But by far the biggest story was the news that Panavision, Arri and Aaton were to stop making film cameras: although the celluloid projection will effectively be over by 2013, it seems the death of 35mm capture is only a few years away.
So the medium of film, will soon no longer involve celluloid. That’s a pretty big deal.
As for the releases this year, it seemed a lot worse than it actually was.
Look beyond the unimaginative sequels and you might be surprised to find that there are interesting films across a variety of genres.
Instead of artifically squeezing the standout films into a top ten, below are the films that really impressed me in alphabetical order, followed by honourable mentions that narrowly missed the cut but are worth seeking out.
THE BEST FILMS OF 2011
A Separation (Dir. Asghar Farhadi): This Iranian family drama explored emotional depths and layers that few Western films even began to reach this year.
Drive (Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn): Nicolas Winding Refn brought a European eyeĀ to this ultra-stylish LA noir with a killer soundtrack and performances.
Hugo (Dir. Martin Scorsese): The high-priest of celluloidĀ channelledĀ his inner child to create a stunning digital tribute to one of the early pioneers of cinema.
Jane Eyre (Dir. Cary Fukunaga): An exquisite literary adaptation with genuine depth, feeling and two accomplished lead performers that fitted their roles like a glove.
Margin Call (Dir. J.C. Chandor): The best drama yet to come out the financialĀ crisis is this slow-burn acting masterclass which manages to clarify the empty heart of Wall Street.
Melancholia (Dir. Lars von Trier): Despite the Cannes controversy, his stylish vision of an apocalyptic wedding was arguably his best film, filled with memorable images and music.
Moneyball (Dir. Bennett Miller): The philosophy that changed a sport was rendered into an impeccably crafted human drama by director Bennett Miller with the help of Brad Pitt.
Project Nim (Dir. James Marsh): A chimpanzee raised as a human was the extraordinary and haunting subject of this documentary from James Marsh.
Rango (Dir. Gore Verbinski): The best animated film of 2011 came from ILMs first foray into the medium as they cleverly riffed on classic westerns and Hollywood movies.
Senna (Dir. Asif Kapadia): A documentary about the F1 driver composed entirely from existing footage made for riveting viewing and a truly emotional ride.
Shame (Dir. Steve McQueen): The follow up to Hunger was a powerful depiction of sexual compulsion in New York, featuring powerhouse acting and pin-sharp cinematography.
Snowtown (Dir. Justin Kerzel): Gruelling but brilliant depiction of an Australian murder case, which exposed modern horror for the empty gorefest it has become.
Take Shelter (Dir. Jeff Nichols): Wonderfully atmospheric blend of family drama and Noah’s Ark which brilliantly played on very modern anxieties of looming apocalypse.
The Artist (Dir. Michel Hazanavicius): An ingenious love letter to the silent era of Hollywood is executed with an almost effortless brilliance.
The Descendants (Dir. Alexander Payne): Pitch-perfect comedy-drama which saw Alexander Payne return to give George Clooney his best ever role.
The Guard (Dir. John Michael McDonagh): Riotously funny Irish black comedy with Brendan Gleeson given the role of his career.
The Interrupters (Dir. Steve James): The documentary of the year was this powerful depiction of urban violence and those on the frontline trying to prevent it.
The Skin I Live In (Dir. Pedro Almodovar): The Spanish maestro returned with his best in years, as he skilfully channeled Hitchcock and Cronenberg.
The Tree of Life (Dir. Terrence Malick): Moving and mindblowing examination of childhood, death and the beginnings of life on earth.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Dir Tomas Alfredson): Wonderfully crafted John le Carre adaptation which resonates all too well in the current era of economic and social crisis.
Tyrannosaur(Dir. Paddy Considine): Searingly emotional drama with two dynamite lead performances and an unexpected Spielberg reference.
We Need To Talk About Kevin (Dir. Lynne Ramsey): Audio-visual masterclass from Ramsay with a now predictably great performance from Tilda Swinton.
Win Win (Dir. Thomas McCarthy): Quietly brilliant comedy-drama with Paul Giamatti seemingly born to act in this material.
David Fincher brings his full digital armoury to Stieg Larsson‘s bestseller and the result is a masterful adaptation hampered only by the limitations of the source material.
When journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is hired by the patriarch of a rich Swedish family (Christopher Plummer) to investigate the disappearance of a family member in the 1960s, he eventually crosses paths with computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) as they gradually uncover a web of intrigue in a society with many dark secrets.
Major Hollywood studios have shied away from making adult dramas in recent years, so Sony giving a director free reign on dark tale of conspiracy, rape and murder represented something of a risk.
Inevitable is perhaps a misleading word, because although it was highly likely they would produce a version, one might have expected that they would tone down the darker elements of the book to appeal to a wider audience.
But given that the mix of graphic sexual violence and conspiracy plays such a large part in their appeal, Sony and MGM faced a quandary.
Do they dilute them down to a PG-13 and risk a fan backlash?
Or create that rare thing in the modern era, a wide release for adult audience?
They opted for the latter and recruited none other than director David Fincher, who had just made The Social Network for the studio and has a track record of police procedural thrillers.
It just so happens that the end result contains elements of Seven (a serial killer movie with gothic elements), Zodiac (a slow burn drama that looks into the mystery of the past) and the aforementioned The Social Network (the story of an outsider who uses technology to outwit people).
From the startling opening credits, it is clear that we are in Fincher-land: the impeccable compositions, polished design, razor-sharp visuals and haunted protagonists all feel a natural part of his filmmaking landscape.
The screenplay by Steven Zaillian does a highly effective job at compressing the sprawling strands of the novel into a coherent whole.
Those familiar with the book might know that Salander and Mikael are kept apart for a large part of the story and the resulting investigation involves a raft of supporting characters as the elusive history of the Vanger family slowly emerges.
Zaillian has largely stayed faithful to the book, but also added some welcome improvements – especially in the latter stages – whilst the editing by Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter is remarkably precise and efficient in keeping the story moving.
Before filming began much attention was focused on who would get the coveted role of Lisbeth Salander and Rooney Mara delivers a powerful performance in what is a challenging role, both mentally and physically.
Daniel Craig conveys a certain rugged charm as Blomkvist and when they finally get together their unlikely chemistry clicks into place nicely, bridging the gender and generational divide which have been a large part of the book’s global appeal.
The illustrious supporting cast also do solid work: Plummer is wholly believable as the head of the Vanger clan; Stellan Skarsgard is sly and charming as his son; whilst actors like Steven Berkoff, Robin Wright, Joely Richardson and Geraldine James expertly fill out key smaller roles.
All of these elements are marshalled with military precision by Fincher, who has delivered a technically brilliant adaptation of the source material, which should satisfy the global fanbase.
There is a noble tradition of pulpy best sellers becoming classic movies (Psycho, The Godfather and Jaws) and this version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo represents an interesting example of transferring words to screen.
However, there remains a sense that this whole exercise is a bit like fitting a Ferrari engine into a Volvo: isn’t the army of A-list talent assembled here vastly superior to Larsson’s potboiler?
Although it deals with interesting issues which Hollywood rarely touches – violence towards women, the insidious nature of right-wing politics in supposedly liberal countries – it nevertheless follows the crime fiction template right down to the letter.
Recent events involving journalism scandals (Hackgate), computer hackers (recent Wikileaks revelations) and even far-right murder in Scandinavia (Norway attacks) seem only to have enhanced the potent brew of crime, violence and institutionalised corruption that lies at the heart of the Millennium trilogy.
But the material upon which this film is based feels like a series of plot points squeezed into a tight-fitting story, with hardly any breathing space left after the multiple revelations and plot twists.
Readers have been presumably drawn precisely because of this mix of page-turning intrigue but I suspect what really took it to another level of popularity was the central combination of regular male hero and strikingly unusual female anti-hero.
But after the books and Swedish produced film trilogy, how much appetite is there for this?
I suspect that a major global release like this will make significant money, although whether enough to justify further films remains to be seen.
For a filmmaker like Fincher, who has crafted two ground-breaking police thrillers in Seven and Zodiac, the fundamental material inevitably feels something of a step down for him, like asking a renaissance master to draw in crayon.
It is to his credit that the end result is an invigorating entertainment and a curiously timely blockbuster for Christmas 2011, as we reflect on what a dark and corrupt place the world has become.
The film was produced by the Coen brothers and Thornton played the title character with Tony Cox playing his partner in crime.
It was a year after the US release and the film has since gone on to become something of a cult favourite as an alternative to traditional Christmas movies like It’s a Wonderful Life or Miracle on 34th Street.
For some reason, this interview never aired on radio back in 2004 but you can now listen to it here:
The term comes from the French director’s Be Kind Rewind (2008) where video store workers (Jack Black and Mos Def) remake films on the cheap or ‘swede‘ them.
In the film the tapes are described as being shipped from Sweden as an excuse to charge higher rental fees and longer wait times.
As part of the marketing campaign for Gondry did a sweded version of the actual movie and now he’s done this version of Scorsese’s classic of urban alienation.
I especially like how he’s done the ‘You talkin’ to me?’ speech.
With the latest Mission Impossible film opening it is time to ask the question: why is Tom Cruise always running in his films?
This compilation by Xerzes Cortes neatly showcases the films where he is running (75%!) and – for reasons of balance – points out the ones where he didn’t.
I’m pretty sure this meme all began with a spoof Nike ad in 2006, but when you see them back-to-back like this I wonder if it is a coincidence that Cruise justĀ choosesĀ energetic roles or if he’s now just messing with us.
Even in the Ghost Protocol trailer there are at least two sequences (involving the Kremlin and a Dubai sandstorm) where he is doing what can only be termed a ‘Cruise run’.
Maybe the on-set exercise is part of the reason he still looks so young? š
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (Warner Bros): The second film to the enormously succcessful steampunk version of Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective. This story sees Holmes (Robert Downey Jnr) and Dr. Watson (Jude Law) face off against Moriarty (Jared Harris). Directed again by Guy Ritchie, it co-stars Ice T (!), Rachel McAdams and Stephen Fry. [Nationwide / 12A]
Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (20th Century Fox): The third installment of this money-spinning family franchises sees Alvin, Simon, Theodore and the Chipettes become ‘chipwrecked’ on a desert island. Directed by Mike Mitchell, it features Justin Long, Jesse McCartney, Matthew Gray Gubler and Anna Faris. [Nationwide / U]
ALSO OUT
Dreams of a Life (Dogwoof): Documentary about a single thirtysomething woman named Joyce Vincent, whose dead body was found in 2006 three years after she had actually died. Directed by Carol Morley, it has a powerful central theme (urban lonlieness) but one gets the sense that there are some key questions left unanswered. But maybe that is the point? [Selected cinemas / 12A]
Wreckers (Artificial Eye): Drama about a couple (Benedict Cumberbatch and Claire Foy) who move to a village to start a family but are disrupted by the husband’s brother. Directed by D.R. Hood, it co-stars Shaun Evans. [Selected cinemas / 15]
Whenever you watch a Spielberg movie there is a good chance you will see the camera zoom in on a character looking at something (or someone) in awe.
As the video points out it was not a new technique, but the enormous success of his movies meant that it became synonymous with the wonder of his films.
It is an effective technique as it literally draws us closer to the characters and stokes our imagination as to what is being looked at.
Perhaps it goes back to the famous “Dolly zoom” shot of Roy Scheider on the beach in Jaws (1975) where we get a disturbing close-up before cutting to glimpses of a dreadful shark attack (it’s around 2.01 in the clip below).
But the visual motif also functions as a metaphor for his career – a director who cares deeply about his audiences before providing them with something of wonder to look at.
The best film music this year featured strong scores from composers like Cliff Martinez and Mychael Danna, whilst also providing us with plenty of memorable moments in the shape of individual tracks.
Soundtrack releases are often treated like the ugly duckling relation to a movie – I’m still waiting for an official soundtrack for Somewhere from last year – as it can often be just another commercial tie-in to a movie or bogged down by rights issues.
But when it is done right, there is something unique about music on film: it can sonically charge your emotions whilst sitting in the cinema or viscerally remind you of a film when you fire up the iPod.
As always there is some overlap between the use of pre-existing songs on soundtracks and scores written especially for the film, but the picks below all stood out for how they enriched their respective movies.
Given the varied nature of online music distribution these days, you’ll be able to find the albums and tracks at iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and other places online (if not just email me).
* N.B. As I haven’t yet seen The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo I’ll have to reserve judgement on that score for the time being *
THE BEST SOUNDTRACK ALBUMS
Another Earth by Fall on Your Sword – Blending pulsating electronic elements with quiter atmospherics, this played a major role in reflecting the startling ideas and themes of Mike Cahill’s low budget sci-fi drama. More varied than a first listen might suggest, it is worth keeping an ear out for the mix of instrumentation.
Drive by Cliff Martinez & Various Artists – A fantastic blend of songs by artists like Desire and College, along with some pulsating, moody electronica by Cliff Martinez, helped make this one of the most distinctive soundtracks of the year. Not only was it central to the cool aesthetic of the film, given the lack of dialogue it was almost a supporting character in the movie.
Hanna by The Chemical Brothers – Joe Wright’s stylish thriller was given a pleasing jolt by the electronic beats on the soundtrack. Action sequences such as a prison escape and an extended rumble at a train station were given a real lift by the unusual instrumentation and sounds. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it become influential in movie trailers and TV spots for other movies.
Hugo by Howard Shore – The score to Scorsese’s ingenious love letter to the early days of cinema was a playful and sometimes deceptively light concoction. But it fitted the visual delights on screen perfectly, whilst also accentuating the deeply emotional closing stages. I suspect this film will be revisited in years to come (after all the industry chatter about awards and box office) and that the score will be a key part of how people connect with it.
Jane Eyre by Dario Marianelli – British costume dramas can often be stodgy way of squandering public money as BBC Films pander to middlebrow taste buds. But this exquisitely realised adaptation of Charlotte BrontĆ«’s novel was well served by an atmospheric score which mined the psychological depths of the book and gave it an extra emotional kick.
Moneyball by Mychael Danna – Perhaps the most memorable score of the year was this electrifying companion to Bennett Miller’s marvellous adaptation of Michael Lewis’ book. The subtle use of strings and piano cleverly contain the emotion throughout and the individual pieces ‘The Streak’ and ‘Turn Around’ accompany one the best film sequences I’ve seen in years.
Shame by Various Artists & Harry Escott ā An eclectic selection of music added to Steve McQueenās outstanding drama. Not only did we have Carey Mulligan singing “New York, New York” and Glenn Gould playing Bach, but there were also great uses of tracks from Blondie and Chic. Also listen out for music from a key scene that sounds just like Hans Zimmer’s Journey to the Line from The Thin Red Line (1999).
Super 8 by Michael Giacchino – J.J. Abrams’ homage to early Spielberg movies was boosted by this lush reworking of John Williams. Like the film, it was a fascinating example of an artist finding his own voice through the work of another. Reminiscent of Giacchino’s pioneering work in television with Lost (2004-2010) and his recent scores for Pixar, it provided a big emotional component to the film.
The Ides of March by Alexandre Desplat – This moody score provided a suitable backdrop for George Clooney’s political drama. Although the sound design and use of ‘musical silence’ is striking in places, the heavy use of strings suits the film like a glove. Clooney seemed to be channelling his favourite films of the 1960s and 1970s (especially Alan Pakula and Sidney Lumet) and whilst it wasnāt on par with Michael Smallās classic minimalism, it was in its own way a powerfully understated score.
The Skin I Live In by Alberto Iglesias – Another memorable score from Iglesias was for his regular collaborator Pedro Almodovar. It was something of a departure for the director, as he descended into Cronenberg territory and the music reflected this, creating a marvellous atmosphere of unease. There was also a dash of Bernard Herrman (although not as much as 2004ās Bad Education) which added to the mix.
The Tree of Life by Alexandre Desplat/Various Artists – The story of music and this film is an interesting one as Alexandre Desplat wrote a score which director Terrence Malick mostly replaced with classical selections instead. Pieces by Ottorino Respighi, Bedrich Smetana and John Tavener were just some of the composers whose music helped make the film utterly transcendent.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy byAlberto Iglesias – It was a surprise to see Pedro AlmodĆ³var’s regular composer score this rich and haunting John Le Carre adaptation. But along with the brilliantly executed technical aspects of the film, the subtle use of strings played a big part in recreating the pervasive Cold War atmosphere. A version of Le Mer as the film reaches its climax stands out as perhaps the best ever use of Julio Iglesias in a movie.
Win Win by Lyle Workman and The National – Perhaps the single best use of a song this year was including The National’s Think You Can Win over the closing credits of Tom McCarthy’s quietly brilliant film. But the score also provided a rich musical accompaniment with acoustic guitars creating a tangible mood that suited the bittersweet nature of the comedy-drama.
PLAYLIST OF TRACKS
Fall On Your Sword – The First Time I Saw Jupiter (from Another Earth)
Desire – Under Your Spell (from Drive)
Dario Marianelli – Wandering Jane (from Jane Eyre)
The producer who helped kicked start the New Hollywood era passed away on Monday at the age of 78.
Due to the varied nature of their role, and the dominance of the auteur theory since the 1960s, producers don’t tend to get as much credit as directors.
For someone who tapped into the radical counter culture in such a big way, he was was the son of former Columbia Pictures chairman Abraham Schneider.
It was whilst working in New York for Columbia that he and Bob Rafelson came up with the idea for The Monkees, a manufactured pop group modelled on The Beatles.
Consisting of Davy Jones, Mike Nesmith, Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork, they had a sitcom which ran from 1966-1968 but also had chart hits including (Theme From) The Monkees and I’m A Believer.
Their success allowed Schneider to move into feature films, beginning with Head (1968), which was directed by Rafelson and co-written by Jack Nicholson.
Heavily influenced by psychedelic drugs, it alienated the core fan base of the group and bombed at the box office, but remains an interesting snapshot of late 60s counter-culture.
However, the overall financial success of The Monkees (they have since sold 65 million records worldwide) allowed him the creative freedom to pursue his ambitions as a producer.
It was with his next film – this time as an executive producer – that Schneider would really make a mark in Hollywood and the wider culture.
At the time the major studios were churning out costly musicals such as Dr. Dolittle (1967) and Paint Your Wagon (1969) which were failing to tap into younger audiences in the way the a film like The Graduate (1967) was doing.
Mike Nichol’s film landed like a bombshell – an independently financed phenomenon that ultimately grossed over $104m on a budget of just $3m, it would have raised the eyebrows of many studio executives.
Just as importantly it spoke to a younger generation and oiled the wheels for a film to really break the mould.
Easy Rider (1969) was just that movie – something which tapped right into the late 1960s zeitgeist in a way that the declining studio system was failing to do.
The story of two bikers (played by Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper) travelling through the American Southwest and South with the aim of achieving freedom, it was made for under $400,000 and went on to make $41m at the box office.
Directed by Hopper from a script co-written with Fonda and Terry Southern, it remains a landmark film, partly due to an iconic soundtrack featuring The Byrds and Steppenwolf, and also made Jack Nicholson a star even though he was in a supporting role.
Interestingly, the crucial use of music in both The Graduate and Easy Rider also paved the way for the modern soundtrack tie-in as studios gradually realised that a tie-in album or song could be another income stream.
The enormous success allowed Schneider and Rafelson to team up with Stephen Blauner to form BBS Productions (an acronym for Bert, Bob and Steve).
Their next film was Five Easy Pieces (1970), a classic drama about a disaffected pianist (Jack Nicholson) caught between the counter-culture and Nixon’s silent majority, it caught a mood and grossed $18m on a budget of just $1.6m.
It established Nicholson as a star, earned several Oscar nominations and remains a classic study of class and alienation in America.
The following year he went on to produce another classic film of its era, Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show (1971).
A beautiful coming of age story set in a 1950s Texas town, it featured an outstanding ensemble cast (Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybil Shepherd, Ben Johnson, Ellen Burstyn, Cloris Leachman and Randy Quaid) and some gorgeous black and white cinematography by Robert Surtees.
Paying tribute to Hollywood’s Golden Era, especially Howard Hawks and John Ford, Bogdanovich crafted a poetic tribute for the America that was vanishing, that chimed perfectly with the disillusionment of the early 1970s (and perhaps 2011?).
There were creative and commercial misfires during this period with Henry Jaglom’s A Safe Place (1971) and Nicholson’s directing debut Drive, He Said (1971), although they remain interesting examples of independent movies in the pre-Sundance era.
The following year he reteamed with Bob Rafelson for The King of Marvin Gardens (1972), a downbeat drama about a late night radio host (Jack Nicholson) in Philadelphia and his older brother (Bruce Dern).
Co-starring Ellen Burstyn, its portrait of crushed dreams was perhaps too close to the bone for audiences who largely stayed away, even though it has since been reappraised.
Schneider went on to produce Hearts and Minds (1974), Peter Davis’ powerful documentary about the Vietnam conflict which earned an Oscar for Best Documentary.
In his acceptance speech during the ceremony – held just 12 days before the fall of Saigon – Schneider scandalised members of the audience by reading out a telegram from the Viet Cong Ambassador (Dinh Ba Thi) thanking the anti-war movement “for all they have done on behalf of peace”.
The equivalent today would be the producer of a documentary about the Afghanistan conflict, reading out a telegram from the Taliban.
Elderly Academy members were scandalised, with Frank Sinatra later reading out a letter from Bob Hope (another presenter on the show) saying:
“The academy is saying, ‘We are not responsible for any political references made on the program, and we are sorry they had to take place this evening.'”
He later went on to produce Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978) after Paramount CEO Barry Diller offered him a deal to produce films for the studio.
Retaining creative control – by guaranteeing the budget himself and taking responsibility for all cost overruns ā Schneider fell out with Malick after a difficult shoot and tortuous two year post-production period.
Schneider was upset with the director due to his unconventional working methods and cost overruns, but the end result was one of the crown jewels of American cinema.
In a rare case of corporate owners displaying great taste, Gulf & Western chairman Charlie Bluhdorn actually loved the movie.
His oil company owned Paramount at the time and he was so impressed he even gave Malick an annual retainer to essentially work on whatever he wanted.
This resulted in pre-production on Q – a drama set in prehistoric times, which may have been the inspiration for what would ultimately become a key section in The Tree of Life.
A strange postscript, is that twenty years later Rupert Murdoch’s money (via 20th Century Fox) would result in The Thin Red Line (1998), which not only ended Malick’s 20 year career hiatus but also provided us with one of the most unusual films ever made at a major studio.
But for Schneider Days of Heaven ultimately resulted in the end of an era – his last film as a producer was the little seen Broken English (1981) and after that he dropped out of the mainstream producing game.
He died of natural causes aged 78 in his Los Angeles home on Monday.
One person to pay tribute to him on Twitter today was producer and agent Cassian Elwes (given the nature of Twitter, youāll have to read these excerpted messages from the bottom up):
At some point in recent years his house burnt down and this video surfaced in 2009 of the remains:
Last year Criterion issued an outstanding Blu-ray boxset of BBS films called America Lost and Found: The BBS Story featuring Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Picture Show, The King of Marvin Gardens, Head, Drive He Said and A Safe Place.
He was perhaps a reminder that producers can find a way to buck the system and enable talented directors and actors to produce outstanding work against the commercial grain.
A generation of filmmakers have grown up with the legacy of New Hollywood directors such as Coppola, Spielberg, Scorsese and Lucas, but it took a maverick producer like Schneider to really kick things off.
Super 8 (Paramount Home Entertainment): A loving homage to the early work of Steven Spielberg from director J.J. Abrams which mixes genres to create an unusual film experience. Set in Ohio during 1979, a teenage boy named Joe (Joel Courtney) and his group of friends accidentally discover strange things happening in their small town whilst making a movie using a Super 8 camera. Even if it peters out towards the end, there much to enjoy here, especially the lead performances, Michael Giacchino’s score and the way in which Abrams blends his love for The Twilight Zone with the Spielberg films that enchanted him as a young viewer. [Buy it on Blu-ray/DVD] [Read our full review here]
The Phantom of the Opera (Park Circus): UK independent distributors Park Circus are behind this restored release of Rupert Julian’s 1925 horror classic, which thankfully has nothing to do with Andrew Lloyd Webber. Adapted from the Gaston Leroux novel it features Lon Chaney in the title role as the deformed man who haunts the Paris Opera House. The Blu-ray will feature the 1925 and 1929 versions of the films and intriguingly the Bal Masque sequence in two-strip Technicolor and other scenes which were hand tinted, as well as a new score by The Alloy Orchestra. [Buy it on Blu-ray]
ALSO OUT
Conan the Barbarian (2011 remake) (Lionsgate UK) [Blu-ray / Normal] Festive Fireplace (Pogo Films) [Blu-ray / 3D Edition with 2D Edition] Mr Popper’s Penguins (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / DVD] Planet of the Apes: Evolution Collection (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / Box Set] Rise of the Planet of the Apes (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / Normal] Rise of the Planet of the Apes (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) Blu-ray / + DVD and Digital Copy – Triple Play Safari (Kaleidoscope Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / 3D Edition with 2D Edition] Spy Kids 4 – All the Time in the World (EV) [Blu-ray / 3D Edition with 2D Edition] The Girl Who Leapt Through TimeĀ (Manga Entertainment) [Blu-ray / Normal] The Inbetweeners Movie: Writer’s Cut (4DVD) [Blu-ray / + DVD and Digital Copy – Triple Play] U2: From the Sky Down (Mercury Records) [Blu-ray / Normal]
As part of the viral campaign for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Sony have released an ingenious recreation of a 1990s TV show.
It has never ceased to amaze me how badly big budget movies have traditionally executed on screen news graphics (e.g. that ‘news report’ during climax of Spiderman 3).
But David Fincher isn’t the kind of director to allow sloppy visuals into his movies.
Even if he just oversaw it, his noted perfectionism and knowledge of various video formats may have influenced the final result, due to hisĀ extensive work in commercials and music videos since the 1980s.
So perhaps that was why this fantastic recreation of Hard Copy appeared on YouTube recently:
Those who have read the book, or seen the Swedish film, will note how events from the plot are woven into the news segment.
But check out the audio and visual fidelity to the original show.
It appears the look they were going for was a VHS copy recorded to TV, transferred to a computer and then uploaded to YouTube – note the tracking lines and period commercials.
Digital editing programs now it easier to recreate this older look but it is still an impressive feat, along with some (possible) Easter eggs for the eagle-eyed.
If you want to compare it with the actual show, check out this actual clip from September 1989:
If you don’t remember it, Hard Copy was a US tabloid news show that ran from 1989 to 1999.
Like a sleazy tabloid cousin of 60 Minutes, it wasn’t afraid of sneaky tactics and attracted controversy due its airing of violent material.
In short, a perfect fit for the dark world of Steig Larsson‘s book.
Note that the channel is called Mouth Taped Shut, which is also the blog which has been hosting various production photos and viral tidbits.
One intriguing episode of Hard Copy was their investigation into the notorious Nine Inch Nails video for Down In It:
Almost every film we see now is in widescreen, but how did this look come about?
With the proliferation of widescreen television over the last decade, it is sometimes easy to forget that until relatively recently films were cropped for home viewing.
This meant that for a lot of movies, a large percentage of the rectangular image (in the aspect ratios of 2:35 and 1:85) was removed so it could fit the squarer aspect of television (the 1:33 or 4:3 ratio).
The roots of this are historical, as the advent of television in the 1950s forced Hollywood to come up with newer ways of enticing audiences back to cinemas.
Thus modern widescreen processes were invented to put an image on screen that couldn’t be replicated in the homes of the time.
This shifted the fundamental look of films from the traditional academy ratio of 1:33 to the more rectangular widescreen look we now take for granted.
But when it came to screening those movies on television (ironically the very medium that triggered widescreen developments) there was the obvious problem of converting that wide image on to a square TV screen.
Here Sydney Pollack and Martin Scorsese (and others) explain for TCM the whole business of ‘pan and scanning’ and why it was bad for certain movies (by the way, Curtis Hanson’s example of The Last Supper painting is pure genius):
Back in 1992, there was a TV programme where several directors discussed why they shot certain films in widescreen, including Michael Mann (Manhunter, The Last of the Mohicans), Phillip Noyce (Dead Calm), John Boorman (Point Blank) and John Carpenter (Halloween).
They discuss how the advent of a wider screen affected their visual approach to making films, but also how it influenced such things as editing, dialogue and even running time.
What’s interesting is that Mann’s comment about widescreen televisions in Japan is now the reality.
Certain films such as Gus Van Sant’s Elephant (2003) and Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank (2009) and The Artist (2011) actually used the squarer visual format (a.k.a. 1:33 or academy ratio) for effect.
Going back to the 1970s and 80s, directors like Stanley Kubrick (e.g. The Shining and Barry Lyndon) and William Friedkin (e.g. Sorcerer) were careful to frame some of their films so they couldn’t be awkwardly pan and scanned, although this created subsequent problems for DVD and Blu-ray releases.
Having grown up in the era of VHS and ‘squarer films’ on television, I instinctively prefer the look of widescreen, possibly because it reminds me of the cinema experience, where you could see the full image and got much better sound.
There’s also the crucial matter of actually seeing the film the way the director intended it to look.
It still often depends on the individual film, withĀ Citizen Kane (1941) perhaps being the most ingenious use of the camera in the 1:33 ratio (as mentioned in the above clips both Welles, Howard Hawks and Fritz Lang were sceptical of Cinemascope).
But with widescreen now ubiquitous in our homes and cinemas is there going to be another shift in the frame through which we see movies?
Puss In Boots (Paramount/DreamWorks Animation): Animated 3D spin-off form the Shrek series with the title character (Antonio Banderas) taking centre stage, whilst Kitty (Salma Hayek) is introduced as his love interest. Directed by Chris Miller, it explores his early years as he teams with Humpty Dumpty to steal the famed Goose that lays the Golden Eggs. [Nationwide / PG]
Another Earth (20th Century Fox): Indie sci-fi drama about an ambitious MIT student (Brit Marling) who crosses paths with a music teacher (William Mapother) after a car accident on the night a new planet was discovered. Directed by Mike Cahill, it was one of the big hits of Sundance this year and is a rare example of big ideas being executed well on a small budget. [Key cities / 12A] [Read our full review here]
New Year’s Eve (Warner Bros.): In what appears to be an unofficial sequel to last year’s Valentine’s Day, it follows a group of characters in New York on erm… New Year’s Eve. Directed by Garry Marshall, it stars Lea Michele, Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer and Hilary Swank. [Nationwide / 12A]
A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (Warner Bros.): Six years after their Guantanamo Bay adventure, stoner buds Harold Lee and Kumar Patel cause a holiday fracas by inadvertently burning down Harold’s father-in-law’s prize Christmas tree. Directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson, it stars Kal Penn, John Cho and Neil Patrick Harris. [Select cities / 18]
For the last fourteen months Atticus and I have been hard at work on David Fincherās āThe Girl With The Dragon Tattooā. We laughed, we cried, we lost our minds and in the process made some of the most beautiful and disturbing music of our careers. The result is a sprawling three-hour opus that I am happy to announce is available for pre-order right now for as low as $11.99. The full release will be available in one week – December 9th.
You have two options right now:
VIsit iTunesĀ hereĀ where you can immediately download Karen Oās and our version of Led Zeppelinās āImmigrant Songā when you pre-order the soundtrack for $11.99.
You can also check it on soundcloud and also see how popular it is by checking the number of plays. click here for more info if you want to know how to get more soundcloud plays for your music.
You will also be able to exclusively watch the legendary 8-minute trailer you may have heard about (no purchase necessary obviously). We scored this trailer separately from the film, BTW.
Orā¦
Visit our storeĀ here. Weāre offering a variety of purchasing options including multiple format high-quality digital files, CDs and a really nice limited edition deluxe package containing vinyl and a flash drive.
In addition,Ā RIGHT NOWĀ you can download a six-track, 35 minute sampler with no purchase necessary.
1. Immigrant Song
2. She Reminds Me Of You
3. People Lie All The Time
4. Pinned and Mounted
5. Perihelion
6. What If We Could?
7. With the Flies
8. Hidden In Snow
9. A Thousand Details
10. One Particular Moment
11. I Canāt Take It Anymore
12. How Brittle The Bones
13. Please Take Your Hand Away
14. Cut Into Pieces
15. The Splinter
16. An Itch
17. Hypomania
18. Under the Midnight Sun
19. Aphelion
20. Youāre Here
21. The Same As the Others
22. A Pause for Reflection
23. While Waiting
24. The Seconds Drag
25. Later Into the Night
26. Parallel Timeline (Alternate Outcome)
27. Another Way of Caring
28. A Viable Construct
29. Revealed In the Thaw
30. Millenia
31. We Could Wait Forever
32. Oraculum
33. Great Bird of Prey
34. The Heretics
35. A Pair of Doves
36. Infiltrator
37. The Sound Of Forgetting
38. Of Secrets
39. Is Your Love Strong Enough?
Sony also recently released this 8-minute trailer, which is quite an interesting thing to do before a major release like this:
Edited together by Jacob Britta, it shows how several tropes seem to recur throughout the genre.
Perhaps this is because films and directors naturally influence one another and that certain conventions evolve over time.
Action is perhaps not something you would immediately associate with film school analysis.
Paul Thomas Anderson once told the story of how he left NYU after just 2 days when a teacher pompously declared the screenwriting students should leave if they wanted to write Terminator 2:
But action is worthy of analysis, especially as it has been with the cinema almost since the beginning of the medium.
Since the early 1990s CGI has allowed action films to go in to ever more fantastical realms with The Matrix (1999), the last decade of comic book movies and Avatar (2009).
Like anything else it has been done badly, but when films get it right there are few other art forms that can match cinema for the pure visceral thrill of an action scene.
By looking closely at Britta’s video we can see them:
So, what are the ingredients going on in these action movies?
The Hero Head Turn: This is where the main character is dramatically framed whilst turning his head. It’s mostly used as a tool of realisation, when our hero considers something big and important, as if to say “wow, there’s some heavy s**t going down”. But it also gives an audience an expectation that something exciting is happening soon. The swooping pan (or sometimes tracking shot) that often accompanies a ‘hero head turn’ increases the sense of disorientation and excitement in the viewer.
The Run Amongst Cars: If someone walks across the street in a movie you can almost guarentee that a car will appear from nowhere and screech to a halt. The ultimate example is perhaps Midnight Cowboy where Dustin Hoffman screams at a New York cab. But in an action movie it would be dull just to have them walk across the street, so to ramp this up they have the hero run into speeding traffic, thus increasing the drama and tension.
The Walk at the Camera: A tracking shot used to focus on the character’s movement and intention. There is often a frission of drama when we see a character walking at or near the camera as it provokes an instant curiosity about where they’re going. The pay off when they reach their destination, is usually some kind of confrontation or decisive action.
The Staircase Run: Stairs often play a role in horror movie because they provide an interior exit point for someone being chased by a villain or creature. But in action movies they can work both ways, as an obstacle for our hero as he chases a scum bag on the subway or as a stumbling block for a protagonist trying to escape from something.
The Hit to the Head: In real life head injuries are a serious business that can result in brain damage or death. But in movies they are often used to demonstrate that our hero really can be hurt. Blows to the body are often shrugged off, but in a fight where someone is hit on the head it has got serious. However, it is rare to see repeated blows to the face disfigure the hero in any way.
The Weapon Pull Out: Unsurprisngly this often signifies that guns are about to be used, but there is almost something fetishistic about how weapons are depicted. Think of Schwarzenegger movies like The Terminator (1984) or Commando (1985) where guns are assembled and loaded with almost loving care. It is an immediate sign that action is around the corner, villians are going to die and justice will be served.
The Car Swerve: Car chases often form an essential part of any self-respecting action movie from Bullitt to The Bourne Supremacy. But look closely and you’ll see it’s not just a matter of a high speed chase from A to B. One recurring motif is the dramatic swerve out of danger, whether its avoiding a pram crossing the road (The French Connection, Speed) or a plane on a runway (Face/Off). It reminds us of the danger and keeps the adrenaline flowing until the climax of the chase.
The Helicopter: One way to inject a bit of sizzle in to any action movie is to include some helicopters. Whether they are used in the actual chase or just as a place to shoot from (or both), they give an aerial aspect to a chase or sequence. Michael Bay has become infamous for his use of helicopters, but Apocalypse Now is perhaps the most famous use of the aircraft, with the famous attack sequence set to Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries. Notice how Coppola is especially inventive in that film at synchronising the sound of the blades with the rhythm of the score.
The Quick Drive By: Often this is a simple stationary shot of a vehicle driving from one side of the screen to another. But the vehicle usually passes by in a flash to indicate speed and excitement, which can form part of a chase or a race against time. If the director is really up for it, then he does a tracking shot which pans on to an oncoming vehicle, showing the car coming at and past the camera in one go (essentially this is the vehicle equivalent of the “hero head turn”). Go back to the Lumiere Brothers film of the train and you’ll a nascent version of this.
The Vehicle Smash: What good is a car chase if there’s no carnage to show for it? This is a logical extension of the car swerve, in that it shows what happens when a car can’t get out of the way of another vehicle. They often end with a particular flourish, like a car flipping over in a spectacular way. Or my personal favourite, which is a car crashing in to some yellow bins filled with water (Speed, The Matrix Reloaded).
The Mayhem Explosion: There’s explosions and then there are mayhem explosions, which are designed to let you know that some s**t just got real. Often major explosions are used within in a scene to indicate the death of expendable goons. But primarily it is because the sight of bright orange flames and the sound of a loud explosion on the soundtrack is a feast for the eyes and ears. Often ‘The Camera Walk’ is blended with a ‘Mayhem Explosion’, where the hero casually walks away from a explosion. This is completely impractical in real life, but as used in the movies (in slow motion!) it indicates how cool the hero is as he dispatches another villain (e.g. Man on Fire).
The Climactic Scream: Film is primarily a visual medium but since the invention of movie sound in the late 1920s, filmmakers have used it to tap into our primal senses (e.g. The Wilhem Scream). A good example of this is the “climactic scream”, which indicates some kind of terror and/or release at the end of an action sequence. It could indicate danger or pain, but is designed to cut through and viscerally affect the audience. Whether it is the Alien Queen at the climax of Aliens or Wez at the end of Mad Max 2 a climactic scream can be a cherry on top of the action movie pie.
The central premise involves a student (Brit Marling) and music teacher (William Mapother) whose fates intersect amidst the discovery of another planet identical to Earth.
It was one of the most acclaimed titles of the festival, winning the Alfred P. Sloan Prize and getting acquired by Fox Searchlight Pictures for distribution.
Then in February, astronomers announced that the advanced Kepler Space Telescope had helped them identify around 54 planets, five of which were “Earth-sized” and where conditions could possibly sustain life.
Yesterday, NASA revealed further developments at the first Kepler Science Conference, where they confirmed the existence of an Earth-like planet.
Named Kepler 22-b, it lies around 600 light-years away, is about 2.4 times the size of earth and is the closest confirmed planet to our own.
Although it is unclear if it is made mostly of rock, gas or liquid, the main reason it has been dubbed an “Earth 2.0” is because it revolves around a star and circles around it every 290 days.
The planet’s radius is roughly 2.4 times the radius of Earth; it is 600 light years away from Earth, in orbit around the G-type star Kepler 22.
If it has an Earth-like density (5.515 g/cm3) then it would mass 13.8 Earths while its surface gravity would be 2.4 times Earth’s.
If it has water like density (1 g/cm3) then it would mass 2.5 Earths and have a surface gravity of 0.43 times Earth’s.
The distance from Kepler-22b to its star is about 15% less than the distance from Earth to the Sun, hence its orbit is about 85% of Earth’s orbit.
One orbital revolution around its star takes 289.9 days.
The light output of Kepler-22b’s star is about 25% less than that of the Sun.
Another Earth opened in the US at selected cinemas during the summer and got released on Blu-ray and DVD there last week.
It opens in UK cinemas this week and in an age where online agencies are desperately trying to drum up interest with phony virals, here is a genuine one that has fallen right into their lap with perfect timing.
IndieWire recently hosted a deleted scene from the film which shows a news clip of the discovery and there is anotherĀ scene where Brit Marling’s character looks up the website for a chance to travel to Earth 2:
This isn’t possible in real life yet as 600 million light years presents a challenge for even the fastest rocket.
Wag the Dog (1997) – a satire about a spin doctor trying to cover up a presidential affair – opened just one month before the Lewinsky scandal blew up in January 1998.
Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia, which opened earlier this year, also featured a premise where there was another planet heading towards earth.
So whilst there are precedents, the news of another ‘earth’ in the same week Another Earth actually opens in the UK seems like viral marketing from a superior alien intelligence.
A 1971 documentary on the westerns of John Ford provides a fascinating insight into the director and his work.
Filled with clips from his work, it also contains interviews with colleagues such as John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda and Andy Devine.
It was filmed just two years before he died in 1973 and the tone is somewhat elegiac, as the Western was dying as a genre along with the old studio system.
I love the formal way in which Wayne, Stewart and Fonda address the camera and share stories with their old director (Wayne calls Ford “Pappy”) along with expensive helicopter shots of the landscape he made famous.
Also note that it is screened in the 16:9 aspect ratio, which seems unusual for the TV of the time but was presumably so they could capture the widescreen images of his films.
Outside media circles the concept of a news embargo is likely to be met with confusion or perhaps a yawn, so let’s go to Wikipedia for a quick definition:
“In journalism and public relations, a news embargo or press embargo is a request by a source that the information or news provided by that source not be published until a certain date or certain conditions have been met. The understanding is that if the embargo is broken by reporting before then, the source will retaliate by restricting access to further information by that journalist or his publication, giving them a long-term disadvantage relative to more cooperative outlets.
They are often used by businesses making a product announcement, by medical journals, and by government officials announcing policy initiatives; the media is given advance knowledge of details being held secret so that reports can be prepared to coincide with the announcement date and yet still meet press time. In theory, press embargoes reduce inaccuracy in the reporting of breaking stories by reducing the incentive for journalists to cut corners in hopes of “scooping” the competition.”
So, letās remember that embargoes arenāt unique to the film industry.
If youāve seen the documentary Page One, youāll see the extraordinary spectacle of the New York Times newsroom debating what do when the US government effectively embargoed the news that (most) US troops were pulling out of Iraq.
NBC got the TV scoop, whilst the Times decided to run nothing the next day – prompting the existential news question, ‘does story really exist if the New York Times ignores it’?
Think about the daily news cycle.
Stories in broadcast, print or online outlets rarely just magically appear, there are normally placed (via press release, background leak or interview) and processed (by editors and journalists) for a specific reason.
When it comes to mainstream film releases, studios or distributors usually have screenings for different outlets in the run up to release so they can run features and reviews.
In the UK, these screenings usually break down into three kinds: long lead (for publications that need more time due to publishing constraints), broadcast and online (often nearer the release date) and a national press show (often the Monday or Tuesday before release).
Generally speaking, the distributor will adjust the number of screenings depending on the type of film release and in the last decade as the web became more pervasive, more stringent measures were employed to stop the leaking of advance reactions.
For a big budget release there will be a couple of big screenings and a national press show; for a lower budget film (which needs media attention and awareness) they may screen it more in order to drum up interest; whilst for a real stinker they may not even screen it at all and just rely on marketing.
Which brings us to embargoes ā which is when a studio gets a journalist to sign a piece of paper saying they will not run their review until a certain date.
From the studio point of view they have invited someone to view a film for free and want to be able to control the media message.
Why do journalists agree to this?
For the critic or outlet it is seductive because they usually want to see the film in question and are prepared to pay the small price for honouring what is essentially a “gentleman’s agreement”.
Most go along with it because they reason that they could just refuse to see the advance screening or that they could be refused future screenings from that studio or distributor.
My personal take is that if you make a promise, you should stick to it. If you don’t want to sign an embargo, then don’t attend the screening.
But this is not to say that the whole business brings up valid questions.
Is it just a simple case of honouring a simple agreement? Or are big companies controlling the media message too much?
And what about those cases where critics have broken an embargo with a positive review, only to have the studio effectively wink at them and do nothing?
Recently Christopher Tookey published a review of War Horse, even though other critics aren’t allowed to do so until December 25th.
Is there consistency on which outlets get to publish before others?
“News organizations sometimes break embargoes and report information before the embargo expires, either accidentally (due to miscommunication in the newsroom) or intentionally (to get the jump on their competitors). Breaking an embargo is typically considered a serious breach of trust and can result in the source barring the offending news outlet from receiving advance information for a long period of time”
But this isn’t a usual mainstream release by any means – it is dark material for a big studio and will almost certainly be R-rated due to the sexual content and violence.
Generally studios shy away from making expensive R-rated films as the potential audience is limited – the only R-rated blockbusters in recent times were 300 (an action film made for a reasonable budget), The Passion of the Christ (a complete one-off made outside the studio system) and The Hangover (a dark horse comedy made for relatively low price).
You would have to go back to 2003 for a comparable R-rated film, when Warner Bros released The Matrix Reloaded and even that had the safety blanket of being a sequel to a suprise hit.
On the face of it, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo seems like a slam-dunk: killer talent behind the camera, enormously popular source material and a massive global release on December 21st.
But now is exactly the time studio executives get nervous as they start to get the early audience research in, tweak their final marketing push and ponder everything that could possibly go wrong.
What if it’s too dark? Will audiences want to see rape, murder and Swedish conspiracies (in English accents!) for their Christmas trip to the cinema?
A marketing campaign for a film like this can be enormously expensive and is almost like a military operation, with print ads, TV spots and online elements that have to be co-ordinated months in advance.
Nearer to the release, the most expensive element is often TV spots which carry one line (or sometimes one-word) reviews of the film in question and these have to take into consideration the first wave of positive reviews.
Which brings us back to the question facing the studio and producers: how do you handle the media screenings?
After all, once a couple of reviews hit the web, others will expect to follow suit.
So far the screening strategy has been selective, in order to build buzz and screen it to critics groups so as to possibly make their end-of-year lists.
Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere was one of the chosen few to see it and wrote recently:
“Dragon Tattoo was screened last Monday for the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Board of Review and to a select group of Los Angeles-based Fincher fanboys. It was then shown to a small group of critics and columnists (including myself) last Friday morning at Sony’s L.A. lot.”
So far, so normal.
Then a review went live and broke the embargo.
Was this a rogue blogger who tweeted his negative review, before doing a YouTube video that then went viral on Facebook?
No, it was a positive review from that most august of old media institutions, The New Yorker.
Embargoes are dumbass, and even more so when they involve matters of no consequence like showbiz. And still more so when the movie review at issue was positive like David Denbyās critique of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo in The New Yorker. In my opinion, no film reviewer should ever agree to embargoes because doing what the studios want is a slippery slope. Itās just a short hop to becoming part of Hollywoodās publicity machine. In this case, producer Scott Rudin is the biggest baby on the planet. (Remember how, when The Social Network began losing to The Kingās Speech last awards season, he stopped attending every honoring ceremony including the Oscars? No class.) And Sony Pictures Entertainmentās Amy Pascal on the phone just now told me the studio has been āwrestlingā with this since Friday night. Yet she couldnāt explain why these embargoes are even necessary or this villification of Denby, who happens to be my favorite film critic, is even warranted. I asked if the review is good. She answered that sheād heard it was. So whatās the problem? Heaven help us when the studios finally succeed in controlling all mediaā¦ Hereās the letter which Sony sent out at 2 AM:
Dear Colleague,
All who attended screenings of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo agreed in writing to withhold reviews until closer to the date of the filmās worldwide release date. Regrettably, one of your colleagues, David Denby of The New Yorker, has decided to break his agreement and will run his review on Monday, December 5th. This embargo violation is completely unacceptable.
By allowing critics to see films early, at different times, embargo dates level the playing field and enable reviews to run within the filmsā primary release window, when audiences are most interested. As a matter of principle, the New Yorkerās breach violates a trust and undermines a system designed to help journalists do their job and serve their readers. We have been speaking directly with The New Yorker about this matter and expect to take measures to ensure this kind of violation does not occur again.
In the meantime, we have every intention of maintaining the embargo in place and we want to remind you that reviews may not be published prior to December 13th.
We urge all who have been given the opportunity to see The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo to honor the commitments agreed to as a condition of having early access to the film.
Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
Sincerely,
Andre Caraco, Executive Vice President, Motion Picture Publicity
Sony Pictures Entertainment
—–Original Message—–
From: Scott Rudin
Sent: Sat 12/3/2011 12:08 AM
To: Denby, David
Subject:
You’re going to break the review embargo on Dragon Tattoo? I’m stunned that you of all people would even entertain doing this. It’s a very, very damaging move and a total contravention of what you agreed. You’re an honorable man.
From: Denby, David
Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2011 11:19 AM
To: Scott Rudin
Subject: RE:
Dear Scott:
Scott, I know Fincher was working on the picture up to the last minute, but the yearly schedule is gauged to have many big movies come out at the end of the year.
The system is destructive: Grown-ups are ignored for much of the year, cast out like downsized workers, and then given eight good movies all at once in the last five weeks of the year. A magazine like “The New Yorker” has to cope as best as it can with a nutty release schedule. It was not my intention to break the embargo, and I never would have done it with a negative review. But since I liked the movie, we came reluctantly to the decision to go with early publication for the following reasons, which I have also sent to Seth Fradkoff:
1) The jam-up of important films makes it very hard on magazines. We don’t want to run a bunch of tiny reviews at Christmas. That’s not what “The New Yorker” is about. Anthony and I don’t want to write them that way, and our readers don’t want to read them that way.
2) Like many weeklies, we do a double issue at the end of the year, at this crucial time. This exacerbates the problem.
3) The New York Film Critics Circle, in its wisdom, decided to move up its voting meeting, as you well know, to November 29, something Owen Gleiberman and I furiously opposed, getting nowhere. We thought the early date was idiotic, and we’re in favor of returning it to something like December 8 next year. In any case, the early vote forced the early screening of “Dragon Tattoo.” So we had a dilemma: What to put in the magazine on December 5? Certainly not “We Bought the Zoo,” or whatever it’s called. If we held everything serious, we would be coming out on Christmas-season movies until mid-January. We had to get something serious in the magazine. So reluctantly, we went early with “Dragon,” which I called “mesmerizing.” I apologize for the breach of the embargo. It won’t happen again. But this was a special case brought on by year-end madness.
In any case, congratulations for producing another good movie. I look forward to the Daldry.
Best, David Denby
From: Scott Rudin
Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2011 13:04:32 -0500
To: David Denby
Subject: Re:
I appreciate all of this, David, but you simply have to be good for your word. Your seeing the movie was conditional on your honoring the embargo, which you agreed to do. The needs of the magazine cannot trump your word. The fact that the review is good is immaterial, as I suspect you know. You’ve very badly damaged the movie by doing this, and I could not in good conscience invite you to see another movie of mine again, Daldry or otherwise. I can’t ignore this, and I expect that you wouldn’t either if the situation were reversed. I’m really not interested in why you did this except that you did — and you must at least own that, purely and simply, you broke your word to us and that that is a deeply lousy and immoral thing to have done. If you weren’t prepared to honor the embargo, you should have done the honorable thing and said so before you accepted the invitation. The glut of Christmas movies is not news to you, and to pretend otherwise is simply disingenuous. You will now cause ALL of the other reviews to run a month before the release of the movie, and that is a deeply destructive thing to have done simply because you’re disdainful of We Bought a Zoo. Why am I meant to care about that??? Come on…that’s nonsense, and you know it.
The immediate question hanging over this is who deliberately leaked this email exchange?
But aside from that it also reveals some interesting points.
Although itās slightly – if not completely – off-point, Denby brings up the problems posed by the end-of-year crush of movies looking for awards season consideration.
Meanwhile there’s something magnificently ballsy about Rudin fighting his corner and principles.
He’s arguably the producer of his generation, with an unmatched record for making quality films inside the studio system, and there’s something admirable about him going to bat for his film and the studio who stumped up the cash for it.
A little part of me suspects this could all be part of a cunning strategy to get the media elite talking about this film.
In a strange way, the marketing challenge for this Fincher film is reversed: with The Social Network it was getting a mainstream audience to go and see a film about Facebook, whilst with Dragon Tattoo mainstream interest is assured and maybe the challenge is getting upscale audiences convinced of its artistic merits for awards season consideration.
Did Denby and his editors run the review for attention?
Given that it was only available in the digital edition of the New Yorker, was it a cunning ruse to drive more traffic to their iPad subscriptions? (Even though it has already been duplicated online here)
Did Rudin deliberately pick a loud fight to drum up interest as part of an ingenious marketing campaign?
Let’s not forget the Tumblr production blog Mouth-Taped-Shut, which has been nothing short of genius.
My personal theory is that Rudin is genuinely angry as he wasn’t expecting The New Yorker (of all places) to break the embargo and this could screw up the latter stages of the campaign, which can be so crucial and financially costly (although the kerfuffle could actually work to the film’s benefit).
A director who has made two films with Sony once told me that an overlooked part of studios greenlighting a film is the basic question:
āIs your marketing department excited about selling the movie?ā
But whatever the truth or final box office numbers of the film, it highlights the tensions between media and studios in the Internet age.
Are embargoes realistic in an age of social media and endless duplication of digital chatter?
Or are they part of a game which both parties feel they have to play in order to drum up interest in their respective businesses to the wider public?
Iām not sure anyone has definitive answers to these questions, but letās finish with another open question.
If studios never screened any films for critics – with outlets covering the cost of tickets – how would this affect reviews?
The Interrupters (Dogwoof): One of the best documentaries of recent years explores the work of CeaseFire, a program in Chicago which uses people with experience of violent crime in order to prevent it. Directed by Steve James, who made the landmark Hoop Dreams (1994), it was filmed over the course of a year in Chicago and focuses on three interrupters: Ameena Matthews, Cobe Williams and Eddie Bocanegra, who all have lives shaped by past violence on the streets. James skilfully weaves their stories with considerable insight and the film is filled with kind of human drama you don’t often see in features of TV documentaries. [Buy it on DVD] [Read our longer review here]
Come and See (Artificial Eye): One of the greatest war films ever made is this searing look at the Nazi occupation of Belarus during World War II. Directed by Elem Klimov in 1985, it tells the story of a young boy (Aleksey Kravchenko) trying to make sense of the unbelievable carnage around him, which is depicted with stunning technical skill and a raw power that few have since matched in the war genre. Perhaps the most lasting depiction of Nazi depravity ever committed to a feature film, it lingers long in the mind and was sadly the last film Klimov ever made before his death in 2003. [Buy it on DVD]
Brazil (20th Century Fox Home Ent.): Director Terry Gilliam’s finest film was this brilliant dystopian satire about a governmental worker (Jonathan Pryce) whose life gradually becomes a surreal bureaucratic nightmare after a mistake leads him to be associated with a terrorist (Robert De Niro). Filled with dark humour and some truly dazzling production design, life imitated art when the film itself became a victim of major studio bureaucracy when Universal wanted to shelve it. This is not the 142-minute Director’s Cut of previous DVD versions, but instead the 132-minute theatrical version of the film. [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD]
Salt of Life (Artificial Eye): Director Gianni De Gregorio returns after his charming Mid-August Lunch (2008) with a story about a house husband (played by himself) whose life is slipping by in a dull routine doing chores for his family and neighbours. But when an old friend persuades him to inject some pleasure into his life. Another charming film from a director with an astute eye for the comedy of everyday life. [Buy it on DVD]
ALSO OUT
Captain America – The First Avenger (Paramount Home Entertainment) [Blu-ray / Triple Play / Normal] Dark Star (Fabulous Films) [Blu-ray / Normal] Glee: The Concert Movie (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / 3D Edition + 2D Edition + DVD + Digital Copy] How to Train Your Dragon (DreamWorks Animation) [Blu-ray / 3D Edition + 2D Edition + DVD – Triple Play] Medea (BFI) [Blu-ray / Normal] Megamind (DreamWorks Animation) [Blu-ray / 3D Edition + 2D Edition + DVD – Triple Play] Monsters Vs Aliens (DreamWorks Animation) [Blu-ray / 3D Edition + 2D Edition + DVD – Triple Play] One Eyed Jacks (Intergroove) [Blu-ray / Normal] Scarface (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray / + DVD and Digital Copy – Triple Play] Shrek (DreamWorks Animation) [Blu-ray / 3D Edition + 2D Edition + DVD – Triple Play] Shrek 2 (DreamWorks Animation) [Blu-ray / 3D Edition + 2D Edition + DVD – Triple Play] Shrek the Third (DreamWorks Animation) [Blu-ray / 3D Edition + 2D Edition + DVD – Triple Play] Shrek: Forever After – The Final Chapter (DreamWorks Animation) [Blu-ray / 3D Edition + 2D Edition + DVD – Triple Play] The Borgias: Season 1 (Paramount Home Entertainment) [Blu-ray / Normal] The Hangover: Part 2 (Warner Home Video) [Blu-ray / Normal / Triple Play] The Smurfs (Sony Pictures Home Ent.) [Blu-ray / Normal / Triple Play / 3D Edition]
The major winners were Lynne Ramsay (Best Director for We Need to Talk About Kevin), Michael Fassbender (Best Actor for Shame), Olivia Colman (Best Actress for Tyrannosaur), Vanessa Redgrave (Best Supporting Actress for Coriolanus) and Michael Smiley (Best Supporting Actor for Kill List).
Tyrannosaur also picked up three trophies for Best British Independent Film, Best Actress and Paddy Considine was awarded The Douglas Hickox Award for Best Debut Director.
The full list of nominations is below, with the winners highlighted in bold:
BEST BRITISH INDEPENDENT FILM (Sponsored by Moƫt & Chandon)
SENNA
SHAME
TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY TYRANNOSAUR
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN
BEST DIRECTOR (Sponsored by The Creative Partnership)
Ben Wheatley ā KILL LIST
Steve McQueen ā SHAME
Tomas Alfredson ā TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
Paddy Considine ā TYRANNOSAUR Lynne Ramsay ā WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN
THE DOUGLAS HICKOX AWARD [BEST DEBUT DIRECTOR]Ā (Sponsored by 3 Mills Studios)
Joe Cornish ā ATTACK THE BLOCK
Ralph Fiennes ā CORIOLANUS
John Michael McDonagh ā THE GUARD
Richard Ayoade ā SUBMARINE Paddy Considine ā TYRANNOSAUR
BEST SCREENPLAYĀ (Sponsored by BBC Films)
John Michael McDonagh ā THE GUARD
Ben Wheatley, Amy Jump ā KILL LIST
Abi Morgan, Steve McQueen ā SHAME Richard Ayoade ā SUBMARINE
Lynne Ramsay, Rory Kinnear ā WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN
BEST ACTRESSĀ (Sponsored by M.A.C)
Rebecca Hall ā THE AWAKENING
Mia Wasikowska ā JANE EYRE
MyAnna Buring ā KILL LIST Olivia Colman ā TYRANNOSAUR
Tilda Swinton ā WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN
BEST ACTOR
Brendan Gleeson ā THE GUARD
Neil Maskell ā KILL LIST Michael Fassbender ā SHAME
Gary Oldman ā TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
Peter Mullan ā TYRANNOSAUR
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Michael Smiley ā KILL LIST
Tom Hardy ā TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
Benedict Cumberbatch ā TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
Eddie Marsan ā TYRANNOSAUR
Ezra Miller ā WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN
MOST PROMISING NEWCOMER (Sponsored by STUDIOCANAL)
Jessica Brown Findlay ā ALBATROSS
John Boyega ā ATTACK THE BLOCK
Craig Roberts ā SUBMARINE
Yasmin Paige ā SUBMARINE Tom Cullen ā WEEKEND
BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN PRODUCTIONĀ (Sponsored by Deluxe142)
KILL LIST
TYRANNOSAUR WEEKEND
WILD BILL
YOU INSTEAD
THE RAINDANCE AWARDĀ (Sponsored by Exile Media)
ACTS OF GODFREY
BLACK POND
HOLLOW LEAVING BAGHDAD
A THOUSAND KISSES DEEP
BEST TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT
Chris King, Gregers Sall ā Editing ā SENNA
Sean Bobbitt ā Cinematography ā SHAME
Joe Walker ā Editing ā SHAME Maria Djurkovic ā Production Design ā TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
Seamus McGarvey ā Cinematography ā WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN
BEST DOCUMENTARY
HELL AND BACK AGAIN
LIFE IN A DAY
PROJECT NIM SENNA
TT3D: CLOSER TO THE EDGE
BEST BRITISH SHORT
0507 CHALK
LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
RITE
ROUGH SKIN
BEST FOREIGN INDEPENDENT FILM
ANIMAL KINGDOM
DRIVE
PINA A SEPARATION
THE SKIN I LIVE IN
THE RICHARD HARRIS AWARD (for outstanding contribution by an actor to British Film) [Sponsored by Working Title] Ralph Fiennes
The latest filmmaking technology provides Martin Scorsese with the tools to create a passionate love letter to the early days of cinema.
Adapted from Brian Selznick’s illustrated book, the story explores what happens when a young orphan (Asa Butterfield) living in a 1930s Paris train station comes across an older man selling toys at a stall.
That man (Ben Kingsley) may literally have the key to the mysterious robotic automaton Hugo’s late father (Jude Law) left behind before perishing in a fire.
With the constant threat of being taken away to an orphanage by the local police inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) Hugo finds out more about ‘Papa Georges’ by befriending his granddaughter (Chloe Grace Moretz).
Although best known for his masterful explorations of the American male (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, The Departed) he has long shown an interest in stories involving martyrs and redemption.
His most controversial film (The Last Temptation of Christ) and perhaps his most overlooked (Kundun) were both about spiritual figures of major religions.
Now the director turns to the religion of film and one of its key pioneers, Georges Melies, who for many years was largely forgotten after World War I.
Despite Hugo being something of a departure for the director in that it is suitable for family audiences, it is also one of his most personal works.
It isn’t a stretch to read the central character as the young asthmatic New Yorker who fell deeply in love with cinema or even Melies as the director who represents his fears (rejection) and dreams (longevity).
In order to achieve this vision he has recruited a glittering array of world class technical talent.
Dante Ferretti’s detailed production design offers us a fantastical recreation of 1930s Paris, whichĀ is skilfully augmented by Sandy Powell’s costumes and Rob Legato’s visual effects work.
The blending of all these design elements is dazzling, filled with detail and depth, which provides a solid basis for Robert Richardson’s stunning 3D photography.
Using the new Arri Alexa camera with a Cameron-Pace 3D rig it provides Scorsese with a new tool for executing his vision with longer takes and immersive shots.
The wonderful irony is that these cutting edge digital tools ā which involved pioneering lenses and an on-set data system – are used to pay tribute to one of the founding fathers of ‘celluloid cinema’.
Visually, this is done with recurring motifs: wheels turning, trains, clocks and objects coming towards the camera, which are brought to life by a use of 3D which enhances, rather than distracts from them.
Although Scorsese has talked about the adjustment he and Richardson had to make coming from the world of 35mm film, the end result is a master class in digital cinematography, filled with stunning compositions and rich layers of detail.
The performances don’t quite match the visuals, but Butterfield and Moretz do enough to convince in their roles, whilst Kingsley paints a convincing picture of a man haunted by regret.
In supporting roles Sacha Baron Cohenās mannered comic performance is somewhat overshadowed by his dog, but Helen McCrory and Christopher Lee are both touching in key minor roles.
John Logan’s screenplay manages to blend the traditional storytelling elements of the book, whilst also providing a neat framework for Scorsese to explore his own inner passion for movies and film preservation.
Without going into spoiler territory, there are numerous references to the Lumiere brothers, the silent era and 1930s French cinema.
The beauty of these hat tips is that – like the 3D – they do actually serve the story rather than function as a commercial indulgence.
Thelma Schoonmaker’s editing also skilfully blends key flashback scenes, numerous chase sequences in the station and archive footage of classic cinema works which brilliantly concentrated down to their essence.
It is also refreshing to see a family film is respectful to audiences of all ages and not a pat morality or coming-of-age tale filled with lazy in-jokes.
Unlike many contemporary films, it actually rewards patience and curiosity, before climaxing with a moving ode to both the art and experience of cinema itself.
Beneath the fantastical surface there are serious emotions and one can sense the ghost of Michael PowellĀ –Ā a neglected director Scorsese helped revive interest in.
Perhaps the most surreal aspect of Hugo is that a $150 million advert for film preservation is going to be screened digitally in multiplexes around the globe.
Like the early work of Melies, it seems like a form of magic that this film even exists.
Happy Feet TwoĀ (Warner Bros.): The animated sequel returns to Antarctica, reuniting us with the tap-dancing penguin, Mumble (Elijah Wood), the love of his life, Gloria (Anna Faris) and their old friend Ramon (Robin Williams). Directed by George Miller, it has so far garnered poor reviews and bombed at the US box office. [Nationwide / U]
Hugo (Entertainment Films): Set in 1930s Paris, an orphan (Asa Butterfield) who lives in the walls of a train station is wrapped up in a mystery involving his late father (Jude Law) and a robot. Directed by Martin Scorsese, it marks his first foray into 3D and digital filmmaking. [Nationwide / U]
The Thing (Universal): A prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 film which explores what happened to the Norwegian camp that first discovered the shape-shifting alien buried in the ice. A US scientist (Mary Elisabeth Winstead) and a helicopter pilot (Joel Edgerton) struggle to tell who’s who. [Nationwide / 15]
ALSO OUT
The Big Year (20th Century Fox): Comedy about three avid bird watchers (Jack Black, Owen Wilson and Steve Martin) who compete to spot the rarest birds in North America at a prestigious annual event. Directed by David Frankel, this was a disaster the US box office. [Selected cinemas / 15]
Las Acacias (Verve Pictures): Drama about a lonely truck driver has been transporting wood along the motorway from AsunciĆ³n del Paraguay to Buenos Aires.Ā Directed by Pablo Giorgelli, it stars German De Silva, Hebe Duarte and Nayra Calle Mamani. [Selected cinemas / 12A]
Margaret (20th Century Fox): A young woman (Anna Paquin) witnesses a bus accident begins to question whether or not it was intentional. Directed by Kenneth Lonergan, it co-stars Matt Damon and Mark Ruffalo, but is notable for being one of the most curious releases in recent history. Originally scheduled to come out in 2005 (!), complex creative and legal wranglings between the director and the production company meant that it was shelved for so long.[Selected cinemas / 15]
Romantics Anonymous (Picturehouse Entertainment): French romantic-comedy about what happens when couple () with a shared passion fall in love. Directed by Jean-Pierre Ameris, it stars Isabelle Carre and Benoit Poelvoorde. [Selected cinemas / 12A]
We Have a Pope (Soda Pictures): Drama about the relationship between the newly elected Pope and his therapist. Directed by Nanni Moretti and starring Michel Piccoli, Jerzy Stuhr, Renato Scarpa, Franco Graziosi and Camillo Milli. [Selected cinemas / PG]
A low-budget drama with a big sci-fi premise offers us a startling blend of genres.
Although the science fiction is frequently associated withĀ gigantic effects-driven spectacles, the debut feature of writer-director Mike Cahill offers us an intriguing alternative.
The central premise involves a student (Brit Marling) and music teacher (William Mapother) whose fates intersect after a car accident.
After four years pass, they gradually get to know each other properly and whilst the discovery of another planet identical to Earth lingers in the background.
Beginning with a major plot development right up front, it is hard to go into to details about the plot without significant spoilers, except to say that the narrative is consistently surprising and enjoyable.
Part of that is because Cahill and co-writer Marling don’t go for the obvious sci-fi tropes that have been done to death, as they have fashioned a story thatās like an episode of The Twilight Zone scripted byĀ Kryzstof Kieslowski.
Despite the sci-fi elements, a large part of the drama is given over to themes of grief, regret and secrets, but it skilfully avoids being a signature, self-indulgent indie movie.
Part of this is down to the tantalising backdrop of an identical planet, skilfully evoked via news clips, reaction shots and recurring images of the sky.
But it is also a surprisingly powerful study of loss, regret and possible redemption.
In an age where seismic news events seem to be experienced through ever more unbelievable news updates on television, the film had a tangible resonance.
Despite the fantastical premise, emotions and events are wisely kept grounded in a believable reality.
Essentially this boils down to two actors who really deliver the goods: Marling has a natural screen presence and pulls off a difficult part with some aplomb.
Her confident delivery of dialogue was probably due to the fact that she co-wrote them, but there are some difficult scenes here which she handles extraordinarily well.
Likewise Mapother, who for most of the film has to make his grief-stricken character interesting but, to his credit, he convincingly rebuilds his inner and outer life.
The production makes highly effective use of his low-budget, shooting with a handheld HD camera in such a way that doesn’t call attention to itself, but feels organic to the story.
Visual compositions are also impressive, with characters often tastefully framed through an appropriately chilly palette that’s heavy on the blues and greys.
News footage, often done so badly in bigger budget films, is very convincing here and a couple of scenes are brilliantly effective through ideas and execution alone, rather than expensive graphics.
The electronic score by Fall on Your Sword is perhaps the joker in the pack – a pulsating melange of beats and hooks that fits the film perfectly, giving it unexpected shifts in mood and pace.
Shot in and around New Haven, Connecticut for a reported budget of under $200,000, this represents a significant commercial and artistic achievement, which wasĀ why it was one of the big breakout hits at Sundance earlier this year with Fox Searchlight swiftly acquiring the rights.
Since the collapse of the indie film bubble in 2008, Sundance in recent times has rediscovered its original spirit by providing a welcome platform for films like Winter’s Bone, Exit Through The Gift Shop, Senna and Martha Marcy May Marlene.
All of these didn’t come off the studio production line, nor were they vanity projects looking for faux-indie credibility or a bidding war studios would later regret.
Another Earth is a good example of a modern Sundance success – a genuine independent that has broken through to the mainstream by force of its ideas and execution alone.
In an age where genre movies are designed to please carefully targeted demographics, this feels suitably fresh.
I’ll close by mentioning that it features one of the most effective closing shots of any film in recent memory.
Hedy Lamarr was the one of the most glamourous actress of her day who just happened to pioneer a form of wireless communication that led to Bluetooth and wi-fi.
A new book by Richard Rhodes called Hedy’s Folly charts the incredible story of how a huge Hollywood star helped pave the way wireless technology which we now take for granted.
“Imagine that, on Sept. 12, 2001, an outraged Angelina Jolie had pulled out a pad of paper and some drafting tools and, all on her own, designed a sophisticated new missile system to attack al-Qaida. Now imagine that the design proved so innovative that it transcended weapons technology, and sparked a revolution in communications technology over the next half-century.”
But it was after leaving MGM in 1945 that she had her biggest success playing Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille’s Samson and Delilah (1949), which was the biggest hit of that year.
But she was more than just a pretty actress and her life reads like the most outlandish of movies.
After growing up in Vienna, she absorbed a lot of information on long walks with her father and his detailed explanations of how – then modern – technologies like printing presses actually worked.
After an unhappy marriage to an arms manufacturer for the Nazis, she escaped to London after learning that Louie B Mayer of MGM was scouting for actresses.
She then turned down his original offer before getting on the same boat as him back to the US and by the time it docked she had secured a better contract.
In what reads like a real-life super hero(ine) story, she then set about inventing things in her spare time rather than drinking or going to night clubs.
She was obsessed with creative ideas throughout her life: sugary cubes that would mix with water and a āskin-tautening technique based on the principles of the accordionā were just some of those she came up with in between takes.
Seventy-seven children were drowned in the attack.
She decided to do something but instead issuing a press release about world peace through the MGM press office, she sketched out a revolutionary radio guidance system for anti-submarine torpedoes.
Her neighbour, the avant garde composer George Antheil, had already experimented with automated control of musical instruments.
Their ideas contributed to the development of frequency hopping: if you could shift around radio frequencies used to guide torpedoes, then it would make it very difficult for the Nazis to detect or jam them.
They got a patent and then promptly gave it to the US Navy, who were interested but perhaps not too receptive to being outsmarted by a Hollywood actress.
Although others had pioneered the concept, such as Polish engineer Leonard Danilewicz, it was still incredible that an A-list actress and her musican neighbour were doing this as a past-time.
Instead Lamarr was encouraged to use her fame to sell war bonds, raising around $25 million, which is $340 million in today’s money.
However, after the war the Navy did revive the idea when they developed a sonar buoy to detect enemy ships: the basic concept was used to disguise radio signals as they were transmitted from theĀ buoyĀ to aircraft overhead.
But perhaps the lasting legacy is the application of frequency hopping in modern computing technologies.
As the computer revolution gathered pace over time, frequency hopping and Lamarr’s ideas came of age.
Gradually engineers discovered that it could be usefully applied for modern computing devices that use radio frequencies in what is termed “spread-spectrum broadcasting“.
Devices such as mobile phones and wi-fi routers all have to avoid intereference when communicating with one another and use a form of frequency hopping.
The original patent had lapsed after the war but in 1997 the Electronic Frontier Foundation gave Lamarr an award for her contribution.
“In 1942 Lamarr, once named the “most beautiful woman in the world” and Antheil, dubbed “the bad boy of music” patented the concept of “frequency-hopping” that is now the basis for the spread spectrum radio systems used in the products of over 40 companies manufacturing items ranging from cell phones to wireless networking systems”
So the next time you use a Bluetooth headset or log on to a wi-fi router, think of the actress and the musician who played a part in making it possible.
Conducted by Paul Joyce, parts of it were used in the documentary Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures and clips surfaced on the subsequent DVD and Blu-ray re-issues from Warner Bros.
An Italian Kubrick site recently posted the unedited 25 minute version that aired on British TV around the release of Eyes Wide Shut at UK cinemas (which if I remember correctly was September 1999).
It is a fascinating discussion which covers:
Spielberg’s first experience at a Kubrick movie
How the film of 2001: A Space Odyssey was a mind-altering experience
The violence in A Clockwork Orange
How they first met on the set of The Shining
Kubrick’s late night phone calls to other directors
How he found out about Kubrick’s death on the Internet
Two years ago Scorsese joined the event live via satellite from New York City and his 20-minute address was moderated by Grover Crisp, the man in charge of film restoration and digital mastering for Sony Pictures Entertainment.
In the run up to Christmas sales of the home video format will be under renewed scrutiny, but it is worth looking at what was said via video of the event which someone has posted online in three parts:
Part 1: The history of home video, proper aspect ratios, why the Blu-ray format is superior, Bernard Herrman’s score for Taxi Driver (for which Crisp oversaw the recent Blu-ray restoration).
Part 3: More on the Dr. Strangelove restoration and the dilemmas involved in doing it, Scorsese’s favourite film on Blu-ray, whether he considers the Blu-ray release before shooting a film and the benefits to future generations of filmmakers.
All this is interesting, not just because Scorsese is such a passionate authority on film, but because there is still is some confusion over the Blu-ray format.
The main problems have been: the needless format war which delayed the adoption of the format; mainstream confusion over how it differs from DVD; the costs of upgrading to a player and the recession.
I remember being sceptical about both high-definition disc formats (HD-DVD and Blu-ray) when they were given their first major marketing push in the run up to Christmas of 2007.
Was its introduction too soon after DVD?
I was invited to a screening of The Bourne Ultimatum on HD-DVD (still available on Amazon for some reason), projected in a cinema and the three guys there (publicity people mainly, but also a someone from Microsoft, who were involved in the format) were very bullish about why it would succeed and Blu-ray wouldn’t.
Two months later in February 2008 the HD-DVD format was dead, as Toshiba (the main electrical company behind the format) couldn’t sustain the costs after studios and retailers sided with Blu-ray.
During 2008 the cost of Blu-ray discs and systems was still relatively high, even though television was shifting to the HD era and it became hard to actually buy old-style analogue television sets.
The Dark Knight in late 2008 was perhaps the first truly blockbuster disc in the format, even though – compared to DVD – overall sales were still sluggish and anecdotally even people in the media I spoke to were confused, sceptical or didn’t care.
The main misunderstanding I encountered was the worry that DVDs couldn’t play on a Blu-ray player (they can) and just scepticism about upgrading their equipment.
At the moment, the adoption of the format is still being hobbled by the resilience of the DVD format (a lot of great titles are still really cheap) and a lingering sense of confusion about Blu-ray outside the home video/cinephile realm.
There is a three-way split between DVD, Blu-ray and digital downloads (if you include Netflix, iTunes etc) but optical discs might be more resilient than people think.
Although there are analogies with where the music industry was ten years ago, the recent problems at Netflix suggest that the adoption of digital downloads and streaming might be slower than you think.
Which brings us back to Scorsese.
His point that Blu-ray offers the best quality and drives the restoration of classic films (a subject very close to his heart) are good ones and in a year of sequels and remakes at the cinema, releases like Apocalypse Now, Taxi Driver, Ben Hur and The Three Colours Trilogy have been most welcome.
Seeing classic films that have been restored with care and attention is a real joy that reminds you of the craft that originally made them so great.
A statistical approach to baseball might not seem the most gripping basis for a sports movie, but this is a surprisingly compelling character portrait with hidden depths.
As an ex-player, Beane had grown up in era where scouts and grizzled veterans had stifled both his own career and the true potential of players who werenāt superstars on big salaries.
In late 2001 when his star players have been traded to bigger teams (āorgan donors to the richā) he finds inspiration in Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a young economics graduate who can spot underrated baseball players the bigger teams are ignoring (his character is a composite largely based on Paul DePodesta).
What follows is a movie every bit as brilliant and radical as the system that went on to revolutionise US baseball.
Director Bennett Miller brings an unusual aesthetic to the genre by making the off-field action more dramatic than what happens on the pitch, which dovetails beautifully with Beaneās superstitious compulsion to never watch the games.
The harsh realities of running a sports team at the highest level are conveyed through his battles with coach Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman), doubting scouts who naturally resent the new data driven approach and the chorus of critics amongst the media and fans.
There are personal dramas too: flashbacks of Beaneās early playing career are skilfully woven into his motivational backstory, whilst his relationship with his young daughter (Kerris Dorsey) is both touching and central to the story.
The main challenge with this approach is to make things visually interesting, but the choice of DP Wally Pfister was shrewd: his brand of subtle lighting and shooting that serves the story wisely keeps the focus on the characters and the unfolding drama.
As for the screenplay ā collaboration credited to Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin ā it manages to take the human drama behind a baseball franchise and make it a wider metaphor for anyone battling against personal demons or institutional arrogance.
One of the reasons the book became an unlikely bestseller and proved influential in both the sport and business world, is because by mining a very specific episode, it ultimately tapped into universal truths.
Although the film is an underdog story of sorts, it explores how people in a bad place are forced to become creative (they have nothing to lose) and how easy solutions (in this case āon base percentageā) to difficult problems can be so hard to see.
It also documents a time when old school sporting philosophies based on hunches gave way to statistical analysis powered by computers and spread sheets. Or more simply: when the geeks beat the jocks at their own game.
But it’s the human drama that makes Moneyball really tick: Beane is a fascinating character and the exploration of why he went against conventional wisdom lies the heart of the film, but also possibly puts another interpretation on the title.
The film puts forward the daring notion that money ruined his playing career – his motivation as general manager was partly driven by a desire to push back against a sport corrupted by cash.
Brad Pitt gives perhaps his finest performance in the lead role, not only convincing as charismatic leader of a sports team but as a more vulnerable father and someone struggling with the past.
Jonah Hill might seem an unlikely choice as Beaneās assistant, but he plays the straight man role very well and his chemistry with Pitt suggests his very casting highlights the āhidden valueā concept his character explains in the movie.
There are also solid turns from Philip Seymour Hoffman (showing a subtle, quiet gruffness), Chris Pratt as the first underrated player they sign and Kerris Dorsey as Beaneās daughter, whose presence is always keenly felt in the background.
Where the film really triumphs is in how it applies the low-key approach Miller used so successfully in Capote to a big studio film about a fascinating chapter in Americaās most beloved sport.
The use of MLB footage and real locations grounds the film in a realistic setting far removed from the glossy visions of previous sports movies, whilst Mychael Dannaās wonderful, atmospheric score sounds like Philip Glass’ scoring an Errol Morris baseball documentary.
Like Beaneās impact on Major League Baseball the final it is both surprising and effective.
Given the tortured production history of the project, which saw a noted director (Steven Soderbergh) leave over creative differences and one A-list screenwriter (Aaron Sorkin) hired to re-write another (Steve Zaillian), it is a miracle that the film exists at all.
Part of that must lie down to the persistence of Brad Pitt (who also serves as producer) and it is tempting to read parallels into his struggle to get this made at a major studio (Sony Pictures) with Beaneās story.
To extend the analogy, Pitt is Beane (protagonist struggling against received wisdom), Bennett Miller is Brand (the unconventional catalyst), Sony Pictures is the Oakland Aās (an organisation trying to meet commercial demands) and Major League Baseball is Hollywood (large institution where passion frequently clashes with pragmatism).
In a year in which he has also delivered a powerful performance and produced Terrence Malickās The Tree of Life, we can be grateful that a movie star like Pitt is using his influence to make interesting movies rather than just counting money.
This takes on a new relevance as the wonderfully staged final scenes click into place.
Maybe it can also function as a parable for major studios to keep looking for those quietly interesting projects rather than just the loud, costly franchises.
Mildred Pierce (Warner Home Video/HBO): Hugely acclaimed HBO miniseries adapted fromĀ James M. Cain’s novel about a divorced housewife (Kate Winslet) during the GreatĀ Depression trying to support her daughters as a waitress and part-time baker. Directed by Todd Haynes, it co-stars Evan Rachel Wood, Guy Pearce and Melissa Leo.Ā [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD]
Dark Star (Fabulous Films) [Blu-ray / Normal] Guilty of Romance (Eureka) [Blu-ray / Special Edition] Kill Bill: Volumes 1 and 2 (Miramax) [Blu-ray / Box Set] La Piscine (Park Circus) [Blu-ray / Normal] Magic Trip – Ken Kesey’s Search for a Kool Place (StudioCanal) [Blu-ray / Normal] Poetry (Arrow Films) [Blu-ray / Normal] The Polar Express (Warner Home Video) [Blu-ray / 3D Edition + 2D Edition + DVD + Digital Copy] Transformers Movie Set (Paramount Home Entertainment)[Blu-ray / Normal] Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Paramount Home Entertainment) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Moneyball (Sony Pictures): The story of Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) and his attempt to put together a baseball club on a budget, by employing computer-generated analysis to draft his players. Directed by Bennett Miller, it co-stars Jonah Hill and Philip Seymour Hoffman. [Nationwide / 12A]
50/50 (Lionsgate UK):Ā A comedic account of a 27-year-old (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) diagnosed with cancer, and his subsequent struggle to beat the disease. Directed by Jonathan Levine, it co-starsĀ Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick and Anjelica Huston. [Nationwide / 15]
My Week With MarilynĀ (Entertainment): Drama based on the story of Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), who worked with Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) andĀ Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams) during production of The Prince and the Showgirl. Directed by Gary McKendry, it co-stars Judi Dench and Emma Watson.
Dream House (Warner Bros.):Ā Soon after moving into their seemingly idyllic new home, a family learns of a brutal crime committed against former residents of the dwelling. Directed by Jim Sheridan, it stars Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz. [Nationwide / 15]
The Deep Blue Sea (Artificial Eye): Adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s play about the wife (Rachel Weisz) of a British Judge (Simon Russell Beale) is caught in a self-destructive love affair with a Royal Air Force pilot (Tom Hiddleston). Directed by Terence Davies. [Selected cinemas nationwide]
ALSO OUT
Take Shelter (The Works): Drama about a husband (Michael Shannon) who keeps having disturbing visions of a potential apocalypse which cause strains with his wife (Jessica Chastain). Directed by Jeff Nichols. [Selected cinemas / 15]
Resistance (Metrodome): Drama set in 1944 about a group of women in an isolated Welsh village who wake up to discover all of the their husbands have mysteriously vanished. Directed by Amit Gupta, it stars Andrea Riseborough, Tom Wlaschiha and Michael Sheen. [Selected cinemas / 15]
Back in the early 1980s video technology allowed directors to shoot cheap rehearsal footage before they used the expensive film stock for the actual shoot.
David Cronenberg’s exploration of the founders of psychoanalysis is a dry but gradually absorbing film.
Adapted by Christopher Hampton from his own play, it examines the relationships between young psychiatrist Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), his mentor Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and the troubled patient Sabina Spielrein (Kiera Knightley).
Immediately opening with a jarring sequence of a troubled patient, it seems at first seems like a distant exploration of historical figures.
But as it progresses, we are actually in the realm of Cronenberg’s more overtly psychological work like Dead Ringers (1988) or Spider (2002), where the body horror he was once famous for is internalised into the mind.
The central dramatic thrust is how Jung’s relationship with Sabina created a rift with Freud.
Why is this significant?
Freud was – rightly or wrongly – one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, using a method to examine taboo areas of sexual desires.
Jung was to an extent his prodigal son, an early supporter of his work who treated – and then had an affair with – a woman who eventually became a significant psychoanalyst herself.
In a sense this film puts psychoanalysis itself on the couch by examining the early desires, neuroses and secret impulses that helped shaped it.
The first part of the narrative deals with Jung’s treatment of Sabina during 1904 at his clinic in Zurich as he uses Freud’s theories to help cure his patient.
Two years later, a second patient as Otto Gross (Vincent Cassel) proves more troubling: he convinces Jung to unlock his own desires towards Sabina but also proves an important catalyst in his growing split with Freud (ānever repress anythingā).
Hampton’s screenplay manages to combine its own intellectual analysis with some sharply written dialogues between the characters.
There are bracing intellectual exchanges, which avoid feeling too forced, whilst the oncoming dread of global war hovers in the background.
The central drama is brought to life by four vivid performances who vividly transfer Hamptonās characters to the screen.
Fassbender convinces as an ambitious, intensely curious doctor whose intellectual hunger is mirrored by his desire to break away from the past.
Mortenson proves an effective foil, with a wry and controlled performance which suggests hidden depths to the older and more cautious Freud.
Knightley has the most difficult part, moving from awkward hysterics to lucid eloquence over the course of the movie, but it is a brave performance which she ultimately pulls off.
Perhaps the most interesting performance comes from Vincent Cassell, as his lack of screen time doesn’t diminish his character’s presence in the story or on the screen.
Given that this is a period film involving a lot of people talking in rooms, the temptation amongst some might be to dismiss it as some dry, analytical affair.
Cronenberg and his key technical crew have factored this into consideration and this is very handsomely staged film.
James McAteer’s excellent production design creates a believeable world; DP Peter Suschitzky shoots the action with precision and clarity; the editing by Ronald Sanders feels smoothly unfashionable in this age of chaos cinema and the green screen visual effects work (to create many of the backdrops) is mostly seamless.
Howard Shore’s typically brooding score is effective without being overpowering, but those familiar with his work might feel flashbacks.
Down the years Cronenberg has become associated with the ‘body horror’ genre, due to key films such as Shivers (1975), Scanners (1981) and The Fly (1987), his CV also reveals precise enquiries into the human mind.
A Dangerous Method applies a similar approach to the human mind and although it contains little of what the director is commonly ‘known for’ it mines dark emotional terrains.
“Imagination is dangerous and if you accept – at least to some extent – the Freudian dictum that civilisation is repression, then imagination and an unrepressed creativity is dangerous to civilisation”
This not only describes Cronenberg’s method, which proved controversial with Crash (1993), but also possibly highlights his choice of material.
After all it seems natural that a master of presenting physical and mental anxiety would be drawn to the men who pioneered the diagnosis of many in the 20th century.
After his earlier work exploring the physical horror of the flesh (Rabid, Scanners, Videodrome and The Fly), his latest offers us a different form of mental dread.
Despite the period setting and beautiful backdrops of Vienna and Swiss lakes, there are elements of A Dangerous Method which feel like a chilly wind.
The conflicts in this story took place just as the neuroses of nation states were fomenting destruction on an unimaginable scale.
Little details reveal at lot: Jung and Sabina’s love of Wagner and Freud’s concern about Jewish identity are just some of ideas laced throughout the script which hint at darker problems to come.
Although it doesn’t immediately grip as a film, the slow-burn approach is partly why the ideas linger on after the ending, as we are left to reflect on how mental anxieties can lie at the root of human destruction.
A Dangerous Method opens in selected cinemas in the US from today and the UK on Friday 10th FebruaryĀ
Yesterday I went to a 20 minute preview of the new Mission Impossible film at the BFI London IMAX.
One of the biggest releases this Christmas season, it will only be the third mainstream release to have significant portions shot natively in the IMAX film format.
It appears Paramount see this as a long running franchise in the same way that United Artists saw the Bond series in the early 1970s.
The analogy isn’t precise as we are 15 years on from the first Mission Impossible (one of the big summer blockbusters of 1996) and there had been many more Bonds from 1962 to 1977 (9 to be exact).
But it seems like a flexible enough franchise to incorporate different characters and plot lines.
But if this one is a big hit, Tom Cruise will probably return, but the studio reportedly wanted Jeremy Renner (fresh off his Oscar-nominated turn in The Hurt Locker) as he was an actor could eventually extend the franchise.
…potentially carry the series on his own down the line, should Cruiseās Ethan Hunt character not continue to be the emphasis.
This is the first film in the series not to open in the summer, but that’s probably wise as not only do you avoid the logjam of releases but films like Avatar, and Sherlock Holmes have been huge hits during the busy Christmas period.
Its principal rival will be David Fincher’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, but is something of an unknown quantity – despite being based on a massive novel, will the R-rated violence be off-putting to mainstream audiences?
Then there is the choice of Brad Bird as director.
As one of the key key filmmakers at Pixar, he has been part of arguably the most creative and commercially successful movie company of the last decade.
Like his colleague Andrew Stanton, just finshing up on the big-budget John Carter, this will be his first live action film.
Certain people have expressed surprise when I’ve told them that the director The Iron Giant, The Incredibles and Ratatouille (all excellent) is making this.
But if you’ve seen those films or ever heard him talk about movies, this is clearly a talented and experienced pair of hands with a formidable film knowledge (listen to him talk about Dr. Zhivago at the AFI here)
The other fascinating aspect is the decision to shoot certain sequences natively in IMAX as this is only the third major studio release to do so after The Dark Knight and Transformers 3 (which featured 9 mins compared to The Dark Knight’s 28 mins).
Although plenty of films have been shot on 35mm and blown up using IMAX’s proprietary DMR system (Digital Media Remastering), not many films have used the cameras.
The main problem is that the cameras are big and bulky and the actual cost of the film stock is high.
This means at the moment only certain sequences – usually action set-pieces – are shot natively in IMAX.
But the upside is that it looks absolutely extraordinary when you see it projected with the enhanced resolution and sound on the squarer screen of an IMAX cinema.
I remember seeing The Dark Knight inside the BFI IMAX and when the opening helicopter shot of the building came on some audience members gasped at the image that filled the screen.
Some near me also reached out as if they wanted to touch the image, as the resolution was so good, it almost seemed tactile.
When the camera lurches over a window ledge, it also produced a feeling of vertigo.
David Keighley, the IMAX executive who oversaw post-production with Nolan and his team on The Dark Knight, has said that eleven of the prints screened in select cinemas – including London – were OCNās (original color negatives) and that these were:
“the best projected versions of any film in history”
So the appeal of IMAX is clear to see and for a major action picture it is a seductive alternative to 3D, because the image isn’t dimmed by wearing glasses.
Which brings us to the two preview scenes in Ghost Protocol.
The story sees Ethan Hunt and his IMF team disavowed after a Kremlin bombing and they have to go to Dubai to find out who is behind it.
The first sequence involved the team trying to break in to the world’s tallest building in Dubai – the Burj Khalifa.
Not only was it a treat to see an action sequence shot with amazing clarity in bright sunlight, but it had been carefully planned to make the most out of Cruise doing his own stunts.
The second was a chase sequence set during a sandstorm, which involved Ethan and a mysterious man.
During this sequence a different visual approach was adopted – with the sand making the scene intentionally darker – but it seemed this was to enhance the sound, which is often an overlooked feature of IMAX.
Not only do you really feel the crashes and bumps but the audio texture of the whole film is considerably enhanced by the speakers being behind the actual screen and around the auditorium.
Obviously you can’t judge a whole movie from a preview footage screening but from a technical point of view it was interesting to see another live action film shot and projected in IMAX.
Major studios are perhaps feeling that 3D wasn’t quite the box office saviour they expected in the heady days of early 2010 when Avatar was smashing records in the format.
But even though IMAX versions of movies will only play in selected cities, it increases the resolution for when it comes to mastering the Blu-ray, and also keeps the flame for theatrical exhibition burning.
Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol is released at cinemas on December 21st
A viral video of a dog chasing deer in Richmond Park has already prompted thousands of views and several mashups.
Captured on a smartphone last Sunday, it shows a tranquil scene being interrupted by a dog called Fenton chasing deer and his owner frantically screaming his name several times (“Fenton! Jesus Christ!”).
It was captured by 13-year-old Jake Goodyear and his dad Ali, but the owner is still a mystery (although probably not for long).
As I write this it has 751,358 views on YouTube, but how does an accidental video like this go viral?
Here are the points I would suggest:
The Nature of the Video: It captures a specific moment in time that would be almost impossible to restage. David Lean would love the shot of several deer sprinting across an autumnal park, whilst the natural comedy of his owner screaming his name is almost too perfect (note that it takes a second glance to really notice the dog).Ā It climaxes with an almost eerie precision, as the fleeing deer run across the busy road in the park and force vehicles to stop as different elements collide at just the right moment.Ā Some have speculated that it is a stunt, but if it is then it involves world-class CGI and a comedy brain that leaves many professionals trailing in the dust.
The Dog Factor: We all know cats rule the world of internet viral videos but a lot of people can relate to owning and walking a dog, especially the struggle to control it in a public space. Newspapers also traditional love animal stories as they provide light relief from all the doom and gloom on the front pages.
The Name Fenton: The first I heard about this video when I was reading the Twitter feed of the FT’s media correspondent Ben Fenton, who has been providing updates of the Leveson inquiry. He wondered why Danny Baker was mentioning his name over Twitter. In fact, Baker was referring to the dog Fenton and it was just a coincidence that a journalist shared his name. The fact that a lot of people initially misheard Fenton as ‘Benton’ only added to the mystery.
Influencers: For something to go truly viral you need sites like Reddit and Twitter users with large followings to give it a boost. When Fenton made the front page of Reddit and people like Stephen Fry (Twitter patron saint), Graham Linehan (comedy writer and massively influential Tweeter) and Jeremy Vine (Radio 2 presenter with a huge audience) linked to it, viral success was assured.
The National Media: When national newspapers – whoĀ obsessĀ over Twitter for various reasons – picked it up, another level of awareness ensured more views. A Google News search shows you how it has played amongst different outlets.
Then of course are the are the mashups, which take the audio of the original and recut it to different films.
Made possible by cheaper video editing software and the instant distribution of YouTube, my favouritesĀ so far are Jurassic Park, Alien and – of course – Bambi.
In my life time I’ve seen movies projected via celluloid and digital prints at various cinemas, rented and then bought VHS tapes, DVDs, Blu-ray discs and digital downloads.
There’s a whole generation growing up now in a time where the digital quickly replacing the physical and between 2013 and 2015 it is estimated that celluloid as a projection medium will effectively die.
Remembering the first time you saw a film in a certain format not only triggers an important memory but also reminds us of what those experiences and technologies meant.
Here’s my list.Ā (If you want to use Twitter for this use the hashtag #firstfilms and my username isĀ @filmdetail)
FIRST CINEMA EXPERIENCE(S): The Empire Strikes Back
Given the amount of films I’ve seen in cinemas down the years, it might seem odd that I have difficulty remembering what the very first one was.
I know the cinema (The Rex in Berkhamstead), even the screen, and Iām pretty certain it was The Empire Strikes Back (which would’ve made it sometime in 1980) but being just 3 years old, I can only recall a few sequences and images.
After closing in 1988, the cinema was reborn years later and in 2006 Garth Jennings would film some scenes from Son of Rambow there.
Not long after I saw Superman II (which opened in the UK a few months before its US premiere) and the following year E.T. at the Hemel Hempstead Odeon.
I clearly remember being in the auditorium and a big deal at the times, but one that I couldn’t fully take in at the time.
My first ‘pristine’ cinema memory was Return of the Jedi (again at the Rex, Berkhamsted) and Octopussy (at the Watford Odeon) during the summerĀ of 1983.
Never Say Never Again and Jaws 3D followed later that year.
I can also recall weird stuff that no-one ever talks about now like Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn (āItās High Noon at the end of the universe!ā) which for years I was concerned was actually a figment of my imagination, until the IMDb and Wikipedia confirmed it really did exist.
Part of the fascination of the cinema then and now is pretty simple.
The big screen and sound is overwhelming and at its very best provides a lift like no other art form in human history.
At a young age, it is almost a form of magic that images so big can exist in a large room near to where you actually live,Ā before immersing you in stories and locations anywhere in the world (or even outside it).
What’s interesting to note if you look at the biggest releases of this era, along with the PG-rated blockbusters I was allowed to see they were also a lot of adult films which I couldn’t get in to due to the restrictive ratings system in the UK.
Home video was about to change that.
FIRST VIDEO(S): Blade Runner and The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
Before the advent of home video, the only way you could watch films outside of their theatrical release was a repeat run or on television.
Sony actually developed the idea of recording video signals on to magnetic tape in the 1970s, but the major studios were vehemently opposed to it.
They felt it would kill their existing theatrical business (although ultimately home video became a huge profit source they relied upon) and sided against Sony’s Betamax format in favour of JVC’s VHS.
Plastic tapes inside the home were here to stay for the 1980s and 1990s.
Amongst the films on TV that I taped with the intensity of a projectionist responsible for a gala premiere were: Raiders of the Lost Ark (on ITV in 1985) and Escape from New York (on ITV in 1986).
Although I was young at the time (8 to be precise), the advent of the VCR was fairly mind blowing.
It not only meant you could actually record films on late at night and watch them the following day, but with rental stores opening up it was possible to see all the films you missed out on at the cinema.
As someone who regularly scanned Teletext (like an early version of the web but with 3 digit codes instead of URLs) for the latest cinema and TV listings, this was another revolution.
Although there is a generation that complained that they couldn’t work a VCR, these were people who couldn’t read the manual and didn’t think that recording films after the watershed (9pm) was incredibly exciting.
But I was that person and the first film I recorded off the TV was Every Which Way But Loose (1978) and I have to confess part of me didn’t think it would work.
Not because I doubted the instructions, but because there was something incredible about waking up, checking the VCR and watching a film in your own home.
This was what it was like to be a young film fan in the mid-1980s.
But if you wanted to see newer films (at this point the release window was 12 months) you had to go down to the video rental store as retail came later in 1989.
Sometime in 1985 I remember being given a big list of films the local renal store had which must have been around 200 titles, which was not quite Netflix or Amazon levels, but still mind-blowing for an 8 year old.
I’d like to say I picked Blade Runner as my first video rental because I somehow knew it would become an enduring classic, but the fact was it starred Harrison Ford and seemed along the lines of Star Wars.
This was seven years before the restored director’s cut surfaced in 1992 and I was too young to fully take it in, even though at that time many MTV videos were ripping off its visual aesthetic.
But it was still exciting that films were available outside the whims of broadcasters.
Amongst the rental highlights of this era were Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in 1986 (which I saw before the first two), Beverly Hills Cop in 1987 (a full year before BBC1 removed *all* the swearing for its unintentionally hilarious network TV premiere) and Aliens in 1988 (mainly because it starred my friend’s dad).
When I later moved within walking distance of a video store, things got really serious.
New releases such as The Pick-Up Artist, Robocop, Maximum Overdrive, Predator and The Princess Bride were exciting to watch but there was also something about browsing the shelves.
The big black cases of Warner Bros movies, the CIC logo on Universal & Paramount titles and excitement of seeing if a new in-demand release had been returned was all heady stuff.
Notice how this CBS/Fox trailer for films on VHS employs a lot of the (now dated) video effects that were emerging in the 1980s:
One thing I can’t imagine going back to was the squarer aspect ratio for all those widescreen movies, even if a small minority of modern directors like Andrea Arnold and Gus Van Sant have gone back to it for effect.
Of course this notion seems comical in the current era of digital plenty, but maybe the idea that films were inherently special was partly forged in these trips where you couldnāt just rent anything as a lot of the hot titles were not available every time you went to the store.
When I switched schools in 1988 all the talk in the classroom was of the massive VHS titles of that era: Ferris Buellerās Day Off (girls and boys), Dirty Dancing (mainly girls), Lethal Weapon and Nightmare on Elm St III (which lazy people referred to as āFreddy IIIā).
Companies were easing back-catalogue titles into sell-through and the first retail video I owned (or had bought for me) was The Good, the Bad & the Ugly in early 1988 and it is still a special film to me for all sorts of reasons.
For a few years you couldn’t really buy a new release rental video (unless you wanted to shell out about Ā£80) as film companies felt that retail would cannibalise the rental market for brand new titles.
When Warner Bros broke the mould by releasing Rain Man to buy and rent on the same day in November 1989, it marked the beginning of an era when videos really became ubiquitous until the start of the DVD boom.
There were even annoying anti-piracy ads back then:
FIRST DVD: Glengarry Glen Ross
Although it will probably go down as the most profitable home format in history, I wasn’t an early adopter when it came to DVD, as the cost of the players seemed too high at first.
The bestselling titles early on included Enemy of the State in the spring of 1999 and later that year The Matrix, which really gave the format a boost.
It wasn’t until December 2001 that I got my first DVD player and in retrospect I can’t believe I left it that long.
For some reason I bought Glengarry Glen Ross as my first DVD (maybe it was cheap?) which was cropped to the 4:3 aspect ratio and weirdly on the Carlton TV DVD label.
The US distributor New Line Cinema would shrewdly sell off the foreign rights to their films to UK distributors, but why Carlton (a British TV company) distributed it is still something of a mystery.
I know their former boss Michael Green was a big film fan but it seems somewhat random that they distributed various films such as The Shawshank Redemption.
Early DVDs I remember renting included Hannibal, whilst Fight Club and Memento other discs I bought and kept coming back to (especially the latter).
FIRST BLU-RAY: There Will Be Blood
People may forget that the industry upgrade to a single HD format was a mess, which wasted two very valuable years, wasted a lot of Toshibaās money and confused a lot of consumers.
Part of the problem was convincing people to upgrade the DVD collections just a few years after they had done the same with VHS tapes.
Not only that but you needed a new TV and player to do so and if that wasn’t enough studios and manufacturers were split on to what format to go with.
Sony’s Blu-ray eventually won the battle when Toshiba finally caved in during early 2008.
It was a few months later that Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic about a deranged oil man became my first Blu-ray purchase in anticipation of actually buying a player.
I knew it would look great in HD and wanted to wait until Christmas until the prices of players came down further.
When I played it for the first time, I was slightly disappointed in the loading time of the player and disc, which was later solved by a software update.
It looked fantastic, but those initial problems would foreshadow why HD formats wouldn’t take off in the same way that DVD did.
But although I had my doubts about HD, it has rekindled my love of older films, especially the digital restorations which breathe new life into classics.
Ironically, the digital process – by which the negative elements are scanned, restored frame-by-frame and then mastered at high-resolution – revives the filmic look of the original and in some cases is superior to even revival prints I’ve seen in the past.
Here’s Martin Scorsese talking about the format and the history of home video:
FIRST DIGITAL DOWNLOAD: Crazy Heart
This one is a bit of cheat because I had a Blu-ray disc of Crazy Heart and (legally) transferred the digital copy on to my computer, using the code provided on the triple play edition.
In truth, I’m not a big downloader even though the internet is the inevitable delivery system of the future.
Why doesnāt it cut it for me just yet?
The picture quality on Blu-ray is superior and you also have the problem of the large file sizes chewing up your hard drive.
That said, a digital copy of a film on a device like an iPad is handy if you want to analyse a film closely, as there’s something tactile about touching and looking at it on those kind of devices.
A smartphone is still too small a screen for long form video and I tend to agree with David Lynch’s opinion about watching a whole film on an iPhone.
I still think it is relatively early days for digital downloads as the market is dominated by only a few key players Apple, Amazon and Netflix.
This means the studios who control the content are wary of surrendering control to a dominant gatekeeper in the same way the major music labels ceded power to Apple.
At the moment the main digital initiative amongst the major studios is UltraViolet, which essentially allows users to buy digital versions of films.
Practically, this means that if you buy the UltraViolet version of a film, you can – in theory – download it to an internet connected device be it a TV, tablet or whatever device you choose.
At the moment Sony Pictures, Universal, Fox, Paramount, Warner Bros. and Lionsgate are all signed up to this.
Disney and Apple, who’ve had a close relationship since 2006, have opted for their digital file service called KeyChest and one can assume it will be closely tied to iTunes or maybe even the rumoured Apple television set.
Someone who currently works for the home entertainment arm of a major studio told me recently that the major challenge they currently face is a psychological one.
This particular studio has digitized most of its film library for downloads to various devices (especially gaming consoles like X-box and the PS3) there is still a resistance.
Older consumers used to buying discs in shops are still sometimes wary of digital downloads because they can’t physically touch them and worried about passwords not working or some technical glitch stopping them from watching films they’ve bought.
Another aspect is the recession hitting younger consumers who have been been an important part of driving new formats.
Then there is the storage issue: a disc can sit on your shelf for years but what about that download you bought on an older computer?
Users of iTunes – easily the most successful digital distribution platform – will attest that transferring you MP3 libraries between different computers is something of a nightmare.
This has led to Apple introducing iCloud, which stores all your media purchases in one place, but it is still early days for that to become fully mainstream.
Despite the huge cost savings that digital distribution will provide, perhaps it will take until broadband speeds get even faster, TVs get less fiddly and the average consumer (not just early adopters) get comfortable with the idea of replacing their discs.
For years, Iāve wanted to make a movie about the John F. Kennedy assassination.
Not because I thought I could prove that it was a conspiracy, or that I could prove it was a lone gunman, but because I believe that by looking at the assassination, we can learn a lot about the nature of investigation and evidence.
Why, after 48 years, are people still quarreling and quibbling about this case? What is it about this case that has led not to a solution, but to the endless proliferation of possible solutions?
