The talk here of The Dark Knight has, in comments, led to talk of the next really big superhero movie/graphic novel adaptation, Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, based on the book by writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons. 
Commenter Dan Coyle links to an Entertainment Weekly interview with Moore, in which his complete lack of interest in seeing what Snyder does to his work, and in having pretty much anything to do with Hollywood, is much-discussed. The gentlemanly Moore doesn’t come off in the least bit churlish, sounding eminently reasonable and rather resourceful in having gotten to a place in his career where he need not deal with corporate interference of any kind, and good for him.
I was taken a little aback by an assertion in the lede of the piece (which is by my old Première colleague Nisha Gopalan, who must have been thrilled to do it; she’s a graphic-novel adept from way back): “It’s no surprise that Moore has been accused of being comics’ Orson Welles — exceedingly talented, if profoundly prickly — and perhaps in certain incidents he’s earned that description.”
I have always thought that to be compared to Welles would be a major compliment. But what does it even mean to “accuse” someone of being like Welles? The facts on the ground, as opposed to the fabrications and suggestions of Kael’s “Raising Kane,” indicate that, whatever his quirks or weaknesses, Welles was more sinned against than sinning. “Profoundly prickly?” Are they talking about those radio ad outtakes where he criticizes the grammar of the copy? Again, whatever Welles’ faults, he wasn’t known for being particularly prima-donnaish on his own sets. 
Left with no sensible explanation, one must conclude that the comparison speaks to a particular attitude, a determined, faux-reluctant resentment of the artist who won’t play ball and needs a little chastisement. By invoking another putative maverick known for his tangles with the system, and implying that the tangles were the fault of the maverick rather than the system, the article is saying, “Boy, that Alan Moore. Talented guy, done some great stuff, but he should do himself, and us, a favor and just get with the program. Would it kill him to give his blessing to the Watchmen movie, maybe do a couple of scripts? He ought to turn that bearded frown upside down! Look, the President of DC says the company is still ‘great fans of his work’!”
I dunno. I figure Moore’s doing pretty well for himself, by himself.
As for Watchmen: It’s been a while since I looked at the graphic novel—read it when the completed book first came out, in the late ’80s. I was mondo impressed then. I thought, among other things, that it achieved (to steal a phrase from Robert Christgau) a complexity of tone that’s pretty rare in any kind of art. And no way is Snyder going to be able to replicate or even simulate that. And Moore’s particular brand of tragic/sardonic irony doesn’t strike me as something Snyder or his collaborators are even able to grasp, let alone embrace. The trailer does look “impressive,” though.
“And no way is Snyder going to be able to replicate or even simulate that.”
No joke, that. Any hope I had about the movie is pretty much gone after the trailer. Fetishy panel-for-panel replications of iconic graphic novels are so 2007.
Oooh, I get namechecked!
I don’t think Moore is being particularly prickly here. He’s had long standing issues with DC management dating all the way back to Watchmen (and more specifically, that DC president), plus his involvement in hte LXG lawsuit (apparently there are similarities between Larry Cohen’s script and the film… but those similarities are not found in the original Moore/O’Neill series) and this is just the way it is. If he was pocketing the royalties, I might feel differently, but he’s not.
Moore has had a reputation of always being honest and fair with his artists, as well. And been willing to get along. But now he has done enough and earned enough that he can write his own ticket, and doesn’t feel like dealing with the noise.
If you want Passive Agressive Prickliness, read Frank Miller’s story “Man with Pen in Head” about his cameo in Daredevil. He keeps mentioning over and over “I got to meet all Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, I got to be on a movie set, but I was just ‘Man With Pen in Head’.” which ends with the scowling face of Miller staring accusatorily out at the reader.
The implication is clear: Miller created Elektra, created many of the storylines Mark Steven Johnson apes to horrifically bad effect in the movie. Shouldn’t he get his cut? Shouldn’t he get a piece? Damn right he should. He’s responsible for all of this, and all he gets is ‘Man With Pen in Head’.
But did he say all that to Johnson’s face? Nope. He shared a beer with Johnson after the scene (according to Johnson’s commentary) and they joked about things and Miller said how great it was to see his creation on screen. Sure, Frank Miller may have been going along to get along, but there’s something awfully annoying about Miller trying to guilt the reader for enjoying the Daredevil movie, when they are powerless to fill his coffers, when he had the opportunity to do the same to Johnson. It’s bullshit, and more of why I find Frank Miller irrelevant and an overgrown child these days.
Also: the Moore/Welles comparison doesn’t work because Moore has never voiced Unicron.
Yeah, that “Watchmen” trailer…I don’t know. Had I not read the comic, I would probably be far more excited. But it’s just so slick, and that “300” slo-mo “aesthetic” is all wrong. I don’t get it. I’ll still see it, but I don’t get it.
Bill, I once remember a trailer I saw being so astonishingly moving that it brought me to tears. That trailer was for “Forrest Gump” one of the worst travesties I’ve ever seen hit a screen. I learned then to be wary of trailers.
This led to Dayoub’s Rule #1: “The quality of a trailer is inversely proportional to the quality of the film it is promoting.”
Or “Bad trailer: good movie. Good trailer: Bad movie.”
A good movie usually has some ineffable quality that can’t be reduced to a trailer, surprises that the trailer usually avoids showing to keep the suspense intact, etc. However, when they’ve got a bad movie on their hands, the marketing department will pull out all the stops in showing every good scene they have to promote it.
Like every rule, there are exceptions. But I rarely find any.
Glenn, regarding the Orson Welles/Alan Moore comparison? I think a more apt choice of words would have been, “It’s no surprise that Moore has been [lauded for] being comics’ Orson Welles — exceedingly talented, if profoundly prickly — and perhaps in certain incidents he’s earned that description.”
Even a simple change of just those two words would have gotten the author’s point across while siding with the maverick instead of the system.
I’m sure I’ll see Watchmen, but I have no illusions that it’ll be anywhere near as successful as the comic book. Moore’s work is absolutely terrific & stuffed with ideas – I’m especially fond of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Promethea, and Top Ten – and his attitude re: the adaptations makes plenty of sense to me. With the debatable exception of V for Vendetta, every single one of them has been butchered, and in interviews, he always insists that he’s working with medium-specific effects that simply can’t be replicated in the movies. I buy that, and it’s great that he doesn’t have to worry about it.
I don’t know why people just don’t do animated version of these comics, which makes a helluva lot more sense then CGI crap. I haven’t liked any Batman films, and the most enjoyable Batman stuff was the cartoon of Batman that ran on Channel 5, then on Cartoon network. Mainly, because it was written by actual comic book people, and they were fun. Remember when above all, comics were fun to read? The idea of squeezing Homeric meaning out of Superman or Joycean complexity from Batman means you shouldn’t think of these things when you’re high. I’ve also felt that Moore’s The Killing Joke is the best Batman/Joker book. He takes thei relationship all the way, to it’s logical conclusion.
And Welles is still my favorite director, bar none. Don’t get me started on Kael’s book, which only showcases her weaknesses as a critic, and her almost phobic response to “artsy” films. But when films got really stupid, she chickened out. But she is fun to read. Anyway…
I saw the trailer on the internet and was left feeling nothing really. It felt static and slick in ways that 300 did at its worst. I then saw it in the theater, and it was a very different experience, just SEEING the characters on the big screen sent a shiver down my spine. I don’t think it will be a good MOVIE, but I hope it will be a nice experience just to see it being played out.
Also, any comparison in any way to Orson Welles can only be a compliment to any sane person. And it may actually apply to Moore.
Reading over this comment, I realize my writing is stilted. Please forgive me, it’s late.
I don’t think there’s any question that Snyder “gets” Watchmen. But can he replicate it?
Probably not. It’s possible that it will be a worthy effort, and I’m hoping for the best, but I support whatever involvement Alan Moore wants to have in adaptations of his work – even if it’s none at all.
Glenn is spot on re: his comments about the tone of the book being impossible to replicate. It’s a pity that Greengrass couldn’t get his version made, that would have been the version to see, one made by an intelligent director.
Whilst we’re talking about trailers what are peoples favourites? My top three are The Abyss, Schindler’s List and Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace.
I still pine for Terry Gililam’s Watchmen. The “we did it!” scene in Brazil is proof that Gilliam can handle the tone that Snyder will surely fluff – simultaneously taking the costumed hero genre to new heights and revealing its inherent fascism. Just look at what Snyder did with/to Dawn of the Dead, treating it as a showcase for action spectacle while obliterating any sense of social critique. Anyone who would kill off the last survivors of the human race as an end-credits joke deserves to be smacked.
Sorry, but why an adaptation should try to replicate the original comic? I mean, we are talking about two different storytelling devices. Movies are not comics, and I guess we should give Snyder some credit. “Dawn of the Dead” can´t be categorized as your usual Hollywood remake, and “300” was kinda of experimental for a big budget movie. Give the guy some respect, please, even if nobody can really adapt the complex world of “Watchmen” to the big screen. Not even Grengrass or Gilliam.
Hollywood has always reminded me of that scene in Bugsy, where Warren Beatty’s character (Bugsy Siegel) sees a house that he wants and proceeds to try and buy it simply because HE CAN. Simply because he HAS THE MONEY.
Hollywood, the great raper of other people’s and medium’s truly brilliant ideas, rips away the rights from people through sheer force of will and because they have the money to be able to. Doesn’t matter if a work of art stands strongly in the medium in which it was created. Truly, if Hollywood could find a way to remake Monet’s Water Lilies, they would. (And they’d put Kiera Knightly and James Macavoy in the main roles.)
I, too, think Snyder’s idea of panel-for-panel graphic novel remakes needs to stop…though I know he was trying to do what he could to stop Hollywood from destroying the graphic novel by trying to put Will Smith in there with direction by Jon Avnet…so at least he was trying to salvage what Hollywood could have really destroyed.
Axel: We are not saying that the movie should be like the comic (at least I’M not) but Snyder’s shtick is simply recreating comic panels, he’s the one who thinks that movies and comics are basically the same medium. And 300 (Which I kinda like by the way) cannot be called “experimental” when Sin City (Which I love)came out the previous year. All I can hope for is to see scenes from the comic played out on the big screen with relative accuracy to it’s look, but I don’t think that Snyder can replicate its soul.
Sam Adams: Terry Gilliam is all wrong for Watchmen, both stylistically and thematically. I get that people got attached to the idea of him doing it in the late 80s, but his sense of interjecting whimsy into darkness is almost the opposite of what a proper Watchmen adaptation calls for.
See, if I hear of someone getting compared to (or “accused” of being…which is weird, you’re right G.K.) Welles, I’d think that refers to someone who peaked waaaay early and never really matched their early artistic output. Like…Axl Rose or something.
And although I *liked* the WATCHMEN graphic novel, the trailer looked cool but unimpressive. Kind of vapid really. But in Snyder’s defense, I’m not sure if you posters saw this but he’s going to release a DVD of the story about the ghost ship-that’s contained in the WATCHMEN graphic novel‑a month or two before the movie hits. He’s also filmed all the segments of backstory and I’m pretty sure he’s going to release them on the web. So, I believe in the guy in that he’s trying to do right be the source material. Yet I also agree with poster “Flower” that recreating comic book panels for the big screen is so passé.
To get away from “Watchmen,” and back to Glenn’s original point, I think the theme of several of the Welles narratives – and obviously Kael, and Bogdanovich, had competing ones – is that he didn’t stick around long enough to see things DONE.
Even Welles’ apologists – and lord knows, Barbara Leaming was a huge one – still seem to acknowledge this. (“Ambersons” needed its final cut and – hey, it’s off to South America!)
Yes, there were, especially in later years, reasons for all of this (chiefly, the need to act in crap to raise money for wonderful shot-on-the-fly pictures like “Othello” and “Chimes at Midnight.”) And I would agree that Welles was treated far more dreadfully by the studios than he ever treated them.
But – as in every relationship – the person with the power is ALWAYS going to have the upper hand over the person without.
And, in the end, I think great movies are a marathon of minutiae (Is this shot right? Does that effect work? Was that the best take?)And I don’t think that Welles, admittedly one of the few authentic geniuses that American cinema ever produced – being born out of the work-in-progress, we’ll-fix-it-later world of theater – had the patience for it.
Thanks for this post. So much more interesting than parsing “Dark Knight” grosses.
My main complain about the trailer is the “from the visionary…” tag. I don´t think it helps either the movie or even Snyder himself.
I completely agree with Axel K. I actually laughed when the “From The Visionary Director Of …” came on screen. You just have to watch Day Of The Dead and 300 to know what a joke that is.
I have never read the graphic novel but I know roughly what it’s about. As a moviegoer I watched the trailer and thought, “looks like the same old shit”.
As for Alan Moore, the guy can say and do as he damn well pleases. If he isn’t interested in movies, or big screen adaptations of his work, why should he pretend otherwise?
A few notes:
1) Like it or not, Welles in the American consciousness denotes the unrealistic, isolated artist who can’t get with it. Of course if you know anything about the history of Welles, it’s B.S. But the same is true with ANY American icon; anybody ever talk about Samuel Clemens being sloppy with his money or George Washington being a pretty plodding tactician?
2) It’s not a fair comparison in the least as I think Moore is one of the few comics greats of the ’80s to keep his shit together (witness the dissolution of Frank Miller), patchwork contract filler like “The Black Dossier” aside. Moore can do subtle, clever work but he can also play to the crowds; witness the utterly hilarious “Top 10”.
3) Let’s not lowball Snyder just yet: it’s worth remembering the guy has yet to have complete control over his work. “Dawn of the Dead” was obviously driven by the producer and screenwriters (hence the patchwork mess of a script) and “300” was dictated entirely by Frank Miller. I think “Watchmen” marks the first time the guy’s made a film where he can unreservedly grab the damn wheel, storywise. So let’s see what happens.
Tony – I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a trailer I thought was spectacular and then ended up completely hating the film, or vice versa. But I didn’t really HATE the “Watchmen” trailer. I just thought it seemed…off. Impressive, but off. I’m still reserving judgment.
And why is everyone acting as though Snyder makes nothing but comic book movies that slavishly adhere to the comic panels? He hasn’t even made ONE of those. “300”, whatever its faults, doesn’t do that. Sure, there are shots scattered throughout that are lifted from the comic, but it’s not exactly “Sin City”.
Oh, and as for the Welles/Moore comparison: of course, it’s a compliment, but Kael’s view of Welles holds fast, for whatever reason. I remember seeing Anthony LaPaglia interviewed by Charlie Rose a long time ago, and LaPaglia said that Welles was a hero of his, and went on to talk about Welles’s hardships, and how those made him even more admirable. Rose, idiot that he is, said something like, “But in Welles’s case, didn’t he really bring all his troubles on himself?” Finding out the truth about why Welles’s career followed the path it did is easy enough, but not as easy as going along with received wisdom.
I know nothing of Watchmen, but thanks for this. I tire of the lazy invocation of Welles as a genius run amok and impossible to deal with. Many people were willing to take huge cuts in salaries to work with him (picture people doing that for the exceedingly talented, but TRULY prickly Otto Preminger) and Welles was usually spoken of with great fondness. And, as he reminded people repeatedly in later years, to no avail, he was perfectly capable of staying on time and on budget, as he did with Touch of Evil.
I could go on–Welles left very clear editing instructions for Ambersons, for example, and I can’t understand why he is blamed for that movie’s evisceration, and not the studio, which made the decision, and Robert Wise, who did the editing and didn’t even try to save the footage–but I have clearly already outed myself as a Welles apologist.
“And why is everyone acting as though Snyder makes nothing but comic book movies that slavishly adhere to the comic panels? He hasn’t even made ONE of those. “300”, whatever its faults, doesn’t do that. Sure, there are shots scattered throughout that are lifted from the comic, but it’s not exactly “Sin City”.”
Thanks, Bill. I think you have a valid point about Snyder. It’s easy to jump on the bandwagon, as you pointed out in your comment about Welles, “Finding out the truth about why Welles’s career followed the path it did is easy enough, but not as easy as going along with received wisdom.” But the truth is Snyder has shown a lot of promise.
His next project may have to be a wholly original one to dispel some of the notions about him. Hopefully “Watchmen” will be successful enough to allow him to do just that.
I for one am glad Snyder is doing this instead of Gilliam or Greengrass. The former would have made it too much HIS picture, and his filmography is as uneven as it is unique and admirable. And if Synder is likely to go overboard in recreating the panels of the source material itself, Greengrass has a total lack of compositional identity–however intelligent and sensitive to the themes he may be I don’t think the handheld style would be appropriate for Watchmen at all.
As mentioned above, the fact that Snyder is eager to bring the Tales of the Black Freighter comic and supplemental materials to the audience in one form or another shows he is far from a Watchmen neophyte, understands the depth and meta nature of the work, etc.
I thought the trailer looked like crap too, but I’m still giving him the benefit of the doubt. With fingers crossed for luck. My complaints so far revolve around the youth of the cast, and the non-Nordic appearance of the guy who’s playing Ozymandias, and if the acting is good, I can let it go.
Am I the only one who thinks that Moore’s work is grossly overrated?
I loved Watchmen when I read it back in college, but I’ve looked at some of his other work lately and it is really poor storytelling.
For example:
In “the Killing Joke”, Batman visits the Joker in Arkham and holds his hand, saying (basically) we’re going to end up killing each other, lets talk about it.” When Batman lets go of his hand and finds it covered in white, only then does he realize that his arch-nemesis is really just a decoy in makeup. Does the world’s greatest detective not know the facial structure of the Joker?
The League Of Ex Gents references plenty of literary characters, but the stories bring the characters down to a pulp level instead of bringing the reader to any deeper understanding of them.
Anyone else out there feel the same way?
Alan…um…no, not really. “League” was written to be a parody/ripping yarn, and in consulting my copy of “Killing Joke”, I see that the opening you discuss shows the Joker in almost total shadow until the revelation in question.
I don’t think either is absolutely perfect, mind you, but I’m not going to shred the guy for not hitting a perfect, bases-loaded home run every single time. He’s pretty consistently a good writer, when it comes to comics.
“From Hell” is absolutely astonishing. It’s a masterpiece.
Speaking of going along with received wisdom, nobody’s brought up the fact that Moore slammed 300 without having seen it. Is he so eager for reasons to distance himself from his perceived adversaries that he’s willing to dismiss another artist’s work sight unseen? I think “churlish” is quite an apt word for that, actually.
Jim – I think the accusations that “300” is homophobic and racist are pretty knee-jerk myself, but, while I see your point, do you really think that if Moore did see the movie he would change his mind about it? If that’s what he thought of the comic, that’s what he’ll think about the movie.
Jim…nah. The comic is the movie. Snyder didn’t change a damn thing, but, then, he couldn’t, as Miller was pretty much running the show.
Bill, I think racist and homophobic is a little much myself but it’s also a pretty fair question.
Of course, one can make the same point about “Watchmen”, which, while an excellent book, has taken its share of brickbats (most of them deserved) from the entitled she-nerds in comics fandom.
If I may play the contrarian, I’ve never seen “Raising Kane” as an attack on Welles; rather, I read it as an attempt to get credit for Mankiewicz, which isn’t incompatible with Welles being a genius. I don’t doubt that there are fabrications in it – since there seems to be a consensus about that – but if you look at (say) Kael’s review of Falstaff it’s pretty clear she thinks that Welles was more sinned against than sinner.
Point taken, Scott. It’s a personal failing of mine that I’ve never been quite able to get past Kael’s silly attempt, in “Raising Kane,” to cast the “Are you still eating?” “I’m still hungry!” exchange in the “Declaration of Principles” scene as a fat joke at Welles’ expense. She absolutely deserves all credit possible for her sensitivity to “Chimes at Midnight,” a film Kael ruefully predicted would never get its due. As of this writing she remains correct.
Snyder is just absolutely the wrong guy.
It’s as if they had taken Lord Of The Rings away from Boorman and Jackson, succesively, and given it to Stephen Sommers.
You want to know why Zack Snyder is making Watchmen? Here’s my guess. He made 300. 300 is adapted from a comic book. 300 was a big hit; furthermore, it was the kind of unchallenging, simple-minded, full-body-slam-state of the art-Arclight air strike of a film that a lot of modern execs love to see made because it makes ’em feel like the owners of the team that just won the Superbowl.
So they looked at Watchmen and said, “Hey, this is based on a comic book too! So give it Snyder. He can do comic books. Plus, he won’t screw it up with any wimpy ambiguity that’d make the 15 year old boys uncomfortable, like Gilliam or Greengrass or Darren Aranofsky would’ve; he’ll just give us lotsa hard core ACTION.” (I’m not saying this is actually true of Snyder, but I’m sure it’s what was supposed about him.) So he got the greenlight. And, despite admiring what he brought to a totally unesceccary Dawn Of The Dead remake (mainly, a lot of energy, a certain ruthlessness, and sense of knowing when to get out of a good actor’s way) I don’t think Snyder is capable of even remotely doing this material justice. Watchmen deserves a director of equal stature and ambition, one that feels no obligation to modern Hollywood storytelling conventions: Schrader, Scorcese, Bertolucci, Stone, Cameron.
And the reason why I’m focusing so much on poor hapless Zack Snyder, as opposed to the studio suits who made it on the cheap, in Canada, with largely a cast of no-names, and seem to have severely skimped on the effects? The “from the Visionary Director of 300” credit. BLEAARRGH. Zack Snyder is now the visionary of Watchmen? NO. SEE ABOVE.