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This winter, director Robert Zemeckis and actor Tom Hanks, collaborators on Forrest Gump and Cast Away, premiere an entirely different kind of movie. Their film adaptation of the Chris Van Allsburg children's adventure book The Polar Express is a cinematic and technological breakthrough. For this curious tale, about a doubtful young boy who takes an extraordinary train ride to the North Pole and finds along the way that a sense of wonder is eternal for "those who believe," the filmmakers bring Van Allsburg's moodily surreal tableau to virtual life through a digital process called "performance capture," a unique combination of live action and animation that allows the acton to play any age demanded by the script. The technology further allows them to appear within an environment that replicates the tone and texture of the original pastel pictures in the book.
This is not the first time one of 55-year-old Van Allsburg's books has been recast on celluloid. Jumanji (1995), directed by Joe Johnston, starring Robin Williams and a young Kirsten Dunst, was an action adventure about children who are quite literally consumed by a jungle-themed board game wherein wild animals come to life. Williams, the "hunter," was lost in the game ages before, and this is his chance to escape. Anyone who remembers the book knows that the live action could not reproduce the sublimely eerie black-and-white pencil drawings. But with The Polar Express, the texture of the film is true to the artist's vision.
Van Allsburg's books (including his first Caldecott winner, The Garden of Abdul Gasazi, as well as The Wreck of the Zephyr, The Widow's Broom, Two Bad Ants, Ben's Dream, and others) are perfect storyboards for films. Each tale builds in dramatic force, while expressing pathos for character and situation. It is not surprising that Zemeckis and Hanks have used The Polar Express as a quintessential rite-of-passage tale. Christmas-themed books and films are routinely rooted in common stereotypes but, while the basic setting for The Polar Express may perpetuate the myth, the idea of self-discovery sets this narrative apart from most other holiday fare.
In this interview, the soft-spoken Van Allsburg discusses the compromises that came from allowing other artists to transform his book-a perfectly honed narrative entity-into their medium and...