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One never stops singing praises of European cinema because it comes alive when dealing with the fate and foibles of human nature as compared to Hollywood which excels in escapist entertainment. It shifted gears, however, in the mid-1960s to mid-1970s during the ‘Decade of Change’ when it captured the changing nuances of human nature but went back to its old self after that. Still, it has its breed of actors from Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kramer, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese and Ridley Scott, to mention a few, even though Scott’s latest Prometheus is a letdown. This writer has been following the 75-year-old British filmmaker for more than three decades and fondly remembers his picture-postcard shots, like the frame from up in the plane of a river running through it in Black Rain or the visuals of the two liberated women Gena Davies and Susan Sarandon on the road in Thelma & Louise. That he has his own company Ridley Scott Associated (RSA), which owns shares in Sheperton Studios, gives one an indication of his British background. Famed British filmmakers Hugh Hudson and Alan Parker also worked at Sheperton. Scott’s younger brother is Tony Scott is also a filmmaker. It was not until he was 40, a case of life beginning at that age, Scott made his first feature film The Duellists, as lackluster effort that gave no indication of the shape and weightage of things to come — Alien, Blade Runner, Legend, Black Rain, Gladiator, Thelma & Louise and American Gangster. Scott is also known as the Father of the Director’s Cut which is the version of the film the director would want it in contrast to the publicly screened one of the producer. Born in the coastal town of South Shields, Scott moved to a few places, including Germany, before moving to the industrial town of Teesside, which could later be identified in the futuristic scenes of Blade Runner (1982). It is a blend of science and noir detective fiction where Deckard (Harrison Ford), the blade runner has to track down four replicants, who hijacked a ship in space and have returned to earth seeking their maker. It is based on a sci-fi novella Best Generation by William S. Burroughs. Both Ford and Rutger Heuer perform admirably in this masterpiece that really put him in the highest bracket of filmmakers. After this, he never looked back. A visual director, he worked with a number of cameramen, Jan de Bont and Adrian Biddle among them but his stamp is always identifiable. Shades of David Lean at his best — a little girl bouncing a tennis ball on the cobbled streets of Belfast in Ryan’s Daughter at the height of the Irish rebellion or the hot desert air that is so palpable as Omar Shariff comes riding from a virtual dot to grow into a flesh and blood horseman. But apart from the visuals, he also delved deep into the human psyche as Thelma & Louise will readily testify. The ending, too, is sublime, shades of Jean-Luc Godard. And what about Sigourney Weaver’s part in Alien? It seemed to give the sci-fi genre a whole new thrust. In Gladiator, he brought back the old Roman Empire as only he could after a lapse of decades. It also walked away with a host of Oscars, including Best Actor for Russell Crowe, though Oscars are not always a measure of the worth of a movie. In this case, however, it was. Scott tried to go back to sci-fi after Alien but failed by a long way. Maybe, he tried too hard. Or worked too long on the project. Or maybe, it was just a case of the law of averages. One fondly hopes it is because his body of work is just too impressive to end in a whimper.
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