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Prologue

Noteworthy filmmakers have always had a healthy vision of what their film should look like. Utilizing a myriad of camera and editing techniques combined with the keen eye of the cinematographer, the filmmaker can make the most profound statements with visuals, budget notwithstanding.

One of my favorite tricks up the filmmakers sleeve is the use of film stock itself. Every time an advance in technology was achieved, the filmmaker had yet another possibility to play around with it to achieve their vision. Think of Douglas Sirk and his arguably surreal use of technicolor or the 16mm black & white film favored in the early work of Jim Jarmusch; the stock itself becomes a silent narrator, it’s own particular mannerisms contributing to our emotional reaction of the story lines and plot points.

Let’s take a look at a few films and filmmakers who have taken stock, filters and the D.I.Y. approach one step further to achieve their unique look.

Film Stock

Buffalo 66 (1998) written and directed by Vincent Gallo is an amazing film in its own right as anyone who’s seen it knows. It was indeed a labor of love and like all films had its budget wall — when the proposed music budget was added up, it came to $22,000 dollars and Vincent had to settle for $11,000, throwing in $6,000 of his own cash to secure the Yes and King Krimson tracks he wanted for the film.

His other mainstay was that it be shot on color reversal film which had to be manufactured as it normally doesn’t exist. It’s a good thing he stuck to his guns on this one because the result is very impressive,  giving the film a washed out look straight out of the 50s/60s tinged with a lovely gloss:

Fort Apache (1948) directed by John Ford is certainly not an art film and yet his constant attention to detail throughout his career certainly separates his westerns from the standard fare. A great director in his own right, Ford was never shy to embrace technology and apply it to his vision. Although the video clip available here doesn’t come close to a quality example of the film itself, Fort Apache has a wonderfully unique quality — the outdoor scenes were shot in infrared film, giving the landscape and clouds this stark, bright and crisp look with quite a bit more contrast than traditional film stocks could provide. Really lovely on DVD. Really crappy in this clip:

Rumble Fish (1983) is one of those films that slid right under the radar. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, it’s his second film adaptation of the work of author S. E. Hinton, the first being The Outsiders. It was shot directly after production ended on the Outsiders and even used a few of the same actors. Even though it was quite a bit more arty than its predecessor, its all-star cast and coat tail credibility based on the success of The Outsiders should have been enough to secure it somewhere on someone’s required viewing list but no. Shot in black & white (completely unheard of in 1983) with small bursts of color footage and colorized elements (think brightly colored Siamese fighting fish in a b&w fishtank) combined with it’s flamboyant West Side Story style blocking and dialogue, it was just a little too ahead of its time to be a hit. Look closely for the small burst of color in the trailer:

Filters

Traffic (2000) in my opinion changed everything. Directer Steven Soderbergh had to really fight to get this film made not only because of the controversial subject of drug trafficking but for his concept of separating the three storylines within the film using three different colored filters — one for each story. Although there was nothing new about lens filters, they were mostly used for music videos, sci-fi scenes and plenty of student art films and at best used to control lighting issues in mainstream films. Producers were naturally a little concerned about a 2 & 1/2 hour film about drugs with these drastic ‘color coded’ storylines.

The effect did give the film a distinct look. A look that was so fresh it was quickly used by everyone and soon became normal. From T.V. shows like CSI to countless modern horror films, filters are everywhere — thanks to the success of Traffic and Soderbergh (who also shot the film under a false name):

Twilight of the Ice Nymphs (1997) like all Guy Maddin films, Twilight of the Ice Nymphs has that very distinct, altered look — dusty film, black & white film shot on ancient cameras (sometimes coming out sepia or blue). However, this film deviates from his previous efforts in that area to a more cotton candy dreamscape reality created through lighting, unorthodox camera settings and filters resulting in a color explosion with wonderful bleeds and blurs.

What we see in this clip is the classic vaseline around the corner of a lens trick (sorry about the French guy talking over it):

D.I.Y.

Decasia (2002) is a film constructed by Bill Morrison using reels of old decayed nitrate film containing silent films circa 1900s. Nitrate film is quite unstable and if old reels are not properly stored they either catch on fire or rot. Decasia takes advantage of these barely surviving reels by weaving their various states of decay together into something that is pure art. Lacking any plot, what we see are random images from forgotten films reels, aged and decayed and slowed down for maximum enjoyment. Beautiful damage becomes the only reoccurring character throughout this amazing film:

Mothlight (1963) made by Stan Brakhage. No treatise on treated film would be complete without mentioning Stan Brakhage. His hands-on approach, literally painting and pasting onto film stock has produced some truly unique material. Mothlight consists of moth wings and moth parts glued to 8mm film and run through the projector to achieve the fabulous result we see here:

Conclusion

With the advent of digital technology, filmmakers are no longer tied to the limitations of the camera and much less dependent on the advances in film stock as a medium.  From complicated CGI to the simplest plug-in, we can create (virtually) endless canvasses to paint on, and count on a healthy amount of possibilities in post production, possibilities a few of the above mentioned film never had. These films stand out because they all share forethought in their pre production. Forethought in exactly how they would achieve the very fixed style they were seeking. I know for myself that I can easily include the very concept of possibilities when thinking of style for a particular project instead of choosing from possibilities to form a set of rules to work with.

From motion graphics to film making to graphic design, we can all take something away from the concepts demonstrated in these films, particularly that the medium itself can play a key roll in conveying a message. Further still, by altering that medium and therefore giving the medium more prominence, we give it a distinct personality in which to deliver our message.

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Personally, I like my vampires a little on the evil side. I’m not sure how we got from F. M. Murnau’s 1922 Nosferatu to the swooning teen-antiheroes of today, but it’s obvious that our fascination with the vampire isn’t going anywhere. There are plenty of bad vampire films out there, but not all films featuring the famous succubus actually suck. So with Halloween coming up, I thought I’d dig up some old favorites to be a positive guy. Get it? A positive?

Martin – 1977

U.S. Dir: George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead). Netflix, Wikipedia.

Sans fangs and bats, Martin put a unique spin on the traditional vampire film. Instead of the monster living next door, we find an average young man living a lonely and depressing life and sadly addicted to blood. His twisted and often pathetic bursts of violence shock you, but you really end up feeling the worst for poor Martin.

The Hunger – 1983

U.K. Dir: Tony Scott (True Romance, Man on Fire). Netflix, Wikipedia.

This film was not liked much by critics who seemed to have a problem with its semi erotic moments and while it’s true that it’s not the greatest film in the world (Scott’s next movie would be Top Gun), it’s well worth seeing. Sultry Catherine Deneuve plays an ageless vampire. David Bowie plays her aging vampire boyfriend and along comes Susan Sarandon unknowingly to take his place.

The Reflecting Skin – 1990

U.K. Dir: Philip Ridley (The Krays, The Passion of Darkly Noon). Wikipedia.

This wonderfully absurd film never really admits it’s a vampire film. Instead, we meet a cast of characters who may or may not be vampires; except for the lady who says she’s a vampire. Seth is sure she’s a vampire. He’s pretty sure everyone’s a vampire. Favorite line: “Why don’t you go play with your friends?” / “I can’t. They’re all dead.”

Near Dark – 1987

U.S. Dir: Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break, Strange Days). Netflix, Wikipedia.

This movie is so much better than From Dusk Till Dawn I can’t believe they even bothered making it. Fast, harsh and bloody as hell. Oh, and it’s even a love story. Sort of. Look for a particularly great scene of a new vampire drinking blood from another vampire’s wrist while a large oil pump pumps away in the background.

Blood for Dracula – 1974 (AKA Andy Warhol’s Dracula)

Germany/U.S. Dir: Paul Morrissey (Flesh, Trash, Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein). Netflix, Wikipedia.

Classic exploitation. Like most of his films it’s completely disgusting. Originally rated X for it’s gratuitous sex and violence, it’s actually less insane than Morrissey and Warhol’s 1973 Flesh for Frankenstein (AKA Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein) which permanently warped my brain.

The Lost Boys – 1987

U.S. Dir: Joel Schumacher (Falling Down, The Number 23). Netflix, Wikipedia.

Loaded with star power, The Lost Boys was more of a romp than a horror film. After all, nothing with the Two Coreys could be scary. The lost boys worked well in the theater because it had the star power, but it also had a strong story which relied on intrigue rather than shock and avoided sex and gore. Probably a good idea because by 1987, horror movies were so common place, there was hardly anything shocking about them.

Fright Night – 1985

U.S. Dir: Tom Holland (Child’s Play, The Stranger Within). Netflix, Wikipedia.

Fright Night was a fun hybrid of horror and 80s comedy — just a little too dark to be funny and too silly to be serious. Full of eccentric characters, it’s fun enough that you don’t even mind the terrible special effects. The plot moves around Charley who is pretty sure his neighbor is a vampire. His parents don’t believe him. The cops don’t believe him. Will a washed up actor who hosts a local late night horror film showcase believe him?

Vampire’s Kiss – 1989

U.S. Dir: Robert Bierman. Written by Joseph Minion (After Hours). Netflix, Wikipedia.

And Finally, one of my all time favorites, Vampire’s Kiss. Nicholas Cage plays power hungry yuppie Peter Loew who is quite possibly going insane. He’s also pretty sure he’s turning into a vampire after a series of meetings with the mysterious Jennifer Beals. And like a character from a Paul Auster novel, we watch on as Loew slowly loses all grasp of reality. Esoteric dialogue, a strong supporting cast and Cages performance all meshed to make Vampire’s Kiss an instant cult classic.

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Introduction

The ’70s might have been the heyday of the maverick filmmaker, but the ’80s still remains a creative decade in my opinion. Mega hits dominated the theaters, but beneath the surface, there were several lesser known but equally praised films and filmmakers whose techniques and qualities were simply too strange, odd, dreamy, morbid or beautiful to fit in with the mainstream. Call them art cinema, independent, cult or arthouse. I call them required viewing. Here are five noteworthy arthouse films:

1. WINGS OF DESIRE

1987. Germany/U.S.A. Dir: Wim Wenders (Paris Texas, The Million Dollar Hotel). Netflix, Wikipedia.

Why you need to see it: Simply one of the most beautiful films I’ve ever seen. Wenders employs a wide variety of fresh ideas onto the screen, getting outstanding performances from his actors. Peter Falk playing himself and being the only character to sense the angels that roam the city will always impress me. Shot in black & white and color, its euphoric feel is further emphasized by the haunting soundtrack and source music.

2. BLUE VELVET

1986. U.S.A. Dir: David Lynch (Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive). Netflix, Wikipedia.

Why you need to see it: Just about everyone knows about Blue Velvet, but for some reason I keep meeting people who have never actually seen Blue Velvet. It’s quintessential ’80s arthouse and everyone really should see it at least once. Lynch works some of the most twisted ideas, characters and images into a lucid and compelling mystery. Visually stunning, well acted and another prime example of Lynch’s meticulous attention to sound design.

3. A ZED AND TWO NOUGHTS

1985. Britain. Dir: Peter Greenaway (The Cook The Thief His Wife & Her Lover, Drowning by Numbers). Netflix, Wikipedia.

Why you need to see it: Greenaway has this thing for flamboyant sets, heavy themes and even heavier imagery. His films are often as disturbing as they are beautiful; as shocking as they are pretentious. Zed is no exception. Between time-lapse footage of prawns decaying and pacing (sometimes legless) animals, we watch as two zoologists go mad after the death of their wives.

4. TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL

1988. Canada. Dir: Guy Maddin (Twilight of the Ice Nymphs, Careful).  Netflix, Wikipedia.

Why you need to see it: Maddin’s use of altered film and sound are quite impressive to say the least. He can take us to just about anywhere in time and achieve any look with his technique. In his first feature length film, Gimli Hospital, he takes us to a rather odd and low budget place. Shot in black & white, the film plays like an 1940s horror movie without the horror.

5. VIDEODROME

1983. Canadian. Dir: David Cronenberg (Naked Lunch, Existenz). Netflix, Wikipedia.

Why you need to see it: Cronengerg’s nightmare visions defy category; dark enough to be horror, futuristic enough to be sci-fi. I think of his films as being smart enough and certainly surreal enough to be considered arthouse fare. Videodrome is one his more twisted films and like his earlier work, relies heavily on themes of mind control, secret organizations and humans with guns growing out of their hands. Disturbing but worth every minute.

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Prologue

I wanted to watch some television, so I turn on the set and begin pressing the buttons on a brown box. The box has about 14 buttons on it, and a long brown wire that connects to the television set. As I make my way through the buttons, I see commercials and newscasts, boring shows for grown ups, etc. I reach the last one which is labeled Z. I press the button and the television screen turns black and white. I’m seeing a room with a formal dinner setting. People are in the room but they seem to want to leave. They can’t seem to leave for some reason. A goat appears and walks out of the room.  The people are confused.  They start trying to break a wall down in an effort to escape the room. People are yelling. I can’t understand what they are saying because they are speaking in a foreign language. There are subtitles, but I don’t know what that means yet. The words go by too fast to read. I’m not sure why I don’t change the channel, but I keep watching, keep looking. It’s 4:35 in the afternoon. Tuesday. The year is 1978. I am 7 years old and I am watching the Z channel—one of the world’s first cable stations.

Z Channel’s Impact on the Film Industry

Introduction

Jerry Harvey and the strangely named Z channel burst onto the emerging California cable scene in 1974. The few existing stations catered mostly to exclusive sports coverage or Hollywood hits. His idea—rather his goal, was to start a station dedicated to “the cinema” featuring the celebrated works from the likes of Fellini, Buñuel, Peckinpah, Bergman, Visconti, Kurosawa, Kubrick or any other noteworthy filmmaker from around the world. And that’s exactly what he did.

To understand the full impact of the Z channel, we must first remove from consideration our current landscape: Internet, DVDs, anything digital and go back to a time before Star Wars; before blockbuster mega hits in general. We must return to a time when print and word of mouth were the only realistic way one could ever hear of such films and directors. You might get a chance to see a current Kurosawa film as the reels tour the U.S., but you could only read about his back catalogue of films. A student of film in the ’70s might have the privileged experience of seeing some of the older imported gems in class but in general, foreign films were, well, foreign.

The late ’70s and early ’80s were truly the heyday of television. The business of cable was an entirely new concept and no one was quite sure what to make of it at first. Beyond the game shows, news, sports coverage and hit T.V. shows, stations aired re-runs like Gilligan’s Island and The Twilight Zone, classic movies, and old cartoons on every channel. We saw the birth of  new cartoons and the subsequent Saturday morning cartoon phenomenon, Godzilla and MGM horror movies on weekends, made for T.V. movies, and even television ‘cuts’ of movies that had R ratings in the theaters—Halloween by John Carpenter and The Godfather by Francis Ford Coppola being two examples. Cable really didn’t have much to offer beyond the three main things T.V. couldn’t offer—R rated movies, live sports broadcasts, and pornography.

A cable station featuring foreign and art house films certainly would have failed had it been launched in Des Moines, Iowa, but in Los Angeles it flourished. In 1974, Martin Scorsese was finishing his first film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Stephen Spielberg was working on his first, Sugarland Express. It was an incredibly prolific time and creativity was king. The success of Midnight Cowboy released in 1969 by maverick filmmaker John Schlesinger had changed a lot of things. It was a story about a Texas dishwasher who moves to New York to become a hustler, blindly thinking that rich women will pay to have sex with a young Texas stud. His dreams clash with reality and he soon finds himself homeless and running out of money. After a few failed attempts at male prostitution lead him to utter helplessness, he befriends another lost soul. The film won three Academy Awards including best picture. Hollywood was changing indeed and the Z channel was  immediately embraced by it’s community. Jerry Harvey and his cable channel quickly became the talk of the town making the scene, meeting people and setting up premires of new and classic foreign films in America with Theater owners.

Widescreen on Television

Back at the Z channel, Harvey introduced the virtually unheard of process of letterboxing on T.V. to an unsuspecting audience, sometimes going as far as contacting filmmakers or studios asking for original reels in order to make a transfer in the films original aspect ratio. Widescreen feels natural now, but at the time it was revolutionary. Films like Ben-Hur or How the West Was Won with their huge 70mm prints were cropped down for television and hadn’t been seen in their original aspect ratios in tens of years. It would take production companies another ten years to warm up to the idea of releasing widescreen videos, and now with DVDs, it is unheard of to be denied the full aspect ratio of the filmmakers’ vision. But Harvey wasn’t just ahead of his time, he was lightyears ahead of his time.

The Director’s Cut

By the mid ’80s, his devotion to the filmmakers’ vision would introduce us to another now household term: the Director’s Cut. Heaven’s Gate, a box office disaster whose merits are still debated to this day, had cost 42 million dollars and made only 3 million after terrible reviews. It basically sank United Artists and started a huge controversy in Hollywood. The studio had to cut down his five hour long film into something realistic for theaters, and nobody was happy with the 149 minute result. Crimino’s previous film The Deer Hunter released in 1978 was a huge hit, winning the Academy Awards for best picture and best director. At that time, Hollywood was experiencing great success with these young directors. Spielberg would get millions to do a movie, and the movie became a hit, so the studio would make billions. Studios had little reason to interfere with these maverick directors. But Heaven’s Gate ruined all that. Hollywood blockbusters would not be left up to chance anymore. But strangely, when the film aired on the Z channel a few years later in a three and a half hour ‘director’s cut’, it became a hit. The Z channel soon followed with more director’s cuts like the the five-hour cut of Bertolucci’s masterpiece 1900, which was also disastrously cut by the studio. After years of attempts at re-releasing it in everything from a shorter PG version to a longer R-rated and finally an NC-17 sort of longer version, it got a proper release in its uncut, unedited five-hour glory in 2006, something that the Z channel was happy to show way back in the mid 80s.

The End of Z Channel

With the introduction of the consumer VCR in the early ’80s, the landscape of entertainment certainly changed. Star Wars was changing things with its toy and merchandising franchise. Cable networks were popping up. Now a kind of funny thing happens. But again you must forget about how we use technology today to see it. Today we can get instant feedback via the computer. We can track how many people visited our site today. We can make instant graphs and charts. Hollywood then and today has had to take a big chances. Even with star power, you can’t guarantee a movie’s success. But the new craze of VHS and Beta rental tapes soon proved to be a more than useful aide to Hollywood itself.

First Blood is a good example. Rambo is a household name. An icon of the ’80s with a huge franchise. But the interesting thing is that First Blood was a dud in the theaters. Stallone was still coming off of Rocky fame—hence the “this time he’s fighting for his life” tagline for the title. But it basically did nothing money-wise or for Stallone’s career. His next film was even worse; a ridiculous piece of garbage called Rhinestone co-starring Dolly Parton. But then out of nowhere First Blood became a huge hit on VHS. Sales of tapes probably had people guessing for a while but they eventually made Rambo: First Blood Part II which was a huge hit on the screen and started a trend in crappy action movies. Other films like The Breakfast Club would become VHS classics and create a another trend—the modern teen movie that would last well past the ’80s. Low budget horror films become video hits and a sequel with a higher budget is made and a nice and safe system is born. Hollywood had found a formula that didn’t require the maverick filmmaker at all.

All of this meant certain doom for the Z channel. Cable station were popping up everywhere, offering the latest hot Hollywood films and in the end, Rambo beat The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. At its peak, the Z channel only had 100,000 subscribers. In the early days of cable, that was a fine number since there were so few to compare it to. Jerry Harvey’s world was coming to an end, and he would never live to see his ideas and impact on the film community. His ideas became memes embedded in every filmmaker, actor, director who was lucky enough to see the Z channel.

Epilogue

I was much too young to understand what I was seeing and I’m sad to say I didn’t watch more. Even in my early teens, I’m sorry to say I wasn’t instantly  influenced to become a filmmaker after viewing the works of the most important filmmakers in the world. The truth is, I was like every other kid in my initial quest for T.V. entertainment; I was looking for Godzilla, Kung Fu movies, cartoons or a show I liked. But if I couldn’t find anything I would always check the Z channel just to see what might be playing as a last resort.

Years later, I would fall in love with film and revisit many of the images I had observed as a curious child. I would discover Film Noir and start watching everything I could get my hands on. A scene would happen and I’d remember seeing it on the Z channel. Before DVDs, you had to rely on imported videos from Europe or Japan to see a lot of great films in widescreen or uncut versions. I was into Sergio Leone at the time and was happy to see a crappy bootleg with chinese subtitles just to see a widescreen version of one of his films. I remember when Once Upon a Time in the West finally came out on DVD around 2005 or 2006. Perfect image. Widescreen with the correct aspect ratio. Uncut. Restored sound. Just like the version that played on the Z channel more that 20 years earlier.