Gore Verbinski
Gore Verbinski started his career within the advertisement and music industry, directing even his own Superbowl ad for Budweiser frogs. His first feature film debuted in 1997 with his fil called Mousehunt, which in many ways, was far from a commercial success. But he stayed quite devoted and moved onto his next film The Mexican in 2001, which again wasn't a critical success but this showed some directing potential for Gore as he was able to work with a bigger crew and larger stars like Brad Pitt, J.K. Simmons, James Gandolfini and Julia Roberts. His next film he took a step away from the Hollywood scene and went to direct his best film he has made up until this point, the 2002 adaptation, The Ring. This is where Gore began finding his footing in his films. He showed a level of creativity in his CGI and especially innovation. His next film shot his career into critical success with the release of Pirates of the Caribbean : Curse of the Black Pearl here he worked with a large cast alongside Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom and Kira Knightly. Within Pirates of the Caribbean, he showed his talent in storytelling, allowing each of the characters shown there very own plots and goals that seamlessly tie in together bringing each of their arches to the third act, whilst bringing his skill from his music history and helped compose the famous pirate's soundtrack alongside Hans Zimmer. In between the two sequels he had made for the Pirates of the Caribbean, bringing his skills forward with his writing, music and CGI, he released the film Weatherman in 2005 with Nicholas Cage as the main star, this bolstered moderate success and focused more on his writing and storytelling. From the profitability of the Pirates franchise, he was allowed and able to create arguably his best film yet Rango in 2011, this film took a step backward from his live-action films and dipped his feet into Animation. This film though still kept his style of surrealism, music motifs and Johnny Depp, as wherever Gore is, Johnny is never far behind. This film greatly innovated the animation scene, with its real to life lighting and environments. It won many awards for best-animated picture and went on to show Gore Verbinski's potential in directing. In 2015, he took a step backward directing The Lone Ranger. Although Gore was the director and writer for this movie, he had a much larger lack of control when directing this movie. He lost what was most known to him and that is control of his story. Disney pushed too much onto Gore Verbinski's shoulders by making him handle another blockbuster with a large budget and not very much creative freedom.
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Surrealism
I want to talk primarily on 3 films Gore Has directed that shows his style more prominently than his other releases but also are 3 films I quite enjoy to watch. I want to go further in-depth with The Ring, Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Mans Chest and Rango. Three very different films and genres, them being, horror, Pirate/Action Comedy and an Animated Western, I will explain each of his trademarks for each selected movie to make it quite evident. Firstly in the Ring, he uses a technique within his film that makes the Ring feel so unique. Gore produces surrealism into his movies by creating something bizarre with imagery that has less correlation to our world which makes the presence of the figure in the ring ever more terrifying. Its presence doesn't make any sense, it depicts a dream within the real world to make the audience wonder if the actions taken have consequences or not. He performs this surrealism with quick cuts of disturbing imagery. Long-drawn out shots that feel lingering, taking shots from the perspectives of characters and even objects. He even lingers on objects that have little meaning but actually represents something of greater purpose in the movie. This use of surrealism is used within both Dead Mans Chest and Rango. Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Mans Chest uses it with Davy Jones to make him appear as this supernatural figure, but also on the movies MacGuffin device, Davy Jones' Heart. In Rango, it shows a dream sequence of Rango's to place us in his perspective of feeling lost and so small, like his even existence doesn't intrude on the environment around him.
Music Leitmotif's
Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Mans Chest uses its music to heighten the movie-going experience and it uses what is known as leitmotifs. A leitmotif is a like a short phrase of music or even a whole composed song that represents something with a particular purpose or meaning. Leitmotifs are used in Dead Mans Chest for many various characters, locations and even objects like the heart, key and compass. A leitmotif can even signify or foreshadow certain small connections that would otherwise be too secret. For example this soundtrack below me is Davy Jones' theme but also his failed love.
This music feels sad as the instrument playing almost feels stuck, like it's on a loop, so once the music ends, his connection to his past lover drifts away. It then drifts into memory, where the quiet repeating instrument begins to fade into the background whilst these louder violins shapes his mind and brings sadness into his reality. The song then cuts to a more rigid and loud tone to match the bleakness of him and his life. It makes you both feel sympathetic towards him, acknowledging his loss but bringing you down with these loud horns, like him screaming his pain onto the world. He brings this song onto others around him lashing out onto his crewmembers and other sailors within the oceans. But then the song brings you back to the quiet sad chord after the anger has released his sadness is brought about him quite soon after, like its a never-ending cycle of sadness and torment. Now listen to this amazing score from its sequel "At Worlds End" that really ties a lot of themes into one.
This amazing soundtrack pulls many of the previous themes together into one crosendure. Firstly we hear Beckett's theme or more the East India Trading companies main theme that feels strict, orderly, each chord jumps onto the next and feels like it is pulled in a straight order and lacks freedom. But instead, Beckett's theme is more further away and more silent which draws this silent suspense, placing you into the perspective of the pirates. This theme is then interrupted with very quickly with a quick chant signifying either Barbosa or Calipso or possibly Barbosa's goal to set Calipso free. Then we get the very western rift by the director himself which is also mixed in with the love theme for Will and Elizabeth except the theme is a little more gritty and broken. Throughout this theme, you can hear Davy Jones' theme played by Hans Zimmer underneath Gore's guitar rift. All these themes signify all the pieces in play. I know to a lot of people this story is cluttered and feels confusing but if you understand all the characters motivations, it begins to really make sense. Barbosa wants to set Calipso free, so that is why he wants Jack to still be on their side. Elizabeth wants to avenge the death of her father from Beckett, Will wants to kill Davy Jones or at least set his father free. Jack, the smartest character is trying to free himself from Davy Jones, with the help of both Will and Elizabeth setting him up in the right place (Making it look like they betrayed him). Davy Jones wants to see the pirates dead for enslaving and trapping calypso, his past love and finally, Beckett wants control over the see for personal gain for his company and brand, slaving people and taking their freedom to sell spices. I know this all sounds off topic but this gets me to the third part of his style and his movies.
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Character Internal/External Goals
Finally, when talking about Gore as a director, his way of approaching his characters and his writing is quite different from others and I can easily explain this in Rango. Gore also had written Rango in the goal to make something unique to him. He uses his narrative almost like a ship but all the people on the ship (i.e the characters) have their own jobs to take care of but in the end, the ship is trying to lead somewhere. With Rango, all the characters have their own internal motivations that push them to the same end goal, but then there are the antagonists in Gore's movies that try to bombard that ship with another ship that is heading the opposite direction. In Rango, there is obviously the main characters like Rango and Beans but then there are the supporting roles. Firstly Rango throughout the film is trying to find himself, find out whom he is instead of creating a fake persona, he is searching for his identity by helping out this small town to save the water. Beans is losing her income and in this town, it is water, so to not lose her ranch that her father had passed onto her after his death is hoping for her daughter, Beans to take care of it, so to do so, she must claim the water back for the town. the supporting characters need the water back to survive. This fight for water is essentially the fight for power and control. The Mayor secretly knows the secret to the water and is able to control it, it purposely gets rid of the water as a problem to then thirst the people out of the town and to then build a new foundation and forget the past, move into a more civilised time, which isn't a horrible motivation but the execution of his plan is inhumane, forcing people to sell their land by taking away the one substance they need to live. Rattlesnake Jake is trying to move with this change of civilisation but is a gunslinger and is deceived by the Mayor to eliminate Rango as a problem. This is also seen in the pirate's franchise to get rid of the growing threat of the East India Trading company with their more internal goals, and the Ring where each goal is to eliminate the threat of Samara for their own separate reasons.
Rango Scene Analysis
Bibliography
Imdb (2011) -
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0893659/#writer
Uneshddarann (2014) Pirates of the Caribbean Movie Analysis - https://www.uneshddarann.com/pirates-of-the-caribbean-at-worlds-end/
G.S Perno (2013) Directors Trademarks: Gore Verbinski -
https://www.cinelinx.com/movie-news/movie-stuff/directors-trademarks-gore-verbinski/