Nope and the 1933 King Kong are Fascinatingly Simpatico Masterpieces with Some VERY Crucial Differences
When I was conceptualizing my column The Fractured Mirror for TCM Backlot back in 2015 I knew that I wanted it to be about movies about movies but I couldn’t quite figure out what that would entail.
Should I limit myself to movies very explicitly about the film industry that involve the actual production of motion pictures? Or would that be way too narrow a focus?
What about movies about actors who alternate between television and film or theater and movies? Heck, what about mockumentaries? By definition, isn’t a mockumentary a movie about making a movie?
As is invariably the case, I figured it out as I went along. I didn’t want the qualifications for meeting the column or the book to be too narrow or exacting but I didn’t want them to be too fuzzy or vague either.
I wanted to write about classic movies about movies like Singing in the Rain and Mank but also less expected movies like Southland Tales, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and the 1933 version of King Kong.
When I saw that Jordan Peele, one of my favorite new filmmakers, was making a movie involving the film industry in Nope I got very excited because it meant that another great film would be made about making movies and because I could put it in my book and have Felipe do a nifty illustration for it, although I should probably point out that Felipe has 100 percent freedom in what he wants to illustrate because everything he chooses and does is great.
I had a less immediate response to Nope than I did to Get Out and US but I still loved it. As my professors would say, it is textually rich. There’s a lot going on.
I left Nope thinking that it would be on my mind for a long time. I was right. I have not stopped thinking about Nope, particularly while re-watching the original King Kong, which is getting a full-sized article here and a smaller blurb in the book.
I think it’s VERY safe to say that Peele, being a horror traditionalist, had King Kong on his mind when he was writing Nope.
Both films ask what we would do if we were to encounter a truly fantastical creature, something so utterly astounding that its improbable but undeniable existence single-handedly expands, dramatically, our understanding of the universe and our tiny place within it?
King Kong and Nope both argue, convincingly, that being human beings and Americans, our response to encountering something as awe-inspiring as a giant super-gorilla who inhabits a lost world of dinosaurs cut off from the rest of the world or a genuine unidentified flying object would probably involve trying to make a movie out of it, trying to make money off of it or trying to kill it.
There is no miracle so vast or so horrible that we couldn’t find a way to monetize or murder it.
Two of Nope’s themes are our dangerous obsession with spectacle and the impossibility of taming an alpha predator. Needless to say those are two of King Kong’s themes as well.
They knock the big guy out with a pathetic, cowardly gas bomb but they sure as shit do not tame Kong. And King Kong is obsessed with our unfortunate obsession with transforming everything that we encounter into a big, money-making show for the masses.
On an even more direct level, Nope’s most famous and acclaimed scene involves a simian forced to entertain the masses who responds to an unexpected shock by going ape-shit and killing human beings in a homicidal rage. That reminded me of King Kong just a little. If I remember correctly, he also loses it a little bit at the end.
King Kong is progressive and ahead of its time in so many ways, particularly where technology is involved. One place that it most assuredly is NOT ahead of its time is where race is concerned.
It’s a product of the early 1930s so it’s pretty goddamn racist and filled with regressive stereotypes.
So part of the beauty of Nope is that it took a classic story that is so modern and so relevant and ahead of its time in so many ways and made it reflect the diversity and progress of our times.
In Peele’s empowering take, black people are the protagonists, not regressive caricatures of Africans as superstitious or fearful or Asians as comic relief cooks mangling the English language.
In Nope, Black men and women are making the movies and taking the chances and staring down death for the sake of capturing the unknown and the awe-inducing for posterity.
In that respect Nope is the perfect companion film to the 1933 classic, perhaps even more so than Peter Jackson’s inspired if excessively long 2005 remake.
Pre-order The Fractured Mirror, the Happy Place’s next book, a 600 page magnum opus about American films about American films (sorry Jean-Claude!), illustrated by the great Felipe Sobreiro over at https://the-fractured-mirror.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders
The Joy of Trash, the Happy Place’s first non-"Weird Al” Yankovic-themed book is out! And it’s only 16.50, shipping, handling and taxes included, 30 bucks for two books, domestic only!
Buy The Joy of Trash, The Weird Accordion to Al and the The Weird Accordion to Al in both paperback and hardcover and The Weird A-Coloring to Al and The Weird A-Coloring to Al: Colored-In Special Edition signed from me personally (recommended) over at https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop
Or you can buy The Joy of Trash here and The Weird A-Coloring to Al here and The Weird Accordion to Al here
Help ensure a future for the Happy Place during an uncertain era AND get sweet merch by pledging to the site’s Patreon account at https://www.patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace We just added a bunch of new tiers and merchandise AND a second daily blog just for patrons!
Alternately you can buy The Weird Accordion to Al, signed, for just 19.50, tax and shipping included, at the https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop or for more, unsigned, from Amazon here.
I make my living exclusively through book sales and Patreon so please support independent media and one man’s dream and kick in a shekel or two!