Sandman 2 - enough, but no more
And so we reach the question of what must be introduced. I’ve written about this elsewhere, and ended that comic book influence is often effective in film, that animation of originals is often promising and original, but staged translation of originals is usually a cringe. So Sandman as moving image is to be avoided, yes?
Well…. a comment often about the Sandman TV series is that it’s visualisation of it’s world is ‘flat’. I find this odd. I’m not in tune with what is possible nowadays, but found the visualisation of the world remarkable. The visuals of the series use flat lighting, possibly enabled by the smoothness of LED lighting—at times it looks posterized, though I’m not sure that would be enabled post‐process. Anyway, this gives the visuals a connection with the flat colouring used by many graphic novels. Not only that, but there seems to be a combination of model‐making and computer graphics that gives a weight to some of the visuals, especially the textures, again somewhat like the line and color techniques of most comics. The rest of the time, the production often constructs visuals by lighting edges—with ink and paper, a very comic‐book shortcut. The aesthetic alone I think has lead several reviewers to call the series gloomy. But, aside from the way the effect could reflect a wider complaint on outlook, I can’t make negative criticism of that. This is also the first time I’ve seen an effect long overdue. Computer graphics can stir up animated swirls and sparkles, but these are often banal distorts. In Sandman the swirls seem to have been either complex generated or mixed with other images to make them more expressive—less like someone dragging a hairnet over the screen. Anyway, I welcome the fact that Sandman is in a wide‐color pallet. Even if it seems to lack the expressiveness that comics sometimes bring. Sure makes a change to film post‐processing with bleach effects.
So it seems the aim of the visuals in Sandman was to use modern lighting, post‐capture treatment and computer‐graphic inserts to represent aspects of bande‐dessinée artwork. I’m not well travelled in what is possible nowadays but this production has succeeded. Stills from the series look very like bande‐dessinée artwork—‐try the web. But only stills—what this production looses, or has not attempted, is that comics are often drastic in switching views within and between frames, zooming in and out. I know the moving image version of The Adventures Of Tintin managed to capture this while allowing for film moves like camera swings. But not here—so far an overwhelming number of ‘show the character against the background‘constructions.
This is a second decision to stay close to source, visuals as well as text. Given my own reaction and comments by other reviewers, it succeeds. But we may then ask, well, a literal translation of any material has value, and often allows a reader to understand parts in depth, but can it stand alone, and then, given that both the text and the visuals have been rendered close, are the resulting visuals and text appropriate for each other? But before we get to that, let’s talk about other elements of this series that either needed to be built or were willfully added. Despite the consultation process used to generate the text, and other aims pursued, there are a few of these. And they have generated much reviewer comment.
The first that struck me, and hard, was the sequence that opens the first episode. This sequence is intended as some kind of orientation for the entire series, a statement of purpose. Which is not uncommon, especially in in a high overhead industry where huge sums of money are riding on no more than producer whim. Well, I agree the text is grammatical, After that, it’s cliché strung together, makes no sense as premises, has no internal construction and none of it applies to the material. This sequence pushed me to the edge of dropping viewing—expecting an Artemis Fowl scale of cludge—and I’m glad it isn’t representative of what is to come.
If the introduction sequence is a passing distraction, then we reach the casting of characters. This has been driven heavily by gender and racial representation. The casting is the subject of many comments in other reviews. Now it’s fair to say, long before the current formalisation of the idea, the source was adventurous in this. The Sandman bande‐dessinée had female characters, transgender characters, characters of age, different nationalities and racial background. The makers of the TV series stated somewhere that they wished to update and respect the original in this. And they’ve approached the job with a creativity and adventure you’d probably hope they wouldn’t show. Can we make this character ‘female’, or this character ‘black’?
They’ve been thorough, even systematic. Indeed, Sandman contains a piece of casting destined to go down as one of the worst decisions ever made by a million‐funded production. There is no point talking about how well an actor can perform in these circumstances, they have been cast so badly there is no way out—best they can do is say they love what they are doing, take the money and walk. The decision bears no relationship to character as written. And throughout the series there are many re‐castings like this, key characters too. The actors toss in accents and the like to get them through. At least this reflects that the original bande‐dessinée was sometimes adversely criticised. There was a thought that the writer played with representation as an idea, as hipster fun, rather than with empathy for the scenarios evoked.
Now, I don’t mind cultural differentiation, but this offers no hope for the cause. When the casting offers Eastern cultures (only ones so far, most is female and black) as eternal force, this is bigotry to me. And, for goodness sake, if you need a librarian who evokes the evolution of human understanding, could you at least re‐write for a Tibetian or Arabic library?
So this TV series has successes. It is true to source, which will hold the fans of the comics, and has preserved the unusual premises and style of storytelling. The series has also created a visual style that is distinctive—‐together these make for a brand I expect the creators and producers will be pleased with. But film is a multi‐media opera. In wider ways, Sandman is fundamentally muddled. The source texts are exposed in ways not suited to film, the visual design is aside from the text possibilities, the casting an overlay from a different world of intention. Far from being consistent, the TV series of Sandman is an unstable pile of impulse. Which leads to an uneven viewing experience, likely leading to uneven reactions from an audience. And that’s factoring out the short and oblique structure of the stories.
Stepping into the vortex, why are the episode intros swirling clouds? There’s a comment by the makers that they wanted to dig into story quick. But the introductions to high end series nowadays have become setpieces, ever since I think the Sopranos, so why don’t we have a setting connected to inspiration or material, such as glints from a ruby? Then the original Sandman bande‐dessinée were decorated wuth frontpieces and covers by a graphic artist called Dave McKean. It’s almost impossible to weigh the challenge of meeting fine art in a comic book and the edge that put on the stories, but from conversation I know Dave McKean’s work had a huge effect on readers. I saw comment someplace that Dave McKean had been “brought out of retirement” to contribute to the TV series, yet where is he? And the music and sound—nearing the end of the first series I don’t recall any of it. It’s a huge job to assemble this extent of sound collage for a series of this length and variety of material, even with the modern tools. This is a query not only about the content and form but structure—given these breadths of reference, wouldn’t musical reference such as Baroque music or Folk songs (or imitation of such) have added some edge, let alone illustrate the content?
The way the series worked for me is that it kept pulling me in. I enjoyed the version of comic book visuals as film—I was carried along by the pastel and black universe, and the dedication to bande‐dessinée visuals. I also enjoyed seeing these unusual stories on screen, even if I had to wait for them to kick in. Other things kept me gripped, like trying to figure out why most of the stories moved slowly. And the representational casting was so far from the written script it achieved something I will never usually see in modern product, it was inept—I got a jump‐cut jolt every time it happened. While this means something to me, I can’t sell it to readers of a review. And so, despite the lack of exuberance of Georges_Méliès or the Wizard of Oz, switching and tumbling I stayed with it. And probably will until the end. But we could have had it all.