Inside The Labyrinth
(The Making
of the film Labyrinth)
Louise Gold appeared as one of the Ballroom-Dancers in
the film Labyrinth
Cast (those featured
speaking to camera)
David
Bowie
Jennifer
Connelly
Brian
Froud
George
Gibbs
Brian
Henson
Jim
Henson
Terry
Jones
Cheryl
McFadden
Production Team
?
For the rest of the Cast and Crew of Labyrinth, many
of whom may be spotted somewhere in this documentary, see Labyrith.
Quite a number of the cast and crew, including of
course Jim Henson, Brian Froud, and, Terry Jones had
previously worked on the film The Dark Crystal.
Jim Henson has of course
featured on other behind-the-scenes documentaries, include Of Muppets And Men.
Brian Henson went on to
feature in the documentary The
Wonderful World Of Puppets.
Summary / Review
by Emma Shane, April
2005
This
is one of those ‘making of’ documentaries that it is well worth getting the DVD
of the film (rather than a video) for. The film is a moment in film history and
film-puppetry history. If Dark Crystal was the culmination of the
cable-control puppet era, then Labyrinth marked the dawning of
the hydraulic & computer era. I particularly noticed the description of The
Firey’s, and, Humongous. Of course really neither film could be
completely classed as belonging in any particular era, but both were made at a
very exciting time when great leaps were being made with special effects and
animatronics, on film; developing methods of animatronics which are still in
use in the film industry today (for example in such features as the Hitchhikers
Guide To The Galaxy).
But
besides being a moment in history, this documentary is also fun. Several of the
personnel involved, come across nice people. For example Jennifer Connelly
in particular comes across as someone who never particularly intended to be an
actress, it just sort of happened. There are many lovely moments like that in
this documentary: For those of us who liked Star Trek Next Gen, there’s also an
opportunity to see the actress who played Dr Crusher in a very different
context, talking to camera about her job as this film’s choreographer, in the
behind-the-scenes footage we also see a bit of her in action on the set.
Designer Brian Froud has a wonderful comment on creative coincidences.
He sketched a baby for the film, six months before his son Toby was conceived,
who eventually turned out to look uncannily like the baby his father had
sketched. However, one of my favourite segments in the documentary involves Jim
Henson, with two delightful comments to camera. First of all he says “People
say you should never work with puppets, animals, or babies. And of course we
work with puppets all the time. I’ve worked with animals a bit, but this is the
first time I’ve worked with the baby; and now I know why people say that.”
and then, after showing a bit of footage of this, in a voice that sounds uncannily like Kermit
The Frog, he trumps himself with a gem of a statement, “Working with a
baby had its problems, then I tried directing chickens”.
Best
of all (at least as far as this webpage is concerned), is that if you watch
carefully, in the segment on The Ballroom scene, you can actually spot British
actress (and sometimes - though-not-in-this-film - puppeteer) Louise Gold.
Watching the ballroom rehearsal footage closely. Two of the girls are wearing
black leggings and white tops. Louise is the one whose top doesn’t have a
collar (so its more a t-shirt or sweatshirt than top). In addition her chestnut
hair looks pretty tousled. In the first scene of the rehearsal footage, she is
holding a large feather-type fan. And just at the end of that first clip
(before it cuts away) she gives a very distinctive little look/movement, that
is typically her. A little later there's a moment on the documentary where Jennifer
Connelly doing a voice-over to a clip of the ballroom rehearsal, saying "I'm
awful at ballroom dancing", just before it cuts to Jennifer herself,
You can spot Louise and whichever guy she was partnering in that bit of the
scene move down to the bottom left-hand corner of the screen and then just out
of shot as it cuts away. Once the dancers are in costume it gets much harder,
even before they put their masks on. There is one glimpse of quite a
tall-looking lady in an off-white dress and leaves in her hair, which I think
might be Louise, judging by the face, though I am not certain. Still it’s very
nice to at least be able to spot her in the rehearsal scene.
Links about Inside
The Labyrinth
Think Labyrinth The Movie, a fascinating
Labyrinth Fansite, contains some quite hard to find info, that you probably
won’t find anywhere else on the web: http://www.astrolog.org/labyrnth.htm
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