The Walk (Robert Zemeckis, 2015)

[colinr0380]

That's a great post mfunk. I've been thinking that this film involves Zemeckis going back to one of his core themes of almost alluding to enormous historical events by showing a tinier and peripheral event, but a more visceral one that might move audiences more. One that occurred elsewhere, or in the background (so instead of tackling 9/11 directly, we get Petit's 'safer' highwire antics that still inspire vertigo). This might be the first time he has used one historical event to comment on another historical event though, as usually Zemeckis has a fictional character encountering a 'real' situation.

Perhaps the most obvious, and problematic, example is Forrest Gump getting involved in a swathe of history and getting stuck into stock footage, but the idea is there from Zemeckis's first feature I Wanna Hold Your Hand, which follows a group of girls with plans to infiltrate into the Beatle's hotel suite during their first American tour.

It is even there in purely fictional form in a few scenes of the Back To The Future films (though fascinatingly complicated as it is the core group of fictional characters that we have come to know that are the 'famous people' that Marty re-encounters), or in the idea of meeting Father Christmas in The Polar Express.

I'm still ambivalent on how much this approach works, and whether this still consciously ignores actually engaging with more difficult and troubling material in order to produce a 'safer' technical achievement or a vertigo-inducing thrillride first and foremost. (I have wildly different reactions to a lot of Zemeckis's films, from feeling purely entertained to deeply morally troubled, but for example Contact entirely works for me, despite adhereing almost entirely to this formula as well!)