Jim Henson's *The Storyteller*: "The Soldier and Death" and the Pleasure of Narrative Pacing

So, last night we had some friends over for wine and board games. It was a 5 player game and I bowed out, being a host. And so, while everyone played, I sat on the couch and began to aimlessly wander through Netflix's offerings. In the course of these wanderings, I came to watch one of my favorite "film fantasys" of all time, an episode from Jim Henson's 1988 "live-action/puppet" television show, The Storyteller. The episode I watched was called, "The Solider and Death."

If you haven't seen Jim Henson's The Storyteller before, I highly recommend it to you. Here's the concept of the show: each episode takes an obscure, European folktale and relates it through live acting and puppets. There are German folk tales, Russian folk tales, and Celtic folktales. And they are all done, I think, quite well.

The one that has stuck with me the most is "The Soldier and Death," episode 5 of the first season. It stars Bob Peck as the soldier. It relates such a multifaceted and swirling plot that it's very difficult to summarize. Suffice it to say, it's about a miracle worker who, in spite of his humble beginnings, comes to capture death.

There are all sorts of reasons why this is such a good production. Let me try to highlight a few.

In terms of cinematography, this episode (and other ones) is "formally" and "technically" creative. It doesn't just rely upon scene to tell a story. It's utilizes many different "narrative modes". For example, the story isn't told primarily through showing the action of the events. Sometimes the plot is related through the spoken dialog of "the Storyteller" (played by John Hurt). Hurt's acting and storytelling abilities make the folktale thrill almost as much as the puppets and the effects. And the narrative pace is diversified. Sometimes you get slow-paced "scene" and detailed sets; other times you get "summary" and two-dimensional, abstract sets.

Devil puppets

To an extent, you have here three narrative levels: the storyteller telling the stories, the specific scenes where you see the protagonist talking with people and doing things, and the more two-dimensional, abstract scenes where large swaths of the narrative is related in a sentence or two.

Put briefly, this story is great because of its ability to master narrative pace. All in all, "The Soldier and Death" doesn't last any longer than 25 minutes; and yet, in the course of those 25 minutes, you see the main character going from a humble, homeless soldier to a miracle worker, to a kind of epic hero who visits both hell and heaven. You have in these 25 minutes enough material, I think, for a series of novels, but the treatment is such that, after the 25 minutes, you feel like you've truly been taken somewhere.

Another element of this production I love: the puppets. As a little kid, these demon puppets haunted me. After watching this, I had an entire series of nightmares, featuring these little red, be-horned fellas. When I would wake up in the middle of the night, I would imagine that if I looked out my window I would see a similar cabal of demons smiling and chortling there.