The BFG (2016)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
An orphan little girl befriends a benevolent giant who takes her to Giant Country, where they attempt to stop the man-eating giants that are invading the human world.
38 connections found
View:
38 films that influenced The BFG
What critics say influenced The BFG
In the same year The BFG was published, Spielberg and Mathison collaborated on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which has endured as one of the most beloved family films in cinema history.
I can't understand why; it seems to me that it's one of his gentlest and most beautiful films, less frenetic than Hook , less grueling than E.T. the Extra-terrestrial and less wispy than War Horse .
Adapted by Melissa Mathison, best known for writing E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the script often feels caught in this limbo between literary richness and the demands of a fast-paced blockbuster.
The BFG was written by Melissa Mathison, who died last year, and who wrote the screenplay for Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, one of the greatest children’s movies of all time.
Las referencias a E.T. no son antojadizas ni se cierran en la presencia de Mathison (fallecida en noviembre último) en la transposición o en que ambas películas tuvieron su estreno mundial en Cannes .
Steven Spielberg’s “The BFG,” adapted by the late Melissa Mathison from the 1982 Roald Dahl novel, harks back, thematically if not favorably, to “E.T.” It’s about Sophie (Ruby Barnhill), a spunky, bespectacled 8-year-old orphan from central London who is plucked from her forbidding orphanage in the middle of the night by a 26-foot giant with a spindly neck, sharp nose, and floppy ears, played by a special effects-enhanced Mark Rylance.
Released by Disney in the US, it feels very close in spirit (and 'oi guv'nor' vision of London) as, say, Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Mary Poppins.
We open in a Mary Poppins-style version of London where past and present seem to intermingle.
Rylance gives the BFG a lanky, loose-limbed quality, not unlike the one Dick Van Dyke gives his dance-hall chimney sweeper in “Mary Poppins.”
No, I haven’t forgotten about “The Adventures of Tintin” or “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” or “Hook” or “1941.”
It’s an often-stunning film that makes good use of 3D technology, with gorgeous scenes in Dream Country and moments that bring to mind Spielberg’s very similar “Hook.”
I can't understand why; it seems to me that it's one of his gentlest and most beautiful films, less frenetic than Hook , less grueling than E.T. the Extra-terrestrial and less wispy than War Horse .
(This is also why all those scenes with the Lost Boys fall flat in Hook.)
Off the back of Bridge Of Spies and Lincoln (and even War Horse), The BFG seems like an odd fit for Spielberg until you remember that he directed not only E.T., but also the hugely under-rated Hook and Tintin.
Dahl’s widely read and nearly universally revered novel began its journey to becoming a Spielberg movie some 25 years ago, at roughly the same time the director released one of his few duds, the cacophony that was 1991’s garish Peter Pan rehash, “Hook.”
Spielberg also gets to tell one of the most elaborate flatulence jokes since the campfire scene in Blazing Saddles, and it is admirable how much Spielberg embraces the silliness of the source material.
The biggest laughs come at Buckingham Palace where Sophie convinces the Queen (Penelope Wilton) and her retinue to enjoy the BFG's favorite drink, a "frobscottle," which sets off an explosion of "whizzpoppers" — farts that rival of explosion of flatulence in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles.
The less said about these sequences, the better, but one detail must be acknowledged: somehow, some way, one of the world’s most acclaimed directors has pulled off the unlikely feat of landing the most enjoyable fart joke since Blazing Saddles .
Kids should really like "BFG" when a meeting between the Queen of England (a game Penelope Wilton) and the BFG breaks into a noisy display of public flatulence that surpasses the classic campfire scene in Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles."
Advertisement
Spielberg tips his hat to all sorts of earlier filmmakers, usually on the fly, from Hitchcock (a close-up of Sophie's eyeglasses recalls a shot from "Strangers on a Train") to Kubrick (not one but two musical selections come from the same classical songlist "Barry Lyndon" used).
Spielberg tips his hat to all sorts of earlier filmmakers, usually on the fly, from Hitchcock (a close-up of Sophie's eyeglasses recalls a shot from "Strangers on a Train") to Kubrick (not one but two musical selections come from the same classical songlist "Barry Lyndon" used).
David: As a young moviegoer, I remember being amazed and terrified while watching "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" (1958) mainly because of the scary cyclops that picked up men and ate them.
Rylance plays him as if he’’s a supersize version of Bernard Miles’ Joe Gargery in Great Expectations .
Advertisement
There are echoes of influence of Powell-Pressburger (“The Thief of Bagdad,” “The Red Shoes”) but Spielberg would never be as neurotic as that filmmaking duo.
The BFG has some of the visual magic that you find in old Powell and Pressburger movies or in films like The Thief Of Bagdad .
Old-school Disney was obviously a major influence formative on the director—recall the military man bawling at Dumbo way back in 1941— but his aesthetic grew up quite different, even (or especially) in his kid-safe movies.