King Kong's Relevance

I was watching King Kong on my new HD DVD player for my X-Box 360 (feel free to call me a hypocrite), seeing as how it's the only movie I own for the thing so far.

Peter Jackson's King Kong is about as good of a re-make as your going to find. It's not perfect, but it is definitely a good movie (I would have edited out a few of the fluff scenes). Watching it again makes me wonder why it wasn't a more popular movie, and after some reflection I think I have a theory.

The original Kong was a piece about the birth of the modern human era, how that effects nature, and ultimately the death of the majestic side of nature. The Empire State Building had been completed recently in many ways replacing The Grand Canyon/Niagara Falls as the American spectacle, so it was fitting that Kong died falling from the then tallest, most amazing building in the world.

The new Kong retains all of those aspects, and even brings some of them to the forefront more-so than the old one did. The problem that Jackson ultimately had to overcome is that today we've all seen skyscrapers and tall buildings. In many ways, the opposite is happening today - nature is revered while we try to hide the influence of man. So, as a period piece, both Kongs are less relevant today.

The original Kong, though, retains the feeling of wonderment about motion pictures being a new art form - while the new Kong just looks like a really well made summer blockbuster.

In closing, I want to end with something thought provoking for you budding artists out there. Artists intentions ultimately do not matter; what keeps any particular piece of art alive is relevance that transcends the initial subject matter. Take a look at Gernika by Picasso:


The painting is named after the Nazi German bombing of Gernika, Spain, by twenty-four bombers, on April 26, 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. Gernika is relevant today not because of the history of its name, but because it illustrates human suffering that can relate to any disaster. No matter what Picasso's intentions were, we all look at that and apply something of our own experiences to it.

That's what makes art timeless, and that's what Peter Jackson's King Kong was lacking.