FILM 1462: LABYRINTH
TRIVIA: The various things that
Jareth does with the crystal balls (rolling them around his arms and in his
hands and so forth) are not camera tricks or any other kind of special effect.
They are actually done by choreographer Michael Moschen, who is an
accomplished juggler. Moschen was actually crouched behind Bowie with his
arm(s) replacing Bowie's. Unlike a typical Muppet performance, however, he had
no video screen to view his performance. In other words, his manipulations were
performed completely blind.
The owl in the title sequence is
computer generated - the first attempt at a photo-realistic CGI animal
character in a feature film.
The full costume for Hoggle was
lost for some time. It turns out that it was lost on an airplane and later
bought from the airline by 'The Unclaimed Baggage Center', a store in Scottsboro
Alabama. It is now on display in their museum.
In the scene where Toby is seated
on Jareth's lap, the baby has a fixed and hypnotized look off-camera as Jareth
murmurs evilly into his ear. In fact, Toby screamed so much during the many
takes of this scene, that something had to be done to keep him quiet.
Fortunately, a crew member had a glove-puppet Sooty. For the duration of
Jareth's speech, David Bowie
had the Sooty puppet on one hand (out of shot) gently wiggling to distract
Toby. The child was entranced, hence the hypnotic stare, and the perfect
silence.
The "Dance Magic" scene
consisted of over 48 puppets, 52 puppeteers, and 8 people in goblin costumes
(as revealed by Brian Henson in the "Inside the Labyrinth" special).
The sources of the characters can
be seen in Sarah's bedroom at the beginning of the movie. She has a stuffed
animal that looks like Sir Didymus on her dresser, a doll that looks like Ludo
on the shelves next to her door (along with the book "Where the Wild
Things Are" as the camera pans across her desk), a Firey doll on a shelves
next to her bed, bookends with with Goblins reminiscent of Hoggle on her
dresser, and figurine of Jareth on the right hand side of her desk. After you
see the Hoggle bookend, there is a scrapbook shown. It shows newspaper
clippings of Sarah's famous actress mom with another man, David Bowie. In addition,
the dress that she wears in the ballroom scene can also been seen adorning the
miniature doll in her music box, and a wooden maze game on her dresser next to
her books is reminiscent of the hedge section of the Labyrinth. There is also a
small painting on her wall that depicts a contraption much like the one operated
by the "Cleaners" that Sarah and Hoggle had to escape from. And there
is a copy of the famous picture by M.C. Esher which is used in the room where
the final confrontation with Jareth occurs.
In the DVD version, there are
hidden faces in seven scenes. In general, they resemble the head that Jareth
leans against before giving Hoggle the peach (David Bowie's actual face
at that time). The faces can be found: Upper right corner of the [stone] maze,
just after the worm shakes its head and says "If she'd have kept on going
down that way..." To the right of the screen, after the rung under Hoggle
breaks, as he watches it fall. Upper left corner of the hedge maze, as Hoggle
is muttering "Get through the labyrinth, get through the labyrinth, one
thing's for sure... " Lower right corner of the wall bordering the Bog of
Eternal Stench, just after the ledge breaks under Sarah and Hoggle for the
first time. During the wide shot of the hedge maze in the middle left on the
stony floor just after the hat says, "It's so stimulating being your
hat." In the forest as Sir Didymus says "We should reach the castle well
before day."
David Bowie did the voice
(gurgling) for the baby in the song "Magic Dance".
Sarah's dog "Merlin" is
also used for Sir Didymus' mount "Ambrosius". In Geoffrey of
Monmouth's The History of the Kings of Britain, Merlin is called "Merlin
Ambrosius".
Michael Jackson was
strongly considered to play Jareth. Jim Henson
preferred Sting, until his kids
convinced him that David Bowie would have more lasting appeal.
After solving the problem of the
guards who lie or tell the truth, Sarah falls into an oubliette, which Hoggle
describes: "It's a place where you put people...to forget about 'em!"
Oubliettes were a type of dungeon where the only entry was through an opening
high in the ceiling. To leave an oubliette was practically impossible without
external assistance. The word "oubliette" comes from the French word
"oublier' meaning 'to forget". The basic premise was that an
oubliette was a dungeon for prisoners that the captor(s) wished to forget.
Prisoners were often left to starve to death in an oubliette.
Hoggle consisted of 1 actor inside
the suit: actress Shari Weiser,
along with 4 puppeteers led by Brian Henson
controlling 18 motors inside the face rig. Manipulating a mechanical mitt on
his right hand, Henson controlled Hoggle's jaw movements and provided the
voice. Another puppeteer provided further lip movements with another mitt. The
third member of the team used a fingertip joystick lever to control Hoggle's
eyes and eyelids. The fourth used a similar mechanism to animate the eyebrows
and a foot pedal to control the skin around Hoggle's eyes. The puppeteers had
to rehearse together for weeks in order to anticipate each other's movements.
Director Trademark: Jim Henson: [milk
bottles] During the Goblin Battle scene, while Sarah and the gang opens
the door to the Goblin Castle, you can see milk bottles near the door.
