Film Review:- King Kong

Film Review:- King Kong
The movie King Kong (1933 – Merian Cooper, Ernest Schoedsack) had a great social, creative and cultural impact upon release, become what is considered the first Block Buster movie of the golden age in cinema. However, in recent years the movie has come under scrutiny for its portrayal and semiotics of black people in society. Its release lines up with many social changes and scenes in the movie point to idea and fears of the people making the movie. Because of these facts I will elaborate on in the coming essay I explain how a technical masterpiece became problematic in the eyes of modern society. 

There is a lot social context that makes King Kong’s release problematic, due to the relatively recent abolishment of slavery, large amounts of black people where moving away from the countryside plantations into the city. This made many city dwellers afraid of a change in their lives making. This can be seen in figure1 a front cover of The New Yorker in 1938. This cover relates to the black community by using commonly used semiotics depicting or referring to black people as “Monkey”, This connection is made in the film itself when a new yorker says “{it’s a great ape}, don’t we already have enough of those in new York”. Because of this link its obvious to see the link between the depiction of King Kong and depiction of black people in the media of the time. This stretches to other representations in the movie when talking about the exotic islands “It’s inhabitants are generally coded as African, and sometimes Asian. Either way, Skull Island is a terrifying, otherworldly realm, more like another dimension than another continent, full of superstitious, glowering villagers and fantastical creatures” - Nathan Rabin. This enforces the idea of fear mongering using stereotypes and representations in movies. Because of this subtext the movie that should be held for a marvel of its time has become problematic due to semiotics and its use of language. Even though it’s not obvious “Speech has both an individual and a social side, and we cannot conceive of one without the other.” - Ferdinand de Saussure, so even though the words may not be direct, the social meaning behind them is negative and obvious to the modern viewer.

Figure1

King Kong had a great impact on the creative community upon its release, being held as a huge leap in cinematic story telling its blend of stop motion and life action footage was never seen before at this scale. Long scenes of Kong interacting with the live action set and people in it fill the majority of the second act, Roger Ebert says the movie “introduces Kong and rarely cuts away from sequences requiring one kind of trickery or another.” These technical tricks “uses its very naivete to generate a kind of creepy awe” Ebert continues, While watching the movie I could see the starting grounds of techniques that are used in modern cinema however the actors of directors lack of testing shows through as many seams are seen when actors accidentally interact with the black light projecting screens. Some of these technical tricks come at a cost, due to Kong being stop motion and on a separate reel of film, the cameras had to be immobile, to match the view of the live action shots. This make viewing the world of Kong as though looking through at frame. The lack of motion means there is no parallax in the shot, because of this the world can seem quite flat and the idea that a camera is a widow to this new world is harder to find. “… the cinema as window and frame offers special ocular access to an event.” – Thomas E, this is proved in my earlier righting and Kong with its lack of panning shots of Kong himself only shows us access to this event from 1 angle at a time. Because of this we look at a frame and not through a window like Thomas E explains when saying “one looks through a window, but one looks at a frame.” 

The cultural impact of King Kong cannot be left unmentioned, seen as many as one of the first block buster movies it started it’s time on screen with 4 days of sold out viewings across 2 theatres. According to the American Film Institute- “50,000 people on its first day, and after its first four days, the film set an all-time attendance record for an indoor event” This could be seen as the start of a cinema revolution and the start of what is currently being called old media. This made created a huge shift in what people thought was possible in cinema, as the advanced techniques shown in King Kong opened up a huge horizon for film makers, now there weren’t restricted to full physical sets and the idea of larger then life monsters has been attained and displayed in a great way. This had a furthered impact on animations of the time as well where it became apparent people would be interested in seeing there work on a larger scale outside standard 2D animation.

In conclusion King Kong had a great impact on the culture of its time for a variety of different reasons, even though it had a cultural agenda, the impressive leaps in film making grounded it in the public eye for a long time after its release. Inspiring all manner of film makers and artists. It kicked off a time in Hollywood where movies could be made with big effects and receive huge amounts of interest when those film came to the screen. However due to its semiotics and double meaning the movie is seen as quite offensive to a modern audience and over time many of its technical feats and improvements have been clouded by the controversial readings and meaning behind the piece. When considered in the context of its production and release and the seemingly hinted at ideas and ideals of the people making the movie.

Bibliography:

AFI|Catalog (s.d.) At: https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/4005 (Accessed 08/12/2019).

Ebert, R. (2002) 'King Kong movie review & film summary (1933) | Roger Ebert' At: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-king-kong-1933 (Accessed 08/12/2019).

Failes, I. (s.d.) How ‘King Kong’ Movies Changed VFX History, Over and Over Again. At: https://www.inverse.com/article/28410-king-kong-visual-effects-hist (Accessed 08/12/2019).

Rabin, N. (2017) The Monkey and the Metaphor: What Every King Kong Movie Is Really About. At: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/03/king-kong-skull-island-movies-metaphors (Accessed 08/12/2019).

de Saussure, F. (2011) Course in General Linguistics. (s.l.): Columbia University Press.

Thomas, E. and Malte, H. (2010) 'Film Theory: An Introduction through the Senses'

Illustration list:

Turnisa, W. T. et al. (s.d.) 'The New Yorker March 19, 1938 Issue' In: The New Yorker At: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1938/03/19 (Accessed 08/12/2019).

IMDb. (n.d.). King Kong (1933). [online] Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024216/mediaviewer/rm2094937600 [Accessed 10 Dec. 2019].