Saturday 6 January 2007

Peter Jackson

I've recently finished reading Peter Jackson; A Film-maker's Journey by Brian Sibley.

It was a great read, with stacks of all the weird little details I love about Peter's background, and lots of comments from Peter about all of his films and colleagues and aquaintances and work and struggles and.... heaps of stuff.

I must admit, the only films of his that I've seen are the Lord of the Rings trilogy, so the part of the book about those was the most interesting to me. However the telling of the preceeding 40 or so years was really interesting too, he sounds like a very exciting person to be around and work with.

Jackson's seemingly endless capacity for hard work and determination is pretty inspiring. He made his first feature-length film - Bad Taste - with a bunch of mates on weekends over about 4 years, and it became quite a cult hit. I'd never heard of it, but that's not saying much; I'm not exactly a splatter-flick connoisseur. Years of huge visions, ridiculously hard work, long hours, and a few "secret shoots" (sshhh don't tell the NZ Film Commission!) led to Heavenly Creatures and then LOTR and King Kong. Heavenly Creatures is now definitely on my "must-see" list.

The thing that most inspired me was the fact that once, at age 9, Peter decided he wanted to make films, he never once swayed from that goal or took any side-tracks. And that little kid who was astounded by the 1933 King Kong is still the same person today - just with a few more resources available to him. Like I said; determination.

Oh and the other cool thing - he made all his films in New Zealand, mostly in and near his home town of Wellington. The fact that Peter was so successful and made such beautiful films without ever having to pack himself off to Hollywood is fabulous. Yay for Peter Jackson.

(Oh and Peter, what's your next film? I'd be more than happy to pop over to NZ for a few months' filming. ;-) )

I just remembered; The Lovely Bones will be his next film. I wonder where he'll shoot it, seeing as it's set in Pennsylvania.

6 comments:

Mr B said...

Oh yup totally agree, Peter Jackson's pretty cool.

Oh and heavenly creatures is seriously weird.......

Sumara said...

Yes I imagine it is. It sounded like a very weird but very compelling story. And I think it was brave of them to make it.

Have you seen King Kong Nic? Lots of people have told me it's awful but I've read good reviews too. I think I might rent the original and then the 1976 one and THEN the Jackson one, that would be interesting.

Rachael said...

Bugger my first comment disappeared.

Just stumbled across this as I was looking at some other blogs.

Looks like you are having fun Sumara!

Take care,
Rach

Oh you have to see Bad Taste...it's an absolute classic!

Sumara said...

Hi Rach! Thanks for dropping in. :)

I'll to see if I can track down Bad Taste. :)

Connor said...

Heavenly Creatures scared the *crap* out of me, as a grown-up. :O

Sumara said...

Oh really? Interesting. It sure does sound freaky. Now I really want to see it. :)