My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn’t understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me.”
- Anne Rice, quote from “Anne Rice leaves Christianity”
Weekly apologetics cartoons for the faithful, the faithless, and the full-of-its.
I never knew that she was a Christian. I wonder when she gave up atheism.
She talks about it here:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsoGi9E2pKU?rel=0&w=560&h=315%5D
I’ve never seen Interview with a Vampire. Don’t you make films or are very into them? Do you think a person can gain anything from that film of hers?
Joshua
No–I don’t know the first thing about film making. I do watch a lot of films and you’re not missing much by not having seen the movie. It did have an underlying dysfunctional family theme rife with homosexual undertones.
Wow–not that I go around asking, but you’re the first person I know who hasn’t seen The Twilight Zone or Interview With a Vampire before! :P
The reason I thought you were into movie or movie making was a link to “Lenon Honor Films” there on your site.
I’ve always been into unusual things. Since we’re talking about films, I’ll give two examples: As odd as it will seem, I’m a huge fan of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Despite its overt evolutionary overtones, I think it’s a masterpiece of film and probably the weirdest and most interesting pop movie I’ve ever seen. (I really like the open-ended interpretation of the film. [The Object could stand for many things.] And I always like it when a movie or book ends with a question.) Although I’m not a Kubrick fan, I also enjoyed Kubrick’s Odyssey, an unorthodox and bizarre documentary about the hidden symbolism of 2001. Note: The thing that made it for me was that the director concluded that the message of 2001 was that the more technologically advanced mankind becomes, the more soulless it becomes. (If you’ve seen the film, you’ll notice there is very little dialog and the dialog in the movie never reveals the thoughts of the people. In fact, the people even become cold and emotionless, while HAL appears more human.)
Hey you found a movie that everyone has seen, but that I have not seen yet! :) I need to see this movie.
“The reason I thought you were into movie or movie making was a link to “Lenon Honor Films” there on your site.”
Hmm…I thought it was clear that it is a “tribute” and review site. I guess I should revise my about page.
Haha!
Hope you enjoy it after you’ve finished the whole thing! The entire movie is slightly creepy. But I think it is the best type of art — it invites the viewer to think and participate.
Anyway, enough about movies. I’ve got to get back to the drawing and translating board.
Joshua
It’s was a fascinating film. I see a lot of it’s influence in other sci-fi films. I even took a look at 2010, but the sequel did not seem interesting at all.
Sorry about getting off topic, btw.
No big deal, SC. By the way, if you get a chance and you’re interested, check out the documentary Kubrick’s Odyssey. There’s some controversial theories in it, but the director’s interpretation of Kubrick’s The Shining was really mind-blowing and interesting. If I remember correctly, the tribute site you run deals with movies by a director who investigates the symbolism in films, right? If so, I think you might enjoy Kubrick’s Odyssey more than the average viewer.
Joshua
I’m taking a look at the movie and it’s great so far–it’s before it’s time. The only problem I have with it is the HD details added to this movie (I wish I could watch this movie in it’s originial form). It’s annoying to watch a movie with such definition and detail that did not exist in movies in their original forms before the 2010′s.
Examples:
From the original:
http://dvice.com/assets_c/2011/12/2001monolith-thumb-550xauto-79678.jpg
From the altered HD version we see today:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ob2lSL8uwkI/TRfCb8atIpI/AAAAAAAABDY/2X5Y-kXU6HQ/s1600/2001-moon.jpg
Now I know why people used to raise a fit over the colorization of black-and-white movies.
Regarding Rice’s “conversion from a pessimistic atheist”:
“You know, when you’re brought up the way I was brought up in the Catholic Church, you really remain culturally a Catholic all your life. Your whole approach to art, your whole approach to music, to architecture, to literature, all of this has been shaped by Catholic thinking and the Catholic tradition. So that’s not something that you can put aside. I mean, my novels were Catholic novels when I was calling myself an atheist.”
Synapticcohesion: “The only problem I have with it is the HD details added to this movie (I wish I could watch this movie in it’s originial form)”
Are you sure that the second image is not actually closer to what Kubrick originally released in the cinema? Serious question here, I don’t know. But is the HD version actually ‘altered’ from the original print? For a start, the second image is closer to the original aspect ratio, compared to the virtually square first image you posted. The first image looks more like a degraded VHS print, the second looks more like they’ve re-digitised from one of the original cinema prints.
Well I think that the second image from a distance looks almost like an artificial, computer-generated image. I suspect that the movie was “enhanced” with computer editing software. Spielberg admitted to such alterations in his later releases of “ET.” What annoys me about alterations such as these is that it takes away any historical perspective–not to mention the nostalgia. It also makes it harder to distinguish between today’s heavily CGI-generated films and yesterdays heavily CGI altered films. I was particularly annoyed with the computer graphics portrayed in the altered film. Advanced computer graphics that was not even available in 1988 much less 1968. When I watch a movie, I want to see the advanced technology of the era, not today’s technology added in via CGI.
There was no CGI in 2001, but you’d be surprised at what they were able to do using other methods. I believe it was Douglas Trumball who did the fx. I see nothing in the 2nd image that necessitates CGI – I think that’s original stuff.
“When I watch a movie, I want to see the advanced technology of the era, not today’s technology added in via CGI.”
Me too – I doubt Kubrik’s notoriously picky estate would have allowed it. ‘Preserve the Master’s vision’ is pretty much their axiom. I’d be very surprised if it’s been tampered with as you suspect. But I could be wrong.
I think that’s one thing that makes the older sci-fi movies so concrete and beautiful, especially 2001. (I think the overall effects in 2001 still look fresh and good today.) There was so much they could do without CGI. And the realness of the props and sets makes it much easier for actors to portray their characters, I think.
It wasn’t something Spielberg ever tried to hide, though it appears he regrets the changes:
“There’s going to be no more digital enhancements or digital additions to anything based on any film I direct…. When people ask me which E.T. they should look at, I always tell them to look at the original 1982 E.T. If you notice, when we did put out E.T. we put out two E.T.s. We put out the digitally enhanced version with the additional scenes and for no extra money, in the same package, we put out the original ‘82 version. I always tell people to go back to the ’82 version.”
(From last year.)
Yes at least Spielberg admitted it–he even announced it. And I agree that one should have the option of watching the original first. I’d like to see both; not just the new version. Yet I notice that most older movies are now being digitally enhanced without such an announcement. It should be a requirement at the beginning of the movie: “This movie is a digitally enhanced version of the original film some visual details may have been altered and/or added.”
I’ve seen HD 1950′s Twilight Zone episodes and was annoyed to see such detailed “enhancements” in which I could see every wrinkle and pore that were on the actors’ face. And you could tell that these details were added in because there would be other blurry fuzzy areas of the film (such as the background) where they didn’t bother to add HD details to. My eyes take a while to adjust to a lot of HD images and that’s why it’s particularly annoying to me–and why it never goes unnoticed. I suspect that these enhancements are made because the originals would have looked blurred and distorted using the newer higher video resolution changes–just as older videos went from looking clear to looking blurred and distorted under the new increasingly higher video resolutions. They should have just stuck with the lower resolution format–no one was complaining. *End of rant.
“There was so much they could do without CGI. And the realness of the props and sets makes it much easier for actors to portray their characters”
Agreed. Older movies are much better with real sets, animatronics, and other tangible details. If I wanted CGI, I would watch cartoons–not a film.
How much directing skill do you really need when you are relying on an animation team sitting behind computers, mapping out “virtual” scenes? Answer: NONE.
You still need to direct the animators. Pixar movies are completely CGI, but the direction is always completely superb, and they always put story first.
Where I feel CGI falls down is in monster films. American Werewolf In London or The Thing, both released in the early 1980s, had fantastic monster effects, I believe by Rick Baker in both instances, all produced ‘on set’. They benefit from being ‘real’. Viewers know there is something actually there. CGI just doesn’t produce the same effect. As someone wrote recently, they can destroy a building yet leave the audience unmoved.
“Pixar movies are completely CGI, but the direction is always completely superb, and they always put story first.”
Yes if it’s an animated film, then that is a different case. I still prefer regular drawing animation to CGI, but CGI animation also works well in many animated films.
“Where I feel CGI falls down is in monster films. American Werewolf In London or The Thing, both released in the early 1980s, had fantastic monster effects, I believe by Rick Baker in both instances, all produced ‘on set’. They benefit from being ‘real’.”
Agreed.
Coincidentally, I just came across the following completely randomly on a comment on The AV Club, about 2001′s effects:
“The main reason the special effects hold up so wonderfully (after all the research into their scientific “plausibility” –along with their amazing “designs”– gets factored in) is that they are “practical,” rather than CGI. When a model of the spacecraft Discovery is shot USING REAL LIGHT, it can be blown up or condensed to any scale (from CINERAMA SCREEN to the tiniest TV set) and it still looks “actual” –because it IS, being composed of real objects filmed in real (“bounced,” rather than emanating or unreal) illumination. With digital pixel-creations, there is often the problem of “crush and stretch” –which means, unless the image is seen in its exactly intended ratio/scale (which is always iffy, given the vagaries of home screens and movie theaters) the surfaces are not seen optimally, and can either look plastic-y or otherwise synthetically-added-in-place.
An interesting corollary to this is GREAT OLD MATTE PAINTINGS. When you see how great a hand-painted matte can (not often, but SOMETIMES) look in a classic movie…and then SEE the ACTUAL matte painting itself (as I have), one of the amazing things you’re struck by is that the painting actually has LESS detail than what appears on the screen: This is because –in the old (physical) process of re-photographing the original image (projected) along with the matte painting (or shooting both simultaneously) both are exposed to REAL bounced light, recorded on film; and this light, bouncing off the imperfections in the simplified brush strokes, actually combines with the imperfections in the lenses and emulsion, and turns the billions of unintended bumps and lines and ridges and dapples in the paint pigments into “fractal-type unknown shadows” –which “read,” to the Mind’s Eye, when blown up, just as REAL “un-knowables” do in the everyday world, making for all sorts of “rorschach” detailing.
For the same reason, Kubrick dappled the outside of his spacecrafts with thousands of line-covered/bolt-covered/gadget-covered/ridged/”worked” surfaces (made of parts he cribbed from other model kits) because, even if the viewer didn’t know the intended “meaning” of these details (which in fact HAD no actual meaning) the mind perceived it as having the level of “wealth of information/detail” that we “expect” from things we see in real life. Hence, the models seemed more “real.”"
http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-future-wont-look-like-this-11-unintentionally,84348/
You can create amazing illusions with skilled camera work. Even animatronics can look pretty fake when you see them in “person,” but with the right camera angles and lighting, they suddenly brought to life.
It’s images like this that make me pause:
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.urlesque.com/media/2009/02/picture-1.png
I almost expect to see Facebook and Twitter buttons with graphics like this (something that you don’t even see in movies from the 1980′s and 1990′s). I suspect that’s because the computer graphics in the movie were digitally enhanced, which is unnecessary can creates confusion for viewers without any historical perspective.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but in a 1968 movie I would expect to see CRT monitors (as in old computer monitors and television sets) and more crude computer graphics–not the higher quality graphics you would see on LCD/LED screens today.
Although this picture is grainy, this is more of what I would expect the computer monitors in the movie to actually look like:
http://preterhuman.net/texts/other/crystalinks/hal.jpg
Yes, I see what you mean with that first image. Is that an actual screen grab, or is perhaps from one of the option screens on the DVD/BluRay?.
No, that’s not an actual screen grab although it looks very similar to what I saw in the movie. In fact, when I first saw those computer screens I was thinking, “Are those flat screens? How is that possible?” Although flat screens were portrayed in the movie, those monitors were not supposed flat screens.
I’m googling like mad on this, trying to find reviews of the HD version that reference actual changes to the original, rather than just a very accurate transfer of the original print.
Here’s a review by someone who said they’d watched the film many many times in other formats before seeing the HD version, even comparing it side by side with an earlier version. He just says that Kubrick’s original detail is now there, rather than saying it’s been tampered with in any way:
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/453/2001aspaceodyssey.html
Sorry for obsessing about this, but this is driving me nuts now!
“Sorry for obsessing about this, but this is driving me nuts now!”
That’s ok–maybe I’m being too obsessive of preserving movies in their original form. Most people I’m guessing, see these changes as improvements. I personally prefer the orginal “movie look” of older movies. I prefer them to the polished, ultra-focused, digitized look of movies today.
Here’s the ‘original’, no CGI – is this what you saw?
NO! I didn’t see that one! See the last scene with the baby? The altered version made the baby look almost cartoon-like! The baby’s face was given HD detail and clarity (something that you would expect to see in an image of a baby in utero) it’s eyes had this stunned or stoned look, were light blue and it looked rather alien like–it was ridiculous! The version you just showed me is the one I want to see!
The version I saw pretty much looked like this:
Notice how someone below commented that the movie looks like it was made in the 90′s.
Just a beautiful sequence! Wow!