Tag: Film Posters

Five Films about Filmmaking

To celebrate our screening of Maurice Hatton’s Long Shot (1978), about a couple of filmmakers struggling to get their dream project set up at 1977’s Edinburgh International Film Festival, we recommend five more films about filmmaking…

The Bad and the Beautiful3

The Bad and the Beautiful (Vincente Minnelli, 1952). Kirk Douglas, Lana Turner and a nice fictionalisation of Val Lewton’s inspiration for Cat People (here rendered as Doom of the Cat Men) – a pivotal moment for horror cinema – help make this a whole lot of fun to watch.

8 1:2

8 1/2 (Federico Fellini, 1963). The poster, as posters tend to do, gets it wrong on purpose – Fellini’s masterpiece of masterpieces is kind of about how the women in his life became “a living part of his erotic fantasies” but also much more besides. It blends beautiful, crisp black and white cinematography with surreal fantasy sequences, comic and strange and insightful, in a ridiculously inventive tale nominally about writer’s block. In a lot of ways, it’s the ultimate film about filmmaking, since it’s so comfortably about its maker – which they all are, really.

Beware of a Holy Whore

Beware of a Holy Whore (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1971). Fassbinder’s 8 1/2! Spinning off on the making of his previous film, Whity (1971), this depicts the cast and crew of a film wallowing interminably in the slow chaos of a hotel lobby, awaiting the promised arrival of their director to justify their existence. It’s been described as “a vicious look at behind-the-scenes dysfunction”, which about covers it.

day for night

Day for Night (François Truffaut, 1973). AKA La Nuit Americaine, from the French term for the technique of of shooting film in daylight which is then processed to appear night. Truffaut cast himself as the director of  Je vous Présente Pamela (Meet Pamela), a troubled – or entirely average – production. An affectionate and even romantic consideration of film and filmmaking, it was also the film that deepened the schism between Truffaut and his erstwhile compatriot Jean-Luc Godard, who walked out of a screening, decrying Day For Night as dishonest and shamefully apolitical (later he would demand Truffaut invested 10 million francs in his next film).

The Day of the Locust

The Day of the Locust (John Schlesinger, 1975). Based on Nathaneal West’s classic Hollywood novel of the same name, this is perhaps a less classic film from the director of Midnight Cowboy. Set in pre-WWII Hollywood, it’s about the dissolute dreamers, also-rans and doomed fuck-ups circling the drain of the Hollywood dream. It’s an odd film, bizarre even, with Donald Sutherland’s Homer Simpson (yep) eventually sparking a riot by stomping 14-year-old child star Adore (a fresh-faced Jackie Earle Hayley) to death in a car lot.

Sean Welsh

Long Shot screens at CCA on Thursday 21/07. Tickets are on sale now.

COMIN’ AT YA! 3D Films Through The Ages

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3D films have been around for 100 years now, but for the first 40, they were more or less a niche concern, mostly shorts and special presentations. The first full-length 3D film was Bwana Devil (Arch Oboler, 1952). One of Bwana Devil‘s early audiences was captured in JR Eyerman’s iconic photograph, for Life magazine, used later on the cover of Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle.

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The 1950s was the Golden Era of 3D, at least the first four or so years, since the craze quickly dissipated. Along with some of the finest examples – Hitchcock’s Dial M For Murder (1954) were less canonical efforts like Robot Monster (Phil Tucker, 1953). Technical difficulties with exhibition and the general expense meant many 3D films were released flat and the format eventually fell out of fashion, although low budget exploitation films kept the ball rolling into the next decade.

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3D was still the province of exploitation for the early 1960s, with notable outliers like The Mask (Julian Roffman, 1961) from the studio system. The late 1960s saw the return of the saviour of 3D, ol’ Arch Oboler himself, with a new system called Space-Vision 3D – which, worth the wait for the name alone. The Bubble (1966) was his big comeback and the system itself provided a cheaper, less tricky technique for producing and exhibiting 3D films.

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The 1970s was super porny for 3D films. The Stewardesses (Allan Silliphant, 1969 – but 70s as a motherfucker) became one of the most profitable films of all time, if not the most. Flesh For Frankenstein (Paul Morissey, 1973) had a good stab at combining horror and porn and Jackie Chan starrer Magnificent Bodyguards (Lo Wei, 1978) was R-rated kung fu fun. On the whole, 1970s 3D films were not so much for kids.

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The 1980s 3D craze began with Comin’ At Ya (Ferdinando Baldi, 1981), a spaghetti western made using a system devised by writer and lead actor Tony Anthony. Comin’ At Ya was shamelessly, some would say ingeniously, designed to exploit the 3D effects, with various items – arrows, handfuls of seeds, dangling babies – bursting off the screen. The same team followed up with Treasure of the Four Crowns (Ferdinando Baldi, 1983), although a second spiritual sequel, Escape From Beyond, was thwarted before it reached production. In the wake of Comin’ At Ya, Dial M For Murder was re-released and the horror genre once again dove face first into 3D. Friday the 13th Part III (Steve Miner, 1982), Jaws 3-D (Joe Alves, 1983) and Amityville 3-D (Richard Fleischer, 1983) all tipped their hats to Baldi and Anthony’s gleeful approach to 3D.

Then, it’s into the 1990s and IMAX and Avatar and fancy Real 3D and diminishing returns once again. But that’s a story for another day and, besides, the posters aren’t as nice to look at.

Sean Welsh

Matchbox Cineclub screen Comin’ At Ya! in anaglyph 3D at The Old Hairdressers, Thursday  19th May, 2016. Details here. Limited tickets available here.