THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 10, 1995 TAG: 9506090048
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Interview
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 123 lines
FROM THE AUTHOR of ``Jurassic Park''! From the producer of ``E.T.''!
Now, comes KONG, the greatest gorilla of them all! Wrong. Call rewrite. That was another gorilla and another time.
This summer's savage beast is actually Amy, a sweet teen gorilla who loves her human buddy but wants to get back to the jungle.
The flick is ``Congo,'' based on a book by Michael Crichton (who writes books that are always suspiciously appropriate for movie adaptation). It's also co-produced by Kathleen Kennedy and directed by her husband, Frank Marshall (a team that worked on megahits like ``E.T.,'' ``Raiders of the Lost Ark,'' ``Jurassic Park'' and ``Who Framed Roger Rabbit?'').
But what you see in ``Congo'' may not be what you think you're seeing. The movie was written by a Crichton substitute, filmed on a soundstage instead of in the jungle and contains not a single live gorilla.
Crichton, possibly off writing the sequel to ``Jurassic Park,'' isn't talking. Producer Kennedy points out that ``Michael sold the rights to the book outright, years ago.It's been floating around Hollywood since it was published in 1980. Lots of people wanted to make it but couldn't figure out how to do it.''
The screenplay was written by John Patrick Shanley, an Oscar winner for ``Moonstruck.''
``I didn't want just another movie with people walking through the jungle in a line,'' Shanley said. ``My favorite African movie, up until now, is the original `King Solomon's Mines,' but I didn't want to just have the woman stumbling every minute or so. Deborah Kerr stumbles and has to be helped by Stewart Granger every few minutes. I wanted the movie to have a strong woman, and I told them I wouldn't do it unless the traditional `great white hunter' was black.''
Laura Linney, a Broadway veteran, was cast as the woman scientist who holds her own. Ernie Hudson, from ``Ghostbusters,'' is the safari leader.
``The idea,'' the writer said, ``is to get a varied group of people who are all in the jungle for varied reasons - but each trying to survive on his or her own.''
``Congo's'' biggest challenge, though, is the character of Amy. She's an 8-year-old, 130-pound mountain gorilla who has learned sign language. With the help of a data glove that can read and translate her gestures, she can talk.
Amy is equivalent to a human teenager. Her hobbies are playing with dolls and finger-painting. When she begins drawing pictures of green foliage, her trainers guess that she's telling her pals she wants to return to the jungle.
Shanley says he freely gave Amy some movie powers she didn't have in the book ``because I was encouraged to think that anything I wrote could be reproduced on the screen.''
It was quite an assumption.
Producer Kennedy, who also has ``The Bridges of Madison County'' currently on the nation's screens, said, ``Amy was a good deal more difficult to create than E.T. because, in this case, we were recreating something that is real. In the case of E.T., it was an alien - something that had never been seen.''
To add to the movie's problems, her husband was directing, and he wanted to film in Africa. ``I finally had to compromise and give up on filming in Africa,'' Marshall said. ``Rwanda and Zaire were in political turmoil. We couldn't find an active volcano. There are very few jungles left to film. Those that exist are so heavily covered with vegetation that they're too dark.''
He settled on two huge soundstages in Culver City. More than 2,500 live plants were brought in plus cockroaches, scorpions, West African chocolate millipedes, tree snakes, Wolf spiders and African bullfrogs.
For the volcano, though, the company traveled to Costa Rica where 70 drivers hauled them into natural, unspoiled jungle.
The director admits, almost with pride, that there isn't one real gorilla in the movie. ``I called Stan Winston,'' he said, ``and told him I couldn't make the movie unless we could have close-ups of Amy.'' Since Winston won Oscars for creating the dinosaurs in ``Jurassic Park'' and the Queen Alien in ``Aliens,'' it was only a matter of working it out.
Amy is actually two 19-year-old female gymnasts taking their turns in a gorilla suit. When you see a close-up of Amy, the expressions are produced by 27 motors, operated by remote control.
Charles Horton, keeper of primates at the Atlanta Zoo, claims that the final look is quite authentic. He was the technical assistant for the film.
``Gorillas belch a lot,'' Horton said. ``They didn't want to emphasize that, so they had to work out a range of emotions. My job was to encourage them to limit the range.'' Horton nixed the early tests for Amy ``because the teeth were entirely too large. They looked like an adult male. Then, in other tests, she looked too much like a chimpanzee, not a gorilla. Gorillas do have arched eyebrows, so we could use those for expression.''
The zookeeper isn't easy to please. He didn't even like King Kong, the movies' top gorilla. ``Kong walked upright, and that wouldn't happen,'' he pointed out. ``Plus, he liked little blond women. Seems he hated everyone else except little blond women.''
He used two teen gorillas in his zoo, Molly and Cootchie, as models to encourage the moviemakers to get real.
It was also difficult to find human actors willing to play second banana to Amy.
``I wanted Hugh Grant for the lead, and I still think he would have been wonderful,'' the director said. ``I thought of Robin Wright (Forrest Gump's girlfriend) for the female lead, but that didn't work out. Tom and Nicole (Tom Cruise and wife Nicole Kidman) read the script, but didn't accept.''
The lead went to a University of Virginia graduate who is coming off a big success as Paul Newman's co-star in ``Nobody's Fool.'' He is Dylan Walsh, an actor who claims ``you check your ego at the door with this kind of film. Amy was the real star. The human actors don't get much attention. Amy had an entourage following her and taking care of her.''
Laura Linney, who has the female lead, also speaks of Amy as if she were a real-life co-star. ``Amy had her own trailer and 15 people taking care of her,'' she said. ``She was so squishy-cute.'' Linney, who is set for big, dramatic roles in upcoming films, is the daughter of playwright Romulus Linney, who was the director of what was The Virginia Museum Theater in Richmond for years.
The humans, though, are mere props. It's clear that ``Congo's'' top star is sweet Amy, with a bevy of killer gorillas coming in for a grand finale. As far as Horton, the zookeeper, is concerned, though, the final verdict on ``Congo'' should come from Molly and Cootchie. If Cootchie wants a date with Amy, then the movie works. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
Frank Marshall is the director of "Congo."
U Va. grad Dylan Walsh is the guardian of the remarkable gorilla Amy
in "Congo."
by CNB