Scene Selection — Geoff Carter: Raimi well-suited for ‘Spider-Man’

Friday, Nov. 8, 2002 | 9:42 a.m.

Geoff Carter is a Seattle based free-lance film critic and entertainment writer. Reach him at carter@pre2k.com.

Sam Raimi, director of the "Evil Dead" movies and last summer's record-breaking hit "Spider-Man," wears a suit and tie on the sets of his films. He does it out of respect for the profession, as a nod to Hitchcock and other greats who refused to show up to work looking like softball coaches.

Directors play hardball, and if you're going to take hold of a $100 million production and an army of actors and directors, you had better look good doing the job.

But there's another reason, I suspect, why Raimi wears the suit: He does it to hide the fact that he's an anarchist -- a tail-biter who's been dogging the major studios for years, generating a fan base that escapes such better-funded hacks as Tony Scott and Michael Bay.

Raimi, with the help of the Coen brothers, B-list actor Bruce Campbell and "Xena: Warrior Princess," has done something few living directors have done: He's earned his own section at the video store.

The DVD of "Spider-Man" (Columbia Tri-Star Home Video, $28) is a fine addition to that section, despite having a budget previously beyond Raimi's wildest imagination. All the Raimi trademarks are in place: the wild camera moves, the terrific montage sequences, an actor delivering a bravura performance to a mirror -- even Bruce Campbell, in a small but significant role.

The fact that the film is based on one of the most popular comic-book superheroes of all time doesn't hurt, either.

This two-disc set is very much Raimi's playground, as much as it is that of Marvel Comics. Raimi provides a highly informative and personable commentary, and was probably instrumental in getting a mini-documentary of composer Danny Elfman on the disc -- an all-too-rare recognition of the former Oingo Boingo frontman's darkly beautiful scoring style.

Stars Tobey Maguire, Willem Dafoe and Kirsten Dunst have nothing but genuine praise for the director and film, and in speaking of it reveal several fascinating details.

I would never have suspected that Dafoe did most of his own stunt work, or that Maguire had to be sewn into the title character's trademark red-and-blue costume.

And fans of Raimi's films will be happy to know that a certain omnipresent 1973 Oldsmobile is extensively discussed.

Raimi, for his own part, speaks only of his love for the story, the Spider-Man character -- and unlike other directors trying on the same kind of humility, we believe him.

Another dominant presence on the disc is that of "Spider-Man" creator Stan Lee. Though the 79-year-old Lee only makes a couple of brief appearances in the collateral materials -- and the briefest of appearances in the film -- the filmmakers speak of him with a reverence not generally accorded to comic-book artists outside of comic shops.

Lee's illustrations are used to accompany captions, and Raimi lauds his storytelling style as a tremendous influence.

It's good to see Stan "The Man" getting his props after years of choking on the dust of such DC characters as Batman and Superman, both of which got big-budget movies while his characters languished in B-movie limbo.

Though Raimi is the man in the suit and tie, he makes certain that Lee gets all the respect. Not even Hitchcock would have gone to such lengths.