1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 97: Casper
“This is the first feature film to have a fully computer-generated visual effects character in a leading role,” notes the Internet Movie Database.
Indeed, it’s a mark of technical virtuosity that when ghostly young Casper is granted a few hours of re-embodiment, his human portrayer is less winsome than the computer-generated spirit.
Along with Casper, there are three other principal ghosts: “Fatso,” “Stretch,” and “Stinkie,” Casper’s loutish uncles. Physically, they’re all like overgrown soap bubbles. They’re corporeal, but just barely. You can see them – and see through them. If you try to touch them, they dissipate. (No harm is done; they easily re-form.) Fat or thin, they’re rounded: there’s little angularity, and no severity, in their faces.
The uncles are a jovial if malicious lot. Casper himself would be cuddly were he more than minimally solid. Such is his plight: he can love, but he can’t be embraced by his beloved.
The movie is a child-friendly take on the classic story of a romantic encounter between a human and a god (an angel, an alien, a sprite, etc.). The themes are inaccessibility and yearning.
That’s 1990s “Child Scare Queen” Christina Ricci (The Addams Family; Sleepy Hollow). Casper sees her and falls in love. (That’s also how I felt when I saw the trailer in the mid-nineties.) She is Kat, the daughter of Dr. Harvey (Bill Pullman), a psychologist who specializes in therapy for the dead – or, as he calls them, the “living impaired.” Ghosts, he explains, are those who fail to fully “cross over” because of “unresolved issues.” Dr. Harvey has an unresolved issue of his own, which is that his wife’s death has exacerbated his eccentricity. He drags Kat across the country so that he can talk to ghosts and track down his wife’s spirit.
Dr. Harvey and Kat end up in Maine, in the run-down, palatial dwelling of Casper and his uncles, at the behest of treasure hunters played by Eric Idle (Monty Python) and Cathy Moriarty (most famously, Robert De Niro’s chilly wife in Raging Bull). Idle and Moriarty are involved in the movie’s funniest scenes, some of which also benefit from cameos by Saturday Night Live icons – a conceit repeated by director Brad Silverling in his Land of the Lost.
For example:
The uncles delight in frightening visitors to the mansion; Casper tries to befriend them; the effect is the same. Until the Harveys arrive, that is. They weather the initial storm. Soon, Casper is cooking Kat breakfast, and the uncles are taking a shine to the Doctor. Such a shine, in fact, that they wish him to die so that he can join their posse. As for Kat, although she’s grateful for Casper’s attention, she’d rather be with the local flesh-and-blood junior heart-throb. (Cue Carrie references.) Will Casper win her over? In the spirit of Ray Bradbury, yes and no. Carefully watch the final scene, the scene of Casper’s re-embodiment. It becomes clear that Kat will accept Casper only under conditions he can’t satisfy. And rightly so, perhaps. The movie is bittersweet.
It also has more swearing and gross-out humor than your average children’s movie. (Again, see Silberling’s Land of the Lost, which, wisely, doesn’t market itself as for children.) Casper’s plight may be at the movie’s center, but the prevailing tone is set by those hedonistic vulgarians, the uncles. Which is just as well. The core is perhaps just too sad. Me, I liked the set design best. The run-down mansion is exquisite. There are lots of references to old movies – to Oz, especially. Afterward, I wanted to watch Casper again, to see how many references I could count; Land of the Lost, too.
Indeed, it’s a mark of technical virtuosity that when ghostly young Casper is granted a few hours of re-embodiment, his human portrayer is less winsome than the computer-generated spirit.
Along with Casper, there are three other principal ghosts: “Fatso,” “Stretch,” and “Stinkie,” Casper’s loutish uncles. Physically, they’re all like overgrown soap bubbles. They’re corporeal, but just barely. You can see them – and see through them. If you try to touch them, they dissipate. (No harm is done; they easily re-form.) Fat or thin, they’re rounded: there’s little angularity, and no severity, in their faces.
The uncles are a jovial if malicious lot. Casper himself would be cuddly were he more than minimally solid. Such is his plight: he can love, but he can’t be embraced by his beloved.
The movie is a child-friendly take on the classic story of a romantic encounter between a human and a god (an angel, an alien, a sprite, etc.). The themes are inaccessibility and yearning.
That’s 1990s “Child Scare Queen” Christina Ricci (The Addams Family; Sleepy Hollow). Casper sees her and falls in love. (That’s also how I felt when I saw the trailer in the mid-nineties.) She is Kat, the daughter of Dr. Harvey (Bill Pullman), a psychologist who specializes in therapy for the dead – or, as he calls them, the “living impaired.” Ghosts, he explains, are those who fail to fully “cross over” because of “unresolved issues.” Dr. Harvey has an unresolved issue of his own, which is that his wife’s death has exacerbated his eccentricity. He drags Kat across the country so that he can talk to ghosts and track down his wife’s spirit.
Dr. Harvey and Kat end up in Maine, in the run-down, palatial dwelling of Casper and his uncles, at the behest of treasure hunters played by Eric Idle (Monty Python) and Cathy Moriarty (most famously, Robert De Niro’s chilly wife in Raging Bull). Idle and Moriarty are involved in the movie’s funniest scenes, some of which also benefit from cameos by Saturday Night Live icons – a conceit repeated by director Brad Silverling in his Land of the Lost.
For example:
The uncles delight in frightening visitors to the mansion; Casper tries to befriend them; the effect is the same. Until the Harveys arrive, that is. They weather the initial storm. Soon, Casper is cooking Kat breakfast, and the uncles are taking a shine to the Doctor. Such a shine, in fact, that they wish him to die so that he can join their posse. As for Kat, although she’s grateful for Casper’s attention, she’d rather be with the local flesh-and-blood junior heart-throb. (Cue Carrie references.) Will Casper win her over? In the spirit of Ray Bradbury, yes and no. Carefully watch the final scene, the scene of Casper’s re-embodiment. It becomes clear that Kat will accept Casper only under conditions he can’t satisfy. And rightly so, perhaps. The movie is bittersweet.
It also has more swearing and gross-out humor than your average children’s movie. (Again, see Silberling’s Land of the Lost, which, wisely, doesn’t market itself as for children.) Casper’s plight may be at the movie’s center, but the prevailing tone is set by those hedonistic vulgarians, the uncles. Which is just as well. The core is perhaps just too sad. Me, I liked the set design best. The run-down mansion is exquisite. There are lots of references to old movies – to Oz, especially. Afterward, I wanted to watch Casper again, to see how many references I could count; Land of the Lost, too.
