Re: The Wolf Man (1941)
Marifasus lupinus
> Is this a gorgeous film, or what? The gypsy scenes are so
> mist-covered, fire-warmed, and mysterious that I don't think we could
> ever reproduce anything like that today.
>
> When Lon Chaney first shape shifts we only see his feet. They grow
> hairier and hairier but you can still see his trousers. I like that.
> You could make lots of hobbit jokes here but it really works. Then we
> see him stalking in the woods, and he's still upright and still has his
> clothes on. I LOVE the way he simulates having haunches by walking on
> his toes! This has to be a moment in cinema.
>
> Anyway, why don't they make horror like this anymore?
>
> I think werewolves should always keep their clothes on. It would be a
> hoot to see a real dog/wolf running through the moors with shorts and a
> t-shirt on. Okay, it wouldn't be scary though.
It is a gorgeous film. One of my favorites, period.
-ml
Brian Christgau
news:e3dc3h$b5j$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> Is this a gorgeous film, or what? The gypsy scenes are so
> mist-covered, fire-warmed, and mysterious that I don't think we could
> ever reproduce anything like that today.
Now you're talkin' my language. I loved all of the Universal monsters as
a child, but The Wolf-Man was easily my favorite. In fact, while I have no
recollection of doing so, my mother says I used to run around the house
wearing one of those paper and plastic Halloween masks of my favorite
lycanthrope yelling, "Woof-Man! Woof-Man!" To this day whenever I see any
kind of merchandise related to the character I quickly snatch it up.
I still have a tremendous affection for that film and all the ones
featuring Chaney as Lawrence Talbot. If you weren't aware, he also appears
in a bunch of sequels:. "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf-Man", "Abbot and
Costello Meet Frankenstein" and "House of Dracula" (where he actually gets
cured!). Chaney was a remarkable, criminally under-rated actor and one of
the great tragic figures in Hollywood history. Like Talbot, he was a
sweet-natured, demon-haunted soul.
The writer of "The Wolf-Man", Curt Siodmak, wrote a really terrific
little book called "Wolf-Man's Maker"
(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0810838702/ref=cm_bg_d_20/102-2658585-2948155?v=glance&n=283155).
> Anyway, why don't they make horror like this anymore?
Well, for starters, they're too subtle! Members of the (e)M(p)TV
generation would tune out in a second watching an old style Gothic horror
film that's all about atmosphere. I shudder to think what the Hollywood
remakes of Mario Bava's creepy confections are going to be like.
During the 70's there was a Spaniard, a former circus strongman named
Jacinto Molina who made a whole mess of old school werewolf movies under the
name Paul Naschy. They're genuine oddities, a weird cross between the old
Universal monster movies and European horror/sexploitation movies from that
era. Most of them are a great deal of fun, "The Werewolf Meets the Vampire
Woman" being my personal favorite.
> I think werewolves should always keep their clothes on.
Well, there was "Wolf" about a decade ago, which had Jack Nicholson
sporting make-up by Rick Baker that was reminiscent of the one Henry Hull
wore in "The Werewolf of London". Personally, I love all types of
werewolves, be they the fully-clothed "Wolf-Man" kind, the big Wyle E.
Coyote sort in "The Howling" or the four-footed variety in "American
Werewolf in London" and "The Company of Wolves" (a personal favorite of
mine). As long as they're furry and fanged, I'm a happy man.
Cheers,
B
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
The wolfman movies are sooooooo scary! I saw "Frankenstein Meets the
Wolfman" when I was a little kid and when Lon Chaney Jr changes into the
wolfman it scared me so bad that I slept UNDER my bed every full moon for at
least a decade! One of the special effects guys -- I think it was John
Fulton -- was a friend of my grandfather's, and Grandpa invited him to spend
a weekend with us just so he could explain how they did the transition from
Larry Talbot to the wolfman to me so I wouldn't be so morbidly afraid. DID
NOT HELP! It still gives me the wimwams when I see it.
For anyone interested in how they did it without CGI, the movie is in b&w
but they used color filters and did some of the makup (hair growth) in red
and some in green and just removed the color filters as the transformation
progressed so that the colors would show up again in b&w. When they got to
the hairier parts they stopped shooting, did the really hairy makeup, then
would meticulously get Mr. Chaney back in the same position he was in when
they stopped. All of this was extremely reassuring to know. Except when
there was a full moon.
Caroline
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
news:e3eh2t$f73$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> Ah, this is very cool to know. Color filters? I remember them from
> film school but never got to use them.
>
> By the way, a question that was never answered for me in film school is
> that the primary colors in art are red, yellow, and blue. So why are
> the primary colors in light green, red and blue? Why green since it's
> not a pure color - it takes blue and yellow to make it? And where the
> heck is yellow?
>
Well, let's see if my response gets through this time. They say the third
time is a charm.
First, about the cast in the movie. Maria Ouspenskaya, who plays the old
Gypsy woman, is a remarkable piece of film history unto herself. She worked
with the great Stanislavski of "method" acting fame, and was an important
force in American stage and film. If memory serves, she came to this country
in the 1920s(?) with a group of Stansilavski desciples -- or was it with
him? -- and didn't bother going back to Russia with the troup. She was very
active in the movement of actors in this country who early embraced
Stanislavski's "method acting," and thereby promoted and nurtured the
atmosphere that led Lee Strasburg and Elia Kazan and all those good guys to
do the things that they did, the legacy of which is "The Actor's Studio,"
which we all watch from time to time, if not religiously. There's
undoubtedly a mini-bio of her on IMDb, as well as a wealth of information (I
would expect) on the web. Fascinating woman!
As for your questions about "primary" colors, Suzy, beats the hell out of me
why having color carried by photons instead of a brush changes the primes...
Maybe it's something like red shift in astronomy? Weird. Just plain wierd.
Caroline
Steven J. Weller
news:e3eh2t$f73$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> Ah, this is very cool to know. Color filters? I remember them from
> film school but never got to use them.
>
> By the way, a question that was never answered for me in film school is
> that the primary colors in art are red, yellow, and blue. So why are
> the primary colors in light green, red and blue? Why green since it's
> not a pure color - it takes blue and yellow to make it? And where the
> heck is yellow?
It's something to do with additive vs. subtractive colors, Suzy - like
we all know that if you blend the colors on the rainbow you get white
light, but if you blend the same rainbow in paint you get muddy brown.
It also works with red and blue, though green seems to work better.
Paint green lines on a face and light it with green light and the lines
disappear in a sea of green (which, in B&W photography, looks no
dofferent than white light on a whiteish face). Fade from green to red
and the green lines - which absorb red light rather than reflect it -
turn to black, while the rest of the face stays whiteish. VERY cool
effect, the hardest part of which to pull off is getting enough red
light on the face so that it doesn't look like the whole image is
suddenly underexposed.
--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary
Steven
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
news:e3hnn7$639$1...@reader1.panix.com...
>
> It's something to do with additive vs. subtractive colors, Suzy - like
> we all know that if you blend the colors on the rainbow you get white
> light, but if you blend the same rainbow in paint you get muddy brown.
>
I don't recazll ever hearing the terms "additive" or "subtractive" colors
before, Steven, but then I've spent very little time studying light color
theory, but even then it's been with computer/TV monitor light with those
funky cyans and stuff. Anyway, in painting, when you mix "all" colors (as
in no white) you *should* get black. The trick lies in the proportions, and
you don't have to use any secondary colors, but yout can if you wish. About
the only color you can't mix in oil painting with tubes or red, yellow,
blue, and white is a really good shade ofr turqoise. Or at least I never
could.
Beyond that, you just need to know a few chemistry rules, like don't use
thalos to mix with certain other paints because they will change with time.
I knew that and had never done it, but one time I was working on a portrait
of my nephews for my mother for Mother's Day and was out of time as well as
a certain green or blue, so I used the thalo green and blue in the flesh
tones. The boys were about three and five, but within in two years their
portraits looked about fifty and sixty! (Slight hyperbole.) I suspect
that's where Oscar Wilde got his idea for "Portrait of Dorian Grey," because
the attic is where my nephew's portraits ended up!
Caroline
Carl Dershem
news:e3i0u2$lu4$1...@reader1.panix.com:
> Beyond that, you just need to know a few chemistry rules, like don't
> use thalos to mix with certain other paints because they will change
> with time. I knew that and had never done it, but one time I was
> working on a portrait of my nephews for my mother for Mother's Day and
> was out of time as well as a certain green or blue, so I used the
> thalo green and blue in the flesh tones. The boys were about three
> and five, but within in two years their portraits looked about fifty
> and sixty! (Slight hyperbole.) I suspect that's where Oscar Wilde
> got his idea for "Portrait of Dorian Grey," because the attic is where
> my nephew's portraits ended up!
Wilde was a regular visitor to your attic?
cd
--
The difference between immorality and immortality is "T". I like Earl
Grey.
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
news:e3iosp$ka2$1...@reader1.panix.com...
Yes, and he was a clumsy bastard at that!
Caroline
nmstevens
This reminds me of my old cinematography classes back at NYU.
Here's the mnemonic.
Back Yard
R C cola
General Motors
These are the additive and subtractive primaries.
Blue Yellow
Red Cyan
Green Magenta
When you're dealing with light, as in a projected image, colors add to
one another, and when the three additive primaries combine, you end
with white light.
Subtractive primaries, as in a color photographic print (or, I suppose
a painting) subtract from one another, so that when all three are
combined, you end up with black.
So, how do you start with the additive primaries and get the
subtractive primaries? What's the relationship?
This is based on the color wheel. Imagine the six colors above on a
wheel, with each color above being on the opposite side of the wheel.
Kind of like this:
Blue
Magenta Cyan
Red Green
Yellow
Each subtractive primary consists of a mixture of the *other* two
colors.
Red and green projected one on top of the other, produce yellow.
Red and blue produce magenta.
Blue and green produce cyan.
A color negative, in principle, will have yellow on the neg where blue
would appear in the positive image, cyan where red will appear, and
magenta where green, in the positive image, will ultimately appear (I
say in principle because, in reality, negatives are color shifted in
odd ways designed to facilitate printing).
NMS
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
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Thanks, Neal! I've saved AND printed so I can (try to) memorize it. The
major difference I can see between painting with photons and painting with a
brush is that in opaque art mediums you *cannot* make your own white. I'm
not certain what the three subtractive colors are, but if they are magenta,
cyan, and yellow you would end up with a rather muddy brown or gray since
yellow would lighten the end color, but not as much or as clearly as white.
In opaque media such as oils you can only create black since white is the
absence of color. In water color, you have to paint on white paper and
"save your whites," which I don't do well, therefore never held much
interest in water color. And water color, because of the transparency, does
not lend itself to painting on colored paper. In all opaque mediums you buy
your white. In oil painting, some whites yellow with time. A well
compounded titanium white will not, making it well worth the extra cost.
In computer painting, there used to be a fantastic paint program from
Electronic Arts, in which you could mix your own colors (pixel by pixel the
way that the dots in Sunday funnies produce color), but they took it off the
market, and I haven't found any other paint program that is as "artist
friendly." I mean, who needs to create a dumb damned wire frame to paint a
horse? Stoooooopid!
Caroline
Just an old fashioned girl.
Avoid normal situations.
[..]
> Is this a gorgeous film, or what?
Yes.
> Anyway, why don't they make horror like this anymore?
Because they haven't started hiring me to write horror films yet. :-)
More seriously: the most important ingredient in the making of any film --
or any work of art -- is that indefinable stuff called "inspiration". Whether
or not it decides to show up is governed strictly by its own whim.
Another reason is that so many people think nowadays that all horror is
either Freddy, Jason, or Freddy vs. Jason that that tends to drive the more
talented people away. You can still sometimes get a prestige cast for a
monster movie (e.g. _The Addiction_, _Frankenstein Unbound_, and the 1992
version of _Dracula_ which I'm going to call that instead of "Bram Stoker's
Dracula" because the "official" title is a fib); however, as those cases
show, the cast doesn't necessarily coax Inspiration down from her eyrie.
Aside: it may interest you to know that I lucked into seeing Curt Siodmak
live right before he passed on, as an interviewee to go with a special
screening of his early early early German film _People on Sunday_. He still
spoke with a Teutonic accent, too: "They got me out of ze museum so I could
be with you tonight."
--
alt.flame Special Forces
"I've been shot and missed so often I've a notion to hire out as a
professional target. Life with me is just one bullet after another."
-- Edward "Spike" O'Donnell