“Tell Them Anything You Want,” the Spike Jonze and Lance Bangs-directed documentary on “Where The Wild Things Are” author Maurice Sendak (which has been shortlisted for the Oscar doc shorts category) is a perfect extension of ‘Wild Things’ the feature length film (which we saw and will review, but yes, you’ll be happy to know it’s wonderful).
Or rather, “Where The Wild Things Are,” the Spike Jonze-directed adaptation of the Sendak book is a great extension of the author’s spirit and personality and therefore the documentary that lays it all bare to see, warts and all.
The documentary airs tonight on HBO, but we were lucky enough to get an early peek at the 40-minute documentary, which started shooting in 2003, culled together from several visits to Sendak’s Connecticut home over the years and it’s just as melancholy, tender, raw and touching as “Where The Wild Things” the movie is (yes, we’re reviewing them in reverse order, welcome to our world). Yet it is almost perversely unsentimental.
Sendak is a legendary cantankerous crank, but the portrait of the film is really just a very, very candid and unfiltered man that has a bullshit detector like none other. The documentary takes its it’s title about his thoughts on not pandering to children. “You can tell them anything you want,” Sendak says matter-of-factly how to communicate to kids. “Just tell if it’s true” (and once you see ‘Wild Things’ you know this is Jonze’s modus operandi and he took this maxim, very much to heart).
Obsessed with death, brutally honest and self-effacing, ‘Tell Them,’ is both hilarious and sad, a document of a man who realizes he is in the winter of his life, never satisfied, perennially cynical and borderline depressed, but there’s such a fiery zeal and passion to Sendak it’s no wonder Jonze was so attracted to his subject.
But following the be truthful dictum, the picture also pulls no punches, doesn’t pussyfoot around and lets Sendak tell his story unadulterated. Some parts are so damn frank they’re almost hard to watch.
His advice for young people, Jonze asks him at the beginning? “Quit this life as soon as possible, get out, get out….. you’re doing a documentary about a brain dead person,” Sendak laughs, and you’re never quite sure whether he’s half-joking or being serious, until you realize the humor is always undercutting his true beliefs.
He’s also forthrightly funny. Asked if his family experiences informed his work, which Jonze says the author has noted in past interviews, Sendak grunts, “No,” pausing for effect.”I make up a lot of shit.”
Catherine Keener, an associate producer on ‘Wild Things’ who became an integral part of the production and even an acting coach to young Max Records on the film in Australia (Jonze actually tried to give her the title of Warner Bros. Vice President as a joke and WB actually got upset about it), appears too, helping Jonze interview the author.
His childhood is a complicated one, with massive adoration for his older brother and sister, but not much more than disdain for his parents. “How can you have an older brother who was so good to you?” he asks in a moment that is so genuinely tender “And thinks of you all the time and teaches you thing… reads to you. I adored him.”
His feelings about his parents are not guarded or unequivocal. “I hated my mother and father,” and flatly says, they “named me after the doctor that pulled me out of of my mother.”
Ha also recounts a very pretty brutal story about his parents telling him they tried to abort him because they couldn’t afford him. “I was an accident” he said, but also notes softly and again, matter-of-factly, “they didn’t tell me these things out of malice, you gotta remember these were not like things in the movies that were cruel. these were factual things: we could not afford you.”
His father told him that he was the happiest baby he ever saw and said, ” ‘You came out almost laughing. You’d be laughing all by yourself in the dark, like a little bell.’ What a good beginning, what a hopeful sign that was,” Sendak marvelled, before deflating with. “What did they do, break the bell?”
Hearing these naked, straight-from-the-shoulder testaments are tough and affecting. Sendak obviously endured a lot growing up, yet never feels a moments sympathy or pity for himself.
Those wanting to hear all about the creation of “Where The Wild Things” are the book and the movie won’t find satisfaction, ‘Wild Things’ makes up for a very small percentage of the documentary, but it’s so fascinating and engaging one soon realizes discovering who this man is, is much more interesting.
Growing up gay didn’t make life any easier either. In fact, it was just another burden on top of an already difficult upbringing. “I did not want to be gay. It was another sign of isolation. It was something you hid. I took it as you would take an [medical] operation, it was bad news, just more bad news. The ball [of troubles] was rolling and just getting bigger.”
His fixation with death is also self-deprecatory, but very distinct and Jonze even cuts together a semi-humorous montage sequence of collected quick snippets of Sendak discussing death. “I’m very aware of dying,” he says at one point, “I’m going to die pretty soon,” he says in another bluntly.
Sendak marks his preoccupation with mortality to when he was two years old, exposed to something at too young of an age that he implicitly understood even though he couldn’t read: the death of the Lindberg baby (Charles Lindberg Jr.), as the corpse of the baby was actually displayed on the cover of the Daily News (and then soon replaced in a following edition) It’s an image that haunted him his entirely life. “The idea that you could die as a child; its infamous insight for a child.”
Death was all around and as a young boy a friend of his named Lloyd died “because of him.” A ball was thrown too hard into the street, the boy chased after it and was hit by a car. “He was killed on impact.” The mother forgave him, but the guilty young Maurice holed-up in his room for days afterwards. Tears well up when he tried to discuss the matter before quickly shutting off. “I cannot cry,” he says biting back tears. “I cannot talk about it.”
There are many wistful and moving moments. Realizing the author is maxed out emotionally and tired, Jonze suggests they stop shooting and gives him a big hug. Sendak says, “I wish i could satisfy you as a friend and be a normal human being.” Jonze jokes that he wants to strangle him into feeling joy and Sendak turns to camera man Lance Bangs. “Do you find joy?,” he asks? Bangs, responds, “Yeah.” And the author snarls with his trademark half-joking half-serious mien, “How dare you.”
Like ‘Wild Things’ the movie, “Tell Them Anything You Want” is intuitively crafted, honest and doesn’t censor Sendak or soften his edges. It’s a portrait of an fiercely honest man and brave man, one who’s emotionally complex and complicated and also, very sadly, ready to die. Towards the end the doc is especially moving and tearful.
The last word obviously goes to Sendak on his body of work and his manifesto for his approach.
“I said anything I wanted. Because I never believed in childhood. I don’t believe in the demarcation. ‘You musn’t tell them that.’ You can tell them anything you want.” he insists. “Just tell if it’s true. Why is my needle stuck in childhood?,” he wonders with genuine curiosity. “I don’t know why. I guess it’s because that’s where my heart is.”