Labyrinth (film)
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| Labyrinth | |
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| 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 | 25 Million |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Labyrinth is a 1986 fantasy film directed by Jim Henson, produced by George Lucas, and designed through the art of Brian Froud and Henson, with screenwriting by Henson, children's author Dennis Lee, and Monty Python alumnus 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 Williams. The plot revolves around Sarah's quest to rescue her little brother from the Goblin King, while trapped in a world that is an enormous 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. It was the last feature film directed by Henson before his death in 1990.
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[edit] Synopsis
Sarah Williams is a dreamer, a young girl 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 stuffed 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 he has vanished.
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. Appalled at the realization of what she had done, she begs for the return of her brother. 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 plastic jewelry 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 Terrier who rides a sheepdog called Ambrosius, 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-like 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 watches the party for a while, then flies away into the night.
[edit] Reaction
The film was ultimately a disappointment at the box-office, raking in a mere $12 million from ticket sales (The budget for the film had been $25 million).[1]
Over the years, however, the film has become what many consider to be a cult classic with a large fan following.[citation needed]
[edit] Labyrinth in other media
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 with cover art by Kouyu Shurei.[2] 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 15 years old.[3] Two sequels to the manga are currently in the works, with the first, 'Goblin Prince of the Labyrinth,' due to be released October 2007.
[edit] Trivia
- 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.
- Artist Brian Froud's infant son Toby played Sarah's brother (also called Toby), in the movie.
- 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.
- The Original Hoggle suit is currently on display in Scottsboro AL, in a store named "Unclaimed Baggage" that sells baggage unclaimed from airlines.
[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
- Shari Weiser - Hoggle
- 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)
- Warwick Davis - Goblin Corps
- 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, Charles Augins, Danny John-Jules, Richard Bodkin - Firey 1-5 (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
- N.Y. Times review by Nina Darntun, June 26, 1986.
- Roger Ebert review, June 27, 1986.
- Jareth's Realm—Fansite with theme analysis, interviews, reviews and promotional material.
- Through The Labyrinth, And What Sarah Found There—Extensive fan analysis of the Freudian and Jungian themes throughout the film.
- 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).
- Labyrinth at The Muppets Wiki
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091369/business
- ^ Return to Labyrinth (Paperback). Amazon.com. Retrieved on July 3, 2006.
- ^ 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.
