The Simpsons Movie
The Simpsons humor is unlike anything else in the comedy landscape, so it's about time they brought their style to the movies. Producer James L. Brooks has been with the series from the beginning, and is no comedy novice. With decades of experience in film and television comedy, even he struggled to put the Simpsons's style into words.
James L. Brooks on The Simpsons Movie
"I don't know whether I can give a full explanation but I talk about the construction of a story," said Brooks. "We have lots of jokes in the picture. Within a joke that takes place in a short time, there are lengthy discussions on constructing it. That’s one of the good things about team writing. Somebody has a funny thought, somebody builds on it and builds and builds and builds. Suddenly instead of just stopping at a joke, you’re just all adding to it. So that’s one of the things that happened. In this movie, there’s almost no line that isn’t crucial, either setting up a joke, paying off a joke or telling you a fact you must know."
The Simpsons Movie may have more elaborate action sequences than the shows' slapstick bits. However, even the big finale pays homage to one of Homer's very first blunders.
"We knew we wanted to end up at the gorge because it’s the scene of one of our classic physical jokes. Then David and his group just came up with these extraordinary things. I think it is like one of the great things we’ve done. The last thing we did, what was driving us crazy is we always got ‘em, they made it across the gorge and it wasn’t good enough. We didn’t have and that drove us crazy literally for months, I think it was months until we finally thought of the slingshot which I don’t want to give away either. A lot of it is simply never giving up and taking the time and going back. That’s the worst thing. A lot of these things, we tried a lot of different solutions."
The film also brings the world of Springfield into widescreen cinemascope. Though it looks familiar, these are all new materials. "It’s all generated for the picture but we have models. We don’t start from scratch. We have models. David Silverman, first of all, he did Monsters Inc., he studied Bad Day at Black Rock. He studied Around the World in 80 Days. They were very populated so it lends itself to it. First of all, he’s responsible for the acting, drawing the acting so I think that’s extraordinary in the picture, and I think his staging is great."
The film's music was composed by Hans Zimmer, not the series' Alf Clauson. "Alf has a full time job on the series. Hans and I have worked on a lot of movies together. Alf has a full time job and Hans is somebody I think came through for us brilliantly. I know he spoke to Danny [Elfman] and paid all respects there."
Finally, The Simpsons Movie is full of emotional moments along with the comedy. Perhaps that goes back to the early days of the series. "We were more emotional the first three seasons. We have some of all of our favorite shows tend to be the more emotional shows. I think that we’ve all been through an experience and since we’re all involved in the show, that experience will have echoes."
The Simpsons Movie opens to theatres on July 27th.
For the trailers, posters, synopsis and more movie info, go to The
Simpsons Movie Movie Page.
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