American Cinematographer - December 1992 - 38

Toys: A Magical
Wind-Up War
by Bob Fisher

Film

producers in search of the big

hit, take note: During the past four

Adam Greenberg, ASC has
photographed Three Men and. a
Baby, Ghost, Terminator 2: Judgment
Day and Sister Act. These four very
different films have something
important in common: audiences
years

loved them. All
at the box office,
and together

were

number

one

The film tells an allegorical
tale which takes place in a dream

world. The central conflict is estab¬
lished early on: a toy factory owner,
who has dedicated his life to the

factory and to his long-time em¬
ployees, is dying. Every day of his
life has been a pleasure for him, but
now that it's
coming to an end, he

they earned

toys. The new regime replaces

than $1.6
billion in world¬
wide ticket rev¬

some

production's
fanciful sets.
This page,
bottom: Leslie

(Williams) and
the General

(Michael
Gambon)
examine a tray
of hors
d'oeuvres.

Opposite: The
Central Park
Christmas

pageant, a
combination of

large-scale
props,

miniatures, and

in
holiday garb,

many extras
was

set up as a

background shot
to be

viewed

through the
office window
of the dying

factory owner.

36

of the old workers and takes

parts of the factory. Just when
it seems that cold corporate tactics
over

enues.

will

Coinci¬
dence? Perhaps.
Does
Green¬

cides to

triumph, however, the son de¬
fight back.
The resulting melee in¬
cludes epic battles between toy
armies. Tiny tanks and planes with
fearsome firepower blast each other

a
knack for select¬

of the

no

of events, recruits some of his
old cronies to build high-tech war

berg have

one

at a time when the public is
longer motivated to spend mil¬
lions of dollars designing and
building war weapons. The ex-gen¬
eral brother, unhappy with that
comes

turn

more

This page, top:
Greenberg on

clude Michael Gambon, Joan
Cusack, Robin Wright and rap star
LL Cool J.
The owner's request

into oblivion. In

ing scripts with
a

little

extra

sequence,

sized
in

carried around for

some

20 years,

pint-

a

bullets and mis¬
siles.

Greenberg
had
never
worked with
Levinson before

doesn't want the fruits of his labor
to die as well. The owner has two

potential heirs: his son and

a war-

Toys. In fact,
they had never
even crossed
paths. "They called
my agent, and asked if I wanted to
read it," Greenberg recalls. "I loved

veteran brother.

quite right for turning it into a

Deeming his son
too immature for the sole responsi¬

movie. Some deemed the script too

bility of running the factory, he asks

political, but the end of the Cold
War suddenly made the concept
more
palatable.

with the son,

American

December 1992

Cinematographer

a

toy plane

dogfight
against a vi¬
cious toy heli¬
copter spewing
a
mind-bog¬
gling array of

will unfold this Christmas, when
the "Greenberg Factor" will be
tested once again. The cinema¬

but somehow the timing was never

memorable

Williams pilots

magic in them?
Or are the consistently astonishing
ticket sales partially attributable to
a
special quality he brings to the
films he photographs?
Perhaps the explanation

tographer's latest gift to audiences
is Toys, an ambitious and abstract
fantasy film co-produced, co-written and directed by Barry Levinson
for his own company, Baltimore
Pictures (under the aegis of 20th
Century Fox).
Toys is an idea Levinson

one

his brother to take charge and

liams.

work
played by Robin Wil¬
Other featured players in¬

Produced by
Barry Levinson and Mark Johnson
Directed

by Barry Levinson
photography,
Adam Greenberg, ASC

Director of
American Cinematographer - December 1992

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