Massive fantasy sets built by hand. Elaborate animatronics. Goblins, creatures and puppets operated by entire teams of performers.
That was the scale of Jim Henson’s vision for "Labyrinth," the 1986 cult fantasy film that helped showcase theMississippi-born creatoras more than just the man behind the Muppets.
The movie follows a young girl named Sarah, played by teenage actress Jennifer Connelly, as she navigates a massive labyrinth to rescue her baby brother from Jareth, the Goblin King,played by David Bowie,sporting hair that looks somewhere between a lion’s mane andTina Turnerin "What’s Love Got to Do With It."
Directed by Henson, "Labyrinth" was also written by Monty Python-alum Terry Jones and executive produced byGeorge Lucas.The result feels like a collision between Henson’s handcrafted Muppet-style fantasy worlds, the sprawling adventure spectacle Lucas helped popularize through "Star Wars" and, well, David Bowie.
Bowie not only starred as the Goblin King Jareth, but also worked on the film’s soundtrack, writing and performing several original songs that gave "Labyrinth" its unmistakably weird, synth-heavy 1980s energy.
By the mid-1980s, Henson was pushing beyond the family-friendly puppetry that made Kermit the Frog and "Sesame Street" household names. Following the release of "The Dark Crystal" in 1982, Henson continued experimenting with darker fantasy storytelling featured in "Labyrinth."
But even before "Labyrinth," Henson experimented with filmmaking and surreal television projects like "The Cube," a1969 productioncentered around a man trapped inside a white room. Throughout his career, Henson constantly pushed toward stranger and more visually ambitious storytelling.
Brian Jay Jones,author of "Jim Henson: The Biography," said "Labyrinth" may have come closer than almost any other Henson project to matching the filmmaker’s exact artistic vision. Jones described the film’s elaborate fabrics, layered textures and fantasy imagery as reflective of Henson’s own artistic temperament.
“'Labyrinth' looks exactly the way Jim wanted it to look,” Jones told the Clarion Ledger. “I think 'Labyrinth' is very close to his own idea of artistic beauty.”
Long before CGI became standard in Hollywood, Henson and his team relied on elaborate puppetry, animatronics and choreography to bring the film’s goblins and creatures to life. Nothing showcases that practical, hands-on filmmaking better than"Inside the Labyrinth,"a behind-the-scenes documentary filmed during production of the movie you can watch for free on Youtube.
It features Henson himself discussing the challenges of building the film’s massive fantasy world, finding the right actors, coordinating its puppetry and bringing the bizarre creatures to life. At one point, Henson said he considered Michael Jackson or Sting for the role of Jareth before ultimately landing on Bowie.
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“The whole trip through the labyrinth is like a voyage,” Henson said in the documentary. “So to create the feeling of a voyage you have to go through many different places.”
The documentary reveals the sheer scale of the operation Henson assembled to bring the fantasy world to life. In one scene alone — Jareth’s throne room where Bowie performs"Magic Dance"— the production used 48 puppets, 52 puppeteers and between eight and 12 little people in costume.
The film’s creatures often required entire teams of performers working in sync behind the scenes. For instance, Hoggle, one of the movie’s central puppet characters, required five performers to operate. Actress Shari Weiser wore the costume while four others controlled the character’s facial expressions and animatronics remotely, including Henson’s son, Brian Henson. In the documentary, Henson described Hoggle as “the most complicated character” in the film.
Ludo, another fan-favorite creature, weighed more than 75 pounds and required multiple performers to operate interchangeably during filming.
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The documentary also highlights the choreography and rehearsal required to coordinate the puppets, performers and actors throughout the production, with Henson calmly directing scenes from the center of the chaos. Henson also mentions that it was between Bowie, Michael Jackson and Sting.
Nearly four decades later, “Labyrinth” has evolved from a box office disappointment into one of Henson’s most beloved cult classics. It has been embraced by generations of fans drawn to its surreal fantasy world, Bowie’s unforgettable performance and the movie’s handcrafted practical effects.
The movie that once baffled critics now sells out theaters, inspires cosplay conventions and is heading back on tour through“Jim Henson’s Labyrinth: In Concert,”a live-to-film production featuring musicians performing David Bowie’s soundtrack alongside screenings of the movie. The tour is scheduled to stop throughout the United States, Canada and Australia later this year.
Turns out audiences eventually caught up with Henson's strange little fantasy fever dream he was building in the 1980s.
Jones said the film ultimately found the audience Henson believed it would.
“He was absolutely right about it,” Jones told the Clarion Ledger. “His instincts on it were absolutely right, but at the wrong time.”
Charlie Drape,the Clarion Ledger’s Jackson beat reporter, grew up on “Sesame Street,” with a stuffed Animal — the wild-eyed Muppet drummer from Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem — regularly scattered among the toys in his room. Every Christmas, "John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together" still gets its annual spin in the Drape household.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger:Jim Henson Labyrinth movie and the puppets, goblins and chaos
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