So why was I thinking about The Shadow recently? With the rumors that Sam Raimi might be moving forward on the long-anticipated new Shadow movie, I have seen some fan discussion about what The Shadow should look and act like in the movie. And it seems like, if the movie were designed by the fans, it would include every element of The Shadow from both the pulps and the radio, and I suspect it would please no one. The Shadow would wear his trademark hat-and-cloak (the pulps) and possibly a red scarf (the cover art, but not the actual stories). He would use his "clouding men's minds" trick to turn invisible (the radio), and he would frequently draw his twin .45 automatics (the pulps), and not hesitate to "waste" the bad guys (the... actually, despite his tendency to spew bullets everywhere in the pulps, I am pretty sure The Shadow almost never actually killed anyone.) Each of these is a totally understandable characteristic for fans to want because it showed up previously in the "canon," but combining all of these elements is a recipe for disaster. And here is why.
1. The Shadow's Costume. In the pulp stories, The Shadow's costume was a function of how he investigated crimes. He kept his hat and cape concealed in a secret compartment in his attache case, and he slipped them on when he needed to slink around and hide from bad guys. This kind of made sense because all the black clothing (he also always wore black suits) would help him blend in with shadows. And this was a time when, say, warehouses did not have fluorescent lights or motion sensors. A fair amount of time in these detection scenes is spent describing where and how The Shadow is hiding, which works in a written story because it helps us imagine the scene as if we were with The Shadow. But I am skeptical of how this would work in a movie. First, it would have to take place in the same era so that The Shadow had lots of dark corners to hide in. Second, the most likely way this could be established in a movie would be if a scene had some bad guys talking in the foreground, then they leave the frame, then a few seconds later part of the shadows in the background stirs and reveals itself to be The Shadow. That might be a pretty neat scene. Once. But if it had to happen every time The Shadow was eavesdropping on someone, it would be boring.
Also, the red scarf was popular on the cover art because it added a splash of color to the pictures. And red evokes passion, blood, and danger, all ideas we associate with The Shadow. But if the point of his costume is to help him hide, why would he have a bright red scarf to risk giving him away? It would be counter-productive.
2. Clouding Men's Minds. When The Shadow made the jump from pulps to radio, he gained what might be the second-most famous part of his character, next to his costume. According to the prologue to each episode, he learned "the hypnotic power to cloud men's minds, so they cannot see him." This sounds like a neat trick--he cannot actually turn invisible, only keep people from seeing him. From a pure story-mechanics perspective, it was necessary to resolve a problem with translating The Shadow to a new dramatic medium. If he slunk around as in the pulps, every scene of bad guys talking would require a line of narration, something like "Unbeknownst to the villains, The Shadow was hiding behind a stack of crates." So instead, The Shadow gained a neat skill that let him hang out anywhere without being noticed.
This also changed the character of The Shadow in a significant way. Where before he mostly stayed quiet and gathered evidence against the bad guys, now The Shadow began tormenting them, as if they were being haunted by their crimes. This is the single most interesting idea in the entire body of Shadow stories, because it makes him a vigilante who fights crime not by physically assaulting anyone, but by mentally assaulting them. Not surprisingly, The Shadow in the radio play never used--nor even seemed to carry--his handguns. Why would he need them? His modus operandi was to drive villains crazy. This is what makes the pilot episode so great. The Shadow keeps needling the villains, insinuating that he has found a key piece of evidence they overlooked and that soon they will get the electric chair. This torments them until they slip up and reveal their crime to the authorities.
When the mid-1990s Shadow movie came out, it tried to reconcile this "The Shadow is invisible" idea with the image of The Shadow as a punching, shooting superhero. It was not a successful combination. What advantage does it give The Shadow that he can turn invisible and hide among the bad guys if all he is going to do is unload a hail of bullets or start swinging? Why couldn't he just sneak up on them and then shoot them? (It was made even worse by a special effect where The Shadow briefly materialized each time he was about to shoot or punch someone, for no clear plot reason. Does he lose his invisibility every time he performs an action?) Of course, an action scene in an adventure movie calls for violence, so if the movie had lots of scenes where The Shadow's disembodied voice mocked the bad guys while they spun around in confusion, audiences would become bored.
3. Shooting! In the pulps, The Shadow fired his guns all the time. Although he mostly clung to shadows and spied on people, he did sometimes fire a hail of bullets at them. But usually his shooting seemed to serve no purpose other than to scare them away. I was totally caught off-guard the first time I read a story about the similar pulp character The Spider, who also fires handguns at bad guys often, but always with shockingly gruesome results. As I said before, I cannot remember The Shadow ever shooting someone to death, let alone a slow, painful death.
The guns did kind of serve a metaphorical value, I think. Because The Shadow slunk around in the shadows and could spy on anyone, it was as if he could be anywhere. By firing his guns in the direction of bad guys who were out of his physical reach, it was as if he could also "touch" them anywhere. He never really needed to kill people because he usually brought them to justice. So he could instead use his guns to, say, shoot the tires on a getaway car, reinforcing the idea that no one can escape The Shadow.
A movie in which The Shadow shoots at people all the time but never actually kills anyone would ring false, because audiences understand the basic danger of shooting bullets at people. Also, the image of people being killed by guns is pretty common today. So no one would be as bothered if The Shadow would shoot people. But then, why would The Shadow kill people? If he can turn invisible, he can sneak up on bad guys and knock them out, then hand them over to the police. He doesn't need his guns to keep them from getting away. And even if a given villain was likely to beat the charges against him, The Shadow could just haunt the guy until he went insane. Justice served, with no need for death.
One inference I have made from the fans' insistence that The Shadow must keep his classic costume is that fans fear The Shadow might go the way of the X-Men or G.I. Joe, bound up in some kind of tight-leather outfit for a modern reboot. This rankles their cherished image of The Shadow, and it makes him less distinguishable from all the other properties in action movies. As per the question of The Shadow using guns to shoot every bad guy who tries to get away, I feel exactly the same. The only thing that makes The Shadow stand out from the many vigilante characters in movies today is that he uses fear and guilt as his main weapons against crime. Why skip over that more interesting idea in favor of guns?
So given that a Shadow movie is sure to be made, and that I have grumbled about nearly every detail of The Shadow, do I have any ideas as to what might make a good Shadow movie? Eh, kind of. But I am feeling worn out from talking so much about The Shadow, so I will save that for another day.
No comments:
Post a Comment