Kelly WandV For Vendetta
August 26th 2006 01:41
“Oh Woe is me, “ these mighty masked men would howl. “I have the power of a God and I can’t get a root.” (International readers might want to note that root is archaic Australian slang for shagging, doing the dirty dog, creating the beast with two backs, poking, porking or getting way past third base.) Now these concerns may be relevant to your average fourteen year old but, when confronted by fifty year olds who still associate with this kind of tosh, they become more than a little creepy.
Meanwhile, back in the shop and behind the counter, we’re thinking we are the hippest guys on the planet. We even had girl friends. Every week we’d open up the boxes and pull out more proof that we were on the cutting edge of the new media. Frank Miller’s “Ronin” and “Dark Knight”. Howard Chaykin’s “American Flag!”, Matt Wagner’s “Mage” and Alan Moore’s “Watchman” and “Swamp Thing”. Wait a minute. Did I just say “Swamp Thing”? Indeed I did.
Swamp Thing was a title going nowhere real fast. They would have called it a horror comic before kids started getting hold of their pirated Video Nasties. What horrors can a comic book hold for the avid viewer of “Cannibal Holocaust”? DC, the company that published Swampy’s adventures saw no harm in handing the reins of this broken down old machine to some loony British guy. He’d either do something or they’d flush the title. They were ready to flush it anyway.
Of course, being in the UK, we knew about Moore. In the magazine 2000AD, he’d given us “The Ballad of Halo Jones” and the fantastic “DR and Quinch.” In “Warrior” he had scripted “Marvelman” and “V for Vendetta”. He quietly turned you into a reader of comic books because his words were actually worth reading. His dialogue sounded authentic. Suddenly, these two dimensional drawings were becoming real people.
The stories, though often based in the utterly fantastic, bought with them a realistic logic. They allowed the reader to speculate on what it would really be like if a man could fly. (ie: we’d all shit our pants and then elect him god in the vague hope he wouldn’t squash us like bugs.)
DC gave Moore full creative control of Swamp Thing. (Legend has it that the only story line they ever turned down involved Superman’s gay love for Jimmy Olson. I don’t know if there is any truth in these rumours but it gives you an idea of the kind of tilt Moore was capable of taking.) The thing was, the comic reading public was obviously ready for these changes. In the UK, Moore’s debut issue was quickly fetching ten times its cover price. DC had a hit that would eventually allow it to launch its highly successful Vertigo Imprint. Twenty years on, all these movie directors who grew up on this stuff are battling for the rights to bring these works to the screen. The results have not always been impressive.
Wes Craven’s adaptation of Swamp Thing concentrated on the pre Moore interpretation of the character. It is a pretty dire movie that Craven seems to have knocked out for the paycheck. There is none of the director’s usual wit or intellect. If he had strived for the same kind of ambience he achieved in “The Serpent and the Rainbow”, the comic buying public would have leapt behind the adaptation. Instead, we are offered a bland daylight world without shadows or fear.
“Return of the Swamp Thing” makes Craven’s work look like genius. This turkey even has the affront to boast some “Moore” connection and, although it does borrow from his storylines, the tone is more like the sixties Batman television series. It might be camp as Christmas but it isn’t even camp in a good way. It is a woeful exercise in killing a horse before you start flogging it.
“The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” isn’t quite as terrible as it is made out by some. Unless, of course, you’ve read the comic. If you have read it, you are forced to wonder why only half the original’s wit is present. I’ve set the answer up so obviously that it is hard for me deliver the expected punchline.
“From Hell” is a fantastic film but it understandably lacks the density of Moore’s original work. “Constantine” bears little resemblance to the character Moore created. I quite enjoyed that film too but Keanu Reeves just wasn’t the vile, sarcastic creature one remembers from his original incarnation in “Swamp Thing”.
Now we have “V for Vendetta” and you won’t find Moore’s name anywhere on the film because he didn’t want it there. That should be enough to sound warning bells but, the film is good. It just isn’t Moore’s vision. This film comes as much from a vision of the post 9/11 world as it does from the comic book it is adapted from.
Moore wrote “V for Vendetta” in 1980’s Britain when Margaret Thatcher had taken power and started beating the working class down with it. Britain’s streets saw marches by the far right. There were riots and oppressive police powers. Britain appeared ready for fascism and Moore wrote to inform his readers what fascism meant; genocide, cruelty and evil.
Well, these elements aren’t as obvious in the film. Once again, the depth of Moore’s work fails to reach the screen but, what is left, is still a very good film. It certainly resonates with the modern world. Try watching it after you have watched SBS world news. Actually, just try watching SBS world news every now and then. (Non Australian readers should substitute a service that at least attempts some journalistic integrity. A good rule of thumb is that this does not include any program that ends in a story that goes something like “And finally, Fluffy the Kitten had a narrow escape from a spin dryer today. This plucky moggie…”)
Moore has been burnt by Hollywood but, at least the filmakers in this instance have tried to maintain some of the comic’s vision. It has the testicular fortitude to say a lot of things that few other Western films dare approach. For a start, it asks you to side with a terrorist whose methods are far from noble or sound. (He saves a young women named Evey and then subjects her to imprisonment and torture so she can learn the evil of her oppressors as he had. Whilst Evey does learn that freedom must first be found within, it’s a hell of a way to go about teaching them. I would have exercised my new found sense of freedom by kicking the miserable bastard in the testicles.)
If I was Moore, I’d be pissed off too but not so pissed off that I might be tempted not to cash the cheque. This film is definitely worth seeing.
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I really enjoyed League of Ex. Gentlemen, but the first 10 mintues of the movie were so atrocious that I had to turn it off.
Comment by Bob Short
The one guy I really think is a genius is Jonathan Carroll and the sooner someone makes a good film out of one of his stories the better.
I've also got to get a chance to look around some of your sites real soon. Unfortunately, I'm doing insane twelve hour shifts this week. Madness.
But I'll catch up with you guys soon.
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The first five issues of Sandman aren't quite as good as what follows. From then on in, it just gets better and better.
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Comment by JohnDoe
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Im a comic book nut as well (Garth Ennis' The Preacher being a fave) and own msot of Moores stuff.
Personally think League Of Extrodianary Gentlemen is one of the worst films I have ever seen (with or without the comic).
Constatine was renedered virtually unwatchable with its lack of soul, pun intended.
V For Vendetta was a great comic and a very average movie. i just didnt feell the tension, surprise nor awe that came from the original story.Give me 1984, Brave New World, Equilibrium etc anyday.
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