Thirty years ago in 1994, I developed an obsession with "The World of Jim Henson," a documentary produced for PBS's "Great Performances" series. I'd grown up with "Sesame Street" and the Muppet movies, but only vaguely understood who Jim Henson was. Seeing the path of his whole career and fantastic success laid out in 85 minutes, with interviews with all these famous people making the case for his extraordinary worldwide impact was revelatory. After an initial viewing of "The World of Jim Henson," I made it my mission to find and watch the later Henson projects that it talked about - "The Dark Crystal," "Labyrinth," and "Jim Henson's The Storyteller." I was a diehard fantasy fan, and always on the lookout for this kind of media anyway. I also scoured the TV listings for months so I could rewatch the documentary. I still have it recorded on VHS tape, and occasionally pull it out for comfort viewing.
It's only now, after so many years, that I can start to turn a critical eye toward the program. "The World of Jim Henson" was made only a few years after Henson's death in 1990, and was very much making the case for Henson's legacy. It characterized Jim Henson as a once-in-a-lifetime artistic visionary, who built a creative empire out of puppets, challenged the rules of the television and film, and managed to help do some real social good through the programs he helped to create, like "Sesame Street" and "Fraggle Rock." The ambitious failures that came in the later part of his career were explained as being the result of Henson being "pigeonholed" as a children's performer. And in any case, his death at the age of 53 was so tragic that I don't blame anyone for not wanting to say a bad word about him. I watched "The World of Jim Henson" as a teenager, and took all of this to heart. For a very long time, I considered Henson a sort of ideal for the kind of creative person I wanted to be when I grew up.
And now it's 2024, and Ron Howard has made a new documentary, "Jim Henson: Idea Man," for Disney+. It covers a lot of the same material as "The World of Jim Henson," and even uses clips of some of the interviews, since many of the participants have since passed away - notably Jane Nebel Henson, Jim's wife and collaborator. "Idea Man," however, digs much deeper into who Jim Henson was as a person, faults and all. With a longer running time, and more access to Henson's archives, there's more time spent examining Jim Henson's childhood and early days. There's also significant emphasis placed on Henson's career in puppetry being essentially begun as a means to an end. He saw puppets as a way to get into the television industry, but was more of an experimental filmmaker at heart. He did commercials to fund his short films like the Oscar nominated "Time Piece." He did "Sesame Street" because it meant he got to make some of the filmed segments that had nothing to do with the Muppets, like "Numerosity" and "The King of Eight."
Interviews with family members also present a much more nuanced portrait of Jim Henson. He was a workaholic and constantly on the road, so he essentially had no home life. His marriage was troubled for a long time, and fell apart by the mid 1980s. His children describe not having much of a relationship with him until they were old enough to start working on his productions. Fame and success did affect him negatively, and several of his failures weren't simply a matter of being pigeonholed. I appreciated that "Idea Man" added some necessary context to one of the most devastating stories told in "The World of Jim Henson," where the studio executives all walked out of an early screening of Henson's ambitious fantasy feature, "The Dark Crystal." That early version of the film, Frank Oz reveals, was one where none of the characters spoke English, but their own made-up languages. After dubbing some comprehensible dialogue into the film, "The Dark Crystal" actually broke even at the box office.
To be clear, most of the interviewees had nothing but good things to say about Jim Henson. It was lovely to see Jennifer Connelly and Rita Moreno sharing their working experiences, and a new Frank Oz interview is always a treat. However, I appreciate that "Idea Man" is a much more well-rounded and honest look at Henson and his work. "The World of Jim Henson" is still a great watch, and spends more time on the later projects like "The Storyteller" and "The Jim Henson Hour," but "Idea Man" is the one to see if you really want to know about the man behind the Muppets.
After two movies about Jim Henson (and that Defunctland series), I'd like a documentary about the Jim Henson Company since 1990. They've existed for about as long without Jim Henson as they have with him, and survived some big ups and downs over the last three decades. How they're still standing after all this time surely must be a compelling story too.
---
No comments:
Post a Comment