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The Appropriate Tune: 'She's An Angel' by They Might Be Giants
I’ve talked before about how Tim Burton gets all of the credit for The Nightmare Before Christmas in spite of being the producer, and how the director Henry Selick deserves some more recognition and respect. Unfortunately I wrote that in the review of Monkeybone, which isn’t exactly the greatest example of filmmaking acumen in the world. But this is a new year, a new Marathon, so why not give him another shot at blogging glory?
Released in 2009, Coraline was directed by Henry Selick, written by Selick, and produced by Selick, Bill Mechanic, Claire Jennings, and Mary Sandell through Laika and Pandemonium Films, based on the novel by Neil Gaiman. Dakota Fanning provides the voice of the titular Coraline Jones, who has moved to the Pink Palace Apartments in scenic nowheresville. Not her choice of course -- she had friends, a life, back in Michigan. Now? Now she’s stuck in a run down mansion with parents who are too busy to spend time with her, and her neighbors are a bunch of weirdos. Life sucks, but one night Coraline is lured by strange mice to a strange door, which leads to an even stranger world. One similar to her own, but… different. In this place her parents aren’t stressed out and overworked, they’re fun and fancy free, and the world isn’t gray and miserable, it’s full of magic and wonder. It all seems too good to be true, and because this is a movie that’s probably the case. Because what happens when your dream world doesn’t let you leave?
It’s probably going too far to say that Coraline saved stop motion animation. Just four years prior Tim Burton had tried to double dip into his Nightmare Before Christmas with The Corpse Bride (with middling success), and adult swim was turning heads with Moral Orel and Robot Chicken, so it was still around if increasingly niche in the age of Flash animation. What Coraline did do however was to show the audience the power and the potential of modern technology to the medium. You watch Nightmare Before Christmas and while it’s still a masterful piece of art you can feel the limits of what Selick could get on screen. By the time of Coraline however you can tell it’s stop motion but it flows so smoothly that it’s easy to forget that it’s stop motion at all, and it does things effects wise that no other stop motion film had ever done before. It really put the wonder back into filmmaking, as well as put Laika on the map pretty much immediately. That Laika even still exists in the wasteland that is theatrical animation speaks to just how well they were able to utilize the momentum from this movie.
For Nightmare Before Christmas it was Tim Burton, and for Coraline the big name was Neil Gaiman. Back in 1996 Gaiman parlayed his success in the comic book world into a career in show business, and 2007 in particular had seen two of his jobs, Stardust (based on his novel) and the animated Beowulf, make it to the big screen. Coraline was easily the most successful of the bunch, and that makes sense as ‘dark fairy tale’ is firmly in Gaiman’s wheelhouse, as well as Selick’s with his adaptation of James and the Giant Peach. I wouldn’t say he’s really breaking new ground, in fact Coraline bears a lot of similarities to Clive Barker’s “The Thief of Always”, but his fondness for the strange and the archaic comes through on the screen, or at least Selick’s adaptation of it. The name Tim Schafer comes to mind, the mind behind Psychonauts and Monkey Island, and I would say that’s an apt comparison. If you liked Psychonauts, you’d like Coraline.
One more thing I want to bring up is the score, composed by France’s Bruno Coulais. Going into this film I was expecting something along the lines of Nightmare Before Christmas, because obviously, but Coulais is not the same kind of composer as Danny Elfman. Elfman is forceful in his music, even when he’s being subtle he feels bombastic. Coulais by contrast is soft, often sparse, and the use of a children’s choir gives Coraline an atmosphere that is both ethereal and unsettling. It’s very unlike standard kid’s fare, in fact the comparison that keeps coming to mind is Akira, and I couldn’t help but love it. Music nerd that I am I also loved the cameo by They Might Be Giants, other bands wish they could do as much with a minute.
Coraline gets an easy recommendation. It’s got the wonder that appeals to young kids, it’s got the edge that appeals to older kids, and it’s smart enough to appeal to parents. That’s what you want in a family movie, and it’s something in short supply in the days of Disney and Illumination. When Halloween rolls around and you’re looking for something to do with the kids, grab a bowl of popcorn and pop this one in. A treat that you don’t even have to leave the house for.
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