Labyrinth

This was the last feature Jim Henson directed. Terry Jones holds the screenplay credit, but the shooting script also drew on Henson, George Lucas, Laura Phillips and Elaine May. The result is episodic: every corner of the maze is a puzzle that closes on itself. The thirteen hour deadline is rarely cut back to, so the pressure keeps dissolving between set pieces. Almost everything on screen is built by hand, with one exception. The barn owl in the opening titles was animated on a computer by Digital Productions, long before that was ordinary. Inside Hoggle is Shari Weiser, his face worked by radio control, with Brian Henson, also in the cast list, supplying the voice and the facial performance. David Bowie sings five songs, among them Magic Dance and Chilly Down, while Trevor Jones wrote the instrumental score. Jennifer Connelly was fourteen when she was cast, playing a character written as sixteen. The commercial failure hit Henson hard, and his son Brian described it as the closest he had seen his father come to turning inward. A good fit if you treat the songs and puppet set pieces as the point rather than delays to the rescue. Not for a small child, given the Chilly Down sequence where creatures pull off their own heads and reach for Sarah’s.