Interview: October 15, 2004

October 15, 2004

According to author and illustrator Chris Van Allsburg, his Caldecott Medal-winning picture book THE POLAR EXPRESS originated with the image of a train standing alone in the woods. He then asked himself, What if a boy gets on the train? What does he do, and where does he go? From there, ideas of Christmas, Santa Claus and faith began to take shape. Kidsreads.com Founder Carol Fitzgerald talks to Allsburg about this cherished holiday classic and his thoughts on the film adaptation, which will be released on November 10th.

Kidsreads.com: THE POLAR EXPRESS has almost a 1950s feel to it. Were you drawing upon your own childhood for the setting?

Chris Van Allsburg: Absolutely, because that's when it happened, when I was a child. It looks like the 1950s because this is a story that I imagined happening to myself. And I grew up in the '50s. If you open any of my books, you can't say, "Well, this story clearly is taking place in the 21st century." I think I am drawing on not only the reality of what I am living in now, but also the reality I remember as a child, so they do get purged of their specific time reference. Here is something I always have wanted to believe about my books. If you opened up my books and there was no copyright page, you wouldn't be able to tell exactly when it was published.

KRC: You say, "A good story must contain a psychological, emotional, or moral premise. I never set out to establish this when I begin a story, but it's always there when I end. For example: THE POLAR EXPRESS became a story about faith." In recent years, "faith" has come to have political meaning. What do you mean by it?

CVA: I meant it in the simplest psychological sense, which is that believing in things makes us feel differently about the world in which we live. We can believe that extraordinary things can happen. We can believe fantastic things that might happen. Or we can believe that what we see is what we get.

For a child who has believed in someone like Santa in a way that was absolutely fabulous for seven or eight or nine or ten years of his/her life, the fact that that Santa may not be real, not only changes how he/she feels about Santa, but it also changes how he/she feels about the world. Everything that was not absolute and rational and factual goes away. If all that I believe in is what I can see, then the world is a smaller, less interesting place. It's like your imagination only is indulged with daydreams that cannot inform your real world.

KRC: Do you illustrate and write prose simultaneously or does one come before the other?

CVA: I have the story written quite completely and quite carefully before I start illustrating. It might be that I am making some pencil sketches along the way. I never have done a piece of finished art without knowing what the story will be. First I write an outline, and then I start to use the language that I expect will be employed for the story telling. And I'll write that over a number of times because there are so many different ways to say the same thing. And I'm looking for a way that has an elegant simplicity to the writing.

I learned very early on --- it was a thought that was shared by my editor when I did the first book --- that it makes no sense in a picture book to describe things that are established in the pictures. Not only is it redundant, you are sort of wasting your breath. Allowing things to manufacture in the mind of the reader through the stimulation of pictures rather than orally or literally through the words creates a relationship with the book and the materials that you don't have otherwise. You want that triangulation between the imagination of the reader and the pictures and the words on the page. The reader walks away with an experience that is far more complete than just reading the story or simply looking at pictures.

KRC: Kids often feel that once they start reading chapter books that they are beyond picture books as they are too babyish. Your books make them feel otherwise.

CVA: I know kids feel this way. That it is babyish to want to go back into their bookcases and find a picture book that they are excited about. In some schools there is a more open approach to picture books these days. I get a lot of mail from 5th, 6th and 7th grade students. Even in the case of THE MYSTERIES OF HARRIS BURDICK, high school kids are writing, saying they are reading the books. THE MYSTERIES OF HARRIS BURDICK can be seen as almost a creative writing tool. Sometimes they will ask about my other books. I know that I am lucky enough that teachers are using my books even when they may have graduated from picture books to chapter books.

KRC: It's taken almost twenty years for THE POLAR EXPRESS to become a movie. I'll bet you had a number of opportunities along the way that you didn't take. Why not? And why so long from book to film?

CVA: Well, not all books become films. It's not inevitable, but you're right. Because of its popularity, this book had appeal to many Hollywood producers, and over the years many of them had approached Houghton Mifflin or made inquiries. But we declined for many reasons, one of which was that the book had a life of its own and it did not seem that anything would be gained by turning it into a film. And that is still the case. It has its own vitality as a publishing undertaking.

About three years ago Tom Hanks got in touch with me and said he thought the book could become a film. And the fact that Hanks was a person in the film world who actually had the star quality and power to get it made was one motivation to entertain his ideas and proposal to option it to become a film. The other thing was his ideas, which actually were pretty simple. He wanted to make a film that embodied and expressed the feelings that he had when he read the books to his kids. We decided it would not be possible if, when making this into a film, we utilized the conventions of young children's entertainment that is seen today, which is tidal waves of irony, pop culture references, and cheesy smart aleck humor based on the use of video games.

If it was going to be faithful to the book it would have to be a story that was not dependent on using those devices. He asserted that, and that was my conviction as well. His belief that a film could be made that was an earnest and faithful telling of the book --- and was as engaging --- persuaded me to option it to Tom, in collaboration with Castle Rock. Then it went into development, which means it brushes up next to various writers and directors. I think Tom wanted all the time for it to get to Robert Zemeckis, who had worked with him on Forrest Gump and Castaway.

KRC: Your visual style is instantly recognizable. Was it important that the world of the movie look like the world of the book?

CVA: Tom immediately said that he wanted to make a faithful telling of the book. This inspired him to investigate this new technology called motion capture. One of the limitations of animation always has been presenting convincing human characters. This is even the case with the great Disney animations. While Snow White was pretty, she didn't look real and had limitations on her capacity for emotional expression. I had some conversations from the beginning that said there could not be any animation without my consent. I have not seen any animation, and this would include modern computer animation that has made characters come to life and express emotion with facial expressions.

Having shared that idea, Bob Zemeckis went to work and they tested motion capture. I was persuaded by their tests that the technology did exist to create digital characters that are electric phantoms that do not exist, but are created by the acting performance of a living human being. Information that is collected by the living human being is digitized and then they have the info to create the animated characters.

KRC: Did you watch any of the filming?

CVA: Nope, by all accounts it's not very interesting. You know, it's a very plain space that has plywood representations where the story will take place in. They never built the train car except digitally.

KRC: You have seen the movie. What are your impressions of it?

CVA: Well, I think largely it succeeded in doing what Tom and Bob set out to do, which was to make a faithful retelling of the book that focuses on the book's theme, which centers on the conflict that the boy has. He is old enough that his rational mind has to argue against every childish belief he has. But he knows that some of those childish beliefs are just too good to let go of and he has to hang on. Usually, conflict in films is much more dramatic. The conflict is more physical. It is like trying to save the Alamo. This is just a boy trying to save an idea. It's not an easy thing to make a film out of. There is the adventure of the ride. Some of what you see in the ride you have to take as metaphor. The trip is a difficult one, but then so sometimes the path to maintain your conviction or belief.

KRC: Is there something that became on film more special than it was on the pages?

CVA: I don't think so. The beginning of the film starts with the words of the book and ends with the words of the book. And I guess that is more special when the exact text is spoken. The images that are still in the book are moving, which creates a vitality to the text.

KRC: A good part of the joy of reading THE POLAR EXPRESS comes from the feeling of joy that takes over after you read it. It's a book that you can read again and again and get the same feeling. Do you think the movie will have this same effect?

CVA: It's hard to say. I hope that people read the book a few times. This was a conflict for me from the very beginning. I had heard so many stories from people who have told me that they take the book out in December --- they don't read it all year --- and then they might read it six or seven times before Christmas. That's a fabulous thing for an author to hear. Then I had to contemplate that this film was not getting made without a DVD coming out a year later. I had to contemplate the possibility that people may want to watch the DVD six or seven times instead of reading the book. I think families are prepared to enact rituals around Christmas that they do not do at other times. And for that reason I think people will take out the book and read it. Because sitting around the living room reading the book is not the same as sitting in the family room watching the DVD.

Repetition was rare when we were growing up. You did not read the same book over and over. You picked up another one. I wonder what will happen when a child between the ages of 6 and 9 who has watched a video 200 times reencounters it later on. I can recall the feeling I had when I read a book. I wonder if the same thing will happen with a video you watched over and over again.

KRC: Were you fascinated by trains when you were younger?

CVA: I had an electric train. Not a gigantic setup. It was respectable.

I did not see any steam engines under power when I was a kid. I saw a stationary engine at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, which was near where I grew up. They seemed so gigantic and heavy that the idea of them moving was like contemplating a building moving on its own. I always was fascinated. It's a giant machine that allows you to see all the works. And all these sounds. Wheezing pistons. Escaping steam. Bells. Whistles. The clang, clang, clang. They are amazing pieces of late 19th century technology.

I finally did see one under power when I went on a Polar Express ride up in New Hampshire. When I wrote the book I only was imagining what the steam engine going through a bitterly cold night would look like. The cold air multiplies the volume of the steam so greatly. I went on this ride in New Hampshire and we did get to see the steam. The train took us to a ski lodge where we heard the story reenacted. As we were inside hearing the story, the train was driven further up the mountain so it could turn around and come back to get us. It disappeared into this cold black night. We knew that it was out there. Then we heard this whistle and saw the light of the train first and then it has filled the sky with steam like a fog bank and the light blazing away. And I was thinking that I was only guessing that it would be this spectacular when I wrote the book. You could feel the earth vibrate. And those were things I never directly experienced but rather imagined, and then when I saw how Bob Zemeckis depicted the train in the movie, I could tell that we were on the same page with that idea. The train's arrival has an important function narratively, but it also is trying to convey to someone what it would be like to have that happen. To have the earth shake and those lights.

KRC: Do you own model trains now? If so, which gauge?

CVA: I have one very nice model of the 20th Century Limited, which has a motor in it, though it was a steam engine. I have never set it up on tracks, but it's a big train about three feet long.

KRC: Tell us about the mail you receive from parents. Do they tell you that, thanks to you, they can hear the bell again?

CVA: I have gotten sentiments like that. The letters I get from parents mostly are expressions of gratitude for providing books that interest them as much as they interest their kids and that give everyone something to talk about when they stop reading. They like the idea that they can talk about the art and other kinds of illustration.

KRC: Am I the only parent who cries when I read the book aloud to my kids on Christmas Eve?

CVA: No, no, no. In fact, many teachers write to say that they read it each year with great trepidation to their classes knowing they will weep. I think that's why kids like their teachers to read it --- so they can see them cry.

KRC: What are you working on now and when can readers expect to see it?

CVA: I'm working on a couple of books right now, though I'm not sure I will have one ready for next fall --- but I'm eager to get back to work. There have been too many distractions, and not just with The Polar Express film. The Widow's Broom, for which I wrote the screenplay, is in pre-production and may or may not happen. Zathura is in production and I am seeing the dailies for that. All these projects, while exciting, take me away from writing and illustrating.