James and the Giant Peach (film)

James and the Giant Peach
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Henry Selick
Produced by Denise Di Novi
Tim Burton
Screenplay by Karey Kirkpatrick
Jonathan Roberts
Steve Bloom
Based on James and the Giant Peach
by Roald Dahl
Starring
Music by Randy Newman
Cinematography Pete Kozachik
Hiro Narita
Edited by Stan Webb
Production
company
Distributed by Buena Vista Pictures (Global)
Guild Film Distribution[1] (United Kingdom)
Release date
  • April 12, 1996 (1996-04-12) (United States)
  • August 2, 1996 (1996-08-02) (United Kingdom)
Running time
 79 minutes
Country United Kingdom
United States
Language English
Budget $38 million
Box office $28.9 million (U.S.)[2]

James and the Giant Peach is a 1996 British-American musical fantasy film directed by Henry Selick, based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Roald Dahl. It was produced by Tim Burton and Denise Di Novi, and starred Paul Terry as James. The film is a combination of live action and stop-motion animation. Co-stars Joanna Lumley and Miriam Margolyes played James's aunts in the live-action segments, and Simon Callow, Richard Dreyfuss, Susan Sarandon, Jane Leeves, David Thewlis, and Margolyes voiced his insect friends in the animation sequences.

Plot

James Henry Trotter is a young boy who lives with his parents by the sea in England. On James' birthday, they plan to go to New York City and visit the Empire State Building, the tallest building in the world. However, his parents are killed by a ghostly rhinoceros from the sky and James finds himself living with his two abusive and cruel aunts, Spiker and Sponge, in a run-down house on top of a high hill.

He is forced to work all day and they antagonize him by threatening him with beatings to keep him in line and torment him about the mysterious rhino and other hazards if he ever attempts to escape. After rescuing a spider from being squashed by his aunts, James meets a mysterious man with a bag of magic green "crocodile tongues", which he gives to James to make his life better. The man instructs him not to lose the "tongues" and disappears. When James is returning to the house, he trips and the "tongues" escape into the ground.

This transforms a peach on a withered old tree into enormous proportions. Spiker and Sponge sell tickets to view the giant peach. James crawls inside a large hole he inadvertently creates in the peach, and he finds and befriends a group of life-size anthropomorphic bugs (Mr. Grasshopper, Mr. Centipede, Earthworm, Miss Spider, Mrs. Ladybug, and Glowworm). As they hear the aunts search for James, Mr. Centipede cuts the stem connecting the giant peach to the tree and the peach rolls away to the Atlantic Ocean.

Remembering his dream to visit New York City, James and the insects decide to go there with Mr. Centipede steering the peach. They use Miss Spider's silk to capture and tie a hundred seagulls to the peach stem, while battling against a giant robotic shark. Miss Spider reveals to James that she was the spider he saved from Spiker and Sponge. The next day, James and his friends find themselves in The Arctic; the Centipede has fallen asleep while keeping watch. After hearing Mr. Grasshopper wishing they had a compass, Mr. Centipede jumps off the peach into the icy water below and searches a sunken ship for a compass but is taken prisoner by skeletal pirates. James and Miss Spider rescue him and the journey continues.

As they reach New York City, a storm appears, along with the ghostly rhino. James is frightened but challenges the rhino and gets his friends to safety before the rhino strikes the peach with lightning; James and the peach fall to the city below, landing on top of the Empire State Building. After he is rescued by police officers, firefighters, and the largest crane in New York City, Spiker and Sponge arrive and attempt to claim James and the peach. Finally having had enough of his aunts' cruelty, James stands up to Spiker and Sponge and reveals their abusive behavior towards him to the crowd, who gasp in shock at the revelation. Spiker and Sponge become enraged by James' betrayal and attempt to kill him. The bugs arrive and tie up Spiker and Sponge with Miss Spider's silk and both aunts are arrested. James introduces his friends to the New Yorkers and allows the children to eat up the peach.

The peach pit is made into a house in Central Park, where James lives happily with the bugs, who form his new family and also take important jobs in the city. James celebrates his ninth birthday with his new family and friends.

Cast

Voices

Production

Walt Disney Pictures acquired the film rights to the book from the Dahl estate in 1992.[3] The film begins with normal live-action for the first 20 minutes,[4] but becomes stop-motion animation after James enters the peach, and then live-action when James enters New York City (although the arthropod characters remained in stop-motion). Selick had originally planned James to be a real actor through the entire film, then later considered doing the whole film in stop-motion; but ultimately settled on entirely live-action and entirely stop-motion sequences, to keep lower costs.[5] Unlike the novel, James' aunts are not killed by the rolling peach (though his parents' deaths occur as in the novel) but follow him to New York.[4]

Reception

Though Roald Dahl refused numerous offers to have a film version of James and the Giant Peach produced during his lifetime, his widow, Liccy, approved an offer to have a live action version produced. She thinks Roald "would have been delighted with what they did with James. It is a wonderful film."[6]

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 92% based on reviews from 73 critics, with an average score of 7.2/10. The website's critical consensus states: "The arresting and dynamic visuals, offbeat details and light-as-air storytelling make James and the Giant Peach solid family entertainment".[7]

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a positive review, praising the animated part, but calling the live-action segments "crude."[8] Writing in The New York Times, Janet Maslin called the film "a technological marvel, arch and innovative with a daringly offbeat visual conception" and "a strenuously artful film with a macabre edge."[9]

Awards and nominations

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music, Original Musical or Comedy Score, by Randy Newman. It won Best Animated Feature Film at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival.

YearAwardCategoryNomineeResult[10]
1996Annie AwardsBest Animated FeatureNominated
Best Individual Achievement: DirectingHenry SelickNominated
Best Individual Achievement: MusicRandy NewmanNominated
Best Individual Achievement: ProducingTim Burton
Denise Di Novi		Nominated
Best Individual Achievement: StoryboardingJoe RanftNominated
Best Individual Achievement: Voice ActingRichard DreyfussNominated
Best Individual Achievement: WritingKarey Kirkpatrick
Jonathan Roberts
Steve Bloom		Nominated
Kansas City Film Critics Circle AwardsBest Animated FilmWon
1997Academy AwardsBest Music, Original Musical or Comedy ScoreRandy NewmanNominated
Annecy International Animated Film FestivalBest Animated Feature FilmHenry SelickWon
Chicago Film Critics AssociationBest Original ScoreRandy NewmanNominated
Dallas–Fort Worth Film Critics AssociationBest Animated FilmWon
Satellite AwardsBest Motion Picture, Animated or Mixed MediaTim Burton
Denise Di Novi		Nominated
Saturn AwardsBest Fantasy FilmNominated
Young Artist AwardsBest Family Feature - Animation or Special EffectsWon
Best Performance in a Voiceover - Young ArtistPaul TerryNominated

Home media

A digitally restored Blu-ray/DVD combo pack was released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on August 3, 2010 in the United States.[11]

Music

James and the Giant Peach
Soundtrack album by Randy Newman
Released 12 April 1996 (1996-04-12)
Length 50:03
Label Walt Disney Records

Track listing

James and the Giant Peach (An Original Walt Disney Records Soundtrack)
No.TitleLength
1."My Name Is James (Performed by Paul Terry)"2:38
2."That's the Life For Me (Performed by Jeff Bennett, Susan Sarandon, Jane Leeves, Miriam Margolyes, Simon Callow & David Thewlis)"1:59
3."Eating the Peach (Performed by Jeff Bennett, Susan Sarandon, Jane Leeves, Miriam Margolyes, Simon Callow, David Thewlis and Paul Terry)"2:54
4."Family (Performed by Simon Callow, Jeff Bennett, Jane Leeves, David Thewlis, Susan Sarandon, Miriam Margolyes and Paul Terry)"2:43
5."Main Title: James And The Giant Peach"0:37
6."Clouds"1:40
7."Spiker, Sponge, And A Rhino"3:24
8."Magic Man"4:15
9."Giant Peach"1:54
10."Into The Peach"2:04
11."James Makes Some Friends"1:08
12."The Peach Rolls"2:37
13."All At Sea / That's The Life (Reprise)"2:12
14."100 Seagulls And One Shark"1:58
15."Lullaby"1:57
16."James' Dream"1:03
17."Way Off Course"1:47
18."The Rhino Attacks"2:50
19."Empire State Building"2:17
20."New York City"2:53
21."Spiker And Sponge Come To America"2:15
22."A Place Where Dreams Come True"3:58
23."Good News (Performed by Randy Newman)"4:20
Total length:50:03

Adaptations

The film was made into a musical of the same title with music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and book by Timothy Allen McDonald that premiered at Goodspeed Musicals in 2010 and is currently frequently produced in regional and youth theatre.[12][13]

References

  1. ↑ http://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/james-and-giant-peach-film
  2. ↑ "James and the Giant Peach". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved August 3, 2015.
  3. ↑ Setoodah, Ramin (July 29, 2016). "From 'The BFG' to 'Matilda': How 5 Roald Dahl Books Landed on the Big Screen". Variety. Retrieved July 8, 2016.
  4. 1 2 Nichols, Peter M. (2003). The New York Times Essential Library: Children's Movies. New York: Henry Holt and Company. pp. 134–136. ISBN 0-8050-7198-9.
  5. ↑ Evans, Noah Wolfgram. "Layers: A Look at Henry Selick". Retrieved December 12, 2008.
  6. ↑ Roberts, Chloe; Darren Horne. "Roald Dahl: From Page to Screen". close-upfilm.com. Archived from the original on February 4, 2009. Retrieved December 9, 2008.
  7. ↑ James and the Giant Peach at Rotten Tomatoes
  8. ↑ Gleiberman, Owen (April 19, 1996). "James and the Giant Peach (1996) review". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on June 27, 2010. Retrieved December 12, 2008.
  9. ↑ Maslin review
  10. ↑ "James and the Giant Peach - Awards - IMDb". Retrieved July 5, 2016.
  11. ↑ Foster, Dave (May 19, 2010). "James and the Giant Peach (US BD) in August". The Digital Fix. Archived from the original on June 27, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
  12. ↑ Jones, Kenneth (21 October 2010). "James and the Giant Peach, the Musical, Blossoms with the Help of Pilobolus, Oct. 21". Playbill. Retrieved 12 September 2016.
  13. ↑ Gioia, Michael (22 April 2015). "Watch Skylar Astin and Megan Hilty Record Pasek and Paul's James and the Giant Peach! (Video)". Playbill. Retrieved 12 September 2016.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.