The film has a certain amount of reflexivity about it. Watch for that and see what it says.

The film uses stop motion animation for both Kong and the dinosaurs which appear in the film.

Notice however, the backgrounds in the animated scenes. Monster films (along with disaster films) often show a great deal of visual chaos which involves many people. Some of the social statuses that may be involved are :

A word to the wise:.

A gorilla is not a monkey. Prosimians, monkeys, apes and humans make up a group known as Primates.

There are five major kinds of aopes divided into greater and lesser apes: the lesser apes are the gibbon and siamang, the greater are the Orangutan, Chimpanzee and Gorilla (technically Pongo, Pan and Gorilla). Chemically people are closely related to the chimp (much to the chimpanzee’s disgust). The result of this is you should not call Kong a MONKEY.

AFTER THE FILM

The Text

The text deals with a group of movie makers going to an unknown island to photograph a “mythological” Kong who turns out to be real (and a 50 foot or so tall gorilla). The scene in which Denham talks with Engelhorn sets up the tension about the film’s title. Remember when the film opened no one knew what Kong was. The discussion of the “religion” of the natives in that area starts the audience wondering about what Kong actually is. This is complemented by the scene where Denham films Ann Darrow on the ship and has her look up and screams and Driscoll asks “What does he think she’s really going to see”. Notice in the Peter Jackson version the scene discussing what Kong is does not occur leaving the audience to rely on its own knowledge to identify Kong as the ape. The natives say the word, but no one in the crew understands the language.

After meeting the natives on the island performing a ritual to Kong, Ann is kidnap and “sacrificed” to Kong who takes her away. The sailors follow and after many adventures, Driscoll manages to get Ann away from the ape and bring her back to the village, where after the gorilla breaks through the gate, he is finally captured. Kong is brought back to New York where he goes on a rampage and is ultimately killed.

Analysis can be made of a single film, but it is also possible to analyze some aspect of a class of films. Films with prehistoric people often deal with a man and woman who come from different groups. His group is usually more primitive and savage, dress in skins, don't share food and don't sing or laugh. Her group usually wears cloth, shares food and sings and laughs.

The films normally deal with the "civilizing" (or "feminizing") of men which usually has disastrous results for the men in the film who become less competent. In King Kong Driscoll is cleared losing some of his harsher aspects to the point that he becomes tongue tied around Ann, and admits he is not only "afraid for her" but also "afraid of her". He is able to rescue her on the island but once he is brought back (with Kong) to civilization and becomes engaged to her, he can no longer save her. Only what amounts to a "male" army air force can do that.

The Filmic Effects

Visual Effect

The film’s special effects are for many the highlight visually of the film. Not only do we have all the scenes of Kong on the island, but also the dinosaurs running around there too. There is a good deal of interaction shown between natives and the ape in which some are handled with split screen techniques with mattes and some with large models (the scenes with the natives being stepped on and eaten were cut because of their extreme violence – there was a fear that films would get progressively more and more violent).

Certainly the interactions with the dinosaurs are memorable, but one of the highlights of the film is Kong’s breaking through the doors into the natives’ village. In terms of a horror film, there isn’t a much better visual for the eruption of the repressed than this.

The foreshadowing of Kong is evident from the monkey on the ship, as does the costuming of the natives in the ritual who are dressed like and imitate the movements of a gorilla.

The ship encased in fog marks a serious change in the film. It is a kind of liminal state which is a state marking a change of status. It is intensified by the appearance of music at that point.

The film has little action until the arrival on the island. Kong appears for the first time about 47 minutes into a film that runs 104 minutes - in effect almost at the half way point so the film takes its time building up tension. Once he appears, however, the action goes into full swing pausing only briefly as the audience files into the theater in NY to see "The Eighth Wonder of the World". When the sailors leave in pursuit of Kong we get to meet in rapid succession a Stegosaurus, a Brontosaurs, some kind of lizard that crawls up from the ravine, a Tyrannosaurus, a snake like lizard and a pterodactyl - all in rapid succession

Notice that Kong has distinctively "human" traits. His match with the Tyrannosaurus becomes a wrestling and boxing match on his half. He is somewhat playful with Ann Darrow (but rather hostile to males). Music

The music is thematic with specific melodies (motifs) representing different things. First the film is given some “significance” by the use of an overture. The three note motif for Kong appears under the opening titles and is repeated throughout the film in a number of variations.

The film has virtually no music until the ship is on the ocean in the fog. From there on in there is almost no break in the music. The sound of planes as they attack the Empire State Building constitutes the “music” for the attack until Kong’s wounds cause him to slip.

The constant musical accompaniment that starts a few minutes before the crew hears the drums from the ritual on the island, gives the film a similar ritualistic quality.

The music is often something called "Mickey mouse" music in which the music follows the movement of characters, Listen to the music when the chief approaches the camera and the music comes on each of his steps.

The music is often on Kong's side, being somewhat playful when he tickles Ann Darrow, rather than fearful (which would be what happened if the music represented her internal state). This leads to audience identification with the Kong.

The music is occasionally imitates sounds of objects in the film (i.e. the elevated train and the planes when they take off. It is replaced by sounds from objects in the film on occasion such as the sound of the airplane motors and the machine guns.

Camera Work

There isn't much camera work until the people reach the island. The camera then becomes much more active. There are tracking shots and overhead shots (from the top of the wall for example) To make the animation scenes more real animation is done in front of rear projections with things that move naturally like flowing water which give a feeling of realism to the entire scene. SUBTEXT ANALYSIS

Interpretations

Working from the text -

The film is distinctly male with men in NY looking for a woman (who Denham doesn’t really want in the film and Driscoll doesn't really want on his ship). Women are seen on bread lines, and aside from Ann, there are none on the ship. Kong is also a male gorilla.

Minorities do not appear until we meet the one Chinese man, the cook, on the ship, and then the natives on the island.

The subtext is far more complex as one would expect. It deals with a question of evolution, which is defined over space rather than time. The sophisticated (although depression ridden) New York marks the high point of evolution and the journey takes us back “in time” to the primitive natives of the island with a skull mountain and a wall which separates it off from an even more prehistoric world with dinosaurs and of course, Kong.

One can see Kong as the human representative in this even more primitive world, whereas the natives are more advanced and New York (and the film makers) even more advanced.

Kong’s peculiar interest in Ann Darrow causes his downfall. The opening card talk about how the beast looked at beauty and from that point on was as one dead. The idea of beauty and the beast is a recurring theme in the film. Beauty is responsible for the Beast’s fall (death). Denham, the film maker, says the line repeatedly and even calls it his “theme song” at one point. Ann Darrow chooses the “Beauty and the Beast” costume for her “screen test”

Tough first mate Jack Driscoll saves Ann on the island but can not in New York after they are engaged. Beauty seems to have gotten Driscoll too.

The evolutionary aspect of the film tends to imply that women have a civilizing or taming effect on men, and this is in a sense needed to “civilize” them. This civilizing process has a kind of negative effect at the same time, in that the men become less capable of acting, but at the same time allow them to become “civilized” and produce civilization. Driscoll is more civilized than Kong so he can be changed and still live, but King is too primitive for that and has to die.

Interestingly enough the film uses an all male set of pilots and gunners to kill Kong on the Empire State building (perhaps we can make an argument about colonialism from this), but at the end of the film the when someone says the planes killed the monster Denham intones the famous line: It wasn’t the planes, it was Beauty killed the beast, thereby linking the film to its initial title card about beauty and the beast.

A Second Interpretation The lack of ethnic minorities in NY contrasts with the Chinese cook on the ship (the only non sailor) and the natives on the island. This says volumes about the filmmakers’ culture’s attitudes to minorities as somewhat lower on the evolutionary scale. This is probably part of what has led to a different analysis which sets up the idea that the film is about racial relations with Kong being considered emblematic of Africans being transported in chains from Africa and the idea of the film makers that African Americans are interested in pursuing “White women” who are appalled and terrified by them

Of course, Skull Island can only represent Africa in such an interpretation, since the coordinates are actually given in the film, which place the island clearly in the Indian Ocean. Natives in that area are certainly seen as “Blacks” and the look of the island in terms of huts on stilts and grass skirts is certainly more Polynesian than it is African.

Psychological Interpretations

The film can be taken as a virtual Freudian festival. The uncontrolled, untamed id needs to be brought under control in order for people to become civilized (super ego and ego). And the gorilla easily can be seen as representing this uncontrolled state.

(See also Forbidden Planet as a film in which the id is dangerous when let loose)

Colonial Interpretations

Colonialism is currently "in" and so it is always nice to try to fit the films into that mode. The invasion of the island and the disruption of the culture and the removal of a major animal from the island to benefit the invading culture might be possible, If not try to force it. This will give you a clue about reading into something and reading out of it.

One scene in the film is actually shot in Brooklyn, Do you know which one it is and where it is shot?

The shot is of the planes taking off