Samuel Fuller Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Check This: Hitchcock and Fuller in Sticky Tape
Filed under: Fandom », Images »
When one thinks of great art, there's often the expectation of carefully prepared canvasses, lush materials, and skilled, complex detail. But it doesn't always take a horde of materials to make something impressive -- sometimes all it takes is a little plastic and some brown packing tape. CNN reports that Philly artist Mark Khaisman is taking these seemingly mundane materials and turning them into a series of scenes from Hitchcock films (The 39 Steps and Spellbound) plus a number of glimpses into Samuel Fuller's Pickup on South Street. The image above -- that's Spellbound. (The rest are housed in a gallery at CNN.)
This is nothing more than clear plastic panels and brown, translucent tape. Looking at the shirt -- it's fathomable -- a series of strips that, when laid on top of each other, creates areas of light and shadow. But look at the faces, and most especially, the hair. This isn't just a stained glass-like mosaic -- the artist is a former stained glass designer -- there's tone and depth in each piece. Texture.
Props and posters might be cool, but imagine walking into a home theater with a piece like this glowing on the wall. Forget movie ads. I'll take some packing tape art any day.
What Movies Died with VHS?
Filed under: Classics », Fandom », Home Entertainment »
New technologies often lead directly to the death of old technologies, and that's what happened with VHS. It changed home viewing habits forever, and then itself was killed off by DVD. It was a slow death that finally ended last fall, when the last major supplier of VHS tapes quit the business.
That might be that -- out with the old, in with the new, and all that rubbish -- except when VHS died, it might have taken an untold number of innocent victims along with it to the grave. "Hundreds of important and critically acclaimed films [are] no longer readily accessible for home viewing," reports Anthony Kaufman at Moving Image Source. "In the wake of video-store shutdowns across the country, and a move toward DVD-only subscription services modeled after Netflix and digital download initiatives, the non-digitized movie is becoming an endangered species. The death of VHS has long been foretold ... But the industry appears to have overlooked the films themselves."
If the only movies you watch are recent blockbusters, then this is a non-issue. But if your tastes extend to the margins, to the lesser-known, less-heralded titles by noted filmmakers like David Cronenberg, Samuel Fuller, Jacques Tourneur, and Robert Bresson, or if you've ever been curious about discovering "important little-known American auteurs" like Lew Landers and André De Toth -- cited by Dave Kehr of the New York Times in the article -- it's sobering to think that so many films are "vanishing into the ether," as Kehr says. "They're just gone from the conversation and that's unfortunate. The younger critics haven't seen this stuff, but how could they?"
Call it the "VHS Dead List," the flip side of the DVD wish list, where movie buffs express their yearning to see what they've rarely or never seen.
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