STACK #147 Jan 2017

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DVD&BD FEATURE

Burton

book by the

Author Ransom Riggs was delighted that his favourite filmmaker would be bringing his best-selling novel, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children , to the screen. Words Adam Colby V isiting Tim Burton’s set novels. It was those images that immediately caught Burton’s attention when he read the book. “I grew up loving books like

where his best-selling novel, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, was being adapted for the screen was, says Ransom Riggs, “mind blowing.” Riggs is a huge fan of Burton’s work and couldn’t have been happier to know that his favourite filmmaker was making a movie of his book. Riggs himself is a filmmaker – having attended film school at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles – and once Burton was on board, he knew that his book was in very safe hands. “As a filmmaker, I understand that when you adapt a book for the screen you need to internalise that story and make it your own,” he says. “To make a great film which stands on its own as a piece of art and not just an uninspired copy, it’s necessary that the filmmaker find and express their own personal vision of the story. And that’s what Tim has done so brilliantly. “That said, if it had been anyone other than Tim directing and Jane Goldman writing the script, I would have been pretty nervous,” he adds. “But I so trusted Tim’s sensibility that I was able to say,

The Chronicles of Narnia – stories about discovering hidden worlds within our own, about discovering that we are more than we realise,” explains Riggs. “I started writing when I was young, and mostly I wrote stories that were trying and failing to be Narnia . I also grew up loving film and photography. About eight years ago I began collecting old snapshots at flea markets and secondhand stores. I was drawn to strange images, just as I’m drawn to strange stories – and, having just graduated from film school, I was looking for ways to combine stories and images. When I hit upon the idea of using these unusual photographs to illustrate a book, I knew immediately what kind of story I wanted to write: a story about a hidden world. And of course the strange-looking kids in the photographs had to live there.” Riggs is, understandably, impressed with the stellar cast that Burton has assembled for the film, including Eva Green as Miss Peregrine, Asa Butterfield as Jake, Dame Judi Dench as Miss Avocet, and Samuel L. Jackson as the

[ Eva Green ] seems to be channelling Katharine Hepburn at times - if you crossed Katharine Hepburn with a bird!

group of outcast children with strange abilities was inspired in part by his collection of haunting old photographs, many of which illustrate his Peculiar Children

‘okay, take the keys and bring the car back in one piece when you’re done...’ And that’s more or less what happened.” Riggs’s compelling story of a

JANUARY 2017

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