Traits of an auteur

Ahead of this month’s release of Peter Jackson’s latest cinematic offering The Lovely Bones, The New York Times’ Terrence Rafferty takes a look at Jackson’s body of work over his 20-year career as a filmmaker. “Things that go bump and much, much worse in the night have never fazed Peter Jackson,” says Rafferty. “Far from it. At this point in his career, a film without some form of ghoulie, ghostie or long-leggedy beastie (preferably in quantity) just wouldn’t seem like a Peter Jackson movie at all. So it’s reassuring, in a disquieting sort of way, that his latest film, The Lovely Bones, is a ghost story.” Rafferty believes that Jackson has avoided the fate of being stuck as a ‘horror’ filmmaker by concentrating, since The Frighteners, on films in which the fantasy and horror elements allow him to use some of his funkier gifts but don’t necessarily dominate the story. “He is, like so many good filmmakers, himself a bratty teenager at heart, drawing his creative energy from an irrepressible urge to be rude to stuffy grown-ups.” The Lovely Bones is officially released in the US on December 11 and New Zealand on Boxing Day.