The Wrath of Kong

An old joke needs updating for today's movie world -- with apologies to a Given that the 1933 original film still exists, why do a remake?

That's a very fair question. I have a pet answer: There's a generation today who don't watch black-and-white films anymore. You have to be captivated by something, and even my own kids don't have the patience for the 1930s style of storytelling and acting and special effects. But the real reason is that I've been wanting to make this ever since I first saw King Kong. I mean, I first tried when I was twelve. I built a cardboard model of the Empire State Building and a little model of Kong, about a foot tall. He's gone a bit rotten, but I've still got him. I'll bring him in and show you, if you come around tomorrow. He's a little decomposing chap made out of wire armature. My mom gave me a fur stole -- I chopped it up and glued it on. Then I shot him with my parents' Super 8 camera.

Did you first see Kong in a theater?

On TV. We never had any revival houses here, really. When I was a kid, we had one television station -- and it was pretty boring. Lots of British World War II movies with John Mills and Dickie Attenborough -- stiff upper lips. But one Friday night, Kong was on. I watched it, and I wanted to become a filmmaker ever since. Making this movie, I was trying to relate as much as I could to the nine-year-old version of me who first saw Kong; I wanted to make sure that it wasn't made by an old, jaded guy.

Why did King Kong have such a huge impact on you?

I was already in love with fantasy and escapist entertainment and special effects. And in Kong, I just experienced the most perfect bit of escapism that's ever been created. It had everything that a nine-year-old would want: I mean, dinosaurs on an uncharted island! But most importantly, I cried when Kong fell off the Empire State Building. So it showed me what film entertainment could be: It could have outrageous adventure, but it could also move you in a profound way. And that's always what I aspired to.

King Kong has attracted a lot of intellectual theorizing over the years: Kong is a Christ figure, Kong is the black man in chains, Kong is a manifestation of fear about Darwinism . . .

I don't get into that sort of thing. I've been collecting Kong books all my life, but some of them I just look at the pictures. There are a lot of people who love to look into the meanings of anything in movies -- it happens with me a lot in France. But I don't like Kong because it has any intellectual resonance -- I like it because it's a cool monster movie with dinosaur fights, and he gets to battle biplanes on top of the Empire State Building.

We're certainly aware of what story we're telling. There's interesting things about the exploitation of nature and the way that Kong is ripped out of this natural environment to be exploited by humans. And this is as far as I go into analyzing it: The story is about a creature who has never empathized with any other living being, and the second that he does, he's doomed. The worst thing that Kong ever does is decide to protect Ann Darrow. That's a terrible tragedy.