Thx1138 Tagged Articles at Cinematical

"I like being thought of as a toymaker who makes films." In the summer of 1971, George Lucas talked with critic / journalist / scholar Gene Youngblood for a program entitled "George Lucas: Maker of Films," which aired on public television station KCET in Los Angeles. Michael Heilemann of Binary Bonsai has made it available for online viewing, and it's a fascinating watch.

The interview takes place a few months after THX 1138, his first feature, opened and died a quick death at the box office. It would be two more years before American Graffiti ignited the box office and six years before Star Wars changed everything. Young Lucas was already mighty unhappy with the Hollywood studio system. Binary Bonsai provides context for his late 60s ventures, and then in the interview, Lucas says he started the feature-length version of his short THX 1138:4EB in the wake of the freedom created by the success of Easy Rider, but by the time he finished, the studio wanted something closer to the commercial fare of Airport and Love Story.

The program includes snippets from 6.18.67, a behind-the-scenes short doc that Lucas shot while on location for McKenna's Gold in 1967, and Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, as retitled by USC at the time. Despite Lucas' repeated assertions that he wants to make personal films -- something that his old running buddy Francis Ford Coppola is finally doing -- it seems that he will always be thought of as "a toymaker who makes films." And here he is, in a rare glimpse at the early years of his career.

After the jump: Watch the video!

For better or worse, I have had some experience in the "ultra-low budget" filmmaking world. So, it has fallen to me to create this particular list of the seven best films of that class. Before I go on, let us first define what exactly qualifies a film as "ultra-low budget." If we were to follow the Screen Actors Guild definitions for these things, then "low budget" films have a budget of less that $2.5 million, all the way down to $625,000. Really, I don't think that's exactly right for our purposes here. We're really talking about "ultra-low budget" films -- not "low budget" -- so how do we define the category? Some might consider a film "ultra-low budget" if its made in Des Monies by a teenager and some friends with a video camera and a credit card. That's certainly one way to look at it, but I feel that definition might limit us a little too much.

For our purposes, I'm going to consider films made for a million dollars or less to be "ultra-low budget." That way, we can have a much larger set of films from which to choose. By Hollywood standards, where the average "studio" movie costs over $60 million, a film made for a million dollars or less really should be considered "ultra-low budget." Heck, the catering budget of the average studio film is probably more than the total budgets of the films on this list. You know those big stars, they really love to eat. Anyway, moving on. Here is my list of the best "ultra low-budget" films -- in order of release. Enjoy.


THX 1138 (1971) -- George Lucas' first feature foray into sci-fi -- a genre that would, in a few short years, make him one of the most famous and successful filmmakers of all time. It's a rather dark and depressing tale of survival and forbidden love in a dystopian future city, with the lives of the city's inhabitants being closely regulated and medicated and with love and procreation strictly controlled and monitored by the state. The film, which is a more elaborate and elongated version of a Lucas' short film Electronic Labyrinth 1138 4EB, was shot in and around San Francisco and became notable for its use of the new, state-of-the-art BART system to help depict the city of the future.

Also notable is Lucas' use of students and military personnel -- who were learning filmmaking from Lucas at the time -- as crew and extras, and the elaborate use of sound and sound effects which would become a Lucas mainstay going forward. It's also notable that the actors, including Robert Duvall, had to shave their heads to better depict Lucas' vision of a future nearly devoid of hope. Finally, I really love the smoothly polished killer police robots -- a great contrast to Lucas' depiction of robots in subsequent films like Star Wars.