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Posted: |
Aug 21, 2013 - 10:57 PM
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By: |
Solium
(Member)
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Anyone know why the photography is so *hazy* looking in this film?
I thought it was atmospheric so the numerous miniature scenes would blend in better? They used the "smoke room" (?) a lot back then to defuse light and give model work a sense of scale.
Holy shit, Herb, solium is right (sorry, solium, I couln't resist) but that is indeed what I read in American Cinematographer years ago. For some reason, I forget why, they started filming the miniatures first, before the live-action, and Bill Fraker smoked up the stages and used heavy diffusion to help hide the wires on the model panes and sell the sense of scale, as solium stated; then they carried that over into the main production shoot to make the photography match.
The movie is long overdue a good quality hi-def remastering, but it's definitely a film with a cult appeal.
That's exactly where I read, it all those years ago. 
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MikeP: Re: And let's be honest, if he thought there was any real danger if his career going down the pan, he'd have signed up to do a Close Encounters pdq. Interestingly, he did once claim he was going to do a sequel (CE4K) so perhaps that was his "banker" movie that he was keeping in his back pocket just in case things went tits up.
Anybody remember the big deal they made when Spielberg re-released "Close Encounters" with an extended scene at the end as well as some editing, such as (mercifully!) shortening the awful scene in which Dreyfuss is unable to control his building of the mountain of mud in his house which comes close to derailing the entire film? I remember the letdown of so many of us in the audience, because we had been given the impression that it would be considerably more than the little they added. I had a letter printed in the Calendar section of the L.A. Times a few days later complaining about it. Still hate that mud scene when I see the original version of the film, but at least I know what to expect.
I did NOT care for "1941" when I saw it -- it simply bypassed my funny bone. But I've always loved the music that Williams wrote for it, especially the thunderous "March," which was one of the pieces I used to use to show off my stereo.
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Posted: |
Jul 2, 2014 - 4:14 AM
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By: |
Mike_J
(Member)
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MikeP: Re: And let's be honest, if he thought there was any real danger if his career going down the pan, he'd have signed up to do a Close Encounters pdq. Interestingly, he did once claim he was going to do a sequel (CE4K) so perhaps that was his "banker" movie that he was keeping in his back pocket just in case things went tits up.
Anybody remember the big deal they made when Spielberg re-released "Close Encounters" with an extended scene at the end as well as some editing, such as (mercifully!) shortening the awful scene in which Dreyfuss is unable to control his building of the mountain of mud in his house which comes close to derailing the entire film? I remember the letdown of so many of us in the audience, because we had been given the impression that it would be considerably more than the little they added. I had a letter printed in the Calendar section of the L.A. Times a few days later complaining about it. Still hate that mud scene when I see the original version of the film, but at least I know what to expect.
.
I'm a huge fan of CE3K and personally had no problem with the Special Edition at all.
Mind you I've lost count of how many other versions of the film there are. Obviously, the Collector's Edition but there are also a multitude of TV prints that are different again to any of the three official Spielberg cuts.
I have on VHS a recording I made from the very first time CE3K was shown on British television. Unless my memory is playing tricks on me, I'm certain that, in the scene where Melinda Dillon is searching for Barry, she bumps into a scarecrow. I've never seen that shot anywhere else so possibly I'm just imagining it but it is quite vivid in my mind.
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Mike: 'm a huge fan of CE3K and personally had no problem with the Special Edition at all.
I don't have a problem with it, just with the big deal they made of it to get us to go back to the theatre to see it again. I lined up to see it the weekend it opened at our Cinerama Dome in Hollywood and liked it a lot and immediately bought the soundtrack, and probably went back to see it again at least once, and immediately bought it on home video (VHS) as soon as it was released. There was an inflated buildup to the Special Edition that simply wasn't realized for many of us when we paid to see it. I still remember the is-that-all-there-is reaction I had and many around me had when it was over.
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I see the standalone Blu-ray of 1941 will be released with only the theatrical cut, but also with deleted scenes as extras. Was the extended cut assembly of the film, previously available as a special edition DVD, just a studio assembly from those deleted elements, or was Spielberg involved in the extended cut? If he was, it's a shame it won't make its way over to the Blu-ray. Anyone have their preference?
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the blu ray has both cuts actually, from bluray.com below
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/1941-Blu-ray/42386/#Review
"(Note: 1941 is included on Blu-ray in both its 119-minute theatrical version and the 146-minute extended cut that first appeared on Universal's 1996 Signature Laserdisc. The longer version restores many individual scenes that are both good in themselves and help connect the film's "plot", to the extent it has one. But the basic story and the major sequences are identical in both versions and the discussion below applies to both.)"
Not sure if the director was involved in that recut though, I think it was Universal related to TV showings. I think it is the better cut though.
Yes, thank you. Not sure how I missed that.
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the blu ray has both cuts actually, from bluray.com below
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/1941-Blu-ray/42386/#Review
"(Note: 1941 is included on Blu-ray in both its 119-minute theatrical version and the 146-minute extended cut that first appeared on Universal's 1996 Signature Laserdisc. The longer version restores many individual scenes that are both good in themselves and help connect the film's "plot", to the extent it has one. But the basic story and the major sequences are identical in both versions and the discussion below applies to both.)"
Not sure if the director was involved in that recut though, I think it was Universal related to TV showings. I think it is the better cut though.
Yes, thank you. Not sure how I missed that.
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Just did my annual December watch.
Penny Marshall: "What's you real name?"
Joe Flaherty: "Raoul..."
Marshall: "I knew it!"
Flaherty: "...Lipshitz"
Mifune: "Fire at that industrial structure!"
Ned Beatty taking daughter Dianne Kay aside in what we assume will be a warning concerning the lusts of men.....
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