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Robert Duvall is THX 1138, a reluctant hero who crosses the threshold of drug induced complacency into the world of stark reality when his meds are slowly reduced and replaced with stimulants by his mate. This shocks him into the realization of his humanity and the true state of his existence. He begins to understand the nightmare that civilization has become and plans to escape, but has no idea of how or where he find sanctuary and salvation. He embarks on his quest, overcomes many obstacles and eventually crosses the final barrier into his brave new world. What awaits him at the end of his journey is as much as shock to the audience as it is to THX 1138.
This is George Lucas's feature film debut that expands on a student film he made at USC in Southern California. The film is a story of a world in which technology, not man, is the ultimate dictator. Efficiency overrides every other aspect of human life, as people are reduced to code names and their lives are contained, monitored, and manipulated for the sake of the system. THX 1138 does not attempt to explain how things became this way; rather, it utilizes the alienation of its characters, the startling white-on-white imagery of its sterilized society, and the claustrophobic, droning sound design to emphasize the dangers of a world reliant on soulless technology.
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Although it was ultimately overshadowed by Peter Jackson's live-action Lord of the Rings trilogy, Ralph Bakshi's animated adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy classic is not without charms of its own. A target of derision from intolerant fans, this ambitious production is nevertheless a respectably loyal attempt to animate the first half of Tolkien's trilogy, beginning with the hobbit Frodo's inheritance of "the One Ring" of power from Bilbo Baggins, and ending with the wizard Gandalf's triumph over the evil army of orcs. While the dialogue is literate and superbly voiced by a prestigious cast (including John Hurt as Aragorn), Leonard Rosenman's accomplished score effectively matches the ominous atmosphere that Bakshi's animation creates and sustains. Bakshi's lamentable decision to combine traditional cel animation with "rotoscoped" (i.e., meticulously traced) live-action footage is jarringly distracting and aesthetically disastrous, but when judged by its narrative content, this Lord of the Rings deserves more credit than it typically receives.
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7th Voyage 1958 / Golden Voyage 1973 / Eye Of The Tiger 1977
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A skeleton grabs a sword and slashes viciously at Sinbad. A 9-foot-tall Neanderthal man fights to the death with a saber-toothed tiger. All the while, the boys and girls in the fourth row forget about their popcorn and are hypnotized by the images on the screen. It's hard to believe so many years have passed since the last Sinbad movie held kids spellbound at Saturday matinees. The movies were never perfect, with stories that were sometimes little more than frameworks to drape Ray Harryhausen's special effects over. The performances left a bit to be desired at times, and the direction could be a bit choppy. What they did accomplish, however, was to give countless 8- and 10-year-olds their first taste of the magic that motion pictures were really capable of. Those grade-schoolers, of course, took with them an appreciation of that movie mojo that would extend to films like 2001,
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Star Wars, and countless other movies in the sci-fi and fantasy genres. Considering the tedious frame-by-frame repositioning of stop-motion figures, something like the six-armed Kali figure in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad is astonishing in the untold hours of labor that went into giving it life. Even more mind-boggling is the fact that it comes alive with grace and fluidity, without a trace of abruptness or jerkiness. It's always a good time to revisit the Sinbad series, for all its imperfections and flaws. The movies are still tremendously entertaining escapist fare, still capable of inspiring new generations of budding movie buffs to create imaginary worlds with the magic of movies.
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STARWARS IV: A New Hope - 1977
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Legendary director George Lucas was a student Joseph Campbell, the master of mythology. Many mythic tales, morality plays and sometimes even verbal-histories have been `reduced' to the status of `fairy-tales' by the modern `Western' paradigm. The `fairy-tale' should be taken more seriously by people at large. One way to trigger a more serious consideration of a fairy story is to alter its presentation. Hollywood has occassionally done great good for society by popularising the elements of some classic fairy tale in a more accessable form, with more immediate characters. Perhaps much of the gravitas of these older tales lies in their use of (to us) historical character types. The King, the Queen, the Princess, the Knight-Errant, the Wizard, the Peasant-Farmer. These figures are relevant to the medieval societies in which these tales were imprinted. Paradoxically, the same gravitas of the anachronistic character types, can also serve to diminish the relevance and accessability of the world story to `modern' audiences. And yet, an entirely `relevant' presentation lacks the `authority' of myth, that compelling aspect which seems to touch our deeper selves.
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We can too easily watch `modern' events on the surface level only, percieving only the `events' and not the deeper human message. Each of the character types in these old stories are social archetypes. There are always going to be current social roles that can be `mapped' onto these roles, just as the medieval writers mapped the truly ancient stories onto their own societies. A technique of great use here is to create the `modern' fairy tale. Where the figures are more relevant to the audience, but are divorced from the mundane world of familiarity. This is the appeal of fantasy, particularly where a relevant figure, with whom we can identify, is transported to non-normal circumstances.
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The break the audience must make from mundane expectations lowers their barriers to perception, the story can no longer be taken just on face-value. To comprehend the fantastic scenario at all, the audience must also be open to the deeper elements of story. One of the most popular fantasy formats of this age is science fiction. True science-fiction (as the late Philip K Dick wrote) has to do with breaking paradigms and making the audience question reality and contemplate alternate world-views. However, science fiction, as a scenario-format, serves nicely as a matrix onto which the writer can `map' the archetypical characters of his/her mythic story. This is what George Lucas did. he did it first, and he did it best. The imitators which followed had seen only the `formularistic' first-order elements of the matrix, they did not even attempt to convey the mythic elements of the world story. They built the presentation structures, but with no substance. In nature, a wave is only a wave because it is both the medium and the energy conveyed in it - remove the energy and the medium is lifeless. There is no wave. STAR WARS remains the defining fairy-tale of the late twentieth century. As Harrison Ford recently commented, it had a princess, a wizard, a rogue, a farm boy, a black knight, how could it possibly have failed?
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A box office failure, John Boorman's Zardoz has developed a cult following among science fiction fans whose tastes run toward more cerebral fare, such as The Andromeda Strain and Phase IV. An entrancing if overly ambitious (by Boorman's own admission) film, Zardoz offers pointed commentary on class structure and religion inside its complex plot and head-movie visuals; its healthy doses of sex and violence will involve viewers even if the story machinations escape them. Beautifully photographed near Boorman's home in Ireland's Wicklow Mountains by Geoffrey Unsworth (2001), its production design is courtesy of longtime Boorman associate Anthony Pratt, who creates a believable society within the film's million-dollar budget. The letterboxed DVD presentation includes engaging commentary by Boorman, who discusses the special effects (all created in-camera) as well as working with a post-Bond Connery. Connery plays Zed, a sort of enforcer whose mandate is to eliminate Brutals, the usual bestial survivors of
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a post-apocalyptic society. Yes, this theme is well-trodden ground, (Mad Max, Planet of the Apes, and ten other films I can think of offhand.) At least Zed (Connery) is clad in a thrillingly brief red loin cloth while he discharges his duties. This should perk up any women watching the film. A large stone head, Zardoz the god, flies about, making sure that Zed and his like are doing diligence, thumping those Brutals. But Zed isn't just a muscle-bound pretty face, he's intelligent and curious. He climbs into the stone head while it makes a pit stop and Zed is carried into a surprising new world, the world of the Eternals. Typically, eternal life ends up robbing those who enjoy it of the zest and tang of a nasty, brutal and short life. Zed sets about to put this problem to rights.
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