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Gadzooks!

Tintin aficionados (such as your present scribe) have always had a certain nervousness with regards to putting the Belgian boy wonder on the big screen. Hergé’s creation is brilliant in the original comic books, acceptable in the 1990’s television cartoon version, but has produced only some thoroughly suspicious live-action film versions. (Namely, the 1961 “Tintin and the Golden Fleece” — not that Golden Fleece — and the 1964 “Tintin and the Blue Oranges”; neither of them based on books).

There was mention in the Economist some years ago of Spielberg doing a Tintin film and casting Leonardo diCaprio (!?!) in the lead role. I happened to cut it out of the Economist and so I have it somewhere amongst my clippings, but Hogarth claims his rheumatism and the current climate (“with respect, sir, wasn’t this humid before the war”) prevent him from classifying and filing my gigantic collection of clippings so I may have to wait until retirement to find it.

Word now comes, via the Guardian, that Herr Spielberg, fresh from his fourth and presumably final Indiana Jones adventure, is indeed to embark upon a Tintin film, and that he will cast the 17-year-old Briton Thomas Sangster as the heroic reporter. Cinephiles will recall Master Sangster from the 2003 Richard Curtis romantic-comedy “Love Actually” — which could have been a lovely, if typically sappy, film were it not for an entire subplot revolving around something rather lewd and not worthy of mention.

Unfortunately, my first reaction is that young Sangster is ill-suited for the role of Tintin. Firstly, he’s too young. I have always thought Tintin was permanently about 21, whereas Sangster will have just reach 18 when the film is in production. At a mere age of 18, can we really expect him to be undermining Bolshevism in the early Soviet Union? Or saving the ancient Syldavian monarchy from the threat of the dreaded Iron Guard? Or helping his pal General Alcazar regain the dictatorship of San Theodoros? I think not. But at 21, it seems much more possible.

(Of course, there are several more questions that any earnest Tintinophile feels compelled to ask. Will it be an adaptation or an original script? If an adaptation, of which book? Having a particular love of Scotland, I hope it’s The Black Island. Being a monarchist, I hope it’s the splendidly mitteleuropan King Ottokar’s Sceptre. But then perhaps, somewhat topically, they will choose Tintin in Tibet. And who will the rest of the cast be? Captain Haddock? Professor Calculus? Thompson and Thomson? Oh my…)

Well, we will just have to wait and see. After Herr Spielberg finishes his Tintin film, it appears that Peter Jackson (of “The Lord of the Rings” fame) will have a go at directing one himself. And there’s nothing to say he’ll use the same cast. Spielberg’s film is due in late 2009.

Published at 8:49 pm on Tuesday 15 April 2008. Categories: Cinema People Tags: , , .
Comments

I realise this post is not about Tintin (sadly), yet I thought I would put this on one of your “corners.” Have you seen Demographic Winter? Must watch.

— Abigail Burke 16 Apr 2008 4:02 pm

Andrew:

I’d like to see Ottkar’s sceptre or Black gold made first. If only because with the first we could update it and take a swipe at the ‘progressives’; Black oil: we could take a swipe at OPEC :)

xavier

— xavier 18 Apr 2008 2:26 am

Ah; Tintin, I remember him well! Though, what was that strange country they always visited, with the funny Albanian-type language?

— Mark 18 Apr 2008 2:15 pm

I adore Tintin and have known his stories since the age of six. He is one of the fellows I would never place in a “live action” film. It just doesn’t work. How will Snowy speak? CGI effects? Yuck.

— Mandy 21 Apr 2008 7:19 am

Speaking as a Tintin fanatic of long standing, I don’t have much confidence that even Mr Spielberg will be able to work a competent performance out of young Thomas Sangster. Sangster was first badly miscast as a prepubescent Adolf Hitler in The Rise of Evil, though to be fair Robert Carlyle was just as miscast as the Fuehrer’s adult incarnation. He seems to have been the moppet of choice for various period fantasies (in the silly and historically sloppy but perfectly entertaining Last Legion as a young Uther Pendragon, and in the unwatchable latest version of “Tristan and Isolde” as, er, the young Tristan). Last year he had a rather sweet turn in Doctor Who. Apart from that, he’s little more than a junior luvvie. In fact he’s Hugh Grant’s second cousin once removed. And given how much screen time they’ve shared (three films so far) I’ve actually wondered whether or not he and Colin Firth have the same agent.

On the other hand, if he had the right haircut…

— Oliver McCarthy 28 Apr 2008 2:26 pm
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