The Iron Giant (1999)

 

#81: The Iron Giant (1999)

 

This is a sweet-natured children’s film with a more-than-passing resemblance to the earlier classic, Steven Spielberg’s “ET: The Extra-Terrestrial” (1982), despite the fact that its source material was, in fact, far older. There are three differences between “The Iron Giant” and “ET…” that are more important than the rest:

 

·      First, “The Iron Giant” being a period piece while “ET…” was exactly contemporary.

·      Second, the use of the change of time-frame as a tool to expand the story of improbable friendship into a political parable without becoming overbearing.

·      Third, this sweet story hides a very dark tale, but even in this difference, there’s a shared foundation because both masterpieces of children’s media is about preparing the audience for some form of darkness to come.

 

The book this film is based on has a sad, and storied, history. I hate to ruin a fun film, but I think that history is informative as to what the film speaks of.

 

Ted Hughes was the British Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death in 1998, and though considered one of the 20^th c. greatest writers, but he’s far more famous for his difficult relationship with his first wife, Sylvia Plath, another renowned poet, though she remains best known for her only novel, “The Bell Jar.” The novel was published shortly before her suicide in 1963. Plath had suffered from clinical depression most of her adult life, and the book addresses that issue. In addition to Hughes, she left behind two young children.

 

Most biographers have been unkind towards the widower, some explicitly blaming him for Plath’s suicide. Plath’s private papers state Hughes was verbally and physically abusive, and the year before her death he started an affair with another poet, Assia Wevill. Hughes and Plath were separated at the time of her death and when she killed herself with both children were in the house.

 

After Plath’s death, Hughes raised the children, and wrote a long-ish children’s story to comfort them. This would become the seed for this movie.

 

Then in 1969, Wevill committed suicide in a manner similar to Plath’s. Worse, Wevill took her and Hughes’ child, a four-year-old, to the grave with her. At that time, Hughes was involved with yet another woman whom he would marry the next year.

 

Hughes was been guarded about any public statement regarding his relationships with any of these women, yet the whole family, including the small children, were under constant public scrutiny and speculation in the wake of the deaths, especially Plath’s. Years after Hughes’ own death in 1998, his last surviving son committed suicide in 2009.

 

The story Hughes wrote for his children was published in 1968, the year before Wevill’s murder/suicide, under title “The Iron Man: A Children's Story in Five Nights.” In it, a Giant Robot, perhaps of Extraterrestrial origin, mysteriously appears and the denizens of a small community both fear and persecute it. Later, they learn to accept his presence. Later still, a terrifying Space Dragon threatens the world, and the Iron Man is called into service to save mankind. After defeating the Dragon in a test of strength, the Iron Man discovers that the Dragon can be won over more completely if offered compassion and understanding, and then those two embark together on a quest for World Peace.

 

It has become among the most beloved of all English Children’s books. It was treated somewhat harshly in Black Sabbath’s 1970 song, “Iron Man” which made the Robot vengeance-obsessed. On the other hand, Pete Townsend adapted it more warmly and faithfully in the 1989 rock opera, “The Iron Man: The Musical.”

 

Surprisingly, this film is not a musical, which is a rarity in generously budgeted animation for children. After establishing the initial set-up, it strays far from the original story, in the film version, there is no Space Dragon, the only Enemy is Paranoia.

 

Directed by Brad Bird, who also co-Wrote it with Tim McCanlies and the uncredited Brent Forrester, it is a fairly blunt in its Political Messaging, more so than the book, but set decades earlier as to not overwhelm the children with over-serious polemic or be off-putting to parents.

 

The film’s context was the Red Scare in the USA during the 1950s, and that was likely influenced by Plath revealing in “The Bell Jar” that she was fixated on the execution of Ethel Rosenberg. Rosenberg and her husband were executed in 1953 for being Spies who smuggled Atomic Bomb secrets to the USSR. Though the case against husband was strong, Ethel’s level of guilt continues to be debated even after the de-classification of secret Soviet documents related to both of them. They were the only citizens of the USA executed for Espionage during the whole of the 40-year-long Cold War between the USA and USSR. The Rosenberg’s left behind two young children.

 

The movie, “The Iron Giant” is set in 1957, when the terror of the USSR having the Atomic Bomb was near its peak. Russia had just launched the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik, and it was not unreasonable to suspect Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev planned on building near-orbit platforms to rain Nuclear Weapons down on Democracy from Heaven itself. These real events are a good toolbox to build a Political Parable on, and best of all, these are threats now surmounted, so it is now uncontroversial; it’s not this kids’ movie was calling for better treatment of suspected Jihadi Terrorists.

 

The film’s first image was of Sputnik. Not long after we see the Atomic Bomb explode in a parody of the much-maligned so-called-education film, “Duck and Cover” (1952) which intended to teach Civil Defense strategies to children, but unintentionally demonstrated how defenseless our Nation really was.

 

It also parodies 50s-era SF movies which were generally unsubtle in their intertwining of the threat of Alien Invasion with anti-Communist fears. It specifically mocked the Z-grade, “The Brain Eaters” (1958), now most famous because it’s losing a plagiarism case brought by Novelist Robert Heinlein because of how shamefully it aped Heinlein’s anti-Communist, Alien Invasion novel, “The Puppet Masters” (1951, the year of the Rosenberg’s arrest).

 

As the above might indicate, an eerie mood is cultivated, but what really distinguishes this film is how a child-like sense of wonder infuses into that eeriness.

 

The Giant Robot from Outer Space is neither a Communist, nor an Invader, but a lost child. He troublesome because his main food source is metal so he eats a great deal of valuable farm equipment and part of a power station, but really, he just wants a friend.

 

While tangled in electric wires, he’s found and saved by nine-year-old Hogarth Hughes (voiced by fourteen-year-old Eli Marienthal) in the manner of “Androcles and the Lion” (2^nd c. CE). Wrote Critic Stephen Hunter, “What happens next is sort of like a ‘Lassie’ movie with a 100-foot-high robot with nuclear weapons in its arms in the role of the collie.”

 

At first Hogarth is uncertain about the Iron Giant following him around but soon he’s thrilled, “My own Giant Robot. I am the luckiest kid in America!” Hogarth is the only-child of an over-worked single-mom, Annie (Jennifer Aniston), she doesn’t have enough time for him and won’t let him have a pet (there’s a funny scene with a squirrel Hogarth captures that manages to escape at an inopportune moment). Hogarth, like the Robot, has no friends, so when they plays games, they are of Hogarth’s love for adventure -- and boy, what an adventure is he about to get.

 

Hogarth, half-wanting what he perceives as a giant pet all to himself, half-understanding how people respond to things that are different, decides to hide the Giant Robot from the rest of the community, “People just aren’t ready for you.”

 

Since the Robot eats metal, Hogarth brings him to a scarp-yard run by beatnik and would-be sculptor Dean McCoppin (Harry Connick, Jr.). Keeping the secret of the Robot from Dean proves impossible, but Dean proves an ally, helping Hogarth hide the Robot from not only the government, but even Annie, whom Dean is smitten with.

 

The absence of Hogath’s father is never explained except one quick, almost subliminal, hint that the father may have died in the Korean War (which ended the same year the Rosenberg’s were executed). The film will prove to be gently anti-Authoritarian, more explicitly anti-War, but not especially anti-Military. They do show up eventually, and do more harm than good, but are led by a gruff-but-level-headed commander, General Shannon Rogard (John Mahoney). Unfortunately, Shannon’s being lied to by the officious, paranoid, and cowardly, Federal Agent Kent Mansley (Christopher McDonald).

 

For most of the film’s running time Kent is more comical than threatening, making a fool of himself repeatedly, staring lavishly at Annie, and not realizing that calling Hogarth, “chief,” “scout,” “sport,” “skipper,” etc. is not gonna get him on the kid’s good-side. But Hogarth’s got a Chicken Hawk’s mean-streak, “We didn’t build it, that’s reason enough to blow it to kingdom come,” and at a critical moment to does something stupid that threatens to get everyone in the film killed.

 

The sweetness of the film is subversive, the Political Messaging is cleverly buttressing the Family Value moralism, not the other way around. Tolerance is sold through an argument for existence of souls, and anti-violence message though the preaching of personal self-determination. When the Robot fears he can’t control his awesomely powerful defense systems (only triggered when he’s attacked), Hogarth tells him, “You are what you choose to be.”

 

The Robot responds, “I am not a gun.”

 

In the end, when human ignorance set in motion the ultimate Horror, the Iron Giant makes the ultimate sacrifice for those he’s come to cherish.

 

In between the initial discovery and the sacrifice near the end, was a plot advancing in deft little bits, and enormous fun. Hogarth teaches the Robot how to speak (an electronically manipulated Vin Diesel, it was only his third credited role in a feature, and he was then only one-year shy of significant Stardom) and how to play. When Hogarth tries to teach the Robot moral values, he encourages the Robot to mimic that other Outer Space visitor who crash-landed on Earth, Superman (first appearing in 1938, another very dark time in the USA, full of fear of Foreign Enemies).

 

The humor is quick, but with a relaxed rhythm unusual in an animated film. It evokes a Nostalgia for an idealized World now lost even as it mocks the deep fears the permeated that era. In every way it lives up to the name of the small town, Rockwell, Maine.

 

The animation style is delightfully retro, almost everything is hand-drawn, computers employed only for certain effects and the Iron Giant himself, thus re-enforcing his unworldliness. The characters are drawn well, not only by the artists, but in the script, and the voice cast is flawless. It is easy to forget this hardline style of the animation, because most of these people are less “cartoonish” than the flesh-and-blood characters encountered in the same year’s “Runaway Bride.” This is helped by Michael Kamen’s Score, equal parts romantic, eerie, and playful, it is much like the Spielberg movie it evokes.

 

Both Bird and McCanlies had significant resumes before this film, but for Bird it was his first feature-length project. He was hired after a Warner Bros. beating-out Theatrical Producer Des McAnuff for the property. (McAnuff worked with Townshend bringing his older rock-opera, “Tommy” to the stage (album 1969, stage production 1992)).

 

Warner Bros also held the “Superman” copyright, which was how that character was worked into the picture, and was likely looking for a Superhero franchise, which might explain why the story ended before the arrival of the Space Dragon.

 

They did grant it a generous budget, between $48 and $50 million, though that was only a third of the budget of “The Iron Giant’s” biggest competition that year in the animation market, Disney’s “Tarzan.” In the end, “Iron Giant” was universally hailed, even more praised than “Tarzan.”

 

And it bombed. 

 

Most argued this was the fault of Warner Bros. poor marketing, it delaying the release for two years despite wildly enthusiastic test screenings, doing little to promote the film during that time, and when they finally released it, they spent less money on it than the risible “Wild, Wild, West” (which also bombed). But Lorenzo di Bonaventura, then-President of Warner Bros, preferred to blame the stupidity of the audience, "People always say to me, 'Why don't you make smarter family movies?' The lesson is, every time you do, you get slaughtered."

 

The film’s failure denied Warner Bros. giving Bird any support in future projects. He was then recruited to Pixar and quickly won Oscars for both of his next two critically hailed and tremendously successful animated features, “The Incredibles” (2004) and “Ratatouille” (2007).

 

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obLtyj8hfFk