
You heard it
here first folks (or possibly not). Matthew "Layer Cake" Vaughn's
Stardust, based upon a book by Neil Gaiman, beat off the incomprehensibly popular
Heroes to pick up the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form.
Given that the film was based on something written by Neil Gaiman and that the shortlist was shockingly poor, I think that this was not only a foregone conclusion but it was also the least horrific option.
I enjoyed Stardust, but I think it was ultimately hamstrung by the two fundamental weaknesses of Neil Gaiman as an author : a) it's a tarts and vicars party and b) It's an Escher lithograph.
Tarts and Vicars : The Tarts and Vicars party was evidently a staple of the 1970s cocktail party phenomenon. Costumes were limited to prostitutes and members of the clergy. The reason why I think that this applies quite nicely to the work of Gaiman is because it is a shallow deconstruction of the social narratives of the time. Ever since
Sandman, Gaiman has spent his time finding mythologies and reworking them ever so slightly in a knowing, post-modern way. I say that this is a "shallow" deconstruction as Gaiman more often than not targets recognisable mythologies and he deconstructs them with no greater intellectual agenda than producing something fun and entertaining. It's postmodernism for the timid.
Stardust, follows very much in this tradition by deconstructing fairy tales. However, unlike stories such as Margo Lanagan's "The Goosle" there is no real
transgression here. It is still a romantic fairy tale with a little bit of humour and a little bit of action.
Escher Lithograph : Escher's famous lithographs work by essentially tricking your eyes into thinking that an impossible figure is actually possible; for example, stairways that head in different directions, hands drawing themselves and water flowing downhill on a fixed level. This illusion is created by having the individual elements of his pieces look perfectly normal. It is only when you slot them together that you realise that something is wrong. The same is true of Gaiman's writing which is invariably composed of nice little ideas and vignettes strung together into a story that doesn't work but looks as though it does. In the case of
Stardust, Mark Williams' Billy and Robert De Niro's Captain Shakespeare steal every scene they are in and really only serve to clutter up what should be a very simple plot but they are so nicely drawn and well performed that one is tricked into forgetting that Captain Shakespeare is a Deus Ex Machina and that Lamia is quite a traditional and unengaging baddie
Stardust is not a bad film, it's just an unchallenging one that never completely puts all of its ducks in a row.