Homages, Ripoffs, and Coincidences

The Ship Between the Trees

2012-02-22T14:09:00.000-08:00

The Hunters (1958)

dir. Dick Powell

Apocalypto (2006)
dir. Mel Gibson

The Alien Ship

2012-02-22T14:04:00.000-08:00

Apocalypto (2006)
dir. Mel Gibson

District 9 (2009)
dir. Neil Blomkamp

The Shaft

2012-02-22T14:01:00.000-08:00

Star Wars (1977)
dir. George Lucas

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

dir. Robert Wise

The Bloody Hand

2012-02-20T15:24:00.000-08:00

Stray Dog (1949)
dir. Akira Kurosawa

Memories of Murder (2003)
dir. Bong Joon-ho

The Man from Nowhere (2010)

dir. Jeong-beom Lee

The Revolver

2012-02-19T23:05:00.000-08:00

Zero Day (2003)
dir. Ben Coccio

The Man from Earth (2007)
dir. Richard Schenkman

The Last Word

2012-02-19T19:26:00.000-08:00

Alien (1979)
dir. Ridley Scott

Alien: Resurrection (1997)
dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet

The Dark and Deep Woods

2012-02-19T00:39:00.000-08:00

The stilly woods
Grow dark and deep

The Poems of Archibald Lampman "Evening" (1899)
Archibald Lampman

The woods are lovely, dark and deep

New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" (1923)
Robert Frost

The Retreat

2012-02-15T22:31:00.000-08:00

This just occurred to me:

Joseph H. Lewis's 1952 war film Retreat, Hell! takes its title from a Marine slogan which means "we won't retreat." The poster, which prominently features an American soldier running away*, seems to have interpreted the title to be pro-retreat. Maybe like it means "retreat FROM hell." Odd.

* in fairness, he's running away as toughly as possible.

The Drill Instructor

2012-02-15T19:03:00.000-08:00

Wings (1927)

dir. William A. Wellman

Full Metal Jacket (1987)
dir. Stanley Kubrick

The Hunter

2012-02-15T16:20:00.000-08:00

The Hunters (1958)
dir. Dick Powell

Star Wars (1977)
dir. George Lucas

The Elevator Shaft

2012-02-14T23:58:00.000-08:00

Die Hard (1988)
dir. John McTiernan

Beyond the Black Rainbow (2012) (trailer)
dir. Panos Cosmatos

The Head Aloft

2012-02-14T23:46:00.000-08:00

David and Goliath (1866?)
Gustave Doré

Clash of the Titans (1981)
dir. Desmond Davis

Conan the Barbarian (1982)
dir. John Milius

The Director

2012-02-13T15:39:00.000-08:00

Bibi Andersson, Liv Ullman, Sven Nykvist and Ingmar Bergman take a break during the filming of Persona in 1965. (1965)

Unknown

Stardust Memories (1980)
dir. Woody Allen

Anyone know who took that Persona photo?

The Last Shot

2012-02-12T13:23:00.000-08:00

This post reveals the endings of A Serious Man and Take Shelter

A Serious Man (2009)
dir. Joel Coen

Take Shelter (2011)
dir. Jeff Nichols

The Ski Racer

2012-02-08T22:38:00.000-08:00

Ski Racer (1969)
dir. Paul Ryan

Downhill Racer (1969)
dir. Michael Ritchie

Ski Racer and Downhill Racer were both shot at the 1969 FIS Alpine Ski World Cup. Paul Ryan's camera crew is even in the background of Michael Ritchie's film. Downhill Racer has entered the canon, but Paul Ryan's excellent direct cinema film seems to have slipped through the cracks. I only discovered it through in a Film Quarterly back issue. It's worth a watch and the intertextuality - as it usually does - enhances both films.

The Villain with the Cat

2012-02-08T22:26:00.000-08:00

Shinobi no mono (1962)
dir. Satsuo Yamamoto

You Only Live Twice (1967)
dir. Lewis Gilbert

When English author Roald Dahl saw Shinobi no mono on a visit to Japan, he was sufficiently impressed to borrow from it for his screenplay for the James Bond script of You Only Live Twice.

The Subway Vent

2012-02-08T20:48:00.000-08:00

What Happened on 23rd Street, New York City (1901)
dir. Edwin S. Porter

The Seven Year Itch (1955)
dir. Billy Wilder

The Web By the River

2012-02-08T09:48:00.000-08:00

Great Adventure (1953)
dir. Arne Sucksdorff

The Night of the Hunter (1955)
dir. Charles Laughton

The Body in the Snow

2012-02-07T22:26:00.000-08:00

Joe (1970)
dir. John G. Avildsen

True Grit (2011)
dir. Joel Coen

Proposed Film Festival

2012-02-06T17:16:00.000-08:00

A Woman (1915, Chaplin)
Two Women (1960, De Sica)
3 Women (19777, Altman)
4 Little Girls (1997, Lee)
5 Branded Women (1960, Ritt)
Girl 6 (1996, Lee)
7 Women (1966, Ford)
8 Women (2002, Ozon)
Women in Cellblock 9 (1977, Franco)
Ten Dark Women (1961, Ichikawa)

The Lightship

2012-02-04T16:40:00.000-08:00

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine "Explorers" (1995)
dir. Cliff Bole

Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
dir. Jonathan Frakes

The Approach of Death

2012-02-04T08:57:00.000-08:00

Vampyr (1932)
dir. Carl Th. Dreyer

They Caught the Ferry (1948)
dir. Carl Th. Dreyer

The Death of the Undead

2012-02-01T21:55:00.000-08:00

Danse Macabre (1922)
dir. Dudley Murphy

Nosferatu (1922)
dir. F.W. Murnau

The Roof

2012-01-30T22:53:00.000-08:00

King of the Hill "Dale to the Chief" (2005)
dir. Anthony Lioi

Breaking Bad "I.F.T." (2010)
dir. Michelle MacLaren

The Sunset

2012-01-30T22:23:00.000-08:00

Raising Arizona (1987)
dir. Joel Coen

Breaking Bad "4 Days Out" (2009)
dir. Michelle MacLaren

The Raising Arizona cap is from Striped Wall.

The Barbed Wire

2012-01-28T19:29:00.000-08:00

Time Limit (1957)
dir. Karl Malden

Kapo (1960)
dir. Gillo Pontecorvo

This Kapo shot was famously ravaged by Serge Daney, in one of my favorite pieces of film writing.

The Shooting (2)

2012-01-28T17:04:00.000-08:00

Hellfire (1949)
dir. R.G. Springsteen

Punishment Park (1971)
dir. Peter Watkins

The Lovers on the River

2012-01-26T14:18:00.000-08:00

L'Hirondelle et la Mésange (1920)
dir. André Antoine

An Education (2009)
dir. Lone Scherfig

The Serene Strangler

2012-01-26T13:37:00.001-08:00

No Country for Old Men (2007)
dir. Joel Coen

I Saw the Devil (2010)
dir. Kim Ji-woon

The Tunnel

2012-01-26T13:31:00.000-08:00

Memories of Murder (2003)
dir. Bong Joon-ho

I Saw the Devil (2010)
dir. Kim Ji-woon

The Ear in the Field

2012-01-25T23:24:00.001-08:00

Blue Velvet (1986)
dir. David Lynch

I Saw the Devil (2010)
dir. Kim Ji-woon

The Light through the Window

2012-01-25T16:08:00.000-08:00

Rooms by the Sea (1951)
Edward Hopper

Ramses Hilton Under Construction, Cairo (1980)
Adam Bartos

The Reflection

2012-01-25T15:09:00.000-08:00

The Artist (2011)
dir. Michel Hazanaviciuse

Captain America (2011)
dir. Joe Johnston

from Egbert Souse

The Outlaw's Illegitimate Son

2012-01-24T11:34:00.000-08:00

The Outlaw (1943)
dir. Howard Hughes

Outlaw's Son (1957)
dir. Lesley Selander

Outlaw's Son is NOT a sequel to The Outlaw. Just a hanger-on.

The Readout

2012-01-23T23:55:00.000-08:00

The X-Files "Blood" (1994)
dir. David Nutter

American Psycho (2000)
dir. Mary Harron

The Atomized Man

2012-01-20T19:07:00.000-08:00

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
dir. Robert Wise

Altered States (1980)
dir. Ken Russell

The First Attack

2012-01-19T00:24:00.000-08:00

The Flesh Eaters (1964) (first scene)
dir. Jack Curtis

Jaws (1975) (first scene)
dir. Steven Spielberg

The Race Through the Rows

2012-01-18T22:06:00.000-08:00

A Thousand Clowns (1965)
dir. Fred Coe

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
dir. Sergio Leone

The Flasher

2012-01-17T22:20:00.000-08:00

One Week (1920)
dir. Buster Keaton

Arrested Development "Missing Kitty" (2004)
dir. Joe Russo

Arrested Development gif from Random Tuesday.

The Horse's Eye

2012-01-17T19:42:00.000-08:00

Zoo (2007)
dir. Robinson Devor

War Horse (2011)
dir. Steven Spielberg

The First Contact

2012-01-17T18:58:00.001-08:00

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
dir. Steven Spielberg

Attack the Block (2011)
dir. Joe Cornish

Un-Tinted Movies

2012-01-15T17:35:00.000-08:00

The Matrix (1999)
dir. The Wachowski Brothers

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
dir. Peter Jackson

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
dir. Wes Anderson

The Mask

2012-01-12T21:06:00.000-08:00

Amadeus (1984)
dir. Milos Forman

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
dir. Stanley Kubrick

The Hall of Giants

2012-01-11T19:55:00.000-08:00

Untitled (1972)
Zdzislaw Beksinski

Star Trek: The Animated Series "The Infinite Vulcan" (1973)
dir. Hal Sutherland

The Shooting

2012-01-11T18:41:00.001-08:00

Hellfire (1949)
dir. R.G. Springsteen

Blackthorn (2011)
dir. Mateo Gil

The Detective

2012-01-09T23:39:00.000-08:00

Farewell, My Lovely (1975)
dir. Dick Richards

Blade Runner (1982)
dir. Ridley Scott

The White Dinner

2012-01-09T23:37:00.000-08:00

The Perfect Human (1967)
dir. Jørgen Leth

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
dir. Stanley Kubrick

The Stalemate

2012-01-08T22:03:00.000-08:00

M*A*S*H "The Yalu Brick Road" (1979)
dir. Charles S. Dubin

King of the Hill "Pregnant Paws" (1998)
dir. Charles Moeller

The Man at the Window

2012-01-08T11:52:00.000-08:00

Damnation (1988)
dir. Béla Tarr

The Turin Horse (2011)
dir. Béla Tarr

The Worst Prediction in Film History

2012-01-06T00:25:00.001-08:00

"There are certain tricks of the trade the movie will outgrow. It will surely outgrow, for instance, that trick technically known as the 'cut back,' which shifts the scenes back and forth in the irresponsible and mischievous manner of the dancing spot of light reflected from the mirror in a small boy's hand. The film director, flushed with the realization that he could move about with a freedom unknown to the stage, has been so delighted with this liberty that he has indulged himself incontinently, without pausing to consider that he might be playing havoc with the precious element called tension. It is easy to predict that the cut back, and similar evidences of restlessness, will fade gradually from the screens."

The New York Times' April 1915 review of Birth of a Nation.

The Spider Web

2012-01-05T17:14:00.000-08:00

The Strangling Hand (1920)
dir. Cornelius Hintner

Lost Paradise (1978)
dir. Harry Kümel

The Out of Focus Conversation

2012-01-04T17:47:00.000-08:00

Alien 2: On Earth (1980)
dir. Ciro Ippolito

Battlestar Galactica "Resurrection Ship, Part 2"
dir. Michael Rymer

Two Like Me

2012-01-02T15:59:00.000-08:00

Here's a couple of cool links in the vein of this blog.

Perpetual Anticipation did a cool post about two comedy descendants of Revenge of the Nerds. He also did another comparing Gattaca and In Time.

The Springfield Historical Society is a dizzying collection of homages in The Simpsons. It's rendered all my Simpsons posts obsolete.

Check em out!

The Lonely Drinker

2012-01-01T18:52:00.000-08:00

Casablanca (1942)
dir. Michael Curtiz

Captain America (2011)
dir. Joe Johnston

The Woman Enters

2012-01-01T18:50:00.000-08:00

History is Made at Night (1937)

dir. Frank Borzage

Casablanca (1942)
dir. Michael Curtiz

The Gun

2012-01-01T08:38:00.000-08:00

The Twilight Zone "The Passerby" (1961)
dir. Elliot Silverstein

Meek's Cutoff (2011)
dir. Kelly Reichardt

The Meeting

2012-01-01T08:31:00.000-08:00

The Godfather (1972)
dir. Francis Ford Coppola

Miller's Crossing (1991)
dir. Joel Coen

Atlas Shrugged: Part 1 (2011)
dir. Paul Johannson

from Pigeon Shamus

The Chimp

2011-12-30T13:18:00.000-08:00

Project Nim (2011)
dir. James Marsh

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
dir. Rupert Wyatt

The Royal We

2011-12-29T23:48:00.000-08:00

"I thought we'd drop in on young Richard for a bit."
"We?"
"Uh, 'we' in the sense of visiting royalty. […] I am referring to the editorial we."

The Invisible Woman (1940)
written by Curt Siodmak, Joe May, Robert Lees, Frederic I. Rinaldo & Gertrude Purcell

"We dropped off the damn money."
"We?"
"I! The Royal 'we'! You know, the editorial..."

The Big Lebowski (1998)
written by Joel and Ethan Coen

The Archeology Class

2011-12-29T12:33:00.000-08:00

The Mummy's Ghost (1944)
dir. Reginald Le Borg

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
dir. Steven Spielberg

The Duel

2011-12-29T12:30:00.001-08:00

Barry Lyndon (1975)
dir. Stanley Kubrick

The Duellists (1977)
dir. Ridley Scott

Proposed Double Features #2

2011-12-28T22:35:00.000-08:00

That Obscure Object of Desire (1977) and The Duellists (1977)

"This story is about an eccentric kind of hunger." - The Duellists

Most of the films of 1977 are obscured by the tidal wave of Star Wars, but among other things it produced the last film of one of cinema's true visionaries, Luis Buñuel's That Obscure Object of Desire, and the first film of another of cinema's true visionaries, Ridley Scott's The Duellists.

Each is a story of "an eccentric kind of hunger" - in the case of The Duellists, it is the hunger for honor. Keith Carradine's Napoleonic soldier d'Hubert doesn't know why his fellow soldier, Harvey Keitel's Féraud, wants so badly to fight him, but his deep and inarticulate ("honor is... indescribable, unchallengeable," he strains) need to preserve his honor locks them into a years-long series of increasingly violent duels. Against this, France's bloody wars unspool, hardly noticed and bleeding into one another.

In That Obscure Object of Desire, it is Mathieu's (Fernando Rey) hunger for sex which drives the action. The film charts the years-long foreplay of a sexual cat and mouse game between Mathieu and Conchita, his one-time maid played brilliantly and interchangeably by both Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina. Against this, a bloody French revolution unspools, hardly noticed by the wealthy protagonist.

What strikes me about That Obscure Object of Desire is the way each sexual encounter mutates into a bitter power struggle. Mathieu hardly knows a thing about Conchita, but he speaks deeply and constantly of his love for her. This is because he wants to conquer her. For him, sex itself is a fetish. It's a symbol of his power. d'Hubert treats honor in much the same way. It's a perverse worldview of his - he must maintain, no matter how insane a choice it is.

Two battlegrounds.

We never quite know the motives of Féraud or Conchita, but it's clear that their dark secret involves sublimating passion into power - the only real difference is that Féraud's is an angry passion, Conchita's a loving one.

Each sexual encounter and each duel seems to promise fulfillment. One man will die, and Mathieu and Conchita will finally have sex. Yet time and time again, from nation to nation, room to room, year to year, fulfillment is denied. The duellists stubbornly survive, the lovers stubbornly refuse to make love.

Sex and death spin at the center of Luis Buñuel's work and at the center of Ridley Scott's, and here in the final and first films of their respective careers, they both reached at the same study of drawn-out, obsessive hungers. They're practically the same film... aside from the fact that they're totally different.

The Lobby

2011-12-28T10:51:00.000-08:00

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
dir. Stanley Kubrick

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
dir. Stanley Kubrick

both pictures from Screen Musings

The Injustice

2011-12-27T20:25:00.000-08:00

Until earlier today when I credited her for a few notable roles, the wonderful actress Theresa Harris was not credited for a single movie on the movie aggregator Criticker. That means she wasn't acknowledged for 1942's Cat People, in which she steals the show with a single scene as a feisty waitress, or for 1933's Baby Face, in which she displays amazing chemistry as a second lead.

Criticker is a wonderful site, and I'm not accusing the contributors of any malice here. I think she slipped through the cracks, and I'm pretty sure this happened because as a black woman, she was far down on the cast list even for movies she starred in. As great an actress and as beautiful a woman as she was, it's still an uphill battle for her to get any recognition, these many decades later.

Just a reminder of the lingering spirit of Hollywood's sad legacy of racial exclusion.

The Woman in Bed

2011-12-27T16:12:00.000-08:00

Citizen Kane (1941)
dir. Orson Welles

Lolita (1962)
dir. Stanley Kubrick

The Triad (2)

2011-12-26T11:00:00.000-08:00

Interiors (1978)
dir. Woody Allen

Submarine (2010)
dir. Richard Ayoade

from Sheldrake

The Painting

2011-12-26T10:56:00.000-08:00

Untitled (pre 1973)

Henry Darger

Battle Royale (2000)
dir. Kinji Fukasaku

from fenix down

The Triad

2011-12-26T10:52:00.000-08:00

Hotel Lobby (1943)
Edward Hopper

Beware of a Holy Whore (1971)
dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder

The Wonderful Life

2011-12-25T10:07:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, you old blog people.

The Clouds

2011-12-24T11:43:00.000-08:00

Toy Story (1995)
dir. John Lasseter

Toy Story 3 (2010) (last shot)
dir. Lee Unkrich

The Jungle Gym

2011-12-24T11:14:00.000-08:00

Bart's Friend Falls in Love (1992)
dir. Jim Reardon

Let the Right One In (2008)
dir. Tomas Alfredson

The Monster's Bride

2011-12-24T09:16:00.000-08:00

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
dir. James Whale

The Mummy's Ghost (1944)
dir. Reginald Le Borg

The Ship Piercing the Atmosphere

2011-12-22T14:26:00.000-08:00

Alien (1979)
dir. Ridley Scott

Aliens (1986)
dir. James Cameron

Avatar (2009)
dir. James Cameron

Prometheus (2012) (trailer)
dir. Ridley Scott

Okay this one is a little convoluted so bear with me:

In 1979, Ridley Scott films the landing sequence in Alien as a visceral bumpy, wind-whipped roller-coaster ride. It's the first time I've ever seen that in a film - a conscious rejection of the scientifically-smooth landings of prior science fiction. The ship seems to pierce through the atmosphere with physical exertion, punching through layers of shrieking clouds.

In 1986, James Cameron helms the sequel, Aliens, and embellishes that same visceral whip-whipped ride with an extended sequence of a small dropship piercing the atmosphere. The scene's central image is an all-too-brief eerily beautiful shot of the dropship suspended in the white plains of the clouds.

In 2007, Ridley Scott declares "science fiction is dead."

In 2009, James Cameron pushes the tech barrier and drops Avatar, a central image of which is a small dropship piercing the atmosphere. This time, Cameron lingers on the eerie beauty of it, emphasizing the majestic contrails and pulling back far enough that the bumpiness of the ride levels out.

Suddenly, in early 2010, Ridley Scott decides to return to science fiction, shooting a film on the same rig James Cameron invented for Avatar. Scott's project is Prometheus - a prequel to Alien and Aliens. The trailer, which was released today, includes a powerful image of a small ship piercing the atmosphere, pulled back even farther than Cameron's Avatar, cutting a line though the majesty of the cloud layer, but also framed between inhospitable rock faces which bring the image back to its rugged origins on the uninhabitable wasteland of Alien. To top it off, it's underneath title text which uses the same iconic reveal as Alien's does.

This central image of a lone ship in the clouds is at the heart of Ridley Scott's first major success, James Cameron's first big budget success, and James Cameron's record-breaking grand-slam which certainly inspired the latest film - Ridley Scott's return to the genre that made him, and to the film series which made them both.

It's a dizzy little ouroboros, isn't it?

The Boat

2011-12-21T16:16:00.000-08:00

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
dir. Frank Darabont

Never Let Me Go (2010)
dir. Mark Romanek

The Clenched Teeth

2011-12-20T22:11:00.000-08:00

I Married a Strange Person! (1997)
dir. Bill Plympton

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
dir. Quentin Tarantino

The Crime Scene

2011-12-20T21:23:00.000-08:00

Woyzeck (1979)
dir. Werner Herzog

Memories of Murder (2003)
dir. Bong Joon-Ho

The Mountaineers

2011-12-20T11:31:00.001-08:00

The Gold Rush (1925)
dir. Charles Chaplin

Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1972)
dir. Werner Herzog

The Locked Door

2011-12-19T13:46:00.000-08:00

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)

dir. Sidney Lanfield

The Shining (1980)
dir. Stanley Kubrick

The Globe Dance

2011-12-19T11:59:00.000-08:00

Douglas Fairbanks Home Movie of Charles Chaplin (1929)
dir. Douglas Fairbanks

The Great Dictator (1940)
dir. Charles Chaplin

from Kevin Brownlow and David Gill's Unknown Chaplin.

The Commander

2011-12-16T22:23:00.000-08:00

Wooden Crosses (1932)
dir. Raymond Bernard

Paths of Glory (1957)
dir. Stanley Kubrick

The Overpass

2011-12-15T12:46:00.000-08:00

The Simpsons "32 Short Films about Springfield" 1996
dir. Jim Reardon

King of the Hill "Plastic White Female" (1997)
dir .Jeff Myers

The Swamp

2011-12-15T12:40:00.000-08:00

Louisiana Story (1948)
dir. Robert J. Flaherty

Seminole (1953)
dir. Budd Boetticher

The Bedroom

2011-12-12T22:52:00.000-08:00

Bedroom in Arles (1888)
Vincent Van Gogh

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
dir. Robert Wiene

"Vincent Van Gogh did have a child of course, Expressionism." - Simon Schama

The Roll in the Hay

2011-12-12T22:48:00.001-08:00

The Outlaw (1943)
dir. Howard Hughes

Cairo Station (1958)
dir. Youssef Chahine

The Counter Sniper

2011-12-12T22:44:00.000-08:00

Two-Minute Warning (1976)
dir. Larry Peerce

Saving Private Ryan (1998)
dir. Steven Spielberg

The Cave

2011-12-12T22:38:00.000-08:00

Ramrod (1947)
dir. André De Toth

The Searchers (1956)
dir. John Ford

The Drink of Water

2011-12-12T22:36:00.000-08:00

L'Amore (1948)
dir. Roberto Rossellini

The Searchers (1956)
dir. John Ford

The Edge of the Frame

2011-12-12T22:31:00.000-08:00

Birth of a Nation (1915)
dir. D.W. Griffith

O. Henry's Full House "The Last Leaf" (1952)
dir. Jean Negulesco

The Stained Glass

2011-12-12T22:23:00.000-08:00

Network (1976)
dir. Sidney Lumet

Hana-bi (1997)
dir. Takeshi Kitano

The Droogs

2011-12-09T09:32:00.000-08:00

A Clockwork Orange (1971)
dir. Stanley Kubrick

The Incubus (1982)
dir. John Hough

The Ocean Walker

2011-12-07T22:44:00.000-08:00

Taris (1931)
dir. Jean Vigo

Being There (1979)
dir. Hal Ashby

The Vampire

2011-12-06T10:11:00.000-08:00

Lost Hearts (1973)
dir. Lawrence Gordon Clark

Salem's Lot (1979)
dir. Tobe Hooper

The Biker

2011-12-05T22:16:00.000-08:00

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
dir. David Lean

Akira (1988)
dir. Katsuhiro Otomo

The Power of Shadows

2011-12-03T12:18:00.000-08:00

Thought I would mix things up today and just talk about something I love: shadowplay. Proper placement of a shadow can transform a good scene into a great one. Don't believe me? Go re-watch The Searchers and pay attention as Scar's shadow cut across Debbie and the grave.

But everybody knows the heavy hitters - everyone's seen Nosferatu's shadow creep up the staircase and clutch Greta's heart (at least I hope so, otherwise what have you been doing with your time?), and everybody remembers those amazing shadows Jessica Chastain casts across the screen in Tree of Life. Let's focus on a few less-remembered moments in shadowy cinema.

First up, Abel Ferrara's divisive third version of Jack Finney's novel The Body Snatchers, 1993's Body Snatchers. In this scene, EPA agent Steve Malone is asked some disturbing questions while taking soil samples. It's an early scene which lays the groundwork for the film's mistrust of the military and the character's creeping realization that he's in over his head.

Look at those shadows behind him! Eerie! He has no where to run, and what's worse - he doesn't even see them behind him. We have the sick sensation that they're creeping up on him from behind. Plus, the doubling effect impeccably compliments the film's themes. What are the pod people, after all, but dark shadows of us?

Body Snatchers (1993)
dir. Abel Ferrara

It doesn't always have to be eerie, though. The 1950 bomb The Cosmic Man has very little to offer a viewer. It's a cheap knock-off of The Day the Earth Stood Still, with poor acting and a worse script. Perhaps because of these deficits, it has a few really striking shots. This shot, our first glimpse of the hero, is my favorite of the lot.

How do you introduce a dull protagonist? How do you convince the audience, in a single shot, that this schmo is vital and important?

You circle his head and put a bunch of arrows around it. I've tried to think of another word for it, but the one I keep coming back to time and again is "ballsy." That is one ballsy move.

The Cosmic Man (1959)
dir. Herbert S. Greene

Next up is by far the most celebrated shot of the three, but one that's still under-discussed. In Wim Wenders' 1987 masterpiece Wings of Desire, there's a moment at a Nick Cave concert when the angel Cassiel realizes his friend Damiel has fallen in love with a human. He becomes sullen and leans against the far wall of the concert hall, reflecting on his friend and the realization that he may be alone from now on. The stage lighting shines on him, diffusing his shadow into three images which climb up the wall over and over as the lights cycle.

Bryant Frazer, notably quoted in Roger Ebert's Great Movies review of the film, characterizes this moment as "watching Cassiel's very essence fragmenting before our eyes." I'm not sure that's all there is to it. It's a hard moment in the film, but in many ways it's a film about rising up from hard moments. Cassiel's shadow infinitely rising, falling, and rising again taps into the film's hopes about us. It's also what drew Damiel towards humans in the first place - the small ups and downs of our lives. For the angels, life is a long and steady process of observation, while we humans rise and fall a million times every day.

It's a complicated and centrally important image. I have only scratched its surface. It's also uniquely beautiful - a moment in which proper control over a shadow turned a good moment into lasting artistic greatness.

Wings of Desire (1987)
dir. Wim Wenders

The Wizards

2011-11-29T17:38:00.000-08:00

The Raven (1963)

dir. Roger Corman

Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
dir. John Carpenter

The Beach

2011-11-29T17:31:00.000-08:00

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956)

dir. Fred F. Sears

Planet of the Apes (1968)
dir. Franklin J. Schaffner

The Giant

2011-11-25T14:05:00.000-08:00

The Haunted House (1908)
dir. Segundo de Chomon

House (1977)
dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi

The Ad Campaign

2011-11-22T22:23:00.000-08:00

8mm filmstrip with sound. from Walden

Jonas Mekas

Super 8 (2011)
dir. J.J. Abrams

Super 8 cartridge

Super 8 (2011)

dir. J.J. Abrams

The Guard

2011-11-22T14:09:00.000-08:00

Claws for Alarm (1954)
dir. Charles M. Jones

Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)
dir. James Cameron

The Hero

2011-11-22T13:44:00.000-08:00

Shane (1953)
dir. George Stevens

Cyborg 2087 (1966)
dir. Franklin Adreon