Film Fan: IT Chapter One [2017] (5 Stars)

Thursday 30 July 2020

IT Chapter One [2017] (5 Stars)

Yesterday my IT box set arrived in the mail. Both chapters on Blu-ray. I can't remember when I was so excited to receive films in the post. I thought I might be able to watch both films in one day, but I underestimated the attention I have to give my grandson. I pick him up from kindergarten at 12:30 every day, but he's very slow walking home. He gets distracted easily. Today I didn't get home until 3:20, despite it only being a half mile walk. He stopped to play frisbee with one of his friends in front of the Catholic church. He got an ice cream from a shop. He watched garbage trucks and other interesting vehicles as he walked. He saw one of his friends playing in her yard, so he went in to play with her. He wanted a pretzel from the bakers' shop. And finally he got home. I was exhausted from the heat – it was 31 C today – so I needed to take a nap as soon as I handed him over to my daughter. That left only enough time for one film today.

To be accurate, it was slightly more than one film. I also watched the extra features on the Blu-ray disc, which lasted almost an hour. First I watched the deleted scenes, and I have to admit, it was right to delete them. Sometimes deleted scenes are painful omissions, cuts made just to shorten a film to an acceptable length, but the extra scenes on this disc were either unnecessary to the film, or they would have distracted from the action.

There was a featurette on Stephen King, a featurette about Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise and a featurette about the actors in the Losers' Club. The last two fascinated me in their presentation of the child actors. The Pennywise featurette was as much about the children as it was about Bill Skarsgard himself.

What interested me most was hearing the children talk. They have the same mannerisms as in the film, talking fast or slowly (with the exception of Jaeden Lieberher not stuttering). Evidently the director allowed the children, most of whom were only 13 at the time of filming, to bring their own personalities into the film. That's not what acting is about, but it provided more realism. In preparation for the film the children spent two days together making friends and getting to know one another. While filming the barriers between real life and the film were blurred. Were the characters talking to one another, or were the actors talking to one another? The end result is very effective.

Pennywise was kept away from the children for as long as possible. This was also to create realism. The director wanted their fear to be genuine when they saw him for the first time. Also, the final scene where the children leave was deliberately filmed on the last day. The children (the actors) were sad, knowing that they would soon be going home and not see one another again, so the director wanted these emotions to flow into the scene itself. Who is this Andy Muschietti? "IT Chapter One" was only his second film, so where did he develop the skill to direct it so skilfully? Where did he learn how to deal with child actors? I'm impressed.