Ray Harryhausen Movies

[Curt Chiarelli]

Curt interesting point on the subject of lacking individual charm in CGI. I must agree that I've often felt that CGI can often be too "clean" when used. That the animated elements are perfect rather than having that element of wildness or reality that places little imperfections over the surface.

It's rather like how every woman in make-up ads is airbrushed and edited to look "perfect" no imperfection, just pure 100% clean sterile (and sometimes actually quite a warped face if compared to a real live face with all the nip-tuck that goes on).


I can't speak of the process, but certainly I think some CGI presentations do take into account its clean nature and try to make it more real. I suspect that its partly a result of cost and time, but also the scale.

Stop-motion has always stirred up as many detractors as supporters. Of all the cinematic artforms, it is probably the most craft-oriented, engaging every variety of two and three dimensional skill known in the trade.

As a brief digression, yes, women with their noses airbrushed out aren't particularly attractive to me either! Interesting how the camera lens and the volume of clothing always adds the illusion of an extra twenty pounds of weight so that their personal reality (that the models are anorexic clothes hangers) doesn't interfere with the fantasy being created (that they are vibrant, desirable women living life to its fullest). If you actually met some of these models in person you'd be repulsed: they're so emaciated they look like something that was released from a Nazi concentration camp. And that's hardly sexy! So much for modern illusion-making . . . .

Which brings us back to the subject of authenticity in art. American society demands the edited and revised and sterilized illusion of perfection every time. Okay, but is that a true improvement? Harryhausen and his acolytes have always come under heavy criticism because of the shortcomings of their preferred medium - but EVERY medium has its pros and cons. Although CG has attempted over the last twenty-five years to totally displace stop-motion, it has not been entirely successful. There remains an unique, dream-like quality to stop-motion that CG will never possess, no matter how sophisticated it becomes. The way real light falls on real figures and how they move is all a part of it's stroboscopic magic.

Another insight I'd like to share with you is a cultural one. Stop-motion has its strongest, most concentrated group of detractors located in the United States, a nation noted for its embrace of the facile and the shallow, a non-culture that treats its past like landfill in the upward grade of titillation and "progress". (And nowhere is this more apparent than in Hollywood, its epicenter.) That having been said, unlike central Europe, America has no tradition of puppet theater, which may account for its active and long-standing bias against the medium. It's no accident then that some of the world's greatest stop-motion masters have come from Czechoslovakia and Hungary, men like Jiří Trnka and George Pal.

 

[Foxbat]

Just like to add to Curt's comments on Central Europe and puppetry. I highly recommend Jan Svankmajer for his stop-motion work. In particular, his version of Faust, which combines both puppets and stop-motion. It gives a real flavour of how dark and sinister the art form can become (so far away from the childlike wonder many of us feel for stop-motion).

 

[Starbeast]

My favorite Ray Harryhausen movies: (most viewed *)

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad *

Mysterious Island *

Mighty Joe Young

Earth vs Flying Saucers

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger *

Clash of the Titans

First Men in the Moon

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad

Jason and the Argonauts

 

[JamestheLast]

Harryhausen had a great understanding of showmanship (and music--he tried to hire the best film composers). His characters gave performances which is rare in cgi especially for non speaking characters.
I like computer graphics but it is overused for things it doesnt need to be used for (like closeups on characters) and has reached a point where it is so expensive that it is underused (case in point the 2010 Clash of the Titans remake).

 

[J Riff]

A chronological look at Ray's beasties:
The Ray Harryhausen Creature List - YouTube

 

[JonH]

Another insight I'd like to share with you is a cultural one. Stop-motion has its strongest, most concentrated group of detractors located in the United States, a nation noted for its embrace of the facile and the shallow, a non-culture that treats its past like landfill in the upward grade of titillation and "progress". (And nowhere is this more apparent than in Hollywood, its epicenter.) That having been said, unlike central Europe, America has no tradition of puppet theater, which may account for its active and long-standing bias against the medium. It's no accident then that some of the world's greatest stop-motion masters have come from Czechoslovakia and Hungary, men like Jiří Trnka and George Pal.

To be fair, Nick Park has racked up his fair share of Oscars. I think it might be the mix of stop-motion and reality that has caused problems. There are only a handful of obvious animation/reality mixed films that "made it" in America. In most cases it's one or the other. CG can mix with reality in ways stop-motion and cartoons just don't seem to be able to. I love Harryhausen (the skeleton fight from the Argonauts is playing in my head as I type), but his best work is seen in a genre that was despised in its time as shallow—the very insult you throw at his detractors.

 

[Overread]

Thing is look at something like Avatar - yes the CGI is outstanding, but its still very much almost its own kind of 3D cartoon imposed into the real-life acting. I wouldn't say that CGI "looks real" but that they've learned to blend the not real with the real far more expertly. It's a refinement of the same idea of blending in the stop motion effects.

Riff - interesting to see the method evolve and advance through that series (although I think a poor recording copy on the part of the youtube maker was a touch at fault).

 

[Jesse412]

Love Ray Harryhausen movies.My favorites are It Came from Beneath the Sea and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. The monster from 20 Million Miles to Earth is really cool looking.

 

[BAYLOR]

My favorite film by him is The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.

 

[dask]

My favorite film by him is The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.

Can't find fault with this. Brilliant Bernard Herrmann score great big bonus.

 

[BAYLOR]

Can't find fault with this. Brilliant Bernard Herrmann score great big bonus.

It's a very wonderful and imaginatively crafted film with good writing and topnotch acting which is lacking in many of todays so called blockbusters films.

 

[dask]

It's a very wonderful and imaginatively crafted film with good writing and topnotch acting which is lacking in many of todays so called blockbusters films.

Agreed. Always liked Kerwin Mathews. Never understood why he didn't go further.

 

[WaylanderToo]

No mention of Jack the Giant Killer here? Not sure if its HH - sure is inspired though

 

[dask]

Don't think it was HH if I remember correctly.

 

[Curt Chiarelli]

Just like to add to Curt's comments on Central Europe and puppetry. I highly recommend Jan Svankmajer for his stop-motion work. In particular, his version of Faust, which combines both puppets and stop-motion. It gives a real flavour of how dark and sinister the art form can become (so far away from the childlike wonder many of us feel for stop-motion).

Yes! Svankmajer is a real master of the unsettling and the macabre. I can't say enough good things about his work. I only wish more aspiring fantasy and horror auteurs would study his films instead of commercialized sado-fests like the Saw franchise.

 

[Curt Chiarelli]

No mention of Jack the Giant Killer here? Not sure if its HH - sure is inspired though

Jim Danforth was the animator on that film.

 

[Curt Chiarelli]

To be fair, Nick Park has racked up his fair share of Oscars. I think it might be the mix of stop-motion and reality that has caused problems. There are only a handful of obvious animation/reality mixed films that "made it" in America. In most cases it's one or the other. CG can mix with reality in ways stop-motion and cartoons just don't seem to be able to. I love Harryhausen (the skeleton fight from the Argonauts is playing in my head as I type), but his best work is seen in a genre that was despised in its time as shallow—the very insult you throw at his detractors.

Yes, Nick Park has deservedly received a lion's share of Oscars in his time, but for an entirely different kind of film - children's stories that have a limited interest for adults (with the noted exception of animation fans like ourselves). Harryhausen attempted a marriage between his animated creatures and live action - a job you correctly ascribe as being better served by computer animation. The technology allows for a less episodic and a more flawless blending of reality and fantasy elements so that the audience can stay focused on the story - as it should.

However, it should be noted that it isn't Harryhausen's fault that American society and its arbiters of taste - its critical fraternity - have, from its earliest days, consigned the science fiction/fantasy and horror genres to the darkest back alley ghetto of pop culture. In many ways, this bias is still very much evident in American culture . . . . and it's not only found in the New York Times and suburban high school English departments either. It's found in the corner offices of the people who decide which motion pictures get made. In many cases nowadays, these decision-makers not only actively despise the genre and the audiences they appeal most to, but also motion pictures in general. And the final results show. All too clearly.

A relevant and eye-opening example is as follows: in a phone conversation I had with animator, Jim Danforth in late 1999 he described to me the condescending attitudes Columbia Pictures executives had towards Ray Harryhausen and the movies he made. Although his films were decently budgeted, they were never considered "A" pictures and, yet, were looked down upon as something less than standard "B" grade drive-in fodder. According to Danforth, that was the primary reason why executives never tampered much with Ray's films. They were never taken seriously as prestige films for an adult audience, something a producer's vanity would desire to have his name associated with and, therefore, a ripe target for their idiotic meddling. So long as Ray's pictures kept making money for the studio, the front office could really care less about them. And we may all thank Crom for the fact that his stuff slipped under the radar, otherwise who knows what kind of spavined legacy we would have been left with.

 

[Curt Chiarelli]

Can't find fault with this. Brilliant Bernard Herrmann score great big bonus.

Yes, Herrmann's score for the 7th Voyage of Sinbad remains not only a landmark of genre film scoring, but also a classic of 20th century classical music also.

 

[Curt Chiarelli]

Agreed. Always liked Kerwin Mathews. Never understood why he didn't go further.

Shortly after starring in the Three Worlds of Gulliver he was in negotiations to star in a film adaptation of Albert Camus' The Stranger, but due to the author's untimely demise in a tragic car accident, the film was never made. It could have been the prestige project that really put him on the critical map. Instead his career slowly faded. Not that he was devastated by this turn of events: he apparently led a very happy life specializing in the sale of rare antique Oriental carpets in San Francisco. He recently died there a few years back of natural causes.

 

[dask]

Interesting. Thanks for the info.