In 1933, a steamship set sail from the shores of New York. The ship’s captain agreed to transport a film crew led by a fanatical director. Their destination: Skull Island, surrounded by a wall, behind which a monster dwells.
The Genius of Peter Jackson’s “King Kong”
Two of the most important contemporary directors, Peter Jackson and Quentin Tarantino, possess a remarkable ability to elevate the source material that they grew up with and whose love they acknowledge in their films. While Tarantino crafted an astonishing metaphysical drama about motherhood from the mass-produced Hong Kong action films of the Shaw Brothers studio, Jackson, by recreating scenes almost verbatim from the artificial “King Kong” of 1933, imbued them with a power and depth that the creators of the original film likely never imagined.
Jackson’s “Kong,” clocking in at over three hours, evokes ecstatic, childlike admiration with every frame. It’s not merely that it’s a technically perfect film, nor that there isn’t a single superfluous shot in the incredibly long picture. It’s not even about the unimaginable power of Jackson’s imagination and the titanic work done by his team (99% of the material is shot against a green screen plus work with models). The point is that if one could formulate a definition of genius, it would likely be the author’s ability to convey their thoughts and feelings to anyone.
A Multifaceted Masterpiece
“King Kong” is multifaceted, like any truly brilliant work of art. One can see in it an amazing adventure film with special effects, a philosophical phantasmagoria in the spirit of Hoffmann, a “movie about a big ape” – and all these definitions fit. And despite the tears it evokes in the viewer, “King Kong” is, at its core, optimistic. Simply because a great work justifies, by its existence, everything that spawned it – cinema, the world, humanity – with all the flaws inherent in life’s phenomena.
