When You Wish Upon a Star...
Jan. 14th, 2006 02:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thedeadlyhookSo 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.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-14 07:41 pm (UTC)Damn, I really love that film.
Gotta buy a copy.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-15 10:37 am (UTC)