Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Sitting alone on an empty set, one of the great screen icons of the past 50 years takes a moment to reflect on his improbable success. \u201cHow did a frog make the big time?\u201d he wonders in that unmistakable dulcet croak. An answer to Kermit the Frog\u2019s question can be found in Jim Henson: Idea Man, a new biographical documentary directed by Ron Howard about the man behind (and the hand inside) the Muppets. Combining endearing backstage footage, archive interviews and present-day contributions from his family and former colleagues, it is a light-touch yet poignant tribute to Henson, who died in 1990. It paints him not just as a master puppeteer, but as an avant-garde artist and committed educator. The story begins with two ping pong balls and his mother\u2019s green coat, objects to which the young Henson gave life with glue, scissors and an unfettered imagination. This proto-muppet (a portmanteau of \u201cpuppet\u201d and \u201cmarionette\u201d) would evolve into Kermit the Frog, who was later joined by a whole troupe of weird and whimsical characters devised and operated by Henson, his then-wife Jane and puppeteer (and later filmmaker) Frank Oz. Ad spots and variety-show cameos soon paved the way for the landmark children\u2019s TV series Sesame Street in 1969 and then The Muppet Show in 1974, the madcap sketch show \u201cfronted\u201d by Kermit and the soign\u00e9e Miss Piggy. A cultural phenomenon by the late 1970s, it was dubbed \u201cthe most original thing that ever happened on the box\u201d by Orson Welles in a conversation with Henson featured here.Switching between clips from the shows and behind-the-scenes perspectives, the film both reminds us of the comic genius of Henson\u2019s characters and reveals the craft that went into imbuing inanimate materials with physicality and personalities. The joy, too; scenes showing Henson and Oz cracking each other up as they improvise bits as Sesame Street odd couple Bert and Ernie don\u2019t ruin the magic of muppetry, but enhance it.Idea Man is neither overly saccharine nor sanitised. Despite the involvement of Henson\u2019s children and Disney, who acquired the rights to the Muppets franchise from the Jim Henson Company in 2004, it largely resists bland hagiography. Alongside tributes to Henson\u2019s \u201csuperhuman\u201d qualities is a recognition of his human flaws. We hear how his charming innocence was tempered with anxiety and worn down by success; how his ambition yielded intense dissatisfaction; how his relentless drive forced his wife to sacrifice her own aspirations and his children to share their father with the rest of the world\u2019s kids.While the younger Hensons (all of whom are or were involved in the Jim Henson Company) are full of admiration for their father\u2019s achievements, many of their memories give an affecting sense of his absence rather than of his presence. Given that he remained rather closed-off and unknowable even to those closest to him, it\u2019s perhaps too much to expect Howard to crack the enigma of his subject in 110 minutes. But we do gain a renewed appreciation of his most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, muppetational work and legacy.\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606On Disney+ from May 31<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Sitting alone on an empty set, one of the great screen icons of the past 50 years takes a moment to reflect on his improbable success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-93193","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93194,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93193\/revisions\/93194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}