Ron Howard, celebrated author of “Splash”, “Cocoon”, “Willow” and “A Beautiful Mind”also has a hand for documentaries, which lately have been doing better than fiction.
For example, “The Beatles: Eight Days a Week”, “Pavarotti”which was seen here only one day and is a gem, “Rebuilding Paradise”, about the reconstruction of a city ravaged by forest fires, and “We Feed People”about the work of the Spanish chef Jose Andres and his NGO World Central Kitchen, dedicated to bringing food to victims of natural or war disasters. They are dissimilar issues, but Howard He has known how to find the tone of each one, and duly excite each audience.
This is what happens now with “Jim Henson. “The man and the ideas”which was presented in the Classics section of the recent Cannes Film Festival and can now be seen on Disney Plus. Is about a biography of the creator of the Muppetsdone in such a way that it pleasantly awakens the emotional memory of viewers who are already parents or grandparents, surprises and enriches the youngest, and, without saying anything, makes evident how bad we are today.
But there is something else. To accompany the beginnings and evolution of Hensonfull of dynamism, creativity and continuous change, Howard appeals to an equally dynamic story, with editing and graphics games on the images, something that will calm down as the story takes in the last years of the artist, and he, not Let’s say it calms down, but it already has other challenges: discussions about space and money with the big fish, marital claims, circumstantial failures, health.
He was a workaholic, as they say now, and To make matters worse, those in Scientology had caught it, recommending that he do without doctors. When he went to the clinic, he was already late. In that part, Howard It does not innovate, it only does what we have already seen in so many other documentaries, that somewhat sad and elongated thing, which luckily is saved in the end because the religious service, in a Catholic church, was full of costumes, colors and dolls. Fulfilling Henson’s request, no one wore black. But for many their childhood is over.
Admirable, all the archival material, with the first advertising works and the first television microphone of the artist and his wife, the experimental shorts, the Joan Ganz Cooney & Lloyd Morrisey to make a fun and educational children’s program, that is, “Sesame Street”The incorporation of Frank Richard Oznowiczbetter known as Frank Ozand other puppeteers of law, the walls against which the dream of making “The Muppet Show”until Lord Lew Grade called from London.
It is worth mentioning, Grade, that it seemed Humpty Dumptyas they call it in the north) with a cigar in his mouth, he worked with Zeffirelli, Peckinpah, Lina Wertmuller, Dick Richards, and produced the Muppet Show, and the first two filmsat the same time that it produced one of Ingmar Bergman, “From the Life of Puppets.” And there is a reproach: when the first one is reviewed, “Here come the Muppets”one waits for the scene of Rene and his friends riding bikes, and he’s not there. Someday someone will explain how they made it.
Henson and his collaborators were great. It is fascinating to see how they went from the traditional glove and rod puppets to the complicated creatures that appear in “The enchanted crystal” and “Labyrinth”. And they were already imagining what the animatronics were going to be over time.
The story continues, they tell it Frank Oz, Henson’s childrensome collaborators and guest artists, his agent, and also Bonnie Ericksonthe woman who designed and dressed Miss Piggythe old people in the box and the Country Trio.
We met her at the 2009 Mar del Plata Festival, and jokingly she remembered the birth of Miss Piggy there: “I started as a costume designer. One day, since I’m from Minnesota, Jim asked me to make him three little pigs. That’s how she was born. I gave it shape and movement, but its personality was given to it by Frank Oz, the librettist.”. This is how they worked, they had fun, and this is how they left something that no one has surpassed yet.
“Jim Henson: the man of ideas” (Jim Henson: Idea Man, USA, 2024.; Dir.: Ron Howard. Documentary. Disney Plus.
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
