NONFICTION: ANIMATION EXAMINED ANIMATION EXAMINED
The Art of The Adventures of Tintin by Chris Guise
Sometimes, even a reviewer is a force for good.
Decades ago, Steven Spielberg recounts, it was a movie critic who looked at the filmmaker’s Indiana Jones adventures and saw shades of Tintin, the intrepid boy reporter and globe-trotting sleuth. This astute review piqued the interest of the Oscar-winning director, introducing him to the spellbinding universe of a fellow world-class storyteller: the Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi, known to generations simply as the great Herge. (Spielberg, in fact, got to meet Herge before the latter’s death in 1983.)
Spielberg shares this back story in “The Art of the Adventures of Tintin,” timed to the release of his beautiful feature film, which — thanks to a savvy bit of calendar-shuffling — grossed hundreds of millions of dollars in Europe (where the comic is beloved), before opening in North America near Christmas to a more lukewarm reception. Tintin may have sold more than a quarter-million books since his creation more than 80 years ago, but on this side of the pond — though he has devoted fans — he’s no Mickey Mouse.
If cutting-edge technology were king, however, “Tintin” the 3-D computer-generated film would be ruling American shores, too. “The Art of the Adventures of Tintin” could rightly be called “The State of the Art of the Adventures of Tintin.” The coffee-table book is a sumptuous visual feast that dissolves the scrim on motion-capture technology, which until now has had a much rougher ride in Hollywood than any Tintin scallywag aboard Red Rackham’s pirate ship. Robert Zemeckis’ “Polar Express,” for one, was lambasted for its digital “dead eye” look during vaguely creepy close-ups, and more recently his motion-capture “Mars Needs Moms” — which reportedly cost more than $150 million to make — was declared the biggest box-office flop of 2011.
Into such snark-infested waters enter Spielberg and producer Peter Jackson, who used digital effects so brilliantly in “King Kong” and the “Lord of the Rings” films. “The Art of … Tintin” author Chris Guise himself worked on the “Rings” trilogy and was the lead conceptual designer for the “Tintin” film as an artist for the New Zealand-based Weta Workshop design studio (where effects work was done on the groundbreaking “Avatar”). As such, Guise is a top-notch tour guide as he leads us on a detailed journey from comic page to “mo-cap” soundstage.
Adapting Herge’s bold and beloved “clear line” style requires uncommon understanding and affection for the characters and their adventures. This Tintin book, then, is best appreciated by those with an artist’s eye who can revel in the sheer beauty of the physical and digital transformations. What was once the simple and simply graceful ink line of an eyebrow now becomes a tapestry of pixels — and black dots as eyes must now register as human windows reflecting true feeling. “The Art of … Tintin” illuminates the painstaking process of how digital paint is applied to Tintin actor Jamie Bell; how Daniel Craig morphs into villainous Sakharine; and how effects veteran Andy Serkis (Gollum in the “LOTR” pics) becomes rum-fueled Captain Haddock, the film’s warmest and most alive character, a performance that warrants some a new category at the Oscars, best performance in a mo-cap role.
This past summer, cartoonist Jeff Smith — creator of the epic graphic novel “Bone” — told me that the future of motion-capture technology may rest on the aesthetic and commercial success or failure of Spielberg and his “Tintin.” Guise’s beguiling book spotlights why that future is again safe. Thanks to cinematic genius, those perilous waters have been not only stilled, but warmed.
