| ALL ABOARD
THE HOLIDAY
the polar express
IT’S BASED ON THE MUCH-LOVED CHILDREN’S BOOK BY
CHRIS VAN ALLSBURG. NOW, THE WINNING TEAM OF DIRECTOR ROBERT ZEMECKIS AND STAR TOM HANKS ARE BRINGING
THE POLAR EXPRESS TO THE BIG SCREEN. AND, SAYS MAX LEVANT, THEY’VE DONE EVERYTHING BUT REINVENT THE WHEEL TO DO SO.
|
IIn addition to being one of Hollywood’s hardest-working stars, Tom Hanks has found time to take a very active part in bringing up his four children - which is how he comes to be so familiar with Chris Van Allsburg’s book, The Polar Express. “For years,” recalls Hanks, “between November and December, depending on the children’s ages, I think I read it four times a week, twice a night, over and over again. So I’ve been aware of the story since my 14-year-old was three.” This is how it starts.
It’s a snowy Christmas Eve and a young boy lies awake in his room, too excited to sleep. He’s just at the age when he’s beginning to wonder whether all the things that grown-ups have told him are really true, and he’s listening for a sound he’s afraid he may never hear – the bells of Santa’s sleigh.
At five minutes to midnight, he hears something different: a strange roar outside. Wiping the condensation from his window, he sees a gleaming black train drawing up right in front of his house, the steam from its locomotive drifting through the softly falling snowflakes.
Clad only in his pyjamas and slippers, the boy rushes outside and is met by the train’s conductor who seems to be waiting for him. “Well, are you coming?” he asks.
“Where?” says the boy.
“Why, to the North Pole, of course,” replies the conductor. “This is the Polar Express!”
Hanks played a central role in bringing the film - which will be Warner Bros. Pictures’ big family release for the 2004 holiday season - to fruition, first getting Van Allsburg to agree to a big-screen version of the book, then bringing it to director Robert Zemeckis, a long-time friend with whom he has worked on two of his most successful movies, Forrest Gump and Cast Away.
“It’s a story everyone can relate to,” says Zemeckis, who wrote the screenplay for the film along with William Broyles, Jr (Cast Away). “So many of us, as children or adults, have questioned our belief in something or gone through the process of having our faith tested and restored. Kids can take the story literally as a journey to find Santa Claus, while older readers understand it as a metaphor for much bigger ideas. It deals with the symbols of Christmas but, at its core, is a universal story about belief in things you don’t completely see or understand.
|
