LEGACIES AND CELEBRATIONS

➤Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

➤From 00’s Eyes Only: Bond on the edge through the moving image


UPCOMING:

➤Monsters Inc (2001)

➤The Majestic (2001)

➤Dolphin Tale (2011)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

VIEWS ON THE ANDROID-SCENE

Image
After canonizing its future with an opening crawl, the first shots of “Blade Runner” together give us an idea of the society we encounter in the film. This window into the world of the story consists of two types of shots: aerial wides of a futuristic Los Angeles, and the close-up of an eye upon which this city-scape is reflected. Before revealing its part in a chain of establishing shots leading into the first scene of the narrative, the eye is a disembodied one, floating (almost) among and above the city lights.  The eye could have been introduced right before revealing the body it represents, but director Ridley Scott and editor Terry Rawlings chose to intercut between these two polar opposites of shot sizes for a few exchanges, a dialogue and reinforcement of association. We can tell from the appearance of the eye - wide open -, and the reflection of the city on it that it is a vigilant one. Would this vigilant eye belong to an android or human, based on what we were told by th...
Read more

FROM 00's EYES ONLY: BOND ON THE EDGE THROUGH THE MOVING IMAGE

“Shaken, not stirred”. The phrase could describe the fine line the creative talent behind the James Bond movies it comes from have attempted to walk during the franchise’s tenure. For all this time, artists in front and behind the camera have come, stayed and gone, imprinting their sensibilities yet working to maintain the personality of the series – the pact between filmmakers and spectators for the former to produce more stories and for the latter to attend them on the big (and small, post-theatrical) screen. With a growing history and awareness of it, each film faces the following challenges: how to manage the evolving conditions these are made in, avoid wearing repetition and not stray too far from what interested parties have come to look forward to in order to keep them engaged. The overall outcome for this is that James Bond has continued to bring about films through stories that test, but not batter down, the established formula. Ever since its inception with Terence Young’s Fr...
Read more

ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE: RIPPLES IN A REFLECTING POOL

Image
By 1967, the James Bond films had stamped a distinct cinematic experience, with a structural formula for the agent’s missions, the recurrence of characters and their portrayers, and visual and musical motifs, among other elements. Encompassing these bonding elements and the franchise they were representing had been Sean Connery’s embodiment of the titular spy. Yet, when James Bond came back to theaters in Peter R. Hunt’s directorial effort, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), a new face was incarnating the character: George Lazenby. The new actor’s entry succeeded five films with Connery as Bond, and in retrospect, ended up sandwiched in its predecessors’ tenure, with the original actor returning to the role for the film that followed.  Recasting was not entirely uncommon during the earlier Bond films: Desmond Lewellyn’s Q turned out to be armorer Boothroyd from Terence Young’s Dr. No (1962), and by 1965, Felix Leiter, portrayed by Jack Lord, Cec Linder and Rik Van Nutter, beca...
Read more