KING KONG

The text is simple enough. A film maker goes off to film a great wild animal picture – for the first time with a young woman, Ann Darrow. The ship arrives at an island which is basically unknown to chart makers, having gotten a hand drawn map from the skipper of a ship. On the island there are natives and a huge wall, behind which is a prehistoric land with a giant ape named Kong. The natives offer female “sacrifices” to the ape. These women are called “The Bride of Kong”. The natives kidnap the fair haired star to be, Ann Darrow, and offer her to Kong who takes an unusual interest in her.

Pursued by the first mate (now her boyfriend) and members of the crew, the giant Ape manages to kill off virtually everyone who is pursuing him except the film maker and the first mate. Ultimately the first mate rescues the damsel and they make it back to the native village with King in hot pursuit. Kong breaks through the huge gate in the wall and is overcome by smoke bombs by the surviving sailors and film crew. Kong is taken to New York where film maker Denham will make a million dollars and share it with everyone.

The Ape si shown on stage in New York, but breaks free and comes after Ann once again. Driscoll, the first mate is knocked senseless and Kong, after causing much destruction and havoc, climbs the Empire State Building (built the same year the film was made) and is killed by airplanes.

The film has an obvious often stated “subtext” about “Beauty and the Beast” The film starts with an intertitle card with an “Arab proverb” indicating that the beast did not kill beauty, but was from that day forth as one dead. Denham often remarks about how big guys fall when the little guys get their hands on them. Ann tried on the “Beauty and the Beast” costume. Denham sees Ann with Driscoll and the small monkey on the ship and comments on “Beauty and the Beast” linking Ann with the monkey.

The final line of the film is spoken by Denham, who responding to a police officer, who says the planes got the ape. “It wasn’t the planes” says Denham, “It was Beauty killed the beast”

This blatant kind of message can barely be considered subtext, since it lies so much on the surface of the film.

One of the first approaches one can take to analyzing a work of art is to examine its structure. What is the structure of the film? Can you find something like “acts”

Act I New York City

Act II On Board the Venture

Act III The Island – Native Village

Act IV Beyond the Wall

Act V New York Again

The look of the 5 acts is significant. There is a modern sophisticated New York (albeit in the depths of a depression, an isolated ship at sea, a native village and a prehistoric jungle

With this kind of division one might suspect that there will be some sort of parallel structures between the sections. For example In New York there are many kinds of people from wealthy to poor but all involved in a large cosmopolitan city.

On the ship there is virtually an all male population with a single female on board.

On the island the general indigenous population consists of natives living in huts rather than the enormous buildings seen in New York City.

Finally on the opposite side of the wall, there is a prehistoric jungle with prehistoric beasts and a giant gorilla. There are no people, but in a strange way, Kong fills that slot (being not only a primate but one closely related to humans)

Kong is further humanized by several factors (some of which are typical of gorillas):

(a) an ability to walk bipedally

(b) a reasonably human like face (unlike horses say)

(c) an interest or curiosity about a strange kind of person who has appeared for the first time

(d) an ability to fight in rather human ways (boxing, wrestling with the Tyrannosaurus rex

(e) an ability to plan

(f) some rather human emotions

This is evidence for interpreting Kong as a “representative” human in the prehistoric world

Foreshadowing is another film techniques in which coming events “cast their shadows”. The appearance of the monkey on ship foreshadows the ape. Ann’s being told to look up and scream and something which is extremely tall and frightening.

In terms of filming there are restrictions on camera movement based on the stop motion animation, so the camera basically doesn’t move when any animation is happening. However, there is rapid cutting that goes on between shots when there is a great deal of action.

The music, written for the film (credit for Max Steiner) is thematic. Several melodies or themes appear over and over in various forms throughout the score. The opening six note theme played by horns that occurs at the opening of the film, occurs again rather muted and slower and played on strings under the card with the Arab proverb

The music is generally non-diegetic but occasionally merges with and becomes diegetic music as it does in the native dance when the drummers drum out the rhythms of the orchestral music that makes up the dance sequence.

Later there is some “Mickey Mousing” – that is when the music stays in time with a character. As the native chief and medicine man walk forward the music sounds on each step. The music also mimics sounds of things in the film (e.g. the train and the planes when taking off)

The background music appears when the ship reaches the island and continues almost non stop from there until the end. It is conspicuously absent in the sequence with the fight between the Tyrannosaurus and Kong and again when the planes attack him on the Empire state building. This gives a link between the two scenes.

One analysis of the film involves a “colonialism” theme (part if the socio-political subtexts). Kong as a major bit of the natives world is suddenly removed to profit some people who have come from the outside world and take Kong for the purposes of making money and then manage to have the ape destroyed, The natives profit not one bit from this.

OTHER ANALYSIS TO FOLLOW NEXT WEEK

(JUST LIKE A MOVIE SERIAL)