Written By October/November 2009

You wonder what children see. The life of a child; what they see and what they hear, and what they don’t discuss with you. Or choose not to discuss. —Maurice Sendak n 1963, Maurice Sendak published Where the Wild Things Are, a slim book of illustrations and 10 sentences of narrative about a misbehaving boy, Max, who is sent to his room without supper. Max imagines himself travel- ing to a land of wild creatures as raucous as himself, who crown him their king. It was condemned as a dangerous book by reviewers and influential psychiatrists, in part be- cause Max’s mother loses her temper too and had failed to discipline her child. But children returned to borrow it from the library, and it soon entered the canon of Ameri- can children’s literature. Though the brief book offers oceans to the imagina- tion, it puts forth little in the way of plot and thus seemed an unlikely movie adaptation. Sendak wanted to see it done, however, and throughout the course of 10 years frequently raised the issue with Spike Jonze, whom he had met while attempting to produce his own mentor Crockett Johnson’s book, Harold and the Purple Crayon. That project never came to fruition, but Jonze developed a friendship and appreciation for the author, filming con- versations between them over time and piecing them into a short documentary for HBO, Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak. In the documentary, the intimacy between the two men is transparent. They share a natural appreciation for each other’s work, but Jonze’s profound sense of play is offset by Sendak’s darker fixations with his own mortality, alien- ation, and inability to accept happiness. During one revealing sequence, Sendak confides to Jonze, “It seems I never can satisfy some need in me to achieve something of incredible height. It puzzles me deeply, and it sours my life. So there’s a permanent dis- satisfaction . . . It’s like something is dead inside.” Jonze hugs the older man. “I wish I could satisfy you as a friend,” Sendak offers. “You are. You do.” “... And be a normal human being,” Sendak adds, smil- ing up at Jonze. “I wish I could just strangle you and slap you,” con- cludes Jonze, “and make you realize you do find joy, and why isn’t that enough?” But in his documentary, Jonze explores the depths of Sendak’s solitude and perhaps even the source of Sendak’s “permanent dissatisfaction” as well as his artistry: “My obsession with death, which a lot of my friends laugh at because I’m always on it, comes from the Lindbergh baby and the idea that you could die as a child—it’s an infa- mous insight for a child. Infamous.” Jonze’s skateboarder manner brings light into their dy- namic. Their creative collaboration might beg a comparison with Jonze’s affinity for, and emotional bond with, a not dissimilarly burdened friend and collaborator, iconoclas- tic screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. Although seeming no less aware of life’s more painful propensities, Jonze broke ground in music videos, short films, and commercials. His work exhibits childlike playfulness, often sardonic or tinged with pathos, but never heavy or lacking in wonder. The Wild Things script is painted more in emotion than with plot; the journey itself is the nine-year-old Max’s trip OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2009 WGAW Written By • 45

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