Losing the Spirit of the Idea

With all the right people on the task, all the right technology, and popularity on your side, this will have to succeed. 

C'mon, look at the line-up for the great movie. The Spirit, a comic-book property by Will Eisner, was one of the great innovative comics series of the 40s. Frank Miller, the highly respected comic book artist/writer, had movie credits to his name as a writer and co-director, was perfect to adapt this concept to the silver screen. Being a protégé of Will Eisner, knowing him personally, having had hours-long comics conversation with Eisner, and even going to his funeral -- well, it's a no-brainer to have him in charge. It was excellent to have a studio behind you, genuine superstar actors in the cast, and a bit of technological innovation to add something better to the film.

Instead, the Lionsgate 2009 film The Spirit -- written and directed by Frank Miller, acting talent such as Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson, and a ready-made fan base to go an enjoy the film -- failed miserably at the box office.

If you had seen the film in the theaters when it was released, and you knew a little of the comics the Spirit appeared in, you felt betrayed. At least I did. 

What were you expecting? Will Eisner wrote and drew a 40s-era film-noir comic, containing a warm and regular cast of characters, streetwise stories with humanity to them, villains and femme fatales that traipsed into narratives but still stood out, O. Henry touches to the stories themselves, innovative layouts, theatrical lighting to the panels, and other elements that elevated the comic-book medium to literature with a capital "L." You were expecting Will Eisner's artistic son, which Frank Miller represented, to make a loyal adaptation in essentials if not all the details.

Instead, the Spirit was modernized in such a way that the heart of the character and his adventures was bled out of the story. Interest in the movie was puffed up with goofy scenes that advanced nothing in the story. Supernatural and technological bits that jarred with the Spirit's esthetic confounded the viewer even more. References to comic-book creators as winks to the fans -- a sign on a truck with "Ditko" in the name of a delivery service -- had Frank Miller saying two things: 1) I'm superior enough to know who these people are; and 2) I therefore should have known better than to make this film so poorly.

I watched the film with utter anger as it was shown in the theater. I found myself there to witness a crime more than enjoy a movie. I was not expected the Moon, but this did not even get close to the minimum of what a Spirit film should be. The friends I went with were heckling the film, in an attempt to enjoy the theater-going experience. They were the happy-go-lucky Robins to my grim Batman.

What happened to this film? A dramatic loss of loyalty to the essential ideas themselves. Despite being so amazingly close to being Will Eisner himself, Frank Miller made artistic choices that looked like a studio executive aping the easiest-to-copy bits of the original comics. A pretty lady here, a villain there, some recognizable character designs, a modern soundtrack, clever film-noir shooting -- isn't that what a good Spirit movie would be? Answer: No.

What Frank Miller should have done was to ask what was special about the Spirit, what was universal about the Spirit, why the series worked, what makes it different, what makes it unique, why people would remember it fondly. Because he did not do that, he seemed to take his contributions to films such as Sin City and Robocop 2 and lacquer them over The Spirit.

Movies aren't an amalgamation of stars, shots, dialogue, and special effects. Underneath all of those trinkets, there must be a sincere core, a strong idea, a sense of something different, and, appropriately enough, the spirit of the idea made real and full in practical form. It's the kind of principle that applies outside of films to other creative endeavors, to design, lesson planning, software development, architecture, entrepreneurship, etc. We all can fall off the creative wagon, get lost in the details, and lose track of the essentials. I'll admit that at times that has happened to me as a teacher, and likely happens to a lot of us. Frank Miller, in seemingly turning his back on his mentor in The Spirit, may have warned me and others about the dangers of seeing work and creation on only a surface level, and of asking those important questions on the deepest value of a thing we are trying to make real.