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Joe Dante by Martyn Bamber Martyn Bamber studies Film and Television Production in the School of Communications and Creative Industries at the University of Westminster, Harrow. |
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| Although known chiefly for Gremlins (1984) and Innerspace
(1987), the two films he directed for Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment
in the 1980s, Joe Dante is far from being simply a 'director for hire' or
a carbon copy of Spielberg. Despite his films sharing superficial similarities
with Spielberg's work (the suburban settings disrupted by fantastic events,
the childlike protagonists at the centre of the story), Dante is one of
the most distinctive mainstream filmmakers of the 1980s. With his jack in
the box visual style, in-joke movie references and satirical swipes at American
institutions (principally suburban Middle America and the US military),
Dante's films are great fun. Like Quentin Tarantino, Dante's love of movies—particularly
B-movies—oozes off the screen and you get the sense that he wants to
share that love with his audience as well. In addition to alluding to dozens
of classic movies from his youth, Dante's films frequently feature actors
that he grew up watching in science fiction and horror films. Veterans like
Dick Miller, Kevin McCarthy and Kenneth Tobey frequently pop up, and film
buffs and Dante fans smile in recognition whenever these regulars—or
other familiar faces from Dante's stock company, like Belinda Balaski, Robert
Picardo or Wendy Schaal—turn up in one of his films. Dante originally wanted to be a cartoonist and went to art school to pursue his ambition, but eventually he switched to film. Dante has always been a huge movie buff, writing reviews for Castle of Frankenstein magazine in the early 1960s and later Film Bulletin, from 1969–1974. His first film, made with his friend Jon Davison, was a seven-hour movie marathon, consisting of assorted clips from films, commercials and trailers, and titled—appropriately—The Movie Orgy (1968). Dante got his start in the movie business at Roger Corman's New World Pictures where he cut trailers. He moved on to editing films and eventually received his first directing credit (co-directing with Allan Arkush) on Hollywood Boulevard (1976), a homage/parody of ultra low budget movies, using stock footage from numerous films. Although restricted by time and money, working for Corman gave Dante invaluable moviemaking experience that has held him in good stead. Dante's first solo directorial effort, and first collaboration with John Sayles, was Piranha (1978). Although the film simultaneously pays homage to, and rips off, Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975), Piranha is a smart, funny, inventive movie, featuring a mass of killer fish that threaten a local holiday resort. The ensuing mayhem is later revealed to be caused by the army, a recurring motif in Dante's work.
The success of The Howling established Dante as a talented director, capable of handling complex special effects and able to tell a good story, while simultaneously stamping the material with his own sensibilities. Impressed with The Howling, Steven Spielberg hired Dante to direct one of the segments of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), starting an on-off collaboration that has lasted—so far—for over twenty years. Four directors—respectively, John Landis, Steven Spielberg, Dante and George Miller—helmed one of the four Twilight Zone segments, which were taken from—and inspired by—the original television show. The resulting film only worked intermittently, and the production was overshadowed by the controversy surrounding a serious accident that occurred during the filming of Landis's segment. Taken from the original Twilight Zone episode It's a Good Life, Dante's segment displays the director's wild sense of humour and dazzling visual inventiveness. Expressionistic sets, a kaleidoscope of light and colour, and an assortment of make up and optical effects are all put to terrific use as schoolteacher Helen (Kathleen Quinlan) comes to the aid of a small boy named Anthony (Jeremy Licht) and finds herself trapped in his house with his eccentric family, and imprisoned in a surrealistic nightmare. Again, the television is ever present, a force for good or ill and a background detail that echoes events in the film. Dante appears to have an ambivalent attitude towards television. He has worked for it many times, sometimes enjoying the experience and taking advantage of the format (Eerie Indiana, 1991), at other times, frustrated by the limitations it has imposed upon him (with both The Second Civil War [1997] and his work for Night Visions [2000] suffering from post-production interference). In Dante's Twilight Zone segment, the TV is everywhere. When Helen enters the bar at the film's opening, the TV is on and is disrupted by Anthony, who is playing a video game—appropriately, a war game—on an arcade machine. Later, we see that a cartoon house on TV looks the same as Anthony's house. The film is full of memorable images, alternately funny (the Tasmanian Devil-like creature that erupts from a TV) and horrific (Anthony's sister with her mouth permanently sealed shut, and stuck silently in front of a TV). Bar the sentimental ending (which feels entirely out of tone with the preceding events, seeming like a soft Spielbergian touch rather than the more apocalyptic ending that the original story possessed), this is one of Dante's most interesting and underrated films.
Dante's followed up Gremlins with Explorers (1985), a film with echoes of Spielberg's early work, but with Dante's typically skewed perspective on the world. Though a troubled production, I feel it is one of Dante's best. The premise of three kids building their own spaceship is terrific, Goldsmith contributes another wonderful score and, despite the wealth of humour, there is a real sense of pathos, particularly with Dick Miller's helicopter pilot, the most rounded and heartfelt character that he has ever played in a Dante movie. In addition, Robert Picardo is back and doing double duties here. Not only does he act as the alien Wak, he is also the lead actor in the film-within-a-film called Starkiller, which plays at the local drive in. The anti war sentiment surfaces once again, when the aliens explain why they will not visit Earth, and play clips from a plethora of 1950s films that show the army killing various aliens to prove their point. Unfortunately, Explorers was plagued by script problems and a truncated production schedule. Dante was unhappy with the experience and when the film was released, it was an undeserved financial failure and was dismissed by many critics. However, this is a personal favourite and I believe that it is ripe for reappraisal.
Following this, Dante helmed some segments for the comedy anthology film Amazon Women on the Moon (with other segments directed by Carl Gottlieb, Peter Horton, John Landis & Robert K. Weiss, 1987). He then took a conscious step away from overtly fantastical subject matter with The 'burbs, a broadly comic look at the suburban mentality in the town of Hinckley Hills, USA, as a group of suburbanites, led by Ray Peterson (Tom Hanks) suspect that their new neighbours, the Klopecs, are a bunch of murderers. The whole movie is confined to one street, this being the whole world to its inhabitants, as the opening shot (zooming into the street from outer space) implies. Ray and his friends Mark Rumsfield (Bruce Dern) and Art Weingartner (Rick Ducommun) are fed up with their deadened suburban life and their campaign against the Klopecs seems to arise more out of boredom than any sense of civic duty. Although the denouement blunts the impact of all that has gone before, this is still very funny, and a typically subversive, anarchic Dante movie.
Dante's next film came three years later and Matinee is obviously a labour of love for the director, a film that contains a wealth of details for movie lovers. Dante shows off his love of old films (particularly those of 1950s movie maker William Castle) and the ritual of going to the movies, whilst poking gentle fun at Castle-like film maestro Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman). Dante shows us that although Woolsey is a huckster, he clearly loves the movies he makes. Any self-confessed movie fan—particularly a science fiction or horror fan—cannot fail to raise a smile in recognition as the kids sit in a cinema, captivated by the film's film-within-a-film Mant. Along with a strong cast of kids and Dante regulars, special mention must go to Cathy Moriarty, who almost steals the show as Ruth Corday, Woolsey's cynical, world-weary girlfriend/actress, her lines either drawling out the side of her mouth or emitted through gritted teeth. In contrast to Woolsey's allegedly corrupt and horrific films, Matinee hints at the real danger from the imminent Cuban missile crisis—naturally, as seen on TV! Once again, what is on the screen affects reality, particularly when Woolsey fakes a nuclear explosion to clear patrons from the cinema before the auditorium collapses. Matinee evokes the magic of the movies, whilst acknowledging the horrors of the real world lurk around every corner.
With only two theatrical features released in the 1990s, Dante spent most of the decade directing for television, the best and most original being the series Eerie Indiana, on which Dante acted as Creative Consultant. Dante also directed some television movies, the most notable being Runaway Daughters (1994) and The Second Civil War (1997). There have been numerous film projects that Dante was attached to throughout the decade, including a contemporary version of The Mummy, (eventually directed in 1999 by Stephen Sommers and apparently bearing little resemblance to the original John Sayles-penned script), The Phantom (Simon Wincer, 1996, for which Dante received a producer's credit), and other projects that never came to fruition, such as Everybody Hates the Phone Company (about a notorious computer hacker) and, most tantalising of all, Termite Terrace (a film chronicling the early days of Warner Bros. cartoons, based on a book by Chuck Jones.) Bringing Dante's career up to date, the director is currently finishing post-production duties on Looney Tunes: Back in Action, a Roger Rabbit-style mix of live action and animation featuring Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. If the prospect of sitting through yet another family blockbuster seems depressing, comfort can be taken in the fact that, if anyone is qualified and entitled to bring Chuck Jones' creations to life, it is Dante; he is a huge fan of Jones' work and gave the legendary animator cameo roles in some of his films. Promising a plethora of movie in-jokes and plenty of savvy, satirical swipes at the Hollywood film industry, this could be the film to put Dante firmly back on the theatrical feature film map and give him the clout and creative freedom to pursue other, less commercially orientated projects. © Martyn Bamber, March 2003
Filmography Feature
Films: 
Bibliography Anthony
Ambrogio, “Joe Dante” in Nicholas Thomas (ed.), International
Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, Volume 2, Directors, London, St.
James Press, 1991, pp. 187–188
Web Resources Film
Directors – Articles on the Internet
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