Over the last decade, the prequel has hit Hollywood. Niki Seth-Smith takes a look at how our cinematic icons have fared in the “counsellor’s chair”.
Does anyone else feel that Hollywood is spending too much time at the shrinks’? Over the last decade, the master-puppeteers of the silver screen have been busy leading our movie icons to the counsellor’s chair. “We want to understand you,” they purr, notebook at the ready, “tell us about your past.”
The first patient was Darth Vader – chief exec of the Dark Side. The Vader of George Lucas’ original Star Wars trilogy is a fearsome, inscrutable human-cyborg and ruthless right hand of the Galactic Empire. When he enters the scene (black cape swishing behind him) to the strains of the now infamous The Imperial March, our blood runs cold in delicious apprehension. Then, in 1999, came the first installment of the prequel trilogy, Episode I - The Phantom Menace, amidst much media fan-fare and the breathless babble of Lucas groupies. The prequels reintroduce us to Vader as Anakin Skywalker - a young, headstrong slave boy who ascends to glory as a Jedi knight, only to succumb to the Dark Side in order to save the life of his pregnant wife. “So misunderstood,” we reflected, stumbling out of the cinema hall in 2005 after the great denouement of Episode III. “They should give the guy a break. We all make the wrong choice sometimes.”
Vader was just the beginning. We were given a month’s respite after the release of Episode III before Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins delved deep into Bruce Wayne’s psychology as he finds his… well… wings. Who next for the councellor’s chair, I wondered. The answer took me by surprise. For who would attempt to interpret a man who has locked himself away in a fantastical sweet emporium with a workforce of weird, morally stringent dwarfs? A remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) could only have been taken on by Tim Burton - connoisseur of all characters queer and curious. Unfortunately, while cavorting through the land of kitsch, this tasteless joy-ride licks off the outer layer of Roald Dahl’s mysterious sweet-maker by giving Willie Wonka a traumatic childhood at the hands of an orthodontic, candy-hating father. It’s got so bad that even mindless blockbusters like this year’s X-men Origins: Wolverine feel obliged to hop on the back-story bandwagon. While snugly fitting the CGI-action-with-a-splash-of-gore formula, Gavin Hood’s flick couldn’t resist having a stab at the wolf man’s tortured beginnings.
Hollywood exists to satisfy desires, albeit in the exalted world of the silver screen. Now it’s busy homing in on our latest compulsion. We want to know the man behind the mask. Strip him down. Make him talk. Show that he’s just like us, really. I’m not saying that the average audience member fights crime under the symbol of a small furry mammal, or spends their life tasting chocolate (well, that might be closer to the truth). But we do expect our heroes and villains to be more human, more knowable. We’re aware that, according to their legends, many in fact were “once like us”. Very much at the heart of Batman mythology is the death of the philanthropic Waynes at the hands of Gotham criminals when Bruce was just a normal, if sickeningly rich, little boy – sowing the seeds for his transformation. Anakin Sykwalker’s life history had already been sketched out by the various books, films and animation series that constitute the grandly titled Star Wars Expanded Universe. Wolverine’s beginnings had previewed in the comics, leaving Burton as a stand-alone inventor in fabricating Willie Wonka’s childhood. But knowing a back-story is very different from seeing it unveiled before our eyes. We may be aware of how Batman lost his parents, but seeing a kiddy Bruce blubbing in the deserted Wayne mansion feeds a very different appetite.
As today’s movie audience is so captivated by psycho-analysis, maybe it’s time we place them in the chair. From where does this fascination arise? A kindly, less cynical analyst might point to man’s need to empathise with his fellow man. We’re not satisfied anymore with action-packed block-busters (Pow! Thwap! Kaboom!) or head-in-the-clouds fantasy trips. Modern cinema-goers are interested in people, and feel uncomfortable dismissing anyone - even cyborg-man Vader of the Galactic Empire - as ‘pure evil’. It’s a fitting theory for today’s age of prison reform, where criminals are presented as victims of circumstance and the tell-all confessor is the media’s no. 1 darling. But something tells me a shrink worth their salt would balk at such a neat explanation. “To unpack the symbol,” he might say, “is to neutralize its power.” In layman’s terms, we want to understand our most terrifying baddies and worshipped heroes only in order to “get one up” on them. The examples staring us in the face here are the Bond prequels: 2007’s Casino Royale and last year’s Quantum of Solace.
You can’t escape Bond’s influence as a man’s man. Austin Powers may have burped in the face of the 007 legacy, but the quintessentially British secret agent remains untouchable in his ability to excite envy. Watching Bond bed a girl simply by cocking an eyebrow, plenty of male viewers want to string him up and kick him where it really hurts. Which is exactly what Casino Royale did, quite literally. The prequels not only show us a troubled, love-lorn and vulnerable Bond, but the first of the duo includes a torture scene where De Chiffre ties our libidinous secret agent to a chair and gives his testicles a vigorous lashing. It’s an eye-wateringly gripping scene, and a glorious instance of cinematic fantasy fulfillment. Daniel Craig’s Bond in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace completely refigures the 007s of Dalton, Moore, Connery and Brosnan (every-one forgets George Lazenby). He may seduce some of the sexiest women in the world but James Bond lacks what would really make him a man. He’s impotent. Or at least that’s the vicious suggestion.
Bond may have benefited from a dash more humanity – as the box office figures and critical plaudits for the prequels go some way to testify. But not all of our movie icons thrive under the therapist’s gaze. Some have positively withered. After all, as the great storytellers would attest, it’s as much about what you don’t as what you do reveal. Do we want to see Willy Wonka as a disturbed victim of warped experiences at the hands of his father? The answer, sadly, is yes. Millions of us are gagging to see it – curiosity is powerful – but the fulfillment leaves a bad taste in our mouths. Unfortunately, Hollywood has never been concerned with what’s “good for us”. We open our mouths and stuff gets spooned in. That’s the nature of the beast, as they say. Even so, I wish some-one would spell it out for those that hold the Hollywood strings: No-one needs to know what Batman eats for breakfast.
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