THE PRISONER opening

Andromeda Strain (1971)

The Andromeda Strain is a 1971 science-fiction film, based on the novel published in 1969 by Michael Crichton about a team of scientists who investigate a deadly organism of extraterrestrial origin that causes rapid, fatal blood clotting. Directed by Robert Wise, the film starred Arthur Hill, James Olson, Kate Reid, and David Wayne. The film follows the book closely. The special effects were designed by Douglas Trumbull.

Robert Wise used a single set to create Wildfire's color-coded corridors, repainting it for scenes that take place on the different levels. Wise would use this trick again in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. When filming the scene where Dr. Ruth Levitt has an epileptic seizure due to watching a blinking red light, care had to be taken when choosing the frequency of the blinking, so it was the least likely frequency to induce seizures among susceptible viewers in the theater audience.

The cast of characters in the novel was modified for the film, most notably by changing the male Dr. Peter Leavitt in the novel into a woman, Dr. Ruth Leavitt. Screenwriter Nelson Gidding suggested the change to Wise, who at first was not enthusiastic, as he initially pictured the sex-changed Dr. Leavitt as a largely decorative character reminiscent of Raquel Welch's character in the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage. When Gidding explained his take on Leavitt, Wise resolved the question in an appropriately scientific way by asking the opinion of a number of scientists, who were unanimously enthusiastic about the idea. Eventually Wise came to be very happy with the decision to make Leavitt female, as Kate Reid's Dr. Leavitt turned out to be, in his words, "the most interesting character" in the film[1]. Another minor change was the character of Burton in the novel, who became Charles Dutton in the film; no reason was given for this name change.

A young Michael Crichton makes a cameo appearance in a non-speaking role during the scene where Dr. Hall is told to break scrub because he has to report to Wildfire, the government's secret underground research facility.

On the Beach (1959)

On the Beach is a 1959 post-apocalyptic drama film based on Nevil Shute's novel of the same name featuring Gregory Peck (USS Sawfish captain Dwight Lionel Towers), Ava Gardner (Moira Davidson), Fred Astaire (scientist Julian – John in the novel – Osborne) and Anthony Perkins (Australian naval officer Peter Holmes). It was directed by Stanley Kramer, who won the 1960 BAFTA for best director. Ernest Gold won the 1960 Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Score.

The story is set in 1964, what was then the near future (1963 in the book) in the months following World War III. The conflict has devastated the northern hemisphere, polluting the atmosphere with nuclear fallout and killing all human life. While the nuclear bombs were confined to the northern hemisphere, global air currents are slowly carrying the fallout to the southern hemisphere. The only part of the planet still habitable is the far south of the globe, specifically Australia.

From Australia, survivors detect a mysterious and incomprehensible wireless telegraphy signal originating from the United States (San Diego). With hope that some life has remained in the contaminated regions, one of the last American nuclear submarines, USS Sawfish, placed by its captain under Australian naval command, is ordered to sail north from its port of refuge in Melbourne (Australia's southernmost major mainland city and headquarters of the Australian Navy) to try to contact whomever is sending the signal. The American captain, Dwight Towers (Peck), leads the operation, leaving behind a woman of recent acquaintance, the alcoholic Moira Davidson (Gardner), to whom he has become attached, despite his feelings of guilt regarding the certain deaths of his wife and children in the U.S. He refuses to admit that they are dead and continues to behave as though they are still alive.

The Australian government makes arrangements to provide its citizens with free suicide pills and injections, so that they will be able to avoid prolonged suffering from radiation sickness once it arrives. One of the film's poignant dilemmas is that of Australian naval officer Peter Holmes (Perkins), who has a baby daughter and a naive and childish wife, Mary (Donna Anderson, referred to once as "Charlie" early in the film), who is in denial about the impending disaster. Because he has been assigned to travel north with the Americans to search for signs of life, a trip expected to take several weeks, Peter must try to explain to Mary how to euthanize their baby and kill herself with the (unspecified) poison should he be unable to return in time. Mary, however, reacts badly, almost violently, at the prospect of killing her daughter and herself.

By one theory postulated by an Australian scientist, the radiation near the Arctic Ocean could be less than that at mid northern hemisphere latitudes, and if so this would indicate the possible survival of southern hemisphere populations. One of the goals of the expedition is to determine the Arctic radiation level.

After sailing to Point Barrow in the Arctic Ocean, the expedition members determine that radiation levels are intensifying. On the way back, they stop at San Francisco. The views through the periscope indicate what they have seen elsewhere; there are no signs of life, and minimal or no damage. One crewman, who is from San Francisco, jumps ship to spend his last hours in his hometown. After first attempting to convince the crewman to return, Towers then accepts his decision. He is last seen in a motorboat, fishing and awaiting his death as the Sawfish submerges, never to return.

Sawfish then travels to an abandoned oil refinery in San Diego (in the book, it is a naval base located near Seattle), where they discover, although the city's residents have long since perished from radiation poisoning, the hydroelectric power is still on-line. The ship's communications officer is sent ashore in a radiation suit to investigate. The mysterious signal is the result of a Coca Cola bottle being nudged by a window shade teetering in the breeze and occasionally hitting a telegraph key. Bitterly disappointed, the submariners return to Australia to live out the time that remains before nuclear fallout arrives and kills everyone.

The characters make their best efforts to enjoy what time and pleasures remain to them before dying from radiation poisoning. Scientist Julian Osborne (John Osborne in the novel) and others organize a dangerous motor race that results in the apparent violent deaths of several participants. Moira remarks on the apparent senselessness of the race, but when she asks Osborne why he is taking part, he responds, "because I want to" -- apparently sufficient reason given the circumstances.

Prior to the submarine voyage to America, Towers had remarked to Moira about his enjoyment of the silence and relaxation of his pastime of fishing. During his absence, Moira uses her friendship with government officials to 'move up' the fishing season so Dwight will get one more chance to fish. With Towers now apparently accepting the death of his wife and children, they embark on a weekend trip. Unfortunately, the fishing stream is anything but silent and relaxing, as raucous visitors turn the outing into a fiasco. Retreating to the resort for the night, Dwight and Moira share a romantic interlude inside the dark hotel room, as outside, a gathering storm howls.

Returning to Melbourne, Towers is informed one of his crew members has developed radiation sickness. The deadly radiation has arrived. Some citizens seek spiritual guidance from religious leaders from the Salvation Army. They hang a banner from City Hall that states, "There Is Still Time ... Brother."

Osborne, proud and satisfied after winning the auto race, seals himself and the car, engine running, inside a garage to set up his suicide by exhaust poisoning. Others line up outside hospitals to receive their suicide pills. Later, Mary Holmes becomes emotionally unbalanced and must be placed under sedation. However, she regains lucidity and she and Peter share a tender moment together before Mary decides that she has been "foolish and impractical" and asks her husband to "take care" of her and their daughter.

Dwight wants to stay with Moira, but his remaining crew wants to head for home and die in the U.S. In the end, Captain Towers chooses not to remain with Moira but rather to lead his crew in a final attempt to make it back to the States. Moira watches from the shore as the Sawfish submerges beneath the waves. The final scenes of the movie show the deserted, abandoned streets of Melbourne.

Unlike the novel, no blame is placed on who started the war—it is hinted that it may have been an accident.

Like the novel, much of the film takes place in Melbourne, close to the southernmost part of the Australian mainland. Nevil Shute is said[who?] to have despised the film (which was released little more than a month before he died), feeling that his characters had been altered too greatly, especially the scene where it is implied Moira and Dwight sleep together. However, the film shot in and around Melbourne was a great novelty for that city at the time.

Somewhere in Time (1980)

Somewhere in Time is a 1980 time travel romance film directed by Jeannot Szwarc, written by Richard Matheson and starring Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, Christopher Plummer, Teresa Wright and featuring an early appearance by then-unknown William H. Macy. The movie was filmed on location at the Grand Hotel, and the former Mackinac College - both located on Mackinac Island, Michigan. It was also filmed in Chicago.

Although this movie was well received during its previews, it was widely derided by critics upon release and unsuccessful at the box office. It has earned a large and loyal following since its release to cable television and video, and the movie is now regarded by many to be a cult classic.

Reeve plays Richard Collier, a playwright who becomes smitten by a photograph of a young woman at the Grand Hotel. Through self-hypnosis, he travels back in time to the year 1912 to find love with actress Elise McKenna (portrayed by Seymour). But her manager William Fawcett Robinson (portrayed by Plummer) fears that romance will derail her career and resolves to stop him.

The film is adapted from the 1975 novel Bid Time Return by science fiction writer Richard Matheson, which was subsequently re-released under the film's title. The film is known for its musical score, composed by John Barry.

Bois Evian !

Nikon D700 Guerrilla Style Billboard

Nikon took its cue from our celebrity-obsessed paparazzi culture to launch the brand's D700 model in Korea.

At a busy Seoul subway station, Nikon mounted a huge interactive, light-box billboard displaying life-like images of paparazzi. Huddled together as if at a premiere, the "paps" appear to be jostling and competing for the best celebrity snap. The celebrities in this case were the passersby, who automatically triggered a deluge of flashing camera lights as they walked past the billboard. The accidental superstars then followed the red carpet all the way out of the station and into a mall - directly into the store where they could purchase the new D700.

The Scapegoat (1959)

The Scapegoat is a 1959 crime film based on the novel of the same name by Daphne du Maurier, and starring Alec Guinness, Nicole Maurey and Bette Davis.

John Barratt (Alec Guinness), a lonely, discontented teacher of French at a British university, vacations in France. There, by chance, he meets his double, French nobleman Jacques De Guè (Guinness again). They become acquainted. Barratt becomes drunk and accepts De Guè's invitation to share his hotel room. When he wakes up the next morning, Barratt finds himself alone in the room, with his clothes and passport missing. De Guè's chauffeur Gaston (Geoffrey Keen) shows up to take his master home, and Barratt is unable to convince him that he is not the nobleman. Gaston calls Dr. Aloin (Noel Howlett), who diagnoses the Englishman as suffering from schizophrenia.

A bewildered Barratt allows himself to be taken to De Guè's chateau, where he meets "his" family: daughter Marie-Noel, wife Françoise (Irene Worth), sister Blanche (Pamela Brown) and formidable mother, the Countess (Bette Davis). None of them believe his story - it appears that De Guè is a malicious liar - so Barratt resigns himself to playing along. As time goes on, he feels needed, something missing in his sterile prior life.

The next day, brother-in-law Aristide (Peter Bull) discusses business with him. Later, in the nearby town, Barratt is nearly run down by De Guè's mistress, Bela (Nicole Maurey), on her horse. He spends the usual Wednesday afternoon tryst enjoying her company. The next time they meet, before he can confess the truth, she informs him that she has already guessed it.

Barratt delves into the neglected family glass-making business. He decides to renew a contract with the local foundry, even on unfavourable terms, to avoid throwing the longtime employees out of work. The Countess is upset by his decision and mentions a marriage contract. When Barratt investigates, he learns that Françoise's considerable wealth, tied up by her businessman father, would come under his control if she were to die. Françoise finds him reading the contract and becomes very upset, accusing him of wanting to see her dead. Barratt consoles her by telling her that the contract can be changed. He begins to suspect the reason for De Guè's disappearance.

One day, Barratt receives a message from Bela. He goes to see her and spends a pleasant afternoon with her, though she denies having sent for him. When he returns to the chateau, he learns that Françoise has died from a fall. Blanche accuses Barratt of murder, stating that she overheard him with his wife in her room just before her death. However, Gaston provides an unshakable alibi, having driven Barratt to his rendezvous with Bela.

Barratt is not surprised when De Guè resurfaces shortly afterwards. They meet in private; the Frenchman demands his identity back, but Barratt refuses. Both men have come armed and shots are exchanged. Barratt emerges victorious and returns to his new life and Bela.

According to Robert Osborne of Turner Classic Movies, the original choice for Barratt / De Gué was Cary Grant, but Daphne du Maurier insisted on Guinness because he reminded her of her father, actor Gerald du Maurier.

Osborne also states that when Hamer was drunk, Guinness handled the directing chores.

Christopher Lee

In another age, Christopher Lee might seem as odd as actors in blackface - he is the end of the great movie tradition of sacred monsters.

David Thomson
The Guardian,
Friday 17 July 2009

I know he's 87, and possibly a little less than the 6ft 5in he once claimed, but when Her Majesty comes to knight Christopher Lee, I hope she'll keep a firm grip on the sword and make sure he's on his knees. Old habits die hard, and Sir Christopher might attempt a leap at her very throat. He is not to be treated lightly just because that raven black hair has turned to silver.

Of course, the first knight of horror (if I may be so bold) will have to see if his and the Queen's schedules can overlap. He has opened more veins and amazed eyes than she has named bridges and battleships. His record of work includes more than 250 jobs in film and television, dating from when he apparently carried a spear in Olivier's Hamlet (1948).

The same biographical sketch that lists the parts claims Lee was born in Belgravia. That sounds auspicious until you wonder - above stairs or below? Lee does have his credentials: Italianate-named forbears, the rumour of Wellington College, the Royal Air Force and then some rather hush-hush operations during the war. I'm sure it's all true (even if the detail is scarce), yet you can see the actor's face in the handsome young man, and acting is never too far from fraud, which in turn only makes me wonder if Lee might have thrown in a few more spivs, bounders and bogus colonels in his hallowed career as a magic man with strange powers. If there's one thing he has spared us, it's the possibility of humour. In turn, that provokes an intriguing question: did this veteran actor know that most of his great roles were enjoyable hokum, or did he take them in high earnest?

Although Lee was part of the J Arthur Rank charm school in the late 1940s, it has to be said that he did not really make it as a romantic lead. He was passed over in favour of people such as Dirk Bogarde, Kenneth More and Richard Todd. But he did have a great scene - as a captured German soldier - in Michael Powell's Ill Met By Moonlight and that got him noticed. It was just a year later, 1957, that he played St Evremonde in A Tale of Two Cities, and then the Creature in The Curse of Frankenstein, in which his long-time chum, Peter Cushing, was cast as the Baron Frankenstein.

That was the start of what would become "Hammer Horror" (an operation that won the Queen's award for British Industry as well as critical praise for its introduction of colour, and thus blood, to the rather stale horror genre). In 1958, Lee was turned into a star by his very sexy and subtly ambiguous Dracula.

The die was cast. Lee and Cushing ran the horror show rather as Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi had done in the days of black and white. If the actor ever wearied of the cliches, it never showed. He played other roles - Sherlock Holmes, then Mycroft (for Billy Wilder). He played Bond villains when he might have been considered for the lead. He played Rochefort in Dick Lester's very pretty Musketeer pictures. He was exceptional as Rasputin: The Mad Monk in 1966 and, in 1998, as Mohammed Ali Jinnah (the leader of the young Pakistan). He did a lot of research for both and hardly seemed to realise that the first film cared so much less for authenticity than the second.

Just as sensible retirement might have been talked about, he found himself available for two lofty franchise projects: so he became Count Dooku in the last Star Wars pictures, and Saruman in the Lord of the Rings series. He opens this very week in The Heavy, and no one bothers to think that he might not be good value. All of which only leads on to the awkward question of where in our popular culture the monsters of myth (including the Creature, Fu Manchu and Dracula) meet those who are merely exotic or foreign - like Osama bin Laden, Mao Zedong or ... name your bogeyman. Truth to tell, in another age, a Christopher Lee might seem as odd as actors working in black face. But he is the end of the great movie tradition that began with Lon Chaney and our fascination with sacred monsters.

Monkey Shines (1988)

Monkey Shines (sometimes called Monkey Shines: An Experiment in Fear) is an American thriller film originally released in 1988. Written and directed by George A. Romero ("Night of the Living Dead", "Creepshow"), the film is based on a novel by the same title authored by Michael Stewart. It was filmed on location in and around Pittsburgh.

Monkey Shines tells the story of an athlete, Alan Mann, who is rendered quadriplegic when struck by a truck. Mann fails to adjust to his condition, becoming suicidal and despondent. When a scientist friend of his (portrayed by John Pankow), who has been experimenting with the injection of human brain tissue into monkeys, learns this, he is prompted to supply one of the experimental monkeys, named "Ella" (portrayed by Boo, whose sounds are provided by Frank Welker), to Alan as a helper.

Their relationship is amicable at first, with Mann's life being made much easier, and the two bond deeply, even sharing "romantic" moments with sweet music. But soon their interaction takes a decidedly sinister turn. The monkey seems to become a telepathic receptacle for Mann's anger at his state and his desire for revenge against friends and family for slights both real and imagined. Simultaneously, Mann develops a romantic relationship with Melanie (Kate McNeil), a specialist in quadriplegia and helper monkeys.

The film contains a rare example of an intimate love scene with a severely handicapped protagonist.

Ella's protectiveness turns to savage jealousy even as Alan is informed that his condition may be reversible. First, Ella kills Alan's jealous and unappreciated mother (Joyce Van Patten), by electrocuting her in the bathtub. Then, Ella kills the scientist, by injecting him with the very syringe of poison he had intended to use on her, and disables Melanie, before trying to light her on fire. Alan, helpless and alone, is able to summon the strength to turn on the tape player with the romantic music, summoning Ella to cuddle close to him. When Ella cradles Alan's head, Alan, painfully betraying Ella's trust, bites into her neck with his teeth, and then thrashes his head back and forth, hitting Ella into the handles of his wheelchair before finally relinquishing his bite and throwing her toward the open deck of his tape machine, killing Ella.

The movie ends with Alan undergoing surgery to restore his mobility, after which he walks using the aid of crutches.

Isle of the Dead

Isle of the Dead (German: Die Toteninsel) is the best known painting of Swiss Symbolist artist Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901). Prints of the work were very popular in central Europe in the early 20th century — Vladimir Nabokov observed that they were to be "found in every Berlin home." Böcklin produced several different versions of the mysterious painting between 1880 and 1886.

• The "Basel" version, 1880

All versions of Isle of the Dead depict a desolate and rocky islet seen across an expanse of dark water. A small rowboat is just arriving at a water gate and seawall on shore. An oarsman maneuvers the boat from the stern. In the bow, facing the gate, is a female figure clad entirely in white which stands upright just behind her husband's white, festooned coffin. The tiny islet is dominated by a dense grove of tall, dark cypress trees — associated by long-standing tradition with cemeteries and mourning — which is closely hemmed in by precipitous cliffs. Furthering the funerary theme are what appear to be sepulchral portals and windows penetrating the rock faces. The overall impression conveyed by the imagery is one of both hopeless desolation and tense expectation.

Böcklin himself provided no public explanation as to the meaning of the painting, though he did describe it as “a dream picture: it must produce such a stillness that one would be awed by a knock on the door.” The title, which was conferred upon it by the art dealer Fritz Gurlitt in 1883, was not specified by Böcklin, though it does derive from a phrase in an 1880 letter he sent to the painting’s original commissioner. Not knowing the history of the early versions of the painting (see below), many observers have interpreted the oarsman as representing the boatman Charon who conducted souls to the underworld in Greek mythology. The water would then be either the River Styx or the River Acheron and his white-clad passenger a recently deceased soul transiting to the afterlife.

• The "New York" version 1880

Isle of the Dead evokes, in part, the English Cemetery in Florence, Italy, where the first three versions were painted. The cemetery was close to Böcklin's studio and was also where his infant daughter Maria was buried. (In all, Böcklin lost 8 of his 14 children.)

The model for the rocky islet was likely Pondikonisi, a small island near Corfu which is adorned with a small chapel amid a cypress grove.. (Another, less likely candidate is the island of Ponza in the Tyrrhenian Sea.)

• Greek island of Pondikonisi

Böcklin painted five versions of Isle of the Dead from 1880 to 1886. The versions become progressively more developed with a lightening sky in the background.

Böcklin completed the first version of the painting in May 1880 for his patron Alexander Günther, but kept it himself. In April 1880, while still working on it, Böcklin's Florence studio had been visited by Marie Berna (widow of financier Dr.Georg von Berna [1836-65] and soon-to-be wife of the German politician Waldemar, Count of Oriola [1854-1910]). She was struck by the first version of this "dream image" (now in the Kunstmuseum Basel), which sat half completed on the easel, so Böcklin painted a smaller version on wood for her (now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York City). At Berna's request, he added the coffin and female figure, in allusion to her husband's death of diphtheria years earlier. Subsequently, he added these elements to the earlier painting. He called these works Die Gräberinsel ("Tomb Island"). (Sometimes the "Basel" version is credited as the first one, sometimes the "New York".)

The third version was painted in 1883 for Böcklin’s dealer Fritz Gurlitt. Beginning with this version, one of the burial chambers in the rocks on the right bears Böcklin's own initials: "A.B.". (In 1933, this version was put up for sale and a noted Böcklin admirer, Adolf Hitler, acquired it. He hung it first at the Berghof in Obersalzberg and, then after 1940, in the New Reich Chancellery in Berlin. It is now at the Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin.)

Financial imperatives resulted in a fourth version in 1884, which was ultimately acquired by the entrepreneur and art collector Baron Heinrich Thyssen and hung at his Berliner Bank subsidiary. It was burned after a bomb attack during World War II and survives only as a black-and-white photograph.

A fifth version was commissioned in 1886 by the Museum of Fine Arts, Leipzig, where it still hangs.

• Fifth version, 1886

In 1888, Böcklin created a painting called Die Lebensinsel ("Isle of Life"). Probably intended as an antipole to the Isle of the Dead, it also shows a small island, but with all signs of joy and life. Together with the first version of the Isle of the Dead, this painting is part of the collection of the Kunstmuseum Basel.

• "Isle of life"

Isle of the Dead proved extremely popular in the early 20th century; Freud, Lenin, and Clemenceau all had prints of it in their offices.

Works inspired by Isle of the Dead

Paintings

• As is self-evident, Salvador Dalí's 1932 painting The Real Picture of the Isle of the Dead by Arnold Böcklin at the Hour of the Angelus is inspired by Böcklin's work.
• The Swiss artist H. R. Giger created a version of the picture, Hommage à Böcklin (1977), in his typical "biomechanical" style.

Theater

• August Strindberg's play The Ghost Sonata (1907) ends with the image of Isle of the Dead accompanied by melancholy music. It was one of Strindberg's favorite pictures.

Films

• Val Lewton's 1945 horror film Isle of the Dead was inspired by the painting which serves as a backdrop to the picture's title sequence. In an earlier film, I Walked with a Zombie (1943), Lewton had also alluded to it, placing it quite visibly on a wall in one scene. Lewton had been fascinated and terrified by a replica as a child.
• The painting is the explicit backdrop for Norman McLaren's short animated film A Little Phantasy on a 19th-century Painting (1946).
• The Quay Brothers' 2005 film The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes is said to be inspired by the painting, as well as by the book The Invention of Morel by Bioy Casares. Some of the scenery in the film (shot in a studio in Leipzig) is particularly reminiscent of the Leipzig version of the painting.

Literature

• Heinrich Mann's 1903 novel Die Göttinnen oder Die drei Romane der Herzogin von Assy (The Goddesses, or The Three Novels of the Duchess of Assy) uses the painting's imagery without explicitly mentioning it.
• In Vladimir Nabokov's Mary (1970; English translation of Mashen'ka [Машенька, 1926]) it is mentioned that a copy of The Isle of the Dead hangs in the room occupied by Klara.
• In Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s 1952 novella Der Richter und sein Henker (The Judge and His Hangman), the painting is mentioned and functions as a harbinger of doom.
• In J.G. Ballard's 1966 novel The Crystal World, Böcklin's second version of the painting is invoked to describe the gloom of the opening scene at Port Matarre.
• Roger Zelazny used the picture as an inspiration for the meeting place of two mythological antagonists in his novel Isle of the Dead (1969).
• A French graphic novel in five tomes, L'île des morts, was published on the Böcklin painting's theme with a strong influence of writer H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos by the editor Vents d’Ouest at Issy Les Moulineaux, in 1996.
• The Italian illustrator Milo Manara also depict this painting in one of his graphic novels (Au revoir les étoiles) in which the main character revives classical paintings.
• Bernard Cornwell's The Warlord Chronicles (1995-97) associates Dorset's Isle of Portland with the painting's isle. It is described as a place of internal exile and damnation. The causeway that almost links the real-life island to the mainland was supposed to be guarded to keep the "dead" (including the criminally insane) from crossing the Fleet and escaping back into Britain (a bit of literary conjecture in this historical fiction, not archaeological fact).
• In 1998 the Italian writer Franco Ricciardello won the Urania Award with a novel (Ai Margini del Caos, Aux frontières du chaos) whose plot revolves around a mystery involving the different versions of the painting.
• The German novelist Thomas Lehr (b. 1957) mentioned the painting as hanging in a hospital room in his Nabokov's Cat (1999).
• The 5th version of the painting serves as appropriate cover art for German writer Lena Falkenhagen's novel Die Boroninsel (Boron Island).
• In 2008, the painting is used as one of the dreamlike setting for the comic novel Sognare, forse morire, Volume 118 of the Series Julia. Written by Giancarlo Berardi and Maurizio Mantero, Graphic by Laura Zuccheri.

Music

• The Island of the Dead (1890) is a symphonic poem by Romantic composer Heinrich Schülz-Beuthen evoking the painting.
• Sergei Rachmaninoff also composed a symphonic poem, Isle of the Dead, Op. 29 (1909), inspired by the painting.
• One of the four tone poems of German composer Max Reger’s Vier Tondichtungen nach Böcklin (Op 128, 1913) is “Die Totensel” (No. 3), based on the painting. (The same year, Reger’s disciple Fritz Lubrich, Junior [1888-1971] composed Drei Romantische Tonstücke nach Böcklinschen Bildern (Three Romantic Tonstücke after Böcklin’s Pictures; Op 37), an organ work of which No. 3 is also The Dead Island.)
• The Swedish neoclassical band Arcana used an image of Isle of the Dead on the cover of their debut album Dark Age of Reason.

Anime

• From the anime Kuroshitsuji (黒執事, Black Butler) by Yana Toboso, Sebastian Michaelis (セバスチャン・ミカエリス ,Sebasuchan Mikaerisu) ferried the soul of Ciel Phantomhive (シエル・ファントムハイヴ ,Shieru Fantomuhaivu) to the Isle of the Dead. Sebastian hands Ciel Tanaka's diary, in which Tanaka details the former Lord Phantomhive's knowledge of his impending death. Sebastian carrying Ciel enters the isle and there Ciel calmly waits for Sebastian to take his soul.

Video/computer games

• A downloadable map for the computer game Aliens versus Predator 2 is based on the Isle of the Dead.
• The painting appears as a location in the Pocket PC graphical adventure game, Fade.

Remo Williams:The adventure begins (1985)

Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, also released as Remo: Unarmed and Dangerous, is a 1985 American film. The action/adventure film featured Fred Ward, Joel Grey and Kate Mulgrew. It was directed by Guy Hamilton. The character is based on The Destroyer pulp paperback series (later Destroyer books actually make fun of the film and its promotional materials). The movie was the only one on the big screen featuring the character Remo Williams, and faired poorly in theaters. The film received mixed reviews from critics, although it did give Joel Grey a Golden Globe nomination. The film and a Remo Williams television pilot both had Dick Clark as an executive producer.

Samuel Edward "Sam" Makin (played by Fred Ward) is a tough street cop recruited as a secret agent through a bizarre method: his death is faked so that there will be no questions asked as to his disappearance. Rechristened "Remo Williams" (after the name and location of the manufacturer of the bedpan in Makin's hospital room), his face is surgically altered and he is trained to be a human killing machine by his aged Korean martial arts master Chiun (played by Grey in heavy makeup). Though Remo's training is extremely rushed by Chiun's standards, Remo learns such skills as dodging bullets and running (not walking) on water. The Chiun character, who is stereotypically nationalistic, racist and sexist, is both the comic relief and wise mentor figure in the film. Chiun and Remo practice a fictional form of Korean martial arts named Sinanju. Remo is sent to investigate a corrupt weapons procurement program within the US Army.

The Destroyer/Remo Williams

In the States The Destroyer is a massive franchise of paperback novels, and Charles Roven and Steve Chasman, producers, respectively, of The Dark Knight and the Transporter films, are aiming to bring Remo back. THR's Risky Business blog reports that the project is being set up between Columbia and Sony.

Incredibly there are, to date, about 150 novels in the Destroyer series, which was begun in the early 70s by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir, and continued by multiple authors.

The overall concept is that Remo Williams, a cop from Newark, is framed and sentenced to death, and then rescued and turned into a super ninja spy by a secret society begun by President Kennedy. A bit like Torchwood but without the aliens. He is trained in a mental invented martial art called Sinanju by the Mr Miyagi character Chiun, earning the ability to dodge bullets and walk on sand without leaving footprints.

The original film starred hunky Fred Ward as Remo and Joel Grey (the creepy MC from Cabaret) as Chiun. Captain Janeway was in it too. The director, fittingly given the Bond-ish potential of the series, was Guy Hamilton (Goldfinger, Live and Let Die).

It was daft but a lot of fun, and had a cliffhanging setpiece on an extremely fake looking Statue of Liberty. The American title was The Adventure Begins, which was a tad unfortunate since the series never went anywhere. There was a TV pilot in the late 80s, but it wasn't picked up.

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The Quiet Man (1952)

The Quiet Man is a 1952 American romantic drama film directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Victor McLaglen and Barry Fitzgerald. It was based on a 1933 Saturday Evening Post short story by Maurice Walsh. The film is notable for its lush photography of the Irish countryside and the long, climactic, semi-comic fist fight between Wayne and McLaglen.

Set in 1920s Ireland, Sean Thornton (John Wayne), an Irish-American from Pittsburgh, returns to Ireland to reclaim his family's farm in Innisfree. He meets and falls in love with the fiery Mary Kate Danaher (Maureen O'Hara), the spinster sister of the bullying, loud-mouthed landowner "Red" Will Danaher (Victor McLaglen). Danaher, angry that Sean outbid him for the Thornton land adjacent to his property, initially refuses to sanction the marriage until several town locals, including the parish priest, conspire to trick him into believing that the wealthy Widow Tillane wants to marry him, but only if Mary Kate is no longer living in the house. After learning the truth on Sean and Mary Kate's wedding day, an enraged Will refuses to give his sister her full dowry.

Sean, unschooled in Irish customs, cares nothing about the dowry, but Mary Kate is obsessed with obtaining it, the dowry representing her independence, identity, and pride. Angered and shamed by Sean's refusal to confront her brother and demand what is legally hers, she brands him a coward, and, despite living together, they are estranged as husband and wife. The truth about Sean, however, is known only to one other person in the village, the Church of Ireland minister Rev. Playfair (Arthur Shields). Sean is a former boxer in the United States, a heavy weight champion known as "Trooper Thorn." After accidentally killing an opponent in the ring, Sean hung up his gloves, vowing never to fight again.

Later, in an attempt to force Sean to confront Will Danaher, Mary Kate leaves him and boards a train departing Castletown and headed to Dublin; Ireland's Capital. Infuriated, Sean arrives and drags her off the train, and, followed by the townspeople, forces her to walk the five miles to Innisfree from Castletown to Will Danaher's farm. Sean demands that Will hand over her dowry. Will finally relents and gives him the cash. Mary Kate and Sean throw it into a furnace, showing that Mary Kate never cared about the money, but only that Sean stand up for his wife. Sean and Will slug it out through the village, stop for a drink, brawl again, then become best friends. Sean regains Mary Kate's love and respect. Will Danaher and the Widow Tillane begin courting, and peace returned to Innisfree.

The film was something of a departure for Wayne and Ford, who were both known mostly for Westerns and other action-oriented films. It was also a departure for Republic Pictures, which backed Ford in what was considered a risky venture at the time. It was the first time the studio, known for low budget B-movies, released a film receiving an Oscar nomination, the only Best Picture nomination the studio would ever garner.

Ford read the story in 1933 and soon purchased the rights to it for $10. Republic Pictures agreed to finance the film with O'Hara and Wayne with Ford directing, only if all three agreed to film a western with Republic. All agreed and after filming Rio Grande they headed for Ireland to start shooting.

One of the conditions that Republic Pictures placed on John Ford was that the film came in at under two hours total running time. The finished picture was two hours and fifteen minutes. When screening the film for Republic Studio executives, Ford stopped the film at approximately two hours in: on the verge of the climactic fight between Wayne and McLaglen. Republic executives relented and allowed the film to run its full length. It was one of the few films that Republic filmed in Technicolor; most of the studio's other color films were made in a more economical process known as Trucolor.

The film employed many actors from the Irish theatre, including Barry Fitzgerald's brother, Arthur Shields, as well as extras from the Irish countryside, and it is one of the few Hollywood movies in which spoken Gaelic can be heard.

The story is set in Innisfree, a city in Lough Gill, County Sligo. Many scenes for the film were actually shot in and around the village of Cong, County Mayo and on the grounds of Cong's Ashford Castle. Cong is now a wealthy small town and the castle a 5-star luxury hotel. The connections with the film have led to the area becoming a tourist attraction. The Quiet Man Fan Club hold their annual general meeting in Ashford Castle each year.

The film also presents John Ford's depiction of an idealized Irish society, with Catholics and Protestants living in harmony, and no social divisions based on class or religion. The Catholic priest Father Lonergan and the Protestant Rev. Playfair maintain a strong friendly relationship throughout the film.

The famous kissing scene between John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara is shown in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) when E.T. watches television. E.T. is interested and, moved by the scene, his telepathic contact with Elliot causes the boy to re-enact it while he is at school.

District 9 (2009) - new trailers -

This a short film from Neill Blomkamp, which the movie District 9 is based off of.

Moon (2009)

Moon is a 2009 science fiction/thriller film about a solitary lunar employee who finds that he may not be able to go home to Earth so easily. The film is the feature film debut of commercial director Duncan Jones, and actor Sam Rockwell stars as the lunar employee. Kevin Spacey voices his robot companion.

Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is an employee contracted by the company Lunar Industries to extract helium-3, which has reversed Earth's energy crisis. Sam is stationed at the lunar base Sarang with only a robot named Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey), but two weeks before completing his three-year assignment, he begins to hallucinate. An extraction goes wrong and he wakes up, not knowing how he got there, and Sam begins to realise Lunar's plans to replace him when he finds a younger, angrier, version of himself.

Moon is the first feature film directed by commercial director Duncan Jones, who co-wrote the script with Nathan Parker.

The film was specifically written as a vehicle for actor Sam Rockwell and pays homage to the films of Jones's youth, such as Silent Running (1972), Alien (1979) and Outland (1981).

Jones described the intent, "We wanted to create something which felt comfortable within that canon of those science fiction films from the sort of late seventies to early eighties."

The director spoke of his interest in the lunar setting, "For me, the Moon has this weird mythic nature to it... There is still a mystery to it. As a location, it bridges the gap between science-fiction and science fact. We (humankind) have been there. It is something so close and so plausible and yet at the same time, we really don't know that much about it."

The director described the lack of romance in the Moon as a location, citing images from the Japanese lunar orbiter SELENE, "It's the desolation and emptiness of it... it looks like some strange ball of clay in blackness... Look at photos and you'll think that they're monochrome. In fact, they're not. There simply are no primary colours." Jones referenced the photography book Full Moon by Michael Light in designing the look of the film.

December 21, 2012

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a 2004 American pulp adventure, science fiction film written and directed by Kerry Conran in his directorial debut. The film is set in an alternative 1939 and follows the adventures of Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow), a newspaper reporter for The Chronicle, and H. Joseph "Joe" Sullivan (Jude Law), known as "Sky Captain", as they try to track down and stop the mysterious "Dr. Totenkopf".

Conran spent four years making a black and white teaser trailer with a bluescreen set up in his living room and using a Macintosh IIci personal computer. He was able to get producer Jon Avnet to see it, who was so impressed that he spent two years working with the aspiring filmmaker on his screenplay. None of the major studios were interested in financing such an unusual film with a first-time director. Avnet convinced Aurelio De Laurentiis to finance Sky Captain without a distribution deal.

Almost 100 digital artists, modelers, animators and compositors created the multi-layered 2D and 3D backgrounds for the live-action footage while the entire movie was sketched out via hand-drawn storyboards and then re-created as computer-generated 3D animatics. Ten months before Conran made the movie with his actors, he shot it entirely with stand-ins in Los Angeles and then created the whole movie in animatics so that the actors had an idea of what the film would look like and where to move on the soundstage.

In 1994, Conran set up a bluescreen in his living room and began assembling the tools he would need to create his movie. He was not interested in working his way through the system and instead wanted to follow the route of independent filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh. Initially, Kerry and his brother had nothing more than "just a vague idea of this guy who flew a plane. We would talk about all the obvious things like Indiana Jones and all the stuff we liked." Conran spent four years making a black and white teaser trailer in the style of an old-fashion movie serial on his Macintosh IIci personal computer. Once he was finished, Conran showed it to producer Marsha Oglesby, who was a friend of his brother's wife and she recommended that he let producer Jon Avnet see it. Conran met Avnet and showed him the trailer. Conran told him that he wanted to make it into a movie. They spent two or three days just talking about the tone of the movie.

Fifteen years after his death, Laurence Olivier once again received star billing in a film. Through the use of computer graphics, footage of him as a young man was integrated into the film in which Olivier "play" the villain Dr. Totenkopf.

Conran was influenced by the designs of Norman Bel Geddes, an industrial designer who did work for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair and designed exhibits for the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Geddes also designed an airship that was to fly from Chicago to London.

Another key influence was Hugh Ferriss, one of the designers for the 1939 World’s Fair who designed bridges and huge housing complexes. He was an American delineator (one who creates perspective drawings of buildings) and architect. In 1922, skyscraper architect Harvey Wiley Corbett commissioned Ferriss to draw a series of four step-by-step perspectives demonstrating the architectural consequences of the zoning law. These four drawings would later be used in his 1929 book The Metropolis of Tomorrow (Dover Publications, 2005).

Regarding the 1939 New York World’s Fair itself and its futuristic theme of the World of Tomorrow, Conran noted: "...obviously the title refers to the World Expo and the spirit of that was looking at the future with a sense of optimism and a sense of the whimsical, you know, something that we've lost a lot in our fantasies. We're more cynical, more practical... I think what this film attempts to do is to take that enthusiasm and innocence and celebrate it-to not get mired in the practicality that we're fixated upon today."

Conran also acknowledged his debt to German Expressionism, which was particularly evident in the opening scenes in New York City: "Early German cinema was born of just a completely different aesthetic than what we see nowadays. One of the last things I watched before starting this project was the Dr. Mabuse series that Lang had done - terribly inspirational, the use of art and propaganda even."

Conran summed up what influenced him in making Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow: "We tried to approach it almost as though we lived in that era and were just another group of artists trying to make a work out of those pieces and inspirations. We wanted the film to feel like a lost film of that era. If we're a footnote in the history of pulp art and Golden Age comics, that'd be enough, that'd be great. If we even just inspire some people to go back and investigate some of that stuff, we'd have done enough."

Sky Captain has a number of commonalities with the famous Hayao Miyazaki animation Laputa: Castle in the Sky. The sky pirates, focus on primitive mechanics, large airships, and military cultures are similar. Of particular note are the robots in both films with the slinky arms and one eyes that are identical. Both stories center on an evil madman with control over an island of high technology and the search for that island. Laputa has the evil madman searching for the island while Sky Captain has the island as the base of the madman from the beginning. Sky Captain is also different in its message which is largely about the film genre while Laputa has strong anti-war & anti-technology themes found in most of Miyazaki's work. Additionally, both the Hayao Miyazaki film and Sky Captain pay homage to the 1941 Superman Cartoon The Mechanical Monsters.

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Der Richter und sein Henker

Der Richter und sein Henker (English: The Judge and His Hangman) is a novella by the Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt written in 1950 and first published in English in 1955, in a translation by Therese Pol. A new translation by Joel Agee appeared in 2006, published together with Suspicion as The Inspector Bärlach Mysteries, with a foreword by Sven Birkerts. Together with Dürrenmatt's The Pledge: Requiem for the Detective Novel, these stories are considered classics of crime fiction, fusing existential philosophy and the detective genre.

Der Richter und sein Henker was made into a 1975 film titled End of the Game directed by Maximilian Schell, with screenplay by Dürrenmatt and Schell. Jon Voight took lead billing as Walter Tschanz, with Martin Ritt as Hans Bärlach and Robert Shaw as Richard Gastmann. Jacqueline Bisset and Friedrich Dürrenmatt also appeared in the film, and Donald Sutherland played the role of the corpse of Lt. Schmeid. German silent film actress Lil Dagover made her last screen appearance before retirement in the film. The film was also reissued as Getting Away With Murder, Murder on the Bridge and Deception.

The main character is Commissar Bärlach of the Bernese police, who is dying of cancer and must solve the murder of his best officer, Lieutenant Ulrich Schmied. Bärlach is assisted in his investigation by officer Walter Tschanz. As Schmied had been investigating the crimes of Richard Gastmann, a career master criminal who is an old friend and enemy of Bärlach's, suspicion immediately falls upon Gastmann. But Bärlach and Tschanz's "investigation" of Gastmann yields an unexpected twist after Tschanz kills Gastmann, supposedly in self-defense. Bärlach then reveals that he has known all along that Tschanz is the one who murdered Schmied.

Tschanz had purposefully killed Gastmann so that Gastmann would be forever blamed for Schmied's murder. Furthermore, Bärlach had manipulated Tschanz into this action with the manner in which Bärlach had pressed forward with their seeming investigation of Gastmann. Bärlach had deliberately pushed Tschanz toward a final, fatal confrontation with Gastmann, resulting in Gastmann's death: the punishment Bärlach considers just for all of the previous crimes Gastmann had committed, but which Bärlach had been unable to prove.

In fact, Gastmann and Bärlach went back forty years. They had long ago made a personal bet with one another as to whether it was possible to commit the "perfect" crime, such that even an investigator who personally witnessed it would never be able to prove the perpetrator guilty. After that bet, Gastmann, as Bärlach well knew, had pursued a lifelong career as a purveyor of crime, evil in its comprehensiveness, arrogant and mocking of civilization itself. And indeed he always remained one step ahead of Bärlach's tireless but fruitless efforts to convict him. Gastmann remembered to Bärlach: "I wanted to prove that it was possible to commit a crime that couldn't be solved." Gastmann had been correct, and Bärlach's final plot is an acknowledgment thereof. By murdering Schmied during Schmied's investigation of Gastmann, Tschanz had ruined the terminally ill Bärlach's final chance to bring Gastmann to justice in a courtroom. Therefore, using Tschanz as a pawn, Bärlach finds an alternate method to mete out the justice for which he feels Gastmann is overdue.

The central question of this book is whether or not it is right to frame a person for a crime they didn't commit, if they've committed another crime that was never proven. Bärlach affirms the question when he says to Gastmann: "I couldn't prove that it was you who committed the first crime, but I am transferring this crime to you" — therefore, Gastmann, the very embodiment of evil criminality, was finally punished.

The interplay between Bärlach and Tschanz takes on a symbolic dimension. Tschanz, the ambitious underling, insists on the efficacy of modern, scientific crime-solving methods "from the Chicago school". Bärlach is skeptical, relying instead on his deep knowledge of human motives, born of lifelong experience. While Tschanz's methods make ostensible progress on the case, ultimately, it is Bärlach's intuitive sense that has long since enabled him to determine the truth, and also enables him to use Tschanz to settle his old score with Gastmann.

One can understand the novella also as question: "When humans determine themselves the fate of others they become the judges and when they become the instrument of others they become the henchmen." Having been set up by Bärlach to kill Gastmann, Tschanz says to Bärlach at the end of the story, "Then you were the judge and I the hangman". Tschanz then kills himself.

In Memoriam : Karl Malden (1912-2009)