The Evolution Of Peter Jackson: From Cult Filmmaker To Industry-Shaking Oscar-Winner [Part 1]
By Andrew Todd/Dec. 12, 2018 11:00 am EST
Peter Jackson has two new movies out this December, and each represents a vastly different side of the New Zealand cinema titan. Mortal Engines, which Jackson produced and co-wrote, is the kind of giant fantasy blockbuster he has become known for, while They Shall Not Grow Old, his (non-faux) documentary debut, stems from an entirely different part of his sensibilities.Thus, it’s worth taking a look at how we got here – and how Jackson’s career has changed him as a filmmaker.
The Early, Naughty Ones
Jackson had been making short films since childhood, including an 8mm remake of the final scene of King Kong, but filmmaking only became his career with the landmark homemade splatter flick Bad Taste. Filling his four-year weekend-warrior production with innovative lo-fi special effects and Kiwi humour, Jackson scored big when he took the film to the Cannes market, despite being a total newcomer to the market process at the time. Bad Taste, shot so cheaply the negative became mouldy from being stored under Jackson’s bed, is a hyper-gory debut that demonstrates Jackson’s canny ability to create a gag and endear an audience. Telling a tale of aliens slaughtering humans for fast food, it fit into the Evil Dead niche: a low-budget, high-enthusiasm horror film that midnight audiences could cheer and throw popcorn at. Cult audiences went wild for it.
From there, Jackson teamed up with Fran Walsh (a collaboration that still lasts to this day) to make Meet The Feebles, an R-rated musical about puppet performers whose private lives are dark, disgusting, and degraded. A notoriously fraught and over-budget production, to the point that the New Zealand Film Commission removed its credit, the film wasn’t nearly as popular as Bad Taste had been. It’s a chaotic mess of ideas, many designed purely for shock value – an attempt, perhaps, to outdo even Bad Taste’s bad taste. Though replete with clever and amusing ideas, including an ultraviolent parody of The Deer Hunter, the overall effect is that of a bad South Park episode, trying so hard to offend everyone, all the time, that it all fades into fuzzy noise. Surely Jackson’s most obscure film to date, screenings are rare but raucous.
Jackson’s third feature, the 1992 zombie film Braindead (referred to internationally as Dead Alive), represented an immense jump in quality and production value. Backed by foreign investors (who mandated the casting of a Spanish actress in a lead role), Jackson turned out a film that’s arguably still the most gleefully bloody film ever made, jam-packed with inventive gore gags and memorable characters. Despite its literal messiness, Braindead sports the cleanest storytelling of Jackson’s “bodily-fluids” trilogy, and a charismatic, super-Kiwi lead performance from Tim Balme. Thanks to its over-the-top gore and quotable dialogue, it’s become a massive cult classic. Incredibly, it even spawned an equally bloody stage-musical adaptation, though that ultimately failed to inspire as much interest as the film did.These early films, their collective budgets totalling under $4 million, represent boundless creativity from a director hungry to entertain. Looking back, Jackson says, “there was a degree of freedom that we used to have in those days that you lose to some degree — that sense of naughtiness.” Naughtiness is an understatement. With little oversight from executives, particularly compared to Jackson’s 21st century career, he and his teams were free to run wild with gore effects, transgressive content, and unusual filmmaking techniques. The camerawork in Braindead, particularly, occupies a sweet spot where the team had both a budget for gear, and a shoot-from-the-hip attitude. The film’s crazy camera movements feel almost dangerous to execute, as if the camera might fly out of the operator’s hands at any moment. Jackson would never fully return to this sense of unhinged freedom, but he had other targets in his sights.
The Evolution Of Peter Jackson: From Cult Filmmaker To Industry-Shaking Oscar-Winner [Part 1]
By Andrew Todd/Dec. 12, 2018 11:00 am EST
Peter Jackson has two new movies out this December, and each represents a vastly different side of the New Zealand cinema titan. Mortal Engines, which Jackson produced and co-wrote, is the kind of giant fantasy blockbuster he has become known for, while They Shall Not Grow Old, his (non-faux) documentary debut, stems from an entirely different part of his sensibilities.Thus, it’s worth taking a look at how we got here – and how Jackson’s career has changed him as a filmmaker.
The Early, Naughty Ones
Jackson had been making short films since childhood, including an 8mm remake of the final scene of King Kong, but filmmaking only became his career with the landmark homemade splatter flick Bad Taste. Filling his four-year weekend-warrior production with innovative lo-fi special effects and Kiwi humour, Jackson scored big when he took the film to the Cannes market, despite being a total newcomer to the market process at the time. Bad Taste, shot so cheaply the negative became mouldy from being stored under Jackson’s bed, is a hyper-gory debut that demonstrates Jackson’s canny ability to create a gag and endear an audience. Telling a tale of aliens slaughtering humans for fast food, it fit into the Evil Dead niche: a low-budget, high-enthusiasm horror film that midnight audiences could cheer and throw popcorn at. Cult audiences went wild for it.
From there, Jackson teamed up with Fran Walsh (a collaboration that still lasts to this day) to make Meet The Feebles, an R-rated musical about puppet performers whose private lives are dark, disgusting, and degraded. A notoriously fraught and over-budget production, to the point that the New Zealand Film Commission removed its credit, the film wasn’t nearly as popular as Bad Taste had been. It’s a chaotic mess of ideas, many designed purely for shock value – an attempt, perhaps, to outdo even Bad Taste’s bad taste. Though replete with clever and amusing ideas, including an ultraviolent parody of The Deer Hunter, the overall effect is that of a bad South Park episode, trying so hard to offend everyone, all the time, that it all fades into fuzzy noise. Surely Jackson’s most obscure film to date, screenings are rare but raucous.
Jackson’s third feature, the 1992 zombie film Braindead (referred to internationally as Dead Alive), represented an immense jump in quality and production value. Backed by foreign investors (who mandated the casting of a Spanish actress in a lead role), Jackson turned out a film that’s arguably still the most gleefully bloody film ever made, jam-packed with inventive gore gags and memorable characters. Despite its literal messiness, Braindead sports the cleanest storytelling of Jackson’s “bodily-fluids” trilogy, and a charismatic, super-Kiwi lead performance from Tim Balme. Thanks to its over-the-top gore and quotable dialogue, it’s become a massive cult classic. Incredibly, it even spawned an equally bloody stage-musical adaptation, though that ultimately failed to inspire as much interest as the film did.These early films, their collective budgets totalling under $4 million, represent boundless creativity from a director hungry to entertain. Looking back, Jackson says, “there was a degree of freedom that we used to have in those days that you lose to some degree — that sense of naughtiness.” Naughtiness is an understatement. With little oversight from executives, particularly compared to Jackson’s 21st century career, he and his teams were free to run wild with gore effects, transgressive content, and unusual filmmaking techniques. The camerawork in Braindead, particularly, occupies a sweet spot where the team had both a budget for gear, and a shoot-from-the-hip attitude. The film’s crazy camera movements feel almost dangerous to execute, as if the camera might fly out of the operator’s hands at any moment. Jackson would never fully return to this sense of unhinged freedom, but he had other targets in his sights.
From there, Jackson teamed up with Fran Walsh (a collaboration that still lasts to this day) to make Meet The Feebles, an R-rated musical about puppet performers whose private lives are dark, disgusting, and degraded. A notoriously fraught and over-budget production, to the point that the New Zealand Film Commission removed its credit, the film wasn’t nearly as popular as Bad Taste had been. It’s a chaotic mess of ideas, many designed purely for shock value – an attempt, perhaps, to outdo even Bad Taste’s bad taste. Though replete with clever and amusing ideas, including an ultraviolent parody of The Deer Hunter, the overall effect is that of a bad South Park episode, trying so hard to offend everyone, all the time, that it all fades into fuzzy noise. Surely Jackson’s most obscure film to date, screenings are rare but raucous.
Jackson’s third feature, the 1992 zombie film Braindead (referred to internationally as Dead Alive), represented an immense jump in quality and production value. Backed by foreign investors (who mandated the casting of a Spanish actress in a lead role), Jackson turned out a film that’s arguably still the most gleefully bloody film ever made, jam-packed with inventive gore gags and memorable characters. Despite its literal messiness, Braindead sports the cleanest storytelling of Jackson’s “bodily-fluids” trilogy, and a charismatic, super-Kiwi lead performance from Tim Balme. Thanks to its over-the-top gore and quotable dialogue, it’s become a massive cult classic. Incredibly, it even spawned an equally bloody stage-musical adaptation, though that ultimately failed to inspire as much interest as the film did.These early films, their collective budgets totalling under $4 million, represent boundless creativity from a director hungry to entertain. Looking back, Jackson says, “there was a degree of freedom that we used to have in those days that you lose to some degree — that sense of naughtiness.” Naughtiness is an understatement. With little oversight from executives, particularly compared to Jackson’s 21st century career, he and his teams were free to run wild with gore effects, transgressive content, and unusual filmmaking techniques. The camerawork in Braindead, particularly, occupies a sweet spot where the team had both a budget for gear, and a shoot-from-the-hip attitude. The film’s crazy camera movements feel almost dangerous to execute, as if the camera might fly out of the operator’s hands at any moment. Jackson would never fully return to this sense of unhinged freedom, but he had other targets in his sights.
The Road to Superstardom
The Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Wonders of the World
As for Kong itself – another enormous undertaking for Jackson and his team – it feels oddly like a footnote today, now that we’re a decade-plus removed from it. It was a big deal at release, but not a runaway hit; not everybody liked it, and many of those that did had reservations; it doesn’t enjoy or stand up to the volume of rewatches that Rings does. That all feels particularly odd given that, until recently, it arguably had the strongest claim on being a “passion project” out of anything in Jackson’s filmography. It’s still a strong film, if a little overindulgent, with a great Andy Serkis performance and some superb action choreography. And in many ways, it feels like the end of an era in which Peter Jackson was truly in control of the projects he was making.
Our look at the evolution of Peter Jackson will continue, and conclude, with Part 2 tomorrow.
