Man and Muppet Ron Howard returns to Cannes with ‘Jim Henson Idea Man’
Ron Howard first attended the Cannes Film Festival with his 1988 fantasy-adventure “Willow,” and he’ll never forget his first walk up the stairs at the Palais des Festivals, where the film premiered out of competition. “I remember that first time so vividly,” he says, more than 25 years later. “And what I really remember is how fun it was.”
Howard would return over the years as an Oscar-winning director and super-producer (with Brian Grazer) behind Imagine Entertainment. This year, Howard will make his return to the Croisette with the documentary “Jim Henson Idea Man,” premiering as part of the Cannes Classics lineup before hitting Disney+ May 31. Howard will also be honored with Variety’s Profiles in Excellence Award at the publication’s Welcome to Cannes Party, hosted in partnership with the Gotham Film & Media Institute. The event will take place May 16 at Lucia Beach.
Howard is the rare auteur known as much for his talent as his genial persona, so it makes perfect sense that he would be the one to profile a legend like Henson, the artist behind the classic characters seen on “The Muppets” and “Sesame Street.” They met in person only once — backstage at a variety show when Howard was in his twenties. But Howard heard many stories about Henson from “Willow” executive producer George Lucas, who had been close friends with the Muppet creator. “George was shattered when Jim passed,” Howard notes. “He was always talking about Jim’s creativity and what an outside-of-the-box thinker he was. And what a risk-taker.”
The film was made with the full support and participation of Henson’s surviving children with his wife and collaborator, Jane Henson; all four appear in the doc to reminisce about their family life. And they turned over massive amounts of archives to Howard, including early commercials, short films and family movies. “There weren’t as many interviews as we would have liked,” Howard notes. “He was pretty shy; he didn’t particularly like talking about himself. He really did use the puppets as alter egos.”
Instead, Howard found himself studying Henson’s work, particularly his 1965 experimental short “Time Piece,” which centers on a man (played by Henson) constantly in motion. “It struck me as a story about someone who’s just inwardly driven,” Howard says. The filmmaker also learned some new information in his research — such as the fact Henson had lost a brother and that he grew his beard because he battled with acne. “He understood how fragile life was, and I don’t think he wanted to take anything for granted. He wanted to grab the opportunities and take on the challenges. In ‘Time Piece,’ he is literally always on the run and trying to outrun the clock.”
It also delves into Henson’s relationship with his wife, a fellow puppeteer and performer. “The Muppets would not have been what they were without Jane — her taste and mindset and encouragement,” Howard notes. “She recognized his talent really before anyone else did.” It also features revealing interviews with those who knew him, particularly his longtime collaborator Frank Oz.
But “Idea Man” doesn’t shy away from the tougher times; it chronicles the toll his determination took on his marriage, and such professional disappointments as his 1986 film “Labyrinth,” which underperformed at the time but has since gained a massive cult following.
In the end, Howard sees the film as a celebration. “In celebrating him, you do discover the price that you pay for the creative gifts he shared with us, and there are surprises in the journey,” Howard says. “But if you’re looking for an exposé, Jim Henson would be the wrong person to look at.”
Ron Howard has been part of our collective consciousness for as long as I can remember. Or at least he looms large in mine. Born in 1954, he was on many of the TV series I grew up watching and had his own starring role on “The Andy Griffith Show” by 1960. And his father had the idea that little “Ronny Howard” should play a good kid, not the wise-guy type popular in those “Dennis the Menace” years. He’d be nice. It stuck. He’s been known as “nice” ever since.
That made him much too easy to dismiss. However prominent he was — as a principal star of “American Graffiti” in 1973, top-billed “Happy Days” actor the next year and then as a director debuting with “Night Shift” in 1977 — we could take him lightly. By then I was reviewing films, and I overlooked him to a fault. I didn’t even give him credit for holding his own at 22 against John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Richard Boone, Scatman Crothers and Lauren Bacall in Don Siegel’s “The Shootist,” Wayne’s valedictory role. But he grew into someone to reckon with. He currently has 714 credits on IMDB, and I’ll bet they missed a few.
By the time of “Apollo 13” — 10 years after “Cocoon” — I had seen the light. He had become, like Jonathan Demme, a filmmaker whose next move was always surprising. I never bargained on getting to know either of them, but we all wound up on the board of the same movie theater and media arts center in the 2000s. With reviewing long behind me, I now talk with Ron there whenever a new film of his comes along.
What a series of revelations it’s been. His “niceness” evolved into a solid work ethic and a constantly inventive approach to whatever he does. His work is never showy but it’s always purposeful. His “Eight Days a Week” is the Beatles documentary that depicts their first visit to the U.S. from their point of view, not the fans’. His “Hillbilly Elegy” ran into flak for J. D. Vance-related reasons, but he intended it as a testament to people struggling to rise above their family situations — with a performance by Glenn Close that should have been prizewinning. His “Thirteen Lives” wastes not one second on fanfare or digressions, yet it’s an exquisitely structured nail-biter. And I don’t have to call it the best American film of 2022 —Paul Thomas Anderson did.
So now I look back at the long process that got us here. The theater recently had a gala for which Ron recorded a short clip, and he joked about all those reviews I wish he’d forgotten. He signed off by saying that maybe I’d been right, but that was too nice of him. I’ve gone back to his early features. They’re polished. They push boundaries. They show immense growth and taste. Their choices are expert. Most of all, they’re remembered. Ron Howard was right all along.
Janet Maslin was the longtime critic for the New York Times and is board president of the Jacob Burns Film Center.