one played by Jackson himself) who have a taste for human flesh and what’s more, plan to harvest the planet’s population for intergalactic fast food! My favorite moment was a man head-butting a seagull. In 1989, he made Meet the Feebles, a sort of bizarre backstage parody of The Muppet Show, full of perversion, sex and drugs. It’s currently unavailable on DVD in the States. A significant note is that The Feebles is the first time he would collaborate with Fran Walsh, who would go on not only to become his wife, but to co-write each of his subsequent films. Jackson returned to the gross-out horror/comedy of Bad Taste with 1992’s Braindead {also known as Dead Alive}, which follows a zombie epidemic in Wellington, New Zealand, circa 1957. I think it’s the first film where Jackson managed to find just the right mix of laughs and shocks. My favorite bit of Braindead happens to involve a zombie baby. It’s that kind of movie.

After all of these movies, it seems quite odd to think that Jackson went on to direct Heavenly Creatures in 1994. A portrait of the obsessive friendship of a pair of disturbed young girls with a strange and vivid fantasy life, Heavenly Creatures seems nothing like Jackson’s previous work. Based on a true incident that took place in New Zealand in 1954, the film tells the story of Juliet Hulmes and Pauline Parker (played by Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey in their film debuts), whose unhealthy friendship led them to savagely murder Parker’s mother, believing that she stood in the way of their future together. While it is quite a dramatic film, and as such, a dramatic change for Jackson after his earlier films, it does include quite a lot of humorous moments, as well as some darkly funny fantasy sequences. Perhaps most remarkable are the performances by Winslet and Lynskey, who won the New Zealand Film & TV Award for Best Actress for her astounding work as Pauline. It’s not easy to upstage Kate Winslet, but Lynskey completely realizes her character from point A to B and it is astounding and heartbreaking. The film itself is disturbing. I remember watching it for the first time and being so unsettled by it that I couldn’t watch it again for quite a while. I think it was only reviewing it for this piece (the fourth time I’ve seen it) that I’m finally able to really say that it is an extraordinary picture, one that certainly launched the careers of Lynskey and Winslet and also, I think, legitimized Jackson as a filmmaker to be watched.

Indeed, his next film, The Frighteners, would be for a major studio, Universal. The film follows ghost whisperer Frank (played by Michael J. Fox) as he and his partners, a pair of quarreling ghosts who “haunt” people until they hire Frank to get rid of them, encounter a rather frightening killer ghost. Executive produced by techno-lover Robert Zemeckis, the film features some outstanding special effects, including wonderful CGI. Unlike the recent CGI-centric films of Zemeckis, though, The Frighteners never loses its sense of story. As cool as the effects are (and they’re pretty cool – especially the creepy ghost in the walls, which recalls the creepiness of Freddy Krueger stretching out of a wall in the original Nightmare on Elm Street), Jackson and Walsh understand that a movie that looks cool is not enough. The storytelling must be on par with the effects.  In this respect, The Frighteners succeeds, perfectly combining laughs, frights and visual whiz-pop.

The spirit that Jackson and Walsh contribute to what could have just been another spooky FX movie is an essential part of their next monumental undertaking, the three-film adaptation of Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings books. It’s hard to say anything more about the movies, the most epic, best fantasy caught on film since… ever, actually. What I’d like to say about it is that while another director could have made these films, they would never have captured the magic that Jackson did. He managed to create an entire world, one full of whimsy, tragedy, humor, spectacle and mostly heart and soul, which no one but he (and Walsh) could have infused it with. In making The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Jackson not only trumped everything he had done before, but created a master work that will forever be cherished as a classic, a grand achievement in cinema.

It would have been impossible to top The Lord of the Rings, but Jackson’s next project, a remake of King Kong proved that the trilogy was no quirk: He’s a supreme storyteller. His version of King Kong, based on his favorite childhood film, and one that he was originally set to remake a decade earlier, is a perfect adventure, a nod to the glamour and romance of 1930s movies, and a heartbreaking romantic triangle. Guiding Naomi Watts and Jack Black into sensational performances, Jackson brings something beautiful and new to Kong. Once again, he is able to combine jaw-dropping effects with a story full of soul.

Jackson’s newest film, The Lovely Bones, opens this month. Once again he has switched gears from epic adventure to the story of a young murdered girl. The novel The Lovely Bones has been showered with acclaim, but I remember being underwhelmed by it, despite liking the basic idea. However, knowing that Jackson is behind this film and having seen the breathtaking trailer, I can’t say that there’s any other movie I’m more looking forward to watching this holiday season. I have faith that whatever Jackson chooses to make will be filled with the magic, the imagination that only he can provide. He is one of the greatest film directors of our time, but more importantly, he is a filmmaker who believes in the power of storytelling. Let’s hope he continues to tell us stories for years and years to come.

Rick@picturesandframesmagazine.com

Select Peter Jackson Filmography

Bad Taste (1987)

Meet the Feebles (1989)

Braindead (1992)

Heavenly Creatures(1994)

The Frighteners (1996)

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

King Kong (2005)

The Lovely Bones (2009)