This week in the Deep Hurting Project is the 2017 film The Snowman, but first a little story about John Ford.
While filming Mogambo, producer Sam Zimbalist scolded him for being three days behind schedule (filming in Kenya during the Mau Mau Uprising will do that for a film). Ford responded by tearing out three pages of the script and saying "We're back on schedule." He never filmed those three pages.
I bring this up because something very similar ended up happening during production of this film and it explains so much of why this movie is shit: This movie spent at least five years in Development Hell, during which time Martin Scorsese, Morten Tyldum, and Baltasar Kormakur were attached to direct. Eventually, Tomas Alfredsen got attached and, suddenly, in late 2015, a crucial backer was found, and the pre-production was really rushed, so there wasn't much time to prepare. By the time post-production came about and they began to cut it, they realised that they never got around to filming 10-15% of the script. There were some reshoots, but evidently not enough that the film couldn't just keep dropping characters, subplots, and scenes at absolute random. Characters just stop existing (they don't get killed off, they just stop appearing in the film), plotlines get brought up suddenly and get dropped just as suddenly (including one plot line about the Winter Games that wasn't even in the book), and scenes often have some really choppy editing, like they were made by some film school flunk-out and not a critically acclaimed director whose previous films were all certified fresh, with a little help from THELMA FUCKING SCHOONMAKER.
I was going to show you the first scene of the film, which was so bizarrely edited that it just had to be seen to be believed. Alas, that scene wasn't on YouTube, but I did find this compilation, with a guy breaking down three scenes and why they're shit:
Of course, this isn't the only problem with the film: while I haven't actually read the original novel, my research tells me the original was very darkly comedic, and, unfortunately, this plays it dead straight. Yes, a movie where a man named Harry Hole (Pronounced Ho-lleh in Norwegian; and the name was apparently chosen specifically to sound awkward in English, and the filmmakers fell for it hook, line, and sinker) tries to find a serial killer whose calling card is BUILDING SNOWMEN is played dead seriously. And here, the killer's backstory is changed enough that his crimes just make no fucking sense. I'll be relying on the TVTropes page in this section:
In the original novel, the killer's crimes are related to his misogyny, spurred on by his witnessing his mother having an affair as a child (which he saw while perched on top of a snowman), which led him to conclude that women who had affairs were as cold-hearted as those snowmen. In the film, he has a stock abusive father and dead mother (who he tried to save), so the snowman motif no longer has meaning, especially since he barely even has a consistent target in this film. And it gets worse: apparently, in this version, his start of darkness comes when he fails to save his mother from Susan Smithing herself, blaming her for abandoning him. So, he does the same fucking thing to other kids?
And there are some other weird things, like the doctor who's painting his toenails, or the decision to cast Val Kilmer as Hole's mentor. The problem with this: Kilmer is a Christian Scientist. This isn't so bad except for the fact that, during filming, he had throat cancer (though he denied it at the time) and his tongue was swollen enough that they couldn't use him saying his lines (other recordings of him around this time reveal he sounded like a bad Marlon Brando impersonator with an admittedly bloody good excuse). So they had someone dub over his lines in post, and to facilitate this dubbing, when he spoke, as a rule, his mouth was obscured, and, often, he was shot from behind. So, essentially, it looks like they somehow made Val Kilmer into his own Fake Shemp.
And I think this should be a good enough explanation of why this film is shit. So, I'll leave you with this:
While filming Mogambo, producer Sam Zimbalist scolded him for being three days behind schedule (filming in Kenya during the Mau Mau Uprising will do that for a film). Ford responded by tearing out three pages of the script and saying "We're back on schedule." He never filmed those three pages.
I bring this up because something very similar ended up happening during production of this film and it explains so much of why this movie is shit: This movie spent at least five years in Development Hell, during which time Martin Scorsese, Morten Tyldum, and Baltasar Kormakur were attached to direct. Eventually, Tomas Alfredsen got attached and, suddenly, in late 2015, a crucial backer was found, and the pre-production was really rushed, so there wasn't much time to prepare. By the time post-production came about and they began to cut it, they realised that they never got around to filming 10-15% of the script. There were some reshoots, but evidently not enough that the film couldn't just keep dropping characters, subplots, and scenes at absolute random. Characters just stop existing (they don't get killed off, they just stop appearing in the film), plotlines get brought up suddenly and get dropped just as suddenly (including one plot line about the Winter Games that wasn't even in the book), and scenes often have some really choppy editing, like they were made by some film school flunk-out and not a critically acclaimed director whose previous films were all certified fresh, with a little help from THELMA FUCKING SCHOONMAKER.
I was going to show you the first scene of the film, which was so bizarrely edited that it just had to be seen to be believed. Alas, that scene wasn't on YouTube, but I did find this compilation, with a guy breaking down three scenes and why they're shit:
Of course, this isn't the only problem with the film: while I haven't actually read the original novel, my research tells me the original was very darkly comedic, and, unfortunately, this plays it dead straight. Yes, a movie where a man named Harry Hole (Pronounced Ho-lleh in Norwegian; and the name was apparently chosen specifically to sound awkward in English, and the filmmakers fell for it hook, line, and sinker) tries to find a serial killer whose calling card is BUILDING SNOWMEN is played dead seriously. And here, the killer's backstory is changed enough that his crimes just make no fucking sense. I'll be relying on the TVTropes page in this section:
In the original novel, the killer's crimes are related to his misogyny, spurred on by his witnessing his mother having an affair as a child (which he saw while perched on top of a snowman), which led him to conclude that women who had affairs were as cold-hearted as those snowmen. In the film, he has a stock abusive father and dead mother (who he tried to save), so the snowman motif no longer has meaning, especially since he barely even has a consistent target in this film. And it gets worse: apparently, in this version, his start of darkness comes when he fails to save his mother from Susan Smithing herself, blaming her for abandoning him. So, he does the same fucking thing to other kids?
And there are some other weird things, like the doctor who's painting his toenails, or the decision to cast Val Kilmer as Hole's mentor. The problem with this: Kilmer is a Christian Scientist. This isn't so bad except for the fact that, during filming, he had throat cancer (though he denied it at the time) and his tongue was swollen enough that they couldn't use him saying his lines (other recordings of him around this time reveal he sounded like a bad Marlon Brando impersonator with an admittedly bloody good excuse). So they had someone dub over his lines in post, and to facilitate this dubbing, when he spoke, as a rule, his mouth was obscured, and, often, he was shot from behind. So, essentially, it looks like they somehow made Val Kilmer into his own Fake Shemp.
And I think this should be a good enough explanation of why this film is shit. So, I'll leave you with this:
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.