William Steig conceived Shrek and his loyal sidekick, Donkey. At the time of the book’s release, the author was over 80 years old, the perfect time to reflect on the years he had lived. And there was much to remember! Steig made a name for himself in the 1930s as the author of comics about “The Little Guys”: his characters were hooligans, street children. Later, he preferred to draw animals dressed as people. But these sketches were aimed at adults. And only at the end of his career did Steig begin to write fairy tales for children… on which, by the way, more than one generation of Americans grew up. “Roland the Musician,” “Amos & Boris,” “Abel’s Island,” “The Amazing Bone” – each of these tales was distinguished by a non-standard approach to the characters and their adventures: troubles just kept falling on the fragile shoulders of mice, pigs, and whales. By the time he wrote “Shrek,” William Steig had already become “the most” among illustrators. Just think, he was not only acquainted with Picasso, but also managed to quarrel with him!
The Birth of a Green Icon
So, in 1990, Steig created the image of a modern-day “Don Quixote,” who is not only green but also born to be an ogre. Instead of Sancho Panza, he got a talking donkey, but the point, as Shrek noted, is not that the donkey is talking, but HOW to make him shut up! By the way, Steig didn’t just pull his hero’s name out of thin air. His prototype was the mysterious Max Schreck, who played Nosferatu in Friedrich Murnau’s eponymous expressionist horror film. So Steig began his exercises on the history of cinema directly in the book. It is not surprising that the team of Jeffrey Katzenberg picked up the baton, and exactly five years after the release of the fairy tale, they began preparing the script for the big screen. And the story sparkled with new colors. The colors of modern pop culture.
From Page to Screen: A Pop Culture Phenomenon
“Get the dead woman off the table!” Shrek yells when the seven dwarves, carrying Snow White, get rid of their burden right in front of his plate. But it’s too late… The Big Bad Wolf is already lying in his bed, and displaced persons have set up camp in the yard. What kind of madhouse is going on in his usual swamp? It’s just that Lord Farquaad decided to throw all the fairy-tale characters out of the Kingdom, as unnecessary. Three bears sit in a cage, someone got twenty coins for the witch, and the three little pigs, the wolf, and the seven young goats are next in line. Papa Carlo sells Pinocchio for next to nothing, calling him a possessed toy. Cinderella has been transferred to the category of “hot” brides for sale, which the talking Magic Mirror trades in. Farquaad’s moral is: “Nowadays, fairy tales have fallen sharply in price and are of little use to anyone.” But that’s in the cartoon…
In real life, Katzenberg cleverly poked fun at the head of the Disney studio, because the latter served as the prototype for the arrogant lord. Apparently, that’s why, before the release of the first “Shrek,” the film’s producer gathered a council of lawyers to consult and deliver their verdict: does DreamWorks face a lawsuit for pranks, or will the company get away with a slight scare? It worked out… And they made money too. About half a billion dollars went into the ogre’s piggy bank. A good warm-up before the real race, because the second part of Shrek’s adventures, his “Shrekinis,” and his incessant gray friend grossed $108 million in the first weekend alone – a record for modern animation. The final box office figure for the second part doubled compared to the first – almost a billion US dollars. It’s no wonder the guys suffered for so many years! After all, it only seems that computer technology simplifies the process of creating animation. Meanwhile, 20-25 people work on each character! And they simply “develop” the appearance, but also create the musculature of their heroes. For example, Shrek’s face contains 218 muscles.
A Treasure Trove of Cinematic References
As for the “movie tricks,” the screenwriters of the parody epic “Scary Movie” are nervously smoking on the sidelines. “Shrek” gives them a hundred points ahead. In the cartoon’s personal quote book, there are hits from both the 1930s and very recent ones… In addition to the highly publicized “Spider-Man,” “The Matrix,” “The Mask of Zorro,” “X-Men,” “The Lord of the Rings,” or “Mission: Impossible,” there are subtle allusions to “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) with Judy Garland, “Cabaret” (1972) with Liza Minnelli, “Cat Ballou” (1965) with Jane Fonda, “The Seven Year Itch” (1955) with Marilyn Monroe, and many other films. But even this seemed not enough for the witty screenwriters, they needed to add fire. So they hung Botticelli’s Venus on the palace walls, portraits of reigning monarchs (hello Elizabeth II), plus posters of pop stars like Justin Timberlake. The voice of the latter, by the way, in “Shrek the Third” (2007) was given to the rebel-hippie Arthur.
Star-Studded Voice Cast
And the company that gathered for the dubbing of “Shrek” was completely stellar: Mike Myers (Shrek), Cameron Diaz (Fiona), Eddie Murphy (Donkey), Antonio Banderas (Puss), Julie Andrews (Queen), Rupert Everett (Prince). Each of them got so into their character that one can only guess whether the animators copied the appearance and plasticity of the characters from them? One can swear that Donkey smiles with a typical Murphy-esque toothy smile, and Fiona possesses kung fu techniques exactly like Diaz’s heroine in “Charlie’s Angels.” The Prince shows a purely English arrogance, inherent in Everett in life and on the screen. By the way, during the entire time of dubbing the cartoon, the actors never met in the studio.
But there were anecdotes. For example, Mike Myers was finishing Shrek’s last line: “Attention all fairy-tale creatures!” literally on the go, in Katzenberg’s limousine, who flew to New York specifically for this. According to Myers, the actor borrowed Shrek’s accent from his mother, who loved to tell him fairy tales at night. In order to pronounce Shrek’s first declaration of love to Fiona as authentically as possible, Myers called his wife, Robin, to the studio. A trifle, but the wife is pleased, and the cartoon benefits! Cameron Diaz not only voiced her character, but also added an important detail to her image, making Princess Fiona… burp as deliciously as her “monster-like lover.” They say that this was not in the script, it just so happened that Diaz had a mishap during the recording, but the authors liked the sound so much that they decided to insert it into the film. Antonio Banderas got so into the image of the red-haired duelist cat that he took part in the dubbing not once, but three times! In addition to the English version, there are two more intended for the Spanish-speaking population.
The Ogre’s Future: What Lies Ahead?
The showing of the film “Shrek the Third” had not even begun, and the fourth part was already looming on the horizon. So the trio of directors, Kelly Asbury, Conrad Vernon, and Andrew Adamson, will have to deal with the affairs of the “ogre-cannibal” more than once, who is unlikely to be able to live “happily ever after” with his green girlfriend in his native swamp in the near future. There are rumors that we will reveal the “secret behind seven seals” regarding Shrek’s past.
So, we will find out how he got to this life, and whether his emigration was part of a well-thought-out plan to capture the magical Universe…