Mary Robinette Kowal - Four Fantastic Films That Aren't Quite Fantasy
Two weeks ago we talked about movies you might not think of as fantasy that do in fact fall into the category. That got me thinking about movies that look like fantasy, but really aren't. In broad definition, a fantasy evokes a sense of wonder by moving you out of the natural world. Sometimes it breaks only one rule, sometimes it establishes a whole new set of rules, but it's always at least a step outside the realm of reality. At the other end of the spectrum, there are some beautiful productions that have all of the trappings of fantasy without breaking any rules at all. For us fantasy geeks, that means a wider range of movies to watch and enjoy; for those still timid about diving into the genre, these flicks are the perfect gateway drug. So today, lets take a look at films that aren't by definition fantasies, but are chock full of the things we love.
Dreamchild (1985)
In this amazing movie, Jane Asher plays Alice Liddell -- the real life "Alice in Wonderland" -- as she travels to New York to celebrate the centennial of Lewis Carroll's book. As she goes along she's beset by the onset of senility, and the film depicts her confusing her memories from childhood with scenes from Wonderland. You see all of the characters, beautifully and disturbingly realized by Jim Henson's Creature Shop, but none of the things she sees exist outside her head. In one scene, young Alice is sitting at the tea party with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. When the camera cuts back to Alice, the old woman is sitting there, looking lost and confused. It is a chilling use of the tools of fantasy to create a very real sense of what it is like to lose your mind to dementia. Dreamchild looks and feels like a fantasy movie, but ultimately it's just an old woman's fantasy.
Big Fish (2003)
This one is often described as a fantasy movie, but when you look at the structure, it turns out that it isn't. Will Bloom's (Billy Crudup) father has always told him tall tales of giants and witches, which we see in vivid detail throughout the film. So...fantasy, right? Not so fast. When we get to the end, it becomes quite clear that the stories his father told were true, but exaggerations of real life. Those amazing, fantastic scenes of young Ed Bloom (Ewan MacGregor) were imaginings, but never actually happened within the world of the film. Stay with me here: In order to be fantasy, the fantastic elements must take place in the world of the film and not be confined to an individual's imagination. A lot of stories that seem to be fantasy actually have a frame story, like this one, that keeps everything within the real world.
First Knight (1995)
Sir Lancelot joins King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. He struggles with his love for Guinevere and his loyalty to the king. Sounds like a familiar fantasy plot, right? There's just one thing missing: Magic. This is the Arthurian legend without Merlin. Like many historical epics, it delivers the elements of fantasy: The clothes, the attitudes, the landscape and the swashbuckling. The only thing a film like First Knight doesn't do is to break the laws of the natural world. (We are, for the moment, ignoring the typical breaking of the laws of nature that most action flicks commit, otherwise I'd also have to include the newest Bond film in the fantasy category.) If you like the sweeping epic nature of fantasy, then films like this ought to appeal to you, even without the magic.
Frida (2002)
Director Julie Taymor is known for creating striking visuals in her movies, and this biopic of Frida Kahlo (played by Salma Hayek) is no exception. Using lighting and illusions brought from the world of stage, Taymor brings Frida's paintings to life in ways that are arresting and at times terrifying. She uses elements of fantasy as a way of enhancing the storytelling: Scenes morph from paintings into live action in ways that make it clear how thoroughly Frida lives her life through her art. It also makes her paintings dynamic by delivering the direct connection to her life. This is a perfect use of film to get inside a character's head and really show us how she thinks. It is visually fantastic, but it's not fantasy.
Can you think of some other ways that fantasic elements are used in a non-fantasy film?
Mary Robinette Kowal is the winner of the 2008 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. She is also the art director at Shimmer Magazine and a professional puppeteer. Her column appears every Friday.
I would qualify Big Fish as a fantasy film, as it's chiefly about the power of fantasy. Sure, at the end you see that Bloom's tales were based on real people that he encountered. But the ending is also ambiguous--maybe all of those crazy things really did happen and amazing things happen around us all the time. Or maybe he was just a big liar. But there was the possibility...
Also, Dreamchild sounds really interesting. Written by "The Singing Detective"'s Dennis Potter with Henson creature effects? Sign me up! Thanks for alerting me to this film, Mary. Do you know if it's on DVD?
--Nick
Who's next for X-Men Origins? Vote now!
ttp://blogs.amctv.com/scifi-scanner/2008/11/xmen-origins-characters.php
Being about the power of fantasy doesn't make it a fantasy film, any more than the 300 being about Spartan warriors makes it a documentary about Sparta. Big Fish celebrates the wonder of fantasy, yes, but I'd argue that the frame story still sets it in the real world.
Hm, interesting. Now let me ask you this:
If a bunch of things that look fantastic happen, and then the main character wakes up and says "Oh, it's all a dream!", then my understanding is that it should be considered a framing device, and not fantasy. However, what if in addition to waking up and saying it's all a dream, she also discovers, say, a feather that's from the adventure?
What about The Fall? It's all about the power of fantasy story, and except for the framing story, none of it turns out to be real. Even odder...the framing story continues to influence and change the fantastic tale as the mood and outlook of the protagonists changes.
Mary - would you then consider The Princess Bride to not be a fantasy. For 3/4 or more of the film we are set firmly within a fantasy story with all the silly trappings, but the movie is bookended (with a couple of breaks during the movie) by Columbo reading the Morgenstern book to his sick grandson.
So, the whole story of Westley and Buttercup never happened in the real world of the film...like Big Fish.
Kevin, in the case of a character finding something from the dream in the real world, then no, I think that is a fantasy because it breaks the rules of the natural world.
I think you could argue the point about each of those others though. For me the big difference between the Princess Bride and a film like Big Fish is that the world within the frame story of the Princess Bride is entirely self-contained. So the story of Buttercup is definitely fantasy. While in Big Fish one of the characters in the story is the one telling the stories (albeit second hand at times) which makes the wall between the fantasy and the frame story permeable. Since we do have pretty good confirmation at the end that the stories were exaggerations, I think it's arguable that the story as a whole is not structured like a fantasy. See what I mean?
I admittedly haven't seen The Fall so I can only make guesses from the synopsis.
Mary, have you seen The Cooler, starring William H. Macy? That's one that I think is also on the line--it contains real no-kidding magic--but the magic is all understated and handled in a plausibly deniable fashion, and the larger structure of the film is mimetic.
(I am a lumper rather than a splitter, in anthropological terms, so I tend to see everything as a spectrum rather than discrete categories.)
I haven't seen The Cooler but I just added it and The Fall to our Netflix que.
I'm with you on the idea of a spectrum rather than discrete categories, but categories are useful for figuring out what the ends of the spectrum are. I mean there are some films that are undeniably fantasy and some that are clearly not. It's all the interstitial stuff that's fun to argue about.
I thought about throwing Wizard of Oz in there, because in the film, structurally, it's clearly a dream, but in the book, structurally, it's clearly real. I figured I'd have a riot on my hands if I did.
Oh, I definitely need to see "Dreamchild."
Your "almost" category could be used when comparing the US and UK versions of "Legend." It's a classic fantasy piece in itself, but a line was cut out of the end of the US version, where Mia Sara says something like, "Shall we play again tomorrow?"
That one line takes it from True Fantasy film to something more in the Big Fish territory...which made the film that much more spectacular to me.
I'm not sure about First Knight not being fantasy. It's still based on a myth rather than any real history. Troy and The 13th Warrior do the same thing; retell a myth with the trappings of realism. But that doesn't make Arthur or Helen or Beowulf any less fantastic, that just makes the story slightly less fanciful. It's not like these movies are based on strict archaeological research, they're just fantasies with certain elements stripped out.
@Alethea: Mm... interesting. I didn't know that about Legend
@Sarcasto: I see the point you're making, but turn it around. If First Knight is a fantasy because it's not based on a true story then so is The Hunt for Red October. Both are based on fiction told in another medium but neither break the rules of the natural world. First Knight absolutely has stronger elements of fantasy that Red October but having the elements is not enough, in my mind, to make it a true fantasy film. As you say, it's a fantasy with certain elements stripped out, but I think it stripped out the ones that make it a fantasy.
Ironic that you chose this column this week. Opening today is the movie "Bolt," about a dog with super powers - only he soon learns he doesn't really have super powers after all, he's just the star of a TV show. (I was going to charade you for leaving out "The Wizard of Oz," but you already covered that above.)
An example of a non-fantasy inside a fantasy is "Toy Story," where a toy also falsely believes he has super powers, but does not. However, it takes place in a world where toys come alive, so it's still fantasy.
Star Wars has had endless arguments over whether it's SF or fantasy. The "Force" seems to be magic (i.e. fantasy), but they later rationalize it scientifically. So what seemed fantasy turns out to be SF.
Addendum to previous note: "Bolt" is, of course, still fantasy since it has talking animals, etc. (So it too is a non-fantasy inside a fantasy.) So no snarky comments on that!!!
@Larry Hodges, I've always argued that Star Wars is fantasy. Yes, the Force is a form of magic, even if it is explained with some scientific trappings. But, more importantly, the overall story is fantasy and not Sci-Fi.
As I understand it, a Sci-Fi story is one in which the telling of it completely hinges upon the science and technology it features and should one remove that element the entire story would utterly fail. Classic Sci-Fi example: Bladerunner, whose ultimate premise is about Replicants who believe themselves real persons and whether they have a right to an existence just as humans. This is Sci-Fi, even if it did not take place in the future L.A. the core of the story is about technology being just as human as we are.
Fantasy takes the helm with stories regarding destiny or fate or prophesy, or, more personally, finding a hidden power (rule breaking here - magic, mind powers, etc.) and finding the purpose and inner strength to carry through. The idea a grand scheme, such as destiny, brings to bear an otherworldly or divine power into the tale making it seem as if there is a larger purpose to life and how our lives are collectively intertwined with this power. Firestarter is fantasy (albeit urban fantasy). It breaks the rules by giving a child the mental control over fire, a personal dilemma for her as she tries to master her power to protect herself while controling it so she can still be human.
That is the differences between the two, so with Star Wars, the stories were never about technology, it just happened to have technology as part of the story. Nothing wrong with futuristic fantasy just as much as there is nothing wrong with historical Sci-Fi (though I can't think of any of hand since I've never been a Sci-Fi junkie).
Fun list - I look forward to adding the ones I haven't seen to my queue.
I'd like to see you cross this distinction between fantasy and not with the superhero genre...
Mary,
How is The Princess Bride any more of a fantasy than Big Fish? Both have framing sequences, both are told by unreliable narrators. (Come on, Columbo was just making up that story as he went along!)
Also, because I'm a geek--it's "300," not "The 300."
And can anyone tell me where to find Dreamchild on DVD??
--Nick
Who's Next for X-Men Origins? Vote Now!
http://blogs.amctv.com/scifi-scanner/2008/11/xmen-origins-characters.php