Hearty Recommendations:
Stardust
by Brenda Sutton
[Images: Stardust (poster, film trailer, and image from the film) ©, used by permission]

A philosopher once asked,
"Are we human because we gaze at the stars,
or do we gaze at them because we are human?"
Pointless, really.
"Do the stars gaze back?"
Now, that's a question.
— Stardust

You still have time to enjoy this first recommendation before you are relegated to viewing it from the diminished size of a video screen, and I suggest that you do so quickly. Stardust is the film version of Neil Gaiman's and Charles Vess' 1997 fireside fairy story originally published as a four-book, DC Comic and later released as an illustrated novel. The book quickly made the best-seller list, and was proclaimed one of the finest novels of the year.

The story is seemingly simple but, like any good magical knot, actually braided in a complex and elegant pattern. Tristan (Charlie Cox), an undistinguished shop clerk from a small English hamlet, is besotted with the county beauty, Victoria (Sienna Miller). She, in turn, is pursued by the local rich man's son whose favorite sport is using Tristan as a fencing dummy. To win a pretty girl's hand, Tristan promises to find and bring her back a fallen star. That star (Claire Danes) was violently knocked out of her heavenly realm with a royal jewel thrown by a dying king (Peter O'Toole), and her meteoric plunge ends in the faerie land of Stormhold.

Gaiman posits that our world and faerie exist side by side, separated by a continuous stone wall with only one breach. That opening has been guarded for eons by a homely brigade on our side who, rather than patch the hole, keep a continuous watch. No one from the faerie side feels compelled to guard the gap at all, because no one from the faerie side would survive as anything more than their material components in our part of the world. Humans seem to fare well on either side, so the occasional mortal adventurer has managed to slip past the guard into the land of Stormhold, as Tristan now does for the sake of love. He finds the injured and angry star, captures her and, ignorant of the consequences, forces her to limp back to his world. But Tristan isn't the only one looking for the star.

Three decrepit hags led by the witch Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer) have used up all of their beauty and nearly all of their lives by performing costly magic. Small magic results in an age spot or two; big magic creates brittle bones. Lamia gobbles down the last tiny restoring bite of a star's heart, regains her former youth and beauty, and sets off to find Tristan's star so that she can cut out yet another heart to share with her desperate sisters. The surviving three of seven fratricidal princes, Primus (Jason Flemyng), Secundus (Rupert Everett), and Septimus (Mark Strong), also hunt the star. One of them must obtain the royal jewel in order to inherit the crown. (The ghosts of the other murdered princes tag along for the ride, trapped in the forms of their corpses at the time of their surprising demises. Die in the bath — spend eternity naked.) And so we have the setting for a jolly adventure filled with wicked gypsies, changelings, enchanted beings, and a ship full of understanding cutthroats who sail the skies pirating lightening.

This story isn't Narnia or Lord of the Rings where the fate of the world is at stake. It isn't even Pan's Labyrinth where the fate of a country is at stake. Stardust is a much more personal story where hearts are at stake, literally — the star's — and emotionally — Tristan's. It's a story about an awkward, naive boy who grows into a powerful, compassionate young man. And it's a story about the nature of journeys; how, when you come to the end of your quest, what you've gained is usually not what you set out to achieve.

Stardust the story has been creatively re-imagined into Stardust the film by a cast and crew who possess great respect for the original material. Neil Gaiman is known for his reticence when it comes to handing over his stories for reinterpretation, and with good reason. He's seen some of his beautiful children twisted into charicatures of their former selves by film folk who believe they know better how to portray his stories. Even with this project, he scrambled to reclaim his work, repurchasing the rights after the story was sold to Miramax in 1998. Gaiman protected Stardust in a tight embrace for years, turning down actors and directors, one after another, until the right person came along; that person was producer/director Matthew Vaughn. In an industry renown for untrustworthy wheeler-dealers, Gaiman found an honest man who proved himself trustworthy and talented. The embrace loosened so much that Gaiman entrusted the gifted English writer Jane Goldman with crafting of the screenplay. All this was made easier with Gaiman in a producer's position, advising and approving, while still having the freedom to work on other projects.

It had been some time since I'd read the book, so I sat down for a refresher course before viewing the film. This usually sharpens the eye and ear. "Ah ha," I think while watching the plot or characters go sideways, "that never happened in the original!" What occurred this time, though, was delightful. Could I ever have imagined Michelle Pfeiffer as Lamia, the witch? No, never. But now that I've seen the film, I will never see or hear her in my mind any other way. Robert DeNiro as the swishing swashbuckler, Captain Shakespeare? My mind didn't skip down that pathway either, but it will ever after. The same can be said for the rest of this extraordinary cast — fine actors all — who give an added dimension to Gaiman's already well-developed characters. I've heard others moaning that flavor-of-the-year, Ricky Gervais, was wasted on a bit part like Ferdy the Fence, that his role should have been expanded. I disagree. Gervais turns in a glittering comic performance of just the right length that supports rather than undermines Tristan's tale. Even the narrator, voiced by Ian McKellan, is unforgettable, adding another rich layer of patina to an already masterfully wrought treasure.

So ... is the final result exactly like the book? No. Books and movies are very different critters. The hero doesn't even appear until several chapters into the book — a definite bad path for film where viewers expect to meet the hero with the opening credits. Changing from a literary medium, where it takes 10½ hours to read the story, into a visual medium, where one has only a couple of hours to enact the screenplay, means that some things have to go. Often the reason is financial, and that was a deciding factor in eliminating 90 seconds of Tristan's part in the battle scene between a unicorn and a lion which would have cost $1.9 million dollars in special effects to create. Now the unicorn just shows up with no explanation. But, hey, this is faerie we're talking about. Magical creatures DO just show up. Another beloved scene where Tristan receives advice from a tree (which was going to be voiced by Tori Amos, and probably cost a blue gazillion) never made it to the screen either. There's an additional imaginative fight scene, and things do go differently for Lamia. The ending's not the same, but again it's a factor of what will work in a novel but not work in a film. The ending IS Neil's ending, it's just portrayed in a different way (and I'm not going to tell you how. Read the book, then see the movie, and you'll understand.)

I have to admit that I was rooting for this film from the start. Mythic Journeys' own Charles Vess and his talented wife, Karen Shaffer (who together produced the Ancient Spirit, Modern Voice art exhibit for MJ '04) kept us up to date on the film's progress. Still, I've had other friends whose work has not translated successfully from one medium to another, and my heart breaks for them when the end result is less than wonderful. I remembered Charles' original artwork in the DC Comics series, and I so wanted this reinterpretation to reflect his adept vision. I knew that the sets wouldn't exactly match Charles' original drawings, but I also knew that producer/director Vaughn had challenged his set designers to capture the essence of Vess' imagery. It does. Watching this movie, scene after beautiful scene, I felt my cheekbones starting to ache from smiling so wide. I probably irritated the person sitting next to me for all my little bouncing up and down and exclamations of "Yes! They got it!" In the end I felt like this vision complimented and increased the beauty of the original work, so kudos to production designer Gavin Bocquet (Star Wars, the second trilogy).

Finally, I have to applaud Neil Gaiman for an act of grace and generosity the likes of which is rare nowadays. Artists are unfortunately used to being ignored or taken for granted, but as the end credits roll by, Charles Vess' name is right up there next to Gaiman's as co-creator. Gaiman fully acknowledges the integral part that Vess played in the creation and telling of Stardust. He didn't have to do that; therefore, I will keep a warm place in my heart for him ever after. Well done, sir. Well done.

So, find a theater where Stardust is still showing and plunk your money on the board now, if only to encourage the creation of more fine fantasy films. Every dollar speaks volumes to film executives; they take notice of that which the market supports. There are so many more fine Gaiman stories to come that we should consider this kind of support similar to wise wheel maintenance. I also plan on purchasing the book and DVD as holiday gifts for my children and grandchildren. Tristan and Captain Shakespeare, Yvaine and Princess Una are heroes I want them to know.

Brenda Sutton is the publisher of Mythic Passages, Operations Director, Corporate Secretary, and Office Administrator for Mythic Imagination Institute. She is an award-winning singer/songwriter with the internationally reknown band Three Weird Sisters. She works in a support and consultant capacity for the non-profit music organization Interfilk, and maintains their website. She is freelance writer whose work has appeared in newspapers and magazines. She is also the mother of five, grandmother of two.

Subscribe to the Passages e-zine