I was just watching it again tonight, particularly grooving to Carpenter's score.
Then I realized something as Windows was dying, flailing and burning in the snow...we'll never see another stuntman in a pyro suit lit on fire.
I mean, that was a de riguer stunt in the 80s. Now it's so passe they don't even CGI a man on fire.
Huh.
I kinda miss it.
Not as much as I miss the level of creativity that used to go into genre films like THE THING. But still.
UPDATE: Ohhhh my Director-as-control-freak syndrome reared its alien head...that is Morricone's delicous score, and I implied otherwise. Sorry. But obviously, it still belongs to Carpenter and he had a huuuuge influence on the maestro.
Also, there's an intriguing discussion going down at the IMDb board about this movie and the plethora of others that have an all-male cast. Apropos, given the stink made over THE WOMEN this summer, when of course it's quite commonplace for the reverse to occur. Love that sexism.
6 comments:
I think about that a lot while watching movies older than, say, 10 or 15 years. For example, I recently saw the scene in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" in which a stuntman leaps from a galloping horse on a ledge down onto the top of a moving tank and thought, "My god, a man actually did that, no one will ever do that again, and a lot of guys like him who used to do great stuff like that are out of work." It's a rapidly dying art.
It's sad! Not that you have the time or necessarily the interest, but I highly recommend the documentary "Doube Dare", which addresses stunts as a dying art and the added difficulty of being a female stuntperson. Really cool stuff, and a great historical account of the Epper family!
I just watched this a few nights ago. Such an awesome film. I was even fortunate enough to be in a class he taught... before the Ghosts of Mars days.
Details, Superman! Do share!
I can't even recall the name of the class, but it was something like "sex and violence in film and how it pertains to popular culture." One day a week for four hours. We'd screen a film that was dubbed controversial at the time of its release and discuss its impact and influences given the context. We would then see how it related to people "today." He was really insightful and intelligent, always raising great points and forcing you to think outside of your comfort zone. Some of the films we watched included: Straw Dogs, Crash (Cronenberg), Clockwork Orange, Fight Club (it had just come out) and a few others I can't even recall. I know I have that syllabus around here somewhere...
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