thedeadlyhook (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thedeadlyhook) wrote2006-01-14 02:16 pm
thedeadlyhook) wrote2006-01-14 02:16 pm
When You Wish Upon a Star...
So as part of the buildup to its new War of the Worlds rendition tonight, SciFi Channel is playing an all first contact sort of day, right now with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which I'm realizing as I'm watching it is probably one of my favorite movies of all time. Not just because it's an intensely cinematic movie - this is, I think, the best Spielberg has ever been as a director, still far enough back in his career to show more of his '70s influences in film, the kind of just-look-at-that silences that modern films like to cover up with a blaring soundtrack - but because of the unique blend of mystery and awe and cynicism and innocence and conspiracy-theory nuttiness that wasn't even faintly duplicated again until Season 1 of The X-Files. There are so many scary-creepy wonder moments in the film - the initial discovery of Flight 19 in the desert, that wonderful shivery revelation capped off by Bob Balaban (also familiar to me as that other science guy in Altered States who wasn't William Hurt or Charles Haid of Hill Street Blues fame) yelling out against the backdrop of a blowing sandstorm: "Where's the pilot? How did it GET here? What the hell is GOING ON?" - but also because of the way the plot unfolds, with a minimum of explanation and a nice parallel to the mystery of the aliens' communication by having Francious Truffaut, a guy who speaks frequently unsubtitled French, as the point man for the contact team. Way to make a nice parallel, and if I go on and on about scenes I love in this film, I'd be here all day.
At any rate, when I started writing this, I thought about how I'd personally argue that the first ten minutes or so of Close Encounters qualify among the best opening scenes in movies ever; the Flight 19 scene is one of the few I can think of that really locked me in from the get-go in such a way that it almost stands alone as a sort of mini-movie, which made me think about other films in which the openings had such punch they were near standalones.
Desperado. Overall, sure, an enjoyable film, but nothing lives up to the promise of those first few minutes, the barroom scene with Steve Buscemi and the bar-top mariachi guitar performance by Antonio Banderas. Typically, when this film plays on TV, I watch those first few minutes. If something else is on that I'd rather see, I switch over, satisfied that I've already experienced the high point.
Buckaroo Banzai. Peter Weller breaking the dimensional barrier on the salt flats with his specially outfitted car. Seeing this again lately for the first time in more than twenty years, I was struck with how seriously this scene is handled, in a style of realistic documentary-news-style sports reporting that doesn't exist anymore. "Wild world of sports!", as the TV opening used to go. Meaning, incongruously enough, that the sports themselves would provide the wildness, in spontaneous things happening in front of a camera that was just there to record, instead of being helped along by (again) a loud soundtrack, and whirling, spinning graphics. Not to get all old-fogeyish about this sort of thing, but it does give a different effect. A rocket car going through a mountain almost has the same sort of I'm-really-seeing-this-happen! frission that a shaky, hand-held camera managed to produce later in The Blair Witch Project. Which kind of shows the progress of that cycle, in a way. How far we've come.
The Ring/Scream. I'm including both movies as one entry here, because it's the same approach - sort of An Urban Legend Becomes Real, acted out right in front of you. In Scream, this dynamic is obvious - it's When a Stranger Calls, in one compressed little Drew Barrymore segment (and I should hope I'm not the only one wondering what the hell possessed the producers of the new version of that film to okay an ad campaign in which the movie's big shocker is given away in the trailer?). In Ringu/The Ring, it's almost more obvious in the American remake than in the Japanese original, in which the establishing scene with the two girls talking feels a bit more calculated, a shocker to get things rolling rather than a running theme about the viral nature of the story. (Although that does indeed come through clearly in the Japanese sequels/prequels.) Either way, though, you get a short, sharp, creepy standalone, a modern update of that campfire favorite, the Man With Hook. (On a related note, John Carpenter's The Fog is almost a movie-length version of that story.)
Raiders of the Lost Ark. I hestitate to include this one, because it's yet another Spielberg, but the economy of that opening setup with the temple and the gold idol impresses me. Again, here's old Steven introducing a character and scenario without anything like a word of explanation, just through actions and visuals and wardrobe. Everything we need to know about Indiana Jones is already there as of this little mini-film-within-a-film. Everything on top of that is gravy, such as his "oooh, professor!" cuteness in a suit and glasses. I remain impressed.
Any others come to mind? I'm talking opening sequences that really lock you in.
At any rate, when I started writing this, I thought about how I'd personally argue that the first ten minutes or so of Close Encounters qualify among the best opening scenes in movies ever; the Flight 19 scene is one of the few I can think of that really locked me in from the get-go in such a way that it almost stands alone as a sort of mini-movie, which made me think about other films in which the openings had such punch they were near standalones.
Desperado. Overall, sure, an enjoyable film, but nothing lives up to the promise of those first few minutes, the barroom scene with Steve Buscemi and the bar-top mariachi guitar performance by Antonio Banderas. Typically, when this film plays on TV, I watch those first few minutes. If something else is on that I'd rather see, I switch over, satisfied that I've already experienced the high point.
Buckaroo Banzai. Peter Weller breaking the dimensional barrier on the salt flats with his specially outfitted car. Seeing this again lately for the first time in more than twenty years, I was struck with how seriously this scene is handled, in a style of realistic documentary-news-style sports reporting that doesn't exist anymore. "Wild world of sports!", as the TV opening used to go. Meaning, incongruously enough, that the sports themselves would provide the wildness, in spontaneous things happening in front of a camera that was just there to record, instead of being helped along by (again) a loud soundtrack, and whirling, spinning graphics. Not to get all old-fogeyish about this sort of thing, but it does give a different effect. A rocket car going through a mountain almost has the same sort of I'm-really-seeing-this-happen! frission that a shaky, hand-held camera managed to produce later in The Blair Witch Project. Which kind of shows the progress of that cycle, in a way. How far we've come.
The Ring/Scream. I'm including both movies as one entry here, because it's the same approach - sort of An Urban Legend Becomes Real, acted out right in front of you. In Scream, this dynamic is obvious - it's When a Stranger Calls, in one compressed little Drew Barrymore segment (and I should hope I'm not the only one wondering what the hell possessed the producers of the new version of that film to okay an ad campaign in which the movie's big shocker is given away in the trailer?). In Ringu/The Ring, it's almost more obvious in the American remake than in the Japanese original, in which the establishing scene with the two girls talking feels a bit more calculated, a shocker to get things rolling rather than a running theme about the viral nature of the story. (Although that does indeed come through clearly in the Japanese sequels/prequels.) Either way, though, you get a short, sharp, creepy standalone, a modern update of that campfire favorite, the Man With Hook. (On a related note, John Carpenter's The Fog is almost a movie-length version of that story.)
Raiders of the Lost Ark. I hestitate to include this one, because it's yet another Spielberg, but the economy of that opening setup with the temple and the gold idol impresses me. Again, here's old Steven introducing a character and scenario without anything like a word of explanation, just through actions and visuals and wardrobe. Everything we need to know about Indiana Jones is already there as of this little mini-film-within-a-film. Everything on top of that is gravy, such as his "oooh, professor!" cuteness in a suit and glasses. I remain impressed.
Any others come to mind? I'm talking opening sequences that really lock you in.
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This is almost exactly what my husband and I were talking about this afternoon as we watched, right down to the observation that this film is the precursor to/inspiration for The X-Files. What made this movie for me was the feeling of dread that seems to pervade everything right up until Dreyfuss and Dillon hit the Devil's Tower (to this day, every time we see certain large trucks we're convinced they're on their way to some alien rendezvous). For all their ET-ish benevolence at the end, those aliens were some evil little antic mind-fuckers. I think that's what saves this film from Spielberg's usual treacle.
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I guess maybe this filim is very of its time, in that way - the '70 cynicism is such a factor that it even overcame the feel-good tendencies of a young Spielberg. Interesting comparison to Jaws, too, which had a more traditional happy ending.
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I'd definitely vote Jacob's Ladder into the list; that opening sequence in the subway station would make a neat little brain-twisting short film right there. (And for some reason the mini-film analogy makes me think of Cube, which opens with a nasty little establishing scene featuring a never-seen-again character a la the Scream movies.)
I'd also say that the opening sequences of Carpenter's The Thing and Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys do a great job of creating an unsettling, mysterious, alien atmosphere. Speaking of which, the very beginning of the original Alien, with its seemingly deserted spaceship and chattering machines, does a nice job of grabbing your attention and yanking you out of your comfort zone. I guess I have a fondness for opening sequences that leave the viewer a little bit confused and bewildered, pitching them headfirst into an unfamiliar environment without much in the way of explanation.
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The Thing, I'd say, is a great opening, but not a standalone. It's more of a setup piece, like the opening to, oh, Dawn of the Dead (classic). Twelve Monkeys has the added bonus of being told as a flashback-voiceover, so maybe-maybe, but I don't think so. Setup for a mystery. Striking, but not a story by itself.
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Damn, I really love that film.
Gotta buy a copy.
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