Ron Howard

on making DR. SEUSS' HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS

The basic story of the Dr. Seuss classic is that former Whoville resident the Grinch, looking so different from the others he was ridiculed and teased, and also spurned in his affections for a girl Who, retreated to a cave on Mt. Crumpit, where he has lived for nearly 30 years. Irritated at the thought of the nearby village having another happy Christmas, he puts together a sleigh, disguises himself as Santa Claus and his dog as a reindeer, and goes on a night raid to steal all the presents. But ends up having a change of heart.

Author of the original book, Theodor Seuss Geisel (who attended Dartmouth and Oxford University; won a Pulitzer Prize; and died in 1991) took the name Dr. Seuss for his series of 44 children's books.

Ron Howard (EDTV; RANSOM; APOLLO 13) had been a longtime fan of the story, and called the Grinch "a great sort of anti-hero who winds up growing and doing the right thing." There have been a number of competing filmmakers who wanted to update the story, previously done in 1966 as a half hour animation directed by Chuck Jones (with narration by Boris Karloff) but Imagine Entertainment was chosen by Geisel's widow, Audrey for the expanded live action version. Producer Brian Grazer explained her choice: "Let's just say Audrey is pretty eccentric and leave it at that. When Ron and I came to her, we pitched the project with Jim Carrey playing the Grinch and I'm pretty sure that's why she accepted us."

Howard notes they didn't have rights to the cartoon, and, in any case, wanted to distance themselves from it as source material. He said, "We found a lot of clues in the book, as thin as it is. It's interesting in that it's different than many of the other Seuss books. It's slightly more grounded in contemporary society, of the time at which it was published, the late fifties. And there are a couple of clues, like you go into the kitchen and the refrigerator says, 'General Wholectric' on it, and a couple of utensils you see are skewed, a little warped, slightly Seussified, but they're of our world. He really meant it to be very much a kind of parallel universe. So, oddly enough, we drew our inspiration from that."

Jim Carrey was a collaborator in the project from the outset. "And that's half the attraction for me, as director," Howard says, "not just doing THE GRINCH, but doing Jim Carrey as the Grinch. And he had a tremendous sense of why the world was funny and cool, and what he could do in that world." Carrey has commented about his character: "I looked at him as not just being an angry guy. Nobody is just an angry guy. What we are is hurt, whether it's self-imposed or something happened to us. That made me able to make the Grinch sympathetic. That's how I approached it. This is a guy who wants to be invited to the party, but can't admit it to himself."

Howard recalled a tip he got from George Lucas for creating the Who environment: "He said he'd had some success, even in his science fiction stuff, the STAR WARS series, in going back and finding electronic and mechanical products from the early twentieth century, the twenties and thirties, and especially European style products and devices. They had a real functionality about them, but you didn't recognize them as being American or of this world."

Early design meetings for the project included producers Brian Grazer and Todd Hallowell, production designer Michael Corenblith, costume designer Rita Ryack, set decorator Merideth Boswell, some of the storyboard artists ("Who are incredibly talented," Howard said) and makeup effects designer Rick Baker. Asked about making the style of the project grounded reality versus fantasy reality like in his own film WILLOW, Howard said, "We talked about that, and Corenblith had a great idea early on. In doing research, uncovering a couple of clues as to what had inspired Geisel, Michael turned to Gaudi, and also sort of Moorish architecture. If you compare the two styles, you see that Gaudi is very Seussian, or the other way around. So in trying to find sort of practical applications, as opposed to highly stylized, highly theatrical versions of the Seussian world, we said, Look, you can see how the world actually works. Those staircases can make sense; people can actually walk on them. We don't have to do sort of a minimalist, Salvador Dali kind of a theatrical treatment. So, I liked that."

He wanted the story to be "as relatable, and a kind of parallel universe" for a global audience. "American audiences already have a kind of relationship with that sort of Seussian tone and world, and have a sense of Whoville and the Grinch," Howard says, "but in playing around the world, where the story is not well known, I really wanted to make sure we created a fantasy world that abided by some rules, and made sense. I thought there were a lot of compelling reasons to make the movie, beyond the fact that Americans knew the story. The story is funny, and deals in an entertaining, but interesting and insightful way, with a modern dilemma, which is over-commercialization. It's sort of real humanity and love, versus that which can be made or purchased."

Another aspect Howard liked was that the comedy is physical, "and features an incredible lead character; who better to play it than Jim Carrey? So all those things converged in my mind, and I wanted to make sure that the story would live up to people's expectations, who had grown up with the story, but I also wanted to be certain that we were going to transport people into a world, and make them understand it, whether they knew anything about the book, or had ever seen the cartoon, or a puppet of the Grinch, or a musical version or any other treatment of that character before. For our design team, and for us as storytellers, that was crucial.

"Because the story is smart and relatable, and an expanding story, dealing with that kind of dilemma: the overcommercialization of Christmas, it seemed that we could satirically speak to grownups as well. Jim Carrey is an incredible physical comedian (and a brainy guy, I'll just say as a sidebar) and the collaboration was thrilling for me; I really enjoyed it. And his stuff certainly appeals to young adults and teens. In making the story contemporary and cinematic, we wanted to play into his strengths, which happen also to be the strengths of the Grinch character, one that kind of defines anarchy and chaos, and moves to the beat of his own drummer, pretty hilariously. So I felt that audience could be entertained as well. And Seuss was a great modern fableist, and I wanted this movie to work as a modern fable as well, and I think it does have something to say, and has a great central character that children can relate to in Cindy-Lou Who."

Howard feels this is "one of those movies that could cross those barriers, and entertain a very wide spectrum. We haven't gotten a rating yet, but I'm sure we're going to be PG. But we're true to the tone, we're very respectful of the origins of this story. Yes, we've had to change it, yes we've had to develop it. But even in developing it, I went back and looked at a lot of Geisel stories, and tried to find common themes, common ideas, and this is where I realized he was sort of our modern fableist. Yes, they were ostensibly children's stories, but they were smart cautionary tales, just as through time fairy tales have tried to tell stories that educated as well as entertained. I think in its own way, this story does that, too. And Geisel always reached for that. The great thing is that his stories had a moral, but he himself was not a moralist. The stories always have an edge, a satirical bite, they always have humor, his artwork is great to look at, and by the way, there is a point that is very well made. That's why his stories are really fun to experience."

The transformation in the Grinch was important to both Carrey and himself, Howard says. "When I first spoke to him about it, [Carrey] said, 'The character's hilarious, he's physical, and I can't wait to do him, but the great thing is he's mean, and he comes around; he has the epiphany, he grows.' So you can really go for it, and really enjoy setting the character as someone who's sort of deliciously annoying, and delightfully mean, but needs to learn a lesson, needs to grow, and does."

Taylor Momsen plays Cindy-Lou Who, probably the most responsible for the Grinch's reformation. The choice had come down to two or three little girls, "all very talented," Howard says. "I auditioned them and it was a really agonizing decision. As cute as Taylor is, and as much a girl of her time, and as beautiful as she is, Rick Baker once said she was the 'Who-iest' of the kids, and he actually helped influence the decision, again in terms of trying to create a world. She's got a wonderful round face, and big eyes, almost a kind of cartoon face, but she's wonderfully honest, very relatable. Of all the characters in the movie, she's kind of the most accessible for us. She's kind of our Everyman."

Rita Ryack designed the costumes, which also had to maintain the right tone and balance of reality versus fantasy. "There weren't a lot of clues in the book," Howard points out. "The way the Whos were dressed was pretty minimalistic. There are some other illustrated treatments from earlier books, and the Whos evolved over the years. Geisel used them a few times. In "Horton" you see a few more Whos, and you see how he was dressing them.

We went with the fifties idea, but we wanted some contemporary flourishes, like some of the teenagers have boom boxes, and kind of leggings, and look like they have bell-bottoms; some have really short skirts. Rita comes from the stage, and she's done great film work, but all the films I've done with her have been very bound by reality. The costumes needed to be right, but not draw attention to themselves.

So Rita had a field day on this one, because here she could really go to her theatrical roots, and let her imagination run wild. Also, she began her career as a cartoonist, and her drawings are a lot of fun. We just kept poring over ideas, and created a kind of visual melange, that became Whoville. Some of it looks Victorian, some of it looks fifties, some of it very modern, some of it vaguely Middle Eastern; there's a little India in there. It was wonderful. She did a great job."

Henry Fonda reportedly once advised Howard that to continue to grow creatively, he should put his career at risk every two years, to stay challenged. Howard says of the comment, "This film, I felt, was going to be even more challenging than WILLOW. First of all, I would not have George Lucas sort of guiding and mentoring the whole thing. And he's so comfortable with the fantasy world.

Brian [Grazer] and I have worked together well, but we're both contemporary in our thinking. Yes, we did SPLASH, but that was a very modern kind of fantasy, so for Imagine and for us, this was a very unusual movie. And it was an even tougher design and tonal challenge than WILLOW, because with that, we basically decided it was kind of the Dark Ages. There were props we could get out of a prop house, and costumes we could just tweak a little, and it worked. With this, there wasn't even a knife or fork; we couldn't get one thing from a rental house. Everything was a design question. And not only that, we had to look at it for its comedic value, because not only do we have verbal jokes and physical gags, but we're also trying to be witty and smart about all the details. If people decide to see it a second time, there will be new nuances that are entertaining that they can pick up on."

The level of challenge of the project, Howard says, "kind of snuck up on me. It's such a delightful, simple little story and I like the tone, and I like doing a comedy, and I went into it thinking it's not going to be a very long movie; I want to keep it under a hundred minutes. And with Jim Carrey, it's perfect casting, so we'll just sail through this. And about two months into the prep, it hit me that this might end up being the most complicated movie I'd ever made. It probably was. It's right up there with WILLOW, anyway."

Currently still in post on it, Howard says, "I'm not satisfied with everything. Like most movies, I probably won't be entirely. There are still Digital Domain [CGI] shots rolling in, but the movie's just about edited now; there are a couple of little tweaks I may make, but it's basically done. I've seen it play for small audiences now, and it's getting the kind of response I always hoped it would. So I'm feeling very good about it. I had a great session with James Horner the other day, and he's just beginning to score the movie, and it's sounding terrific. I think everybody who sees it is feeling kind of delighted by it, and that means a lot to me."

Howard applauds the contributions that Rick Baker made. "His input from day one to the end of principal photography was incredibly valuable, not only just in terms of designing characters, but helping to set the tone for Whoville. In a very unpretentious, collaborative way, he really made it possible.

Kazu [Kazuhiro Tsuji] who applied the Grinch's makeup to Jim everyday was also remarkable. Rick and his team just did extraordinary work. They worked on every Who; we had the Grinch, then forty or fifty principal Whos, and each one of them was individually designed. And then we had some background Whos, which wound up being individually designed, even though they started out with sort of generic Who parts. The makeup artists, and hair and makeup people, kept tweaking and designing until no two Whos looked remotely alike. It was a great thing."

There were also some Cirque du Soleil performers as background Whos, Howard notes, "Not because we were going to do some serious stunt work, or really tricky things, but we wanted to give that world a kind of off-kilter sense. So there's always someone leaning in a slightly improbable way, or walking on top of a ball, or riding a unicycle. But it's more a kind of fabric in the background. I think it does add to it."

~ ~ ~

  [originally published in Cinefantastique magazine]

~ ~ ~

  

creativity enhancement articles

article topics index

~ ~ ~