When Oscar-winning director Ron Howard learned that Disney+ and the children of the late Jim Henson were interested in collaborating on a definitive portrait of the beloved Muppet creator, he immediately welcomed the opportunity. “I had nothing but respect for him,” he said during a recent Zoom interview from his office. “I met him briefly backstage at a talk show, and my friend George Lucas was a close friend and a great admirer and characterized him as a genuine genius. Of course, my own relationship with Jim Henson’s creations has also evolved through my children and ‘Sesame Street.’
“After spending time with the family and looking at archival footage, the narrative question came up,” says Howard. “How did he create such a lasting legacy of work with so much creativity in just a few decades? The production dimensions of it were a complete surprise to me. He was completely in touch with the cultural zeitgeist and kept changing with it – not cynically, but very organically with the kind of creative curiosity that I admired and identified with.”
The result of several years of work by Howard and his team at Imagine Documentaries is “Jim Henson Idea Man,” a lively and revealing look at Henson’s life and career, which recently debuted on Disney+. The 90-minute film traces his career from his early days as a young puppeteer at a local D.C. TV station to the creation of “Sesame Street” and “The Muppet Show” puppets, to the growth of the Jim Henson Co. Creature Shop and later works such as “The Dark Crystal” and “Labyrinth”.
How did you end up directing this film?
We were thinking a little about our next project with [producers] Sara Bernstein and Justin Wilkes in Imagine Documentaries. We were told that Disney+ was very interested in doing something about Jim Henson, and the family had reservations over the years, but they liked the documentaries I made about Pavarotti and the Beatles. So we met with the Hensons and about two years ago we started digging into the material.
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There was so much archival footage to analyze. Not only great stuff about the Muppets or “Sesame Street” and old interviews with Jim, but his personal family footage was creative. He just didn’t cover a birthday party like all of us parents do. He knew he would make a great story out of it and use stop-motion or different creative techniques. He was enthusiastic about experimental and avant-garde cinema. He was creatively ambitious and this is reflected in his work on “Sesame Street.”
His documentary features incredible footage of his early work, as well as revealing interviews with his children, as well as stars such as Frank Oz, Rita Moreno and Jennifer Connelly. You even discovered a fascinating, unaired interview Henson did with Orson Welles.
Because the family agreed and authorized my involvement as director, they were incredibly supportive. They are all very creative people and grew up in this environment. They were very open in their interviews about the price of Jim’s creative energy. They are very proud and feel privileged to have you as a father, but they are also adults who could now say that some aspects of life were challenging and [talk about] the stress that work put on his parents’ marriage. So we were able to really go behind the scenes and understand that there are no free lunches and that you pay a price for everything. I found it important to understand his emotions, his insecurities about himself, the childhood events that shaped him and the urgency with which he worked, and to meet him in many ways beyond the level of brilliant, genius creativity.
What was the biggest surprise for you in learning more about his life and work?
I didn’t know he didn’t really plan on being a puppeteer. He was a child of television and was fascinated by innovations. This led to the use of remote-controlled puppets, early robotics and then digital effects. He wasn’t a guy who had a good idea and took it to great success: he continued to adapt, explore and push the limits of the medium. It was also amazing that he kept failing to sell “The Muppet Show” because you just assumed that all he had to do was walk through the door with some puppets and people would just fall over themselves to buy the show. It’s just a reminder that these big business breakthroughs often come from unexpected places. They happen by adapting formulas in truly innovative ways and not just following old patterns.
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In the movie, Brian Henson talks about his father’s philosophy and how he believed in the value of doing good and the interconnectedness of all living things on Earth. Can you explain this?
Jim was really looking to understand that connection, and it always seems to come back to something that I really identified with, which was this: You can’t be sure about almost anything, except that kindness has value. Even if you don’t know exactly what our cosmic journey is, you can assume that creating positivity and kindness must be a valuable part of that experience.
What do you hope audiences learn about Jim Henson’s life and career?
I hope they understand that kind of lasting legacy. I would love it if it made them go back and rewatch all those “Muppet Show” episodes. It’s time well spent because it’s hilarious. As with any kind of documentary or screenplay that deals with a life’s journey, I hope it offers some inspiration and some insights. In Jim’s case, it’s very much a celebration of how to lead a creative life and how to solve problems with openness and enthusiasm for what’s possible. I hope people are inspired by Jim’s life and truly impressed by the scope and level of his accomplishments.
This story originally appeared on Los Angeles Times.
