Labyrinth (film)
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| Labyrinth | |
|---|---|
| Image:Labyrinth movie.jpg | |
| Directed by | Jim Henson |
| Produced by | Eric Rattray George Lucas |
| Written by | Dennis Lee Jim Henson Terry Jones Elaine May |
| Starring | David Bowie Jennifer Connelly Toby Froud |
| Music by | David Bowie Trevor Jones |
| Distributed by | Columbia TriStar |
| Release date(s) | June 27 1986 (USA) |
| Running time | 102 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | NA |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Labyrinth is a 1986 fantasy film directed by Jim Henson and designed through the art of Brian Froud and Henson, with screenwriting by Henson, children's author Dennis Lee, and Monty Python alum Terry Jones. A novelization was written by A. C. H. Smith. The human leads are David Bowie as Jareth the Goblin King, and a teenage Jennifer Connelly as Sarah. The plot revolves around Sarah's quest in a strange fantasy maze. Most of the other significant roles are played by puppets or by a combination of puppetry and human performance. It was shot on location in New York and at Elstree Studios in the UK.
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[edit] Synopsis
Sarah is a dreamer, a young woman obsessed with fantasy and playing dress-up who is stuck babysitting her brother after a fight with her step-mother. Even worse, he has her treasured bear Lancelot. Sarah tries to quiet his screaming by telling him the story from her favorite book (also called Labyrinth), of a young woman granted special powers by the king of the goblins. It tells of how the girl could no longer stand her life and wishes for goblins to take away her screaming baby brother. As she ends the story and turns out the light, she says, "I wish the goblins would come and take you away...right now." Toby's crying suddenly stops. Worried, Sarah enters his room to find goblins have stolen away with him.
An owl flutters through the opened window and transforms into the goblin king Jareth (David Bowie) and tells her he has taken the baby as a gift to her. Offended, but playful when she asks for the baby back, he gives her 13 hours to find Toby before he is turned into a goblin. Now she must find her way to the center of a fantastic labyrinth and bring him back.
It turns out the Labyrinth is not a simple maze as much as its own world, riddled with logic puzzles and tests. She first meets Hoggle, a small dwarf-like man spraying fairies with pesticide outside the entrance. She pays him with jewellery to lead her through the maze. He later turns out to be a half-hearted spy for Jareth, though he eventually sides with Sarah. Her other companions are Sir Didymus (a chivalrous fox who rides a sheepdog called Ambrocious, lives in The Bog of Eternal Stench and guards a bridge to uphold a meaningless sacred oath) and Ludo (a gentle beast she rescues from some of the King's men). After a variety of adventures, including an encounter with detachable-limbed revelers who try to steal Sarah's head, a detour through the Bog of Eternal Stench, a junkyard recreation of her own bedroom (where she realizes that all of her childish toys are "junk"), and a drug-induced hallucination engineered by Jareth, Sarah makes her way into the castle at the center of its squalid city.
The film climaxes in Jareth's multi-dimensional M. C. Escher-inspired castle where he tries to confuse and frighten Sarah, making a final appeal for her to abandon her quest and stay with him as his queen. She instead rejects him at the last moment, echoing the very lines she originally couldn't remember when trying to rehearse for the play Labyrinth: "You have no power over me". The room crumbles away and Sarah finds herself in her front hall at home with the clock striking midnight and an owl flying away; presumably Jareth.
In her room, she collects some of her toys, returning to Toby's room to give him back Lancelot. While clearing her dresser off and clearly confused on whether this is the turning point in her life between being a grown-up or remaining a young girl, Hoggle appears along with Ludo and Sir Didymus, as images in the mirror. They seem to be bidding her good-bye as she leaves behind the fantasies of childhood, but remind her that they will still be available "should you need us." Sarah, however, insists that even as she grows up, she will still need them, and the film closes as the Labyrinth creatures celebrate Sarah's refusal to give up her imagination. Outside, the Jareth owl flies away into the night.
[edit] Labyrinth in other media
The filmmakers acknowledged several influences, including Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and the works of Maurice Sendak (the plot mirrors that of his story 'The Outside Over There') and M. C. Escher.
Many of the settings and creatures in the film were based on designs by Brian Froud, who had previously collaborated with Jim Henson on The Dark Crystal. Froud and screenwriter Terry Jones later collaborated on the book The Goblins of Labyrinth which depicted some of the incidental creatures from the film.
The soundtrack album Labyrinth includes much of Trevor Jones's strictly instrumental music including "Into the Labyrinth," "Sarah," "Hallucination," "The Goblin Battle," "Thirteen O'Clock" and "Home at Last," and David Bowie's five songs, "Magic Dance" (also credited as "Dance Magic"), "Chilly Down," "As the World Falls Down," "Within You," and the single released for the film, "Underground."
A video game based on the movie was released in Japan for the Nintendo Famicom, but never saw release in America. However, a Commodore 64 version was released in 1986.
Tokyopop in partnership with The Jim Henson Company published a manga-style three volume comic called Return to Labyrinth. The first volume was released August 8, 2006. It was written by Jake T. Forbes and illustrated by Chris Lie.<ref name="manga-details">Return to Labyrinth (Paperback). Amazon.com. Retrieved on 2006-07-03.</ref> It is planned as a sequel to the film and is set to be about Toby, the baby brother in the movie, when he has grown to be 13 years old.<ref name="manga">Tokyopop (2005-19-07). The Jim Henson Company, TOKYOPOP, and Neil Gaiman Set to Bring ‘Mirrormask’ and Classic Fantasy Titles to Manga. Press release. Retrieved on 2006-06-07. </ref>
One interpretation (see below), plus the suggestions of decadent sexual tempation in the ballroom, suggest an affinity with another 1980s film: The Company of Wolves, directed by Neil Jordan from short stories by Angela Carter.
[edit] Interpretation
Although primarily seen as a children's film, Labyrinth may also be interpreted as a symbolic tale of a young girl's (non-)acceptance of her maturity and sexuality. Jareth does everything Sarah asks him to do (such as take her brother away) and in that sense his role can be interpereted as a mentor for Sarah to discover herself as a mature, young woman. The ballroom scene is an example of the sexual power Jareth holds over Sarah, and symbolic of the way in which Sarah is confused and reluctant to accept her new role as a young woman vs. an immature girl. Scenes at the beginning and end of the film reveal that most of the characters which Sarah encounters echo toys, posters etc. from her bedroom—e.g. a Hoggle-like wooden bookend, a board game designed as a maze, a musical doll wearing the gown from the ballroom scene. Most significantly, newspaper clippings on Sarah's actress mother show that she has or had a relationship with her stage partner; Bowie's image is used for these photos. This implies the possiblility that the world of the labyrinth is forged from Sarah's vivid imagination.
Sarah's prioritizing of possessions over people is a strong undercurrent of the film. The film begins with her costume role playing with only her dog for a friend. She is shown to have a poor relationship with her family. Her room is cluttered with things collected from her childhood. Her initial anger at her baby brother Toby is triggered by finding her teddy bear in Toby's room. The Goblin King's first attempt at dissuading her from rescuing Toby is to offer her a gift, which she refuses. Her relationship with Hoggle pivots on trading trinkets. She gives up her ring to The Hat. After she escapes the ballroom she is almost trapped by the Junk Ladies. She sits in a facsimile of her room as a Junk Lady weaves a spell. The Junk Lady heaps all Sarah's favourite possessions around Sarah, who hugs them tight. Sarah throws off her possessions from her shoulders and back with the declaration "I have to save Toby!" After she returns to her home, she gives her teddy bear from the beginning of the film to Toby permanently. In the last scene of the film she is then seen packing away all her toys and memorabilia. At the end of the film Sarah has learned that people are more important than possessions yet that fantasy and playing is still something she needs.
[edit] Themes
Some of the major themes in 'Labyrinth' include:
- Sarah's growth into maturity
- Her reluctance to accept the above
- The theme of love is explored as well, with Sarah's relationships with both Jareth and her baby brother
- What is 'fair' ("It's not fair" is one of the commonly repeated things by Sarah, however by the end of the film, through obstacles overcome she realizes that everything is not always fair)
- Taking things for granted (Sarah's baby brother actually being taken away by the Goblin King is an example of how this theme is explored in the film)
[edit] Trivia
- Artist Brian Froud's infant son Toby played Sarah's brother in the movie.
- Some of the puppeteers went on to work for computer animation studios.
- David Bowie admits in the documentary about the Labyrinth that he did baby Toby's sounds in the song Magic Dance because the baby wouldn't gurgle.
- David Bowie's character is seen to contact juggle throughout the film. These manipulations were actually performed by renowned juggler Michael Moschen, who stood behind Bowie during filming.
- While Monty Python star Terry Jones is credited with the script, he claims that little of the movie following the part in which Sarah eats the enchanted peach is his own work.
[edit] Credits
- Director: Jim Henson
- Screenplay: Terry Jones, from a story by Jim Henson and Dennis Lee
- Original Music: Trevor Jones
- Original Music (songs): David Bowie
- Choreography: Cheryl McFadden
[edit] Cast
- David Bowie - Jareth, the Goblin king
- Jennifer Connelly - Sarah
- Toby Froud - Toby
- Shelley Thompson - Stepmother
- Christopher Malcolm - Father
- Brian Henson - Hoggle (voice)
- Ron Mueck - Ludo (voice)
- David Shaughnessy - Sir Didymus (voice)
- Percy Edwards - Ambrosius (voice)
- Timothy Bateson - The Worm (voice)
- Frank Oz - Wiseman
- Dave Goelz - Wiseman's Bird Hat (voice)
- Karen Prell - Junk Lady (voice)
- Steve Whitmire, Kevin Clash, Anthony Asbury, & Dave Goelz - The Four Guards (voices)
- Robert Beatty - Right Door Knocker (voice)
- Dave Goelz - Left Door Knocker (voice)
- Kevin Clash, Danny John-Jules, Karen Prell, Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmire & Anthony Asbury - Fireies (voices)
- Michael Moschen - (David Bowie's arms when manipulating crystal balls)
The film received a PG rating in the US and a U in the UK (equivalent to a US G). It runs for 101 minutes.
[edit] External links
- Labyrinth at the Internet Movie Database
- Labyrinth—(Facetious fan summary)
- Think Labyrinth: The Movie!—Fansite, including a transcript and early screenplay
- The LoJ Fantasy Masquerade—An annual masquerade ball inspired by the movie Labyrinth.
- Labyrinth for C64—The video game based on the movie (via GameSpot).
[edit] References
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es:Dentro del laberinto fr:Labyrinthe (film) he:המבוך (סרט) ja:ラビリンス/魔王の迷宮 pl:Labirynt (film) ru:Лабиринт (фильм)
