By Gill Pringle
There have been countless screen incarnations of Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs most famous creation, from the early jungle jaunts starring Johnny Weissmuller and, later, Buster Crabbe, to the more modern – and, let’s face it more regrettable – versions starring the likes of Casper Van Dien and Travis Fimmel. While the jungle hero has a permanent place in our cultural unconscious, recent adaptations have had trouble balancing the pulpy and often problematic aspects with the “realism” required by modern audiences. However, the latest attempt, The Legend of Tarzan, directed by David Yates (the Harry Potter franchise) and starring Alexander Skarsgård as the titular ape man, has gone to great lengths to reconcile the two.
Rather than retell the Tarzan origin chronologically, The Legend of Tarzan starts with the hero having assumed his title of John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, and residing in Victorian London as a peer of the realm. “It was such an interesting take on a very, very famous tale,” Skarsgård reflects, “‘Cause it’s almost like you reverse the novel psychologically, because the novel is about taming the beast and this is about releasing the beast in a way. You open it and on page one its him having tea with the prime minister in London So in the beginning of the movie he’s already been in London for almost a decade with his wife Jane and he left the jungle behind and he doesn’t think he’s ever going to return. He’s almost afraid of the jungle and himself, what he was back there.”
The once (and, let’s face it, future) Tarzan and his wife, Jane (Margot Robbie) return to the jungle at the request of real-life anti-slavery campaigner, George Washington Williams, played by Samuel L. Jackson, who wants his assistance in investigating allegations of slavery in the Belgina Congo (history buffs will know that such allegations were all too true. This brings our heroes into conflict with Belgian colonial administrator, Leon Rom (Christopher Waltz) and vengeful tribal chieftain Mbonga (Djimon Honsou), forcing Tarzan to shed the trappings of civilisation and return to his primal roots.
It’s a very gradual transformation. “He still doesn’t allow himself to be Tarzan,” Skarsgård says. “He’s still John Clayton, and then , you know, as the adventure begins and it all kicks off in the jungle, slowly, literally layers come off. But also emotionally, like, he goes from being this Victorian gentleman, very buttoned up, to Tarzan, which I thought was very different, very interesting.”
With that process in mind, out went the iconic loincloth. “He returns in a British colonial safari outfit, in those pants and high boots and buttoned up in a waistcoat, and then the adventure kicks off. After a while he looks like that, layers do come off as he gets more animalistic, but there’s no loincloth.”
Still, the hero’s physicality remained a primary characteristic. Skarsgård’s Tarzan is perhaps the most brutish seen on screen, with his myriad scars and his deformed hands (the knuckles have been broadened, we’re told, from years of running on all fours. That meant a strict gym regimen for the actor. I wanted to put on some weight, but it was important that he didn’t have the physicality of a bodybuilder, because it was important to be agile and be able to move through the jungle. He grew up there so it’s important that he’s very smooth when he runs or swings on vines. I’m not agile at all, like I can’t touch my toes if I stand up. They had their work cut out, the amazing people working with me, on playing around with that.”
And although the animals seen on the final film are computer generated creations, he did spend time with some of their real-life counterparts to prepare for the role. “Yeah, I got to go to this place when I was prepping the movie and meet some cats, some big cats like lions and tigers and panthers and stuff. It was pretty amazing. And then we went to this place in Kent, in England to hang out with some gorillas, which was very inspiring as well to just sit and study them and see how they communicated with each other, because there are scenes in the movie where he is, before he met Jane, where he’s with his ape family it was important to get that communication right.”
The Legend of Tarzan is in cinemas now.
