Joe Dante

Born in Morristown, New Jersey, on November 28, 1946, Joseph Dante, Jr. inherited his name from his father, a professional golfer. From a very young age he became an inveterate movie buff, a regular viewer of continuous session cinemas, opting above all for fantastic cinema and animation, his favorite genres, and he spent hours and hours glued to television, a new medium at that time. “I live permanently in the territory of childhood. I consider myself a big boy,” explained the director. As a teenager he became a regular contributor to the “Castle of Frankenstein” fanzine, dedicated to screen monsters.

Determined to become a professional in the films that he was so passionate about, he enrolled in cinematography at the Philadelphia College of Art. During his student days he produced the documentary The Movie Orgy , which is a nostalgic and delirious compilation of film fragments, TV shows and commercials from the 50s and 60s.

When he graduated, he got a job as a trailer editor for New World, the Roger Corman company , the man who also gave other illustrious representatives of ‘New Hollywood’ their first opportunity, such as Francis Ford Coppola , Martin Scorsese or Jonathan Demme . ” Roger Corman is an artist but mainly a businessman, interested above all in results”, says Dante. “But he gave us enormous creative freedom, more than I’ve had since working with other people.”

One day, Corman bragged that no one could film with a lower budget than the productions at his factory, when one of his collaborators, producer Jon Davison, replied that he was capable of producing an even cheaper film. A bet arose that Davison was determined to win. To do this, he put two of his lowest paid employees in charge of the film, Dante and his partner Allan Arkush , also dedicated to trailers.

That’s where Esas locas del cine arose , which is a kind of The Twilight of the Gods in the world of low-budget cinema. A screenwriter investigates a murder whose main suspect is his beloved, an actress. In his journey he covers the filming of emblematic New World films, such as The Death Race of the year 2000 , so the young filmmakers were able to use a lot of footage from other films, save sequences and thus get Davison to win the stake. The representative of the protagonist is played by Dick Miller , a regular at Corman’s cinema, and in fact at a certain moment the characters enter a cinema to see one of their main joint films: Terror. Dante was so grateful to him for lending his support to Miller, an idol to him since his earliest childhood, that since then he would give him a small role in all his films (most memorable, as the neighbor who nicknames the creatures in Gremlins ).

In the footsteps of Steven Spielberg

Surprised by his professionalism, Corman put the young Dante in charge of one of his big projects as a producer. He had just swept the billboards with Jaws , by Steven Spielberg, which caused bathers all over the world to become afraid of the beaches. The man who made 100 films in Hollywood and never lost a penny decided to take advantage of the pull with Piranha , also an aquatic horror. While such ‘exploitation film’ titles tend to be a disastrous copy of the original, Dante was right to take a very humorous approach to his film, revolving around two guys who accidentally release voracious genetically modified piranhas from a military installation.

Even Spielberg was delighted. Dante then shot Howls (1981) , an adaptation of a novel by Gary Brandner (with a script by John Sayles ) that gave a twist to the myth of the werewolf, with special effects rarely seen so far, which overwhelmed the viewer. King Midas also particularly liked it, so he decided to call Dante to offer him to direct a fragment of the collective film On the Limits of Reality (1983) , a tribute to the famous television series created by Rod Serling , one of Dante’s favorites. in his infancy.

The filmmaker shot the best episode, the third, around a boy with superpowers who has his entire family trapped. The best, the spinning monster in the style of the Tasmanian devil from the Warner drawings. Spielberg decided to sponsor a solo film by Dante, along the lines of his fantastic productions, which, backed by his name, filled theaters in the mid-1980s, while he as a director had decided to turn to realistic productions, from The Color 1985 purple .

This is how Dante filmed his best-known title, Gremlins , a mix of comedy and horror scripted by Chris Columbus , which grossed more than $153 million worldwide, a huge amount for the time, especially when you take into account which cost 6. I earn even more money from merchandising – all kinds of dolls of the ‘little monsters’ from the film became fashionable among the youngest. Even the critics gave their approval. “It’s a sophisticated and intelligent movie,” Roger Ebert commented. “But don’t go see it if you still believe in Santa Claus,” explained the famous commentator, referring to one of the most shocking and remembered moments, where Phoebe Cates explained why she hated Christmas to the protagonist,, who has been given a strange creature called Gizmo by his father. The tragedy is triggered by not respecting three simple rules well-known by fans of the fantastic (do not expose him to light, do not get him wet and do not feed him after midnight).

Particularly discreet about his private life, not even Joe Dante ‘s passionate followers know much about him, except for isolated details such as that his wife, Sylvia Dante, appeared playing a nun in Rock’n’Roll High School , a film that the director co-wrote at the beginning of his career that he had the presence of the well-known musical group Ramones.

time of decline

After Explorers , a failed film about three children who build their own spaceship, Joe Dante shot again with Steven Spielberg the entertaining The Miraculous Chip , a tribute to Amazing Voyage , where a miniaturized pilot ( Dennis Quaid ) ends up being injected into the body of an employee from a supermarket.

With the end of his decade, the 80s, Dante’s career languishes, as the black comedy Thou shalt not kill… the neighbor , with Tom Hanks , from 89, hardly has any repercussions. He also fails with Gremlins 2: The Next Generation , which brought back all the main characters from the original and offers tributes to moviegoers. But the absence of Chris Columbus in the script is noticeable. In addition, the cinema was changing by leaps and bounds, and the way of working of Joe Danteit was quickly out of date. “Now there are many more tools and you can no longer make a monster with a puppet or an airplane hanging from a string because the viewer won’t believe it,” says Dante. “But sometimes it is forgotten that the important thing is the story, and the power of suggestion. When I was a child I was passionate about Suspense! , which was frightening because of what it insinuated. Today that happens with few films, although sometimes there are exceptions, like Pan’s Labyrinth .”

After Matinée , which pays tribute to the matinee sessions of his childhood and to the cinema of another B-series specialist, William Castle , Dante hits the mark with Little Warriors , which is a covert remake of Gremlins ., exchanging these beings for sophisticated toys. He added a clear message against extreme consumerism, and criticism of militarism. “Studios don’t want you to put any political elements into your movies, but sometimes if you can do it in a rather underhanded way you can get away with it. I think in some of my films I’ve done that,” explains the director. “I generally try to fit it into the story in a more underhanded way, so that the person who goes to the theater can choose to understand the political message or ignore it, and still enjoy the movie.”

With Looney Tunes. Back in action , a mix of live action with animation, the director fulfilled his dream of working on a film with Warner characters, with Bugs Bunny at the helm. In 2009, he ventured into three dimensions for the first time with 3D Fears , although in the last stage of his filmography, Dante has dedicated himself above all to television, as he has been responsible for two award-winning episodes of Masters of Horror , and for installments of some other series, like CSI: NY .