Month: January 2020

Jojo Rabbit was a movie I was somewhat interested in but didn’t make an extra effort to see. I loved What We Do In The Shadows, liked Thor: Ragnarok, but Jojo never became a priority.

When it returned to theaters, I finally gave it a watch. Some negative reviews I read and the first 15-ish minutes of the movie finally articulated why I had little interest in it; the film’s use of slapstick and oafishness as satire/criticism of nazis was uncomfortable.

But, even putting aside the obvious objection of “what about The Great Dictator” (which is brilliant), the film’s progression removed such criticisms. It eventually became apparent that the satire of Jojo Rabbit is not found in “haha Nazis are dumb” slapstick, but is instead found in its whimsical portrayal of Jojo’s Nazi surroundings, using this whimsy as a means of perspective. His redemption is found through the harsh contrast of this perspective, and this leads to one of the film’s few genuinely positive uses of slapstick at the end, when it embraces childish imagination as a means of catharsis.

Moonrise Kingdom: Nazi Edition

The opening of the movie is where my “bad” discomfort (in the sense that I was uncomfortable with the artistic ambitions of the movie) was in full force. The idea of the 10 year old title character excitedly saying “Heil Hitler” with his imaginary best friend Hitler was just…off.

Things manage to get more uncomfortable when we get to camp and are introduced to the counselors. Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell) is an idiotic, irresponsible drunkard who spends part of his introductory scene aimlessly firing his gun around children, and he clearly resents being there. Fraulein Rahm (Rebel Wilson) assists the children in an atrocious anti-Semitic drawing, furthering this depiction by making up an also atrocious story about the origin of Jewish ancestry.

This camp time “fun” progresses to Jojo being bullied by his fellow campers and counselors. He’s mocked over his inability to kill a rabbit, which leads to his new nickname. When he has another little pow-wow with his imaginary Hitler, he finds a newfound courage; he and his imaginary Hitler run in a silly, slow-mo sequence where he grabs a grenade out of Captain K’s hand during a presentation. Jojo throws this grenade, only for it to hit a tree, bounce back towards him, and seriously injure him. This injury is also played in a comical fashion, and the scene ends with Captain K telling the other kids calmly “don’t do that”, the comedy coming from the irony of his calm response to a life threatening event.

Jojo is sent to a hospital for his injuries, which don’t kill him but render him incapable of returning to camp. His mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson, giving what might be the ultimate example of “iffy accent but great performance”) “requests” that Jojo be given a job by kneeing Captain K in the groin. Jojo’s newfound job is setting up posters around, which is conveyed through a montage with a chorus of children playing in the background.

What I Thought He Was Doing 

It’s all very whimsical. And it’s all very well shot and realized whimsy. And it all feels wrong and out of place. Even if we’re going to present Nazis in a “haha, look at these dumbasses” kind of way, is that…enough?

Even asking that question feels irresponsible. Imagine if someone is slapped on the wrist as a punishment for murder. Asking “is that enough?” in a non-rhetorical manner would be a grossly irresponsible question to ask when the answer is “of course not.”

While thinking about this, not long after Sam Rockwell is kneed in the groin, we see the lifeless bodies of hanging dissenters in the middle of Jojo’s hometown.

“You Must Not Avert Your Eyes”

Rosie stares directly at these bodies, while Jojo tries to look away. She doesn’t let him, grasping the top of his head to turn it in their direction. She tells him;

“Look.”

(I couldn’t help but think of that Herzog quote I just referred to when she does that).

There’s a sign on one of the bodies. Though the characters speak almost entirely in English, the sign is in German.

Jojo asks “what did they do?”

Rosie responds “what they could.”

A Punch To The Gut

This scene is a deliberate, harsh contrast of what we had previously seen in the movie (highlighted by the different language on the sign). These bodies, these deaths are new to Jojo. He thinks he’s just a little guy who gets to go to camp so he can support his idol. And so I realized the idiocy of characters like Captain K and Fraulein Rahm wasn’t Taika’s endgame for his Nazi criticism.

These characters are, first and foremost, the idiotic adults in a child’s story. They’re the jackass principal in a John Hughes comedy, whose oafishness is there as a means of showing how adults just don’t get it. Something similar can be said with the bullies; they’re big old meanies for mocking him, making him feel like he’ll never achieve his dream.

It’s the hanging bodies, the bodies he can’t yet look at, that show us his dream isn’t worth achieving.

He doesn’t know it yet, but he will.

The Horror of “Heil Hitler”

There are a few scenes in particular that drive this contrast home. This segment will look at the first.

Jojo discovers his mother is hiding a Jewish girl named Elsa in their home. He doesn’t care for her at first, but keeps her presence a secret as he doesn’t want his mother to get in trouble.
The scene in question features gestapo who have come to inspect Jojo’s house. The gestapo have a relatively comedic presence; as they enter his house, one by one, they all say “Heil Hitler” to Jojo, and he responds in kind each time. The film has a shot of each man saying it and a shot of Jojo’s response, highlighting the repetition for comedic effect. When Captain K and his assistant also enter his house, though the editing isn’t quite the same, the same repetitive “Heil Hitler” gag occurs.

As they inspect the house, Jojo fears that Elsa will be found, until she makes her presence readily known. She gets away with this by claiming to be his sister, a lie they believe.

The importance of this scene is found in the distinction of Elsa’s response to the repetitive “Heil Hitler” trope. When the first man says it, we get a close-up of Elsa, where she is clearly horrified and hesitating.

She finally says it, hoping it’ll be the only time. But as we know, it’s not. And while the cinematography and editing between Jojo’s “Heil Hitler” scene and Captain K’s was not exactly the same, Elsa’s sequence gets a shot that makes her situation clearly stand out; we get a brief wide shot, showing the backs of the men as they once again repeat the phrase, with Elsa in the middle of this shot in the background. The men dominate the frame that she takes up little space in, to highlight the threat this situation has for her. She’s a seal in disguise in a room full of sharks.

This scene exists to show the contrast of the two perspectives. Jojo dealing with the phrase is presented as though it’s a thorn in his side, as if while trying to fight off a crocodile, there’s also a bee that won’t buzz off.

“Aw gosh, I can’t believe I have to keep saying those words.”

With Elsa, she’s being forced to praise a man who wants her and every single Jewish person dead.

It’s the furthest thing from a mere annoyance.

The Real Hitler

The second scene involves the imaginary Hitler.

The fact that Jojo’s imaginary Hitler is not the real deal is something the film embraces. When Jojo was putting up signs of Hitler earlier, it’s not Taika Waititi’s face on these signs, but the real Hitler’s face. But the most significant example of this is found when Jojo talks with the imaginary Hitler following the gestapo visit.

Hitler obviously berates Jojo for not revealing Elsa. His dialogue, which previously fit the bill for a silly imaginary friend, now fits the bill of a real Hitler. Whether or not it’s an actual Hitler speech, I don’t know, but it certainly sounds like it could be one, and the music in this scene is grim and unsettling.

The facade is fading.

Jojo Looks Again

The third scene in question features Jojo going out for some errands. The world around him is much grayer than it was before, but he sees a pretty blue butterfly, and follows it with a simple delight.

It’s a nice little moment for Jojo.

Having lowered himself to the ground to check out the butterfly, he rises, only to realize he’s by the hanging bodies again. And there’s one in particular that stands out;

His mother’s.

I’m having trouble describing exactly what Jojo does in response; he either grasps her legs (it’s all he can reach) or hugs them. He begins to tie her recognizable shoes (Jojo wasn’t very good at tying shoes earlier in the film) and then goes back to that desperate grasp/hug.

There’s a brief time jump, showing him sitting as he looks up at his mother.

(Fun fact: this is the only time I’ve ever cried while writing out a description of a movie scene)

This scene, perhaps more than any, highlights the contrast of Jojo’s perspective and the horrors of the real world, and Jojo can no longer look away.

War

Some time passes. Jojo and Elsa live their lives at Jojo’s home. Eventually, Jojo learns that Hitler’s committed suicide, and his town is invaded by the allies. The last and most significant of the contrasts is found with Fraulein Rahm. She’s doing her oafish bloodthirsty Nazi schtick, and is subsequently blown up by a bomb. The idea that this explosive death might itself be a gag is disproven by the following moment, as the smoke from the explosion dominates the frame and leaves Jojo horrified and confused.

“I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

Something important about Jojo Rabbit is that it does not condemn childlike imagination and whimsy in and of itself. It condemns its misuse and the denial of its proper use.  The film may contrast the whimsical elements with horrifying reality, but this horrifying reality is highlighting the truth that the whimsy was being used to cover up. It was being used to lie to Jojo, and he confronts this lie by way of confronting the imaginary Hitler.

At the end of the film, after the allies have won, and he and Elsa go out to the street and dance. But before this, he has a talk with his old imaginary best friend. While confronting this imaginary Hitler, this imaginary interpretation of the man who lied to him, the imaginary interpretation of the man who killed his mother, he doesn’t respond to this with a harsh reality.

Instead, he responds to his childish idolatry of Hitler with a childish hatred. Jojo kicks the sniveling, imaginary coward in the groin and right out a window, the way that I used to fight imaginary bad guys as a power ranger when I was four.

There’s nothing wrong with this. Jojo certainly seemed to be on a bad path, but his aversion to killing innocents from the get-go clearly indicated that his childish idolatry would have never become anything more. Whether or not it was Rosie hanging up there, he eventually would have looked. He eventually would have realized the horrifying reality of the situation before it was too late for him. Jojo was never going to be a Nazi.

And because Jojo acknowledged that, because he looked, he’s allowed to have that childish fantasy of saying “fuck off Hitler” before kicking him out a window.

And as long as we don’t forget the horrifying reality, we’re allowed to enjoy this imaginary child’s imaginary catharsis.

 

I watched the Safdie Brothers’ Good Time in awe of the brilliant stupidity of its main character, Connie (Robert Pattinson). It didn’t take very long to realize the film would end with him either in jail or dead, but it was fascinating to see him conjure up impermanent solutions, to see how deep he’d dig that hole.

Uncut Gems has a similarly impulsive and idiotic protagonist in Howard (Adam Sandler). But unlike Good Time, it had me begging for it all to end.

No, not because it’s bad (it’s fantastic). It’s because I wanted this poor, stupid man’s self inflicted misery to be done with. While 1917 had moments where I nearly yelled at the screen to keep the characters going, I spent the entirety of Uncut Gems begging for Howard to just stop.

Amidst a scene where Howard is dealing with debt, business, and working on a problem with his secured door for his jewelry store (there’s a lot of buzzing and yelling in this scene, as there is in much of the movie), he gets a call back from his doctor about a colonoscopy. When this happened, I actually thought “please, God, just give this man cancer so that it all might end.”

There’s another point (that’s probably only halfway through the movie) where Howard is taking his trash and recycling out after a failed night out with his family. The man is still in plenty of his own stupid debt, but even here I thought “you know what? It’ll end here. Because ending it on this scene of him taking the recycling out would…reflect on it being a cautionary tale…about him ruining his family with his debt, how he didn’t put his family first…yeah, that’s it! That’s why it’ll end for Howard now!”

Ending the story there wouldn’t have done anything for Howard’s plight, but our place in viewing his plight would have ended.

And at this point, I would have taken that. But no, on the movie went.

Towards the actual end of the movie, this process of clinging onto certain thematic and narrative devices as “yeah, the movie can end on this scene” only continued. This is, again, not a knock against the quality of the movie, just wanting it to end in some way for this poor moron.

He’s making amends with his girlfriend that he got in a fight with? Ending it here would reflect on the cyclical nature of their relationship, and thus the cyclical nature of his life.

He has a win? Ending it here would reflect on how this is going to motivate his gambling.

Without getting into spoilers, the movie ends precisely when it needs to. But one thing becomes very clear; no matter what happens in his life, good or bad, he’ll be the same old Howard. If things are bad, he’ll get into debt to keep it afloat. And if things are good, he’ll get into debt out of enthusiasm.

Which is to say that it doesn’t matter how the movie ends. Because it’s all bad.

See it immediately.

Jon Favreau’s Lion King remake received mixed reviews, with its detractors calling it artless, soulless, and meaningless. This quote from David Ehrlich’s review more than succinctly sums up the common criticisms of the film-

“Unfolding like the world’s longest and least convincing deepfake, “The Lion King” is meant to represent the next step in Disney’s circle of life, but this soulless chimera of a film comes off as little more than a glorified tech demo from a greedy conglomerate — a well-rendered but creatively bankrupt self-portrait of a movie studio eating its own tail. In other words, it’s more of the same from a company that’s been all too happy to scavenge new spectacles from the carcasses of its most beloved classics.”

The film’s closeness in narrative and visuals make the assertion of creative bankruptcy an understandable one, but one I disagree with. I don’t think the film’s intent of transforming The Lion King into realism (not merely recreating it with “updated” CG animation) is an artless ambition at all. Comparisons to Gus Van Sant’s Psycho are popular, but misguided; in that film, actors were infamously restricted by Van Sant’s desire to do a shot-for-shot remake. With The Lion King, Favreau’s interest in transforming the story with the new form allows for all sorts of opportunities of giving the original masterpiece a new form of life. With the intent is to recreate spirit with a new cast, technology, and, most importantly, form, there’s plenty of room for not only creative opportunity, but creative ambition, and it gives the original masterpiece a new form of life.

It’s important to note that I referred to what Favreau accomplishes with his film as a “new” form of life. Not better, new. While it may not dominate the critical consensus, the idea that “real” art is better than “fake” art is not without its supporters, and it is an idea I loathe. Throughout this piece, I intend to speak to the merits of both the 1994 film and its remake alike, and establish that the realism creates for new dramatic opportunities and re-contextualizes old ones.

Understanding The Opposition

I will not say that the incorporation of realism into this film is 100% perfect. The majority of the musical set pieces worked for me, especially the wonderful “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King” (which I will briefly touch on), but “Be Prepared” was lacking, and there were a few shots in Hakuna Matata that felt similarly lacking. And while I think the way the film harmonized the emotions of the characters with how animals would realistically express their emotions effectively, I completely understand why people would think them soulless. The film walks a very fine line in that regard.

And I will not, for one second, pretend that Disney funded the $260 million budget for this film out of artistic charity. So when I use the term “artistic ambitions” later, I’m not exactly pretending these were the only intentions behind making the movie. Disney wanted to remake one of their most profitable classics for obvious reasons.

But Favreau’s ambitions with the film are no mere tech demo aspirations, nor is the film some simple HD upgrade. His interest in applying realism to the film not only led to effective translational changes but led to ambitions within the text of the film; the themes, the characters, their dynamics, and so on.

Even if you don’t like the film, I hope I’ll at least convince you of that.

Art within Reality

The closest the film gets to a consistently shot-for-shot remake is the opening sequence, which, barring some brief new moments and removed/reorganized shots, essentially fits the bill. But there are changes, and while they’re not as significant as the ones I’m going to describe later, they help this scene serve as a sort of rosetta’s stone for how the film translates to the new form, as well as reflecting the intentions behind these formal ambitions.

The opening shot of the film is one of many such moments. It’s the only photographic shot in the film, the rest being “filmed” on a virtual reality set. Unlike the original, the sun has not risen yet when the shot begins; we sit in silence overlooking the horizon. Like the original, the music kicks in when the sun rises.

This distinction, however minor, reflects what Favreau is aspiring for; he’s trying to use realism as the starting point and show the spirit and narrative of The Lion King can be found within that realism.

To further establish this point, I won’t analyze every single shot of each of both scenes; I will simply get into a few moments.

The first two animal shots in the original (the rhino shot and then the shot of the antelope) have the heads of the respective animals initially out of frame; it isn’t until they look up that we see their faces. Their heads rising allows for a dynamic value to the shot.

In the remake, the camera is set up as though filmmakers were simply watching these animals, waiting to see how they’d respond to the sun. The rhino is in a simple wide shot, looking down as it eats, and looks up to take note of the sun. The antelope shot is much closer to the animal than the rhino shot was, necessitating the camera to move to follow the action of its head rising.

Just as we saw the horizon before the sun rose, we get a brief glimpse of the animal life inhabiting their own world before they fulfill their action from the original film, and I don’t find this droll or lifeless. I see it as harmonization of narrative and documentary, and it all comes back to that opening shot. Rather than the sun illuminating and giving life to the image, we’re seeing the life a liiiittle bit before we see it in the original, to establish the realism as a precedent and the fact that the art and narrative can be found within it. The narrative is still being conveyed, and a distinct beauty has been formed.

Going further with this idea of “art within the real”, another sequence relatively early in the film that personifies what Favreau is attempting to accomplish with the film artistically, and it’s one of my favorite moments in the entire film. It’s when Rafiki paints Simba’s likeness in his tree.

Like most beats in the film, this is right from the original. But there’s an important distinction. Rather than finger painting as he did in the original, he discovers some insects converging in an area and then organizes them. After he’s finished, he blows some pigment onto them, and after moving them away, Simba’s likeness is there.

I don’t bring up this distinction out of some plot based justification for the existence of the movie; the change is not valuable merely because “Rafiki did the thing differently.” What Rafiki does is both redefined by the realism in a sort of translational sense; he couldn’t “realistically” finger paint, and thus the film had to find a way of him painting Simba’s face within those confines.

But it’s also, again, reflective of the thesis of of the film, of what Jon Favreau’s artistic ambitions with it were.

Like Rafiki, Favreau is using realistic life to create art.

Informing The Drama

The two previous scenes that were mentioned spoke to the sort of translational artistry going on in the film in a more basic sense; they’re significant, but what the film aspires for goes beyond that to the point of informing the drama and the themes.

This is more readily seen in the characterization of Scar. The realism inspires a few changes in his introductory scene, and they fundamentally redefine his character.

Just as in the original film, the scene following the Circle of Life sequence features a mouse minding his own business, only to be interrupted by a hungry Scar. But in the remake, there’s an important difference to be found in the emphasis on the mouse.

In the original film, we get a short little shot of the mouse crawling around, only for him to look up and immediately be caught under Scar’s paw.

(Kinda like the tragic meeting of two pop culture icons in Bambi Meets Godzilla.)

This emphasis on the mouse is slightly disorienting (in a good way). We’re enjoying the scene, but its narrative relevance isn’t clear until Scar’s paw lands. The dramatic function of the mouse essentially amounts to “why are watching this cute mou-oh, OKAY”

But this isn’t the case in the remake. The mouse maintains its own presence in the remake, its own thematic significance. Rather than the 9 seconds of solo screen time he gets in the original, the little guy gets a a lovely little minute long sequence, beautifully accompanied by Zimmer’s score, in which it’s doing its thing. Searching for food, exploring the colorful, world around it, having a grand time.

As with the opening Circle of Life scene, this sequence is utilizing a documentary style as a means of giving life to the world we are inhabiting; it is a life in balance.

This is significant because the upcoming reveal of Scar directly contrasts this beauty and liveliness, and suggests he will contribute to an imbalance.

The mouse is dangling on a colorful flower against a darkness that Scar emerges from, dominating the frame. The pleasant music is gone in lieu of something more horror centric to capture the mouse’s fear of Scar. The little mouse runs around, trying to hide from the monologuing predator.

The rest of the scene plays out closer to the original, with Zazu interrupting Scar’s “hunt”, allowing the mouse to escape. While Scar attempting to eat Zazu in the original is a brilliant comic moment, the image of Zazu’s beak sticking out of Scar’s mouth is, obviously, not something that can be realistically conveyed. But the impossibility of conveying that exact moment in the exact way is not a weight on the new film; Scar attempting to eat Zazu is a more consistently horrifying moment here, with Mufasa’s intervention having higher stakes. His interest in being a hunter and his supposed power earlier in the scene when pursuing the mouse is effectively shut down by Mufasa.

The realism has influenced Scar’s presence in a number of ways. With the documentary exploration of the environment with the mouse, he has an almost metaphorical presence of death. But on top of this, certain moments don’t play out the same dramatically, and they lead to greater tension and stakes in what was originally a primarily playful scene.

Essentially, the realism leads to a greater dramatic emphasis on Scar’s failed meals. The greater dramatic emphasis means they, well, matter more to Scar. This, in turn, leads to Scar having a stronger interest in physical power and being a hunter.

This is very much unlike the original Scar. In the original, he isn’t upset by Mufasa’s interruption; he’s simply playing around in his own, demented way. While he would have been more than happy with killing Zazu, and his attempt still plants the seeds of his coup, it wouldn’t have fulfilled some deeper need of his.

As such, Scar’s response to Mufasa’s aggression in the original, when he says “I wouldn’t dream of challenging you”, has a confidence about it because he’s legitimately uninterested in physical strength. Being a hunter isn’t his endgame. He just wants to enjoy the freedom and respect that comes with being King, and will use his intellect to achieve it.

When he delivers the line in the remake, not only is he essentially cowering, the line “again” obviously signifies that he tried to be king through the “proper” channels before. His failure to defeat Mufasa reflects on his failure at being a tough lion, and his need for his intellect become a means of compensating for that failure.

It’s through this scene that the film’s interest in realism begins to really stand on its own legs. It has implications on the tone, and on the characerization of Scar.

Just Can’t Wait To Show You This Scene

It’s worth noting that the realism doesn’t merely make the film darker as it did with those moments with Scar. I think the most brilliant means of contrasting the original with the remake can be found in “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King”. The original sequence is abstract, beautiful, and full of life, emphasizing on the distinct animal life that overwhelms Zazu and enlightens Simba and Nala.

The same can be said of the remake, minus the word “abstract.” Favreau said he wanted the distinct animal legs to sort of feel like they were trees in an abstract forest, thus allowing for the vibrant beauty of the original to be captured in this new realism. The way Simba and Nala interact with each of the different species are distinctly playful and all bring their own life and vibrancy to the scene.

The Stampede 

Another scene that stood out dramatically in the remake was the stampede and the death of Mufasa. While there are certain dramatic changes in the scene that are informed by the realism, there are elements in this scene that also effectively follow up on ideas I previously mentioned regarding Scar.

First, I want to touch on the brilliance of the stampede sequence in the original. The way that the wildebeest are personified is astonishing; it’s as though they’re a force of nature, a flood of bullets, positively innumerable in their scope and terrifying in their individual danger. This treatment of them like a flood is effectively personified in moments like from 2:54 to 3:05 in in the scene I just linked to; Mufasa is trying to find the right place to run against the current, and is suddenly, violently stopped by a single wildebeest. There’s also the shot at 3:37, where Mufasa is being carried off by the flood.

There’s also a musical cue in between 1:42 and 1:44 that reminds me of cue from a conceptually similar sequence in Snow White, where you have a similar personification of elements through animals and vice versa.

Now. For the remake’s stampede.

The personification of the stampede as a “flood of bullets” is not present here. Per the emphasis on realism, it’s “just” a stampede of wildebeest. But the lack of this kind of personification doesn’t mean that the scene is artless or devoid of its own distinct drama; it’s not from a flood of bullets, but from the fact that this is a massive group of terrified, unpredictable animals, and the madness that ensues from that. The scene has the same musical cue from the original that I thought was similar to the Snow White one, and it’s also used as a means of exemplifying the threat of the stampede. But as the cue seems to be related to the relation of animals as natural occurring elements, and the stampede in the remake is not the “flood of bullets” that I described the original as, the use of nature for this cue is found in the madness, whirlwind and dust flying that results from the stampede. And so we see that weather and animal are still being united with this cue, even if not in the same way.

So, when Mufasa jumps into this group of animals, he’s not bravely traversing a current of bullets, he’s an animal bravely jumping among animals.

Here, he doesn’t find a place to run against the animals in the opposite direction. In this context, that would be foolish. What we instead have is the King of the Pride Lands running among his prey to save his son, and at 2:23 in the remake video, we’re given a still intense but more triumphant score; it’s a key musical theme from both the original and remake (I think it’s Mufasa’s theme but I’m not positive; I just know it’s from both films), and it’s played here on steroids. It’s Hans Zimmer compounded.

It’s also a score that wouldn’t work with the original film’s consistent, overwhelmingly horrific portrayal of the stampede. But in the remake, the theme reflects the bravery of the King as he traverses this stampede of terrified animals, using his place as their predator and King to scare some out of his way with his roar. The shots of Mufasa among the herd are shot with handheld cinematography from Simba’s perspective. 

The scene of Mufasa picking up Simba in his mouth and taking him to safety is also effectively contrasted thanks to the realism. In the original shot, at around 3:22, we see Simba’s small body centered in the frame of the innumerable wildebeest, with Mufasa unexpectedly but smoothly emerging from the background to get him.

When Simba is picked up in the remake, the realism redefines the moment in a few significant ways. Rather than Simba being in the center of an idealized, almost expressionistic personification of a stampede, he’s frozen in the middle of a real one. And Mufasa, rather than smoothly emerging from the background to signify his understanding of the environment, we’re given a handheld moment of vicious desperation as Mufasa violently emerges into the frame and grabs his son, once more roaring in an attempt to frighten off the nearby wildebeest. And when he’s knocked away after getting Simba to safety, he’s not carried off by the river, he’s hit by one unpredictable animal among many.

Now we’re getting back to Scar.

In the original, when Mufasa is climbing the cliffside, the artificial nature of the style permits for Mufasa to be climbing in a way that’s not “realistic” but that we can dramatically buy in the context of the film. As he’s holding on desperately to the cliffside, the drama of Scar’s presence is that he’s standing by indifferently, not helping his helpless brother. And with this “long live the king” moment, Scar grabbing Mufasa’s claws is essential to Scar’s plan to murder him, allowing him to throw Mufasa off the cliffside.

There are many key distinctions in the remake, and these are not simply informed by the realism, but call back to the thematic distinctions that the realism created that I mentioned earlier.

Firstly, the realism of the remake wouldn’t allow for Mufasa to be desperately clinging onto the cliffside the way he is in the original. As such, Scar is not going to be standing by indifferently as his helpless brother pleads for help. Rather, Mufasa is clearly on his way to freedom, and this time, he’s not in genuine need of Scar’s help, but Scar is now standing in his way.

The way Scar stares at him is a different sort of unsettling. I can’t help but be reminded of a school shooter, or of Dylann Roof’s mugshot. And when he grasps onto Mufasa’s claws, this is not essential to his plan to murder him; the only thing he “needs” to do to kill Mufasa is swat at him. So this time, he grasps his claws onto Mufasa’s so he can instead relish in the pain he’s inflicting, because he again, wants to be a “big, tough hunter.” And when he does his pathetic little swat, the only reason this leads to Mufasa’s death is because it disorients Mufasa at a time when he can’t afford to be.

As we see, the realism changes the drama of Mufasa’s presence on the cliffside, and thus changes the drama when he dies. This drama, in turn, calls back to how Scar wants to be (and fails to be) that big, tough hunter, which was informed by tonal shifts in his introduction because of the realism. This interest and failure leads to how he newly murders Mufasa; his swat is pathetic, but that’s sort of the point; we’ve seen his failure as a hunter and for his swat to be anything more than briefly disorienting would contradict that failure.

But that moderately disorienting swat made all the difference. Mufasa may have been on his way to freedom with his own strength, but he still needed every ounce of his strength to get there.

Once more, the realism redefines the drama of the scene while also calling back to themes that were established by it.

Scar and The Hyenas

A scene with Scar and the hyenas once more reinforces Scar’s ultimate failure as a hunter and how his intellect got him to the position of king.

Following Hakuna Matata, we cut back to the Pride Lands and how Scar’s rule is damaging them.

In the original, overhunting isn’t referenced, though obviously implied. But in the remake, given Scar’s interest in being a hunter, we once again see this desire on screen, as well as his failure to achieve it. In the clip I linked to above, starting at about :14, we see Scar hunting among the hyenas, but he’s not really doing his part. He slows down after not very long, letting the hyenas do the deed, and we simply see him relishing in their handiwork at 2:24. He can’t do the actual work, but he loves being in power and the image that comes with it.

Back to Art Within Reality

The exploration of environment in a documentary style occurs again in the scene when Simba’s hair makes its way to Rafiki.  The original journey of Simba’s hair to Rafiki is wonderful, and it’s very simple, not consisting of much more than 3 or 4 shots before Rafiki grasps it.

But this journey becomes its own scene in the remake, being much longer and showing different means of travel in that documentary style, showing that the realism, the life is what is helping Simba’s journey to his rightful place as king.

There are two more moments that I’d like to touch on before getting back to Scar and wrapping up this piece, both of which are found in Mufasa’s spirit speaking to Simba from the clouds.

The primary difference of this scene is that the shape of Mufasa’s face is illuminated inside the clouds by lightning. As with the opening shot and Rafiki painting Simba’s face by way of the bugs, this is again reflective of the art being found within the real.

But there’s also an important distinction to be found in how the scene ends; when Mufasa’s clouds wither away, and he says “I never left you, I never will”, and we see a sunrise that Simba can now see once the clouds have dissipated.

This shot is reinforcing the themes here of Mufasa being found in the Circle of Life, and how just as the sun will always rise, so will Mufasa always be there, even if Simba can’t see him.

Scar’s Failure As A Hunter, Complete

In the original, Scar’s last moment is reflected primarily as a failure of his intellect, with the hyenas not listening to him as he tries to explain his way out of the situation. The shot starts out with him and his voice alone, and both his physical presence and voice are overwhelmed by the number of Hyenas. He’s one lion amidst an army that won’t listen to him, and the failure of his voice to stand out reflects on the final failure of his intellect. 

In the remake, Scar is able to explain himself; his voice isn’t drowned out, and they clearly “hear him out”, still knowing that he’s full of it. This shows that his death is in part of a failure of his intellect that always got him ahead in life.

His last shot, unlike the original, starts out with the hyenas already in the frame. They’re not built up to the way the original did. With the hyenas already in composition in his last shot, it reflects his willingness to fight them physically, and his failure to do so, reflecting on the failure that matters most to him; his failure as a hunter. While we saw Mufasa make easy work of the entire hyena army earlier in the movie, the hyenas finish off Scar in less time than it took Mufasa to finish them off. His failure as a hunter is reinforced as a failure to accomplish what the true king did early in the film.

This concludes an arc that was defined by and complimentary to the realism established in the film. And once Simba has returned to his rightful place as King, the mouse whose scene introduced us more strongly to this style returns as the rest of the Pride Lands returns to its proper glory. The little guy that Scar was trying to nab at is comfortably back. While the film maintained its naturalism even during Scar’s rule, the distinct beauty the naturalism emphasized on, the beauty that Scar sought to snuff out, is once more dominant.

Once More Understanding The Opposition

As I said previously, I completely understand why people don’t like the movie and the issues people have with it. But I also think this film is the most interesting of Disney’s current slate of remakes, the one that took the most advantage of the sense of “real”, and I think it’s far and away the best.

Even if I didn’t make you enjoy the movie anymore, I hope I at least helped you understand that stance.