The Big Picture Magazine - Issue 5.pdf - Film - MKTK

www.thebigpicturemagazine.com

contents Issue Five. November/December ‘09

Features

06 / Spotlight

Bright Ideas:

Evocative colour use

on the silver screen

14 / Art & Film

China Syndrome:

Film maker Lucy

Raven discusses global

responsibility in words

and pictures

ESS ENTIAL

24 / Widescreen

Straight Stories:

David Lynch and the

people of America

BFIBOX SETS

38 / 1000 Words

The Adventures Of

Robin Hood : The ﬁ rst

masterpiece of colou r

New this November

Regulars

04 / Reel World

Watchmen Cosplay

‘My dear Livy, not even

the best magician in

the world can produce

a rabbit out of a hat if

there is not already a

rabbit in the hat.’

Boris Lermontov

18 / One Sheet

Spot Colours

34 / On Location

Paris: City of Lights

38 / Screengems

The Snakeskin Jacket

42 / Parting Shot

A Woman is A Woman

44 / Competition

Guess The End Title

44 / Listings

Films coming to a big

screen near you

Editorial o� ce Tel. 0117 9589910 / E: info@thebigpicturemagazine.com Publisher Masoud Yazdani Editor / Design Gabriel Solomons Contributors Daniel Steadman,

Nicholas Page, Scott J. Harris, Alanna Donaldson, Chris Barraclough, John Berra, Tony Nourmand, Alison Elangasinghe Special thanks to John Letham, Sara Carlsson and

all at Park Circus, Michael Pierce at Curzon Cinemas and Gabriel Swartland at City Screen / info@thebigpicturemagazine.com / www.thebigpicturemagazine.com

Published by

intellect books & journals |

Produced in partnership with

www.parkcircus.com

www.bfi.org.uk

Available at

november/december 2009 3

reel world

W ashed-up,

Fake

M.CUBICLE

Mothman

living in

the distant

glory of their

youth, and

despised by the very people

they vowed to protect, the

Watchmen aren’t typical

heroes but they do enjoy the

same inner conﬂict and mass

loathing that blights most

comic book characters.

It’s the complex

characterization that won

the original novel such great

praise, including a spot in

Time Magazine ’s Top 100 list,

and prompted 300 director

Zack Snyder to shoot a three-

hour long ‘re-imagining’ of

the work (much to reclusive

writer Alan Moore’s chagrin).

Even before the movie

version, it was possible to

see the Watchmen brought to

life, walking around our city

streets and posing for photos

with fans. Costume role

players, or ‘cosplayers’ for

short, have been dressing as

their favourite characters for

years now, for conventions,

charity events or simply

hitting the town with some

like-minded friends.

‘I chose [to cosplay

as] Rorschach because I

absolutely love his character,’

says Tohma, a member of a

Watchmen cosplay society.

‘His never-compromise badass

approach to life is exciting and

fun. With the movie coming

out, I knew it would be a

costume that people would

start to recognise, even if they

didn’t know it previously.’

This increasingly popular

hobby takes a great deal

of dedication: getting the

costumes just right can be a

laborious process, one which

involves scouring markets,

home shows and that old

fail-safe eBay for the perfect

material. Even styling a wig

– or, for the brave, their own

hair – can take several hours.

The end results are often

impressive, and make quite

an impact in public. ‘I love

wearing my costume because

I love the attention I get,’

says Lady S, who chose Sally

Jupiter as her character. ‘I

really get into character by

hamming it up for the camera,

when normally I’m a behind-

the-scenes kind of girl. You

can’t be upset when you get

lots of attention wearing a

crazy costume.’

‘The costume gets an

incredible amount of attention

and love from both men

and women,’ agrees Tohma.

‘While I was walking around

Downtown Atlanta, a group of

people actually got all excited

because they knew who I was.

They ran up and got pictures

with me. I even scared one

woman as she was coming out

of an elevator. One of the most

amusing parts is the fact that

no one realises I’m actually

female until I talk.’

Sometimes the attention

can be unwanted however,

especially when the costumes

are a little on the skimpy side.

‘I realised that I need to ﬁx

the corset to cover my chest

better,’ Lady S admits. ‘I’ve

found some pictures online of

just that, which upsets me.’

There can also be issues

with practicality, as group

leader Cleo points out.

‘My Silk Spectre II

costume was not very

practical,’ she says. ‘If I bent

over, the yellow top was

pulled up and basically all

of my ass would show. Plus

this was in March, so I was

absolutely frozen most of

the time. My boyfriend was

dressed as Rorschach, and he

had the opposite problem in

that he was boiling hot and

could barely see where he

was going; not only did the

mask restrict his vision, but

he couldn’t wear his glasses

with it.’

Lady S also had a similar

experience, having worn

boots a size too small for an

entire day to make her outﬁt

as authentic as possible.

‘It’s like I always say about

costuming,’ she says. ‘If

you’re in pain, you can’t see,

or you can’t move, then you’re

doing it right.’ [tbp]

Believe

Chris Barraclough takes us behind the scenes of the

very unusual world of Watchmen Cosplayers.

‘I sliced my ﬁnger

open making those

damn wings.’

TOHMA

Rorschach

‘no one realises I’m

actually a woman

until I talk.’

LADY.S

Silk

Spectre

‘If you’re in pain,

you can’t see, or you

can’t move, then

you’re doing it right.’

FIND OUT MORE :

The Watchmen Cosplay group

can be found on Live Journal ,

at: community.livejournal.

com/watchmencosplay

All images kindly supplied by

those interviewed.

4 www. thebigpicturemagazine .com

november/december 2009 5

spotlight

OPPOSITE IF THE SHOE FITS

LEFT MAKING FACES

The Red Shoes (1948)

Dirs. Michael Powell

& Emeric Pressburger

EVOCATIVE COLOUR ONSCREEN

Dr Herbert Kalmus (who

devised Technicolor) and his

spectacularly estranged wife,

Natalie (who is credited as

Technicolor consultant on

around 350 productions), did

not agree on much – but both

maintained that, of all the

pictures ever ﬁlmed in colour,

The Red Shoes was the ﬁnest.

Powell and Pressburger’s

majestic masterpiece sits at

the pinnacle of British ﬁlm: its

centre piece sequence – the

14-minute ‘Ballet of The Red

Shoes’ – displaying a command

of colour equal to the mastery

of montage shown by Sergei

Eisenstein in Battleship

Potemkin ’s massacre on the

Odessa steps.

To see The Red Shoes is to

feel a ﬁlm reaching beyond

the accepted bounds of

ﬁlmmaking and stretching

itself, as Barry Norman noted,

in ‘an attempt to fuse music,

dance and drama… into

something that comes as close

as possible to total cinema.’

The chance to see it on a big

screen, in the sumptuously

restored print now available,

is an opportunity for an

experience as exquisite as any

ﬁlm can afford.

Bright

‘ Colour ﬁlms have to be lit ,’ wrote Roger Ebert. ‘ But black

and white ﬁlms have to be illuminated. ’ Some critics have

always harboured a prejudice against colour as opposed to

monochrome cinematography. Scott Jordan Harris chooses

six examples that expose the ignorance of that attitude and

demonstrate cinema’s most evocative use of colour.

The Red Shoes is back in UK

cinemas from 11th December.

See page 46 for further details.

➜

november/december 2009 7

Ideas

spotlight Evocative Colour

Le mépris (1963)

Dir. Jean-Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard didn’t much

rate Le mépris – but everyone

else did. By the time Martin

Scorsese named it as one of

his choice of 20 ﬁlms which

made the greatest use of light

and colour, ‘Contempt’, as

it is known in English, was

already one of those few ﬁlms

granted automatic entry onto

almost any serious list of

the best movies ever made.

Skies, seas, boats, building

interiors and exteriors and,

above all, Brigitte Bardot’s

body are all showcased with

rare sumptuousness and

impact in what is perhaps the

ﬁnest collaboration between

Godard and his frequent

cinematographer Raoul

Coutard. Indeed, watching

Le mépris , we realize how

great the potential of colour

cinematography is and how

seldom it is satisfactorily

explored.

�ere are as

many shades

of meaning

expressed

by the ﬁlm’s

palette as there

are ambiguities

in its moral

scheme.

Vertigo (1957)

Dir. Alfred Hitchcock

Skies, seas, boats,

building interiors

and exteriors and,

above all, Brigitte

Bardot’s body are all

showcased with rare

sumptuousness and

impact...

Possibly the greatest of

the great many Hitchcock

classics, Vertigo is certainly

The Master’s most masterly

use of colour. Often overlooked

in favour of focusing on the

ﬁlm’s famously inventive

camerawork – which of course

includes the ingenious use

of the dolly zoom to evoke

the feelings of vertigo – the

ﬁlm’s colour scheme is just as

integral to its effectiveness.

With colours chosen to make

the audience feel dizzy and

even nauseated, and others

employed to suggest the

disorientation, obsession, and

intrusive thoughts James

Stewart experiences onscreen,

Vertigo expertly exploits the

disturbing potential of movie

colour. There are as many

shades of meaning expressed

by the ﬁlm’s palette as there

are ambiguities in its moral

scheme. Calling Vertigo ‘dark’

is reductive on every level.

ABOVE MICHEL PICCOLI AND BRIGITTE BARDOT IN LE MÉPRIS

8 www. thebigpicturemagazine .com

november/december 2009 9

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