140 Character Review – #140RVW
Wonderful series that would be ripe for a remake. Great use of technology of the time & wonderful art direction bring these tales to life…
Spoiler-free Review of Jim Henson’s The Storyteller:
I remember a few episodes of this series airing on tv when I was in high school. It was on at irregular times and some of the episodes never aired. Many people never saw it. I would tell friends in vain about this amazing tale of a soldier who captured Death, but never could show it to them.
The complete run of nine episodes of the show, plus four more episodes of Greek Myths (in which the Storyteller was played by Michael Gambon) aired in the late 90’s on HBO, but I never saw them. I had to wait for these to come out on dvd in 2003. But it’s probably better this way, since once you’ve seen one episode you can’t wait to start another.
What an amazing series. Conceived of by his daughter Lisa Henson after taking a folklore class in college, it really was an ambitious project. Each episode really is like a mini-movie, far beyond the scope of a tv show back then, and maybe even now.
As was customary with his work, Henson pushed the boundaries of what was possible in storytelling by always exploring new technologies. This led to a truly unique visual look to the series, one that has never been repeated. There are silhouettes, projected images, puppetry, green screen and a host of both in-camera and post production techniques employed. And the most important thing here is that these are all for the advancement of the stories. These were not technical exercises by a skilled filmmaker; all the work serves the stories and communicating in new ways the old tales.
I love the look of The Storyteller, but I wouldn’t be against an update. The series was shot on film, but is not of a high quality due to the post production processing work (I presume). Maybe they could even get John Hurt to reprise his role and film new stories!
An absolute masterwork that I rewatch regularly, save the best place by the fire for The Storyteller…
The nine episodes:
- Hans My Hedgehog – the pilot episode
- Fearnot
- A Story Short
- The Luck Child
- The Heartless Giant
- The Soldier and Death
- The True Bride
- Sapsorrow
- The Three Ravens
- Sapsorrow
Trailers for a few of the episodes:
Bechdel Test:
Pass – for the most part. This rating and that of the Representation Test are based on the whole series.
The Representation Test Score: B (7 pts)
(http://therepresentationproject.org/grading-hollywood-the-representation-test/)
| Main Cast | John Hurt The Storyteller (9 episodes, 1987-1988), Brian Henson Storyteller’s Dog/Devil/Griffin (9 episodes, 1987-1988), Frederick Warder Giant/Half Man/Troll/Trollop (3 episodes, 1987-1988), David Greenaway Badger/Bird/Birds/Lion/Salmon/Squirrel/Wolf (3 episodes, 1988) |
| Rating | G |
| Release Date | Sun 15 May 1988 UTC |
| Director | |
| Genres | Fantasy |
| Plot | An old storyteller tells European folk tales to his sarcastic dog. |
| Poster |  |
| Runtime | 225 |
| Tagline | |
| Writers | Jim Henson (creator) |
| Year | 1987 |
