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Sunday 7 November 2010

Film Review - King Kong 1933


Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack 1993 classic film King Kong is film that has several metaphors and has several interpretations. Which directors Cooper and Schoedsack didn’t even predict when they made this film.


In 1933 Carl Denham a successful movie producer traveling to unknown island in order to shoot his new film. With a large crew his friend Jack Driscoll and his latest discovery Ann Darrow. When they arrive at the destination Skull Island which Denham kept to him self at the beginning of the film. It was like we were part of the film not knowing where they would end up by the way that Denham kept the destination a secret to further into the film. On the journey to Skull Island Ann falls for the ships first mate Driscoll and they fall in love. When they finally arrive at the island they discover the local natives live in fear of what is the other side of the great wall. This is designed to keep out the Kong himself.  The native abduct Ann so they could sacrifice her to Kong.  With his crew Driscoll and Denham head back into the jungle to rescue Anna form Kong. King Kong falls in love for Ann and all he wants to do is protect her against the dangers that live within the jungle itself. After a great battle they rescue Ann and also capture the Kong and take him back to New York to put on show but Kong escapes and climb’s the Empire State Building.

The ending of King Kong is the part of the film that everyone remembers I know that’s the part that I remember when someone says King Kong. When Kong is grasping the top of The Empire State Building with one hand and fighting off the planes with the other. Makes a statement about man's indiscriminate destruction of nature on the path to technological mastery” Back on Skull Island Kong was king and in Manhattan he is a beast on show.


The major theme that run throughout this film is the beauty and the beast theme. It is a classic theme, but has never been portrayed so wonderfully”. Throughout the film this theme can be seen on many different levels. The major one being the beast (Kong himself) falling in love with the beauty (Ann). Throughout the film we see that Kong is always protecting Ann from the dangers that were in the jungle. But it could be said that he is trying to protect her form the flashes of the camera and then he breaks free from the chains and goes though the city looking for her.
You could also say that this theme is included in Ann and Driscoll love for each other. At the beginning he was this man that thought that he didn't need no one but he slowly starts to soften and falls for Ann. So it could be seen as Ann (the beauty) melting Driscoll (the beasts) heart and has him falling in love with her.


“Much has been written about this film, and its epic story has been interpreted in many ways – sexually, politically and racially”. One of the most famous interpretations of King Kong is that Kong himself is a representation of the Native Americans.  Kong is a creature who is taken forcibly from his homeland of Skull Island and taken  to America where he is exploited in chains and put on display for peoples enjoyment. But he then breaks free and conquers New York. It can be reflection of the  fear that the Americans had  back then. King Kong takes this metaphor of sexual threat to a different level.


Having seen the remake before the original film I personally think that the 1933 original film  was better than the re-make and I am glad I got the chance to watch it.  King Kong is one of the classic adventure-fantasy film that never seems to old to watch and seems to have everything in it that you would want in a film. “The movie has such raw power that it would have succeeded in anyone’s hands”.

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