Tuesday night, I had the pleasure of accompaning April to her film history course. From my observations, the course is set up so that each class focuses on a different director/film maker. Peter Jackson was the subject of Tuesday’s lecture.
Lord of the Rings and King Kong are the first and only two things that spring to mind when most people think Peter Jackson. Those are very well done films, but this guy is kinda mainstream and hip right now, how does he warrant his own three hour film history lecture?
Peter Jackson is a very talented, inventive, and practically self-taught film maker. He started by running around with his parents little 8mm camera when he was 8 years old, making little movies, practicing little special effects things, etc. He is amazingly creative and it is astonishing the type of work he was able to do just working out of his garage with maybe half a dozen friends.
Peter Jackson started off as a horror, gore guy. However he always kept it really humorous. We watched his first feature length film, “Bad Taste”, and it was so incredibly low budget but it was also so incredibly well made. It was a four year project for the team. All of them starred in multiple roles, did all the special effects work, did all the camera work, etc.
Speaking of special effects, the make up and prosthetics work was really cool considering he made it all in his parent’s garage and kitchen. He has a freaking house blast off and take flight into outer space! If you ever get your hands on a copy of Bad Taste, I highly recommend you watch it and then watch the making of special as well, you will have a new found respect for Peter Jackson.
He has a very dark sense of humor, not dark in the creepy way, but dark in the Monty Python meets South Park kind of way. The next film that we sampled was “Meet the Feebles”. This was an all puppet movie, kind of a play on the muppets. If you thought Team America was the first movie to take puppets and make them do raunchy, outrageous things, watch Meet the Feebles and get back to me. Some of the things include: a rabbit that thinks he has aids, a fox that sings about loving sodomy, and a busty miss piggie clone who rather than commit suicide decides to go on a killing spree. We only watched the end of the flick but now I really want to see the rest of it.
So how did this guy ending up getting 300 million dollars to go make Lord of the Rings? I still have no idea. He made Heavenly Creatures, an independent film about two girls that murder their mother that was nominated for best original screenplay (it lost to Pulp Fiction), and then he made The Frighteners, that ghost movie with Michael J. Fox in it. I like The Fighteners a lot but it was not really a hit and or really critically acclaimed. Hell, I didn’t even know he directed it until I went to this class.
So no, I have no idea how Peter Jackson was given the green light for LOTR, but I’m glad he was. If you have any doubts about his talent or whether or not he can direct without the aid of high end special effects or a giant budget, watch some of his early flicks. I definitely have a new found respect for Peter Jackson.
There are no posts related to Peter Jackson, not just that Lord of the Rings guy.
