[E 'released on DVD with the film re-edited version ... I invite you to jump here.]
An opinion against the tide: the onset difficult to George Walton Lucas Jr. and his "betrayal."
Speaking of George Lucas is not easy. Especially for me, that I never could have borne too much, mainly because of having transformed the science fiction film in a box filled with nothing but empty of content and special effects. Or rather, has not changed: he made the audience believe that science fiction was "Star Wars", when ...
... in that movie is all but than science fiction. But I can not hate him at all, because besides having the merit of having produced the highly enjoyable adventure film for his friend Steven Spielberg, has also made his directorial debut with a film that, unlike the flamboyant Star Wars, it belongs good right to the science fiction genre.
The film began as a thesis of Lucas at the "University of Southern California in 1967. Its first incarnation, the 15-minute short film "THX-1138: 4EB" is, according to those who could see, a very interesting film, and that in itself reveals the talent of its author. At the heart of the action is the attempted escape of a man from a tyrannical society and hyper: the use of sound and camera make plausible and truthful reconstruction of the future, and the great capacity of directing Lucas gives the film a unique impression, a thickness that makes it very emotionally intense.
Here is a link to the site of the "USC" which speaks of the film Lucas (there are photos and a short film):
http://cinema-tv.usc.edu/Archives/lucas/thx .
html Some people consider it even better than the film that Lucas created four years later.
for sure "THX-1138" was a particular film. Belongs to the science fiction genre in full, in the strictest sense and hard (and at a time when it was screened in the hall there were around other films considerable, from "2022: the survivors," "Andromeda", "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Planet of the Apes" ...), but it's a movie complex, with different interpretations, an approach perhaps too oppressionante and claustrophobic. Inside there is everything: set in a future society forced to retreat into the ground because of the radiation due to a war that desertizzato the surface of the earth, the fictional world of "THX-1138" is repressive and try in every way to standardize and control the people, by removing the names (THX-1138 is the name of the protagonist of the film), through the use of sedatives (with a police-robots that monitor and verify the assumption daily medication), and monitoring of those engaged in everyday activities through CCTV cameras. The computers control everything, wash the brains of people with obsessive and repetitive messages broadcast from speakers that are found everywhere, they have a solution for everything. When
THX-1138 (Robert Duvall), a surgeon, he began to work badly, lose concentration and expresses his discomfort and confusion, believes he can find comfort in a computerized confessional. But receives only trivial and pre-programmed responses that do nothing but increase the level of discomfort. Back in his room, he discovers that the girl who lives with him,-LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie) has made sure that he did not take more than the daily dose of drugs, thereby awaken dormant desires otherwise. In short, the two wakes sexual appetite, and make love, and illegal conduct is strictly prohibited. The lack of sedation, but in the long run harms THX, which is betrayed. The two were arrested and THX is interned in a mental institution as incurable.
One of the happiest choices of the film (and thus one of the most impressive) has been to wear predominantly white actors, and set the film in places where white is the predominant color. This makes it even more "disturbing" from a visual standpoint. The institute where THX is "locked" is exemplary, In this sense, in practice it is an all-white living room, which has no walls visible, and appears to extend to infinity ...
THX and LUH are brought together under observation. The two make love to THX and LUH reveals she is pregnant. The two are separated and THX is subjected to a complex and invasive medical examination, and then put back with other prisoners in the institution. Here the listener bored of other dissertations on the nature of the prison, until he decides to leave and try to find a way out. After going through an infinite expanse of white, arrives at a port is not controlled or even locked.
At this point attempts to find LUH, to discover, through the system computerized information, which has been destroyed and recycled in a new fetus. THX begins its flight, followed by the vainly-robot policemen, until, arrived over the outer limits of the city is a tunnel that leads him to the surface, where it stands, fresh air and sun in the background of a huge, finally victorious .
The theme of escape dominated the work of the director. In "THX-1138" shows a society in which citizens have been reduced to a state of total liabilities, and what triggers the need to escape in THX is the only determination to do so. Outputs are not monitored, and despite this the other prisoners do not even try to find them. The passivity of the population is insured through the continuous monitoring and strict supervision of the same, the expression of a concept of social control which references much more important. THX is monitored, tracked and monitored by dozens of dull supervisors, the data are analyzed from many points of view.
The film is, ultimately, the triumph of technique over content, because Lucas uses the images and sound to illustrate the company of "THX-1138" with a complexity that the script is not even close. The audience is catapulted into a new reality which must include gradually, and still have not the means to do so completely. If in the next film is the pursuit of spectacle and sense of wonder to push to make his films, in "THX-1138" is all geared to make an agonizing sense of paranoia and alienation. Converge in the movie filmed images, video, computer graphics, digital counters, holography, medical bulletins, human voices, computerized voices, distorted vocals, noises combined to produce additional sounds ... the effect is to be in the presence of a complex society, with different planes of existence, and the sense of dehumanization is always amplified.
If the criticism of the film was essentially negative, it was mostly (or only) for the contents of the plot, too bold and ahead of his time. Certainly the style of the director did not go unnoticed. Paid dearly, However, its clear derivation from the world built by George Orwell in his "1984", but not all. The doctor's surgery asking citizens about their problems, the computer-denominational service, the police psychics who are dedicated to the monitoring of citizens recall the best pages of science fiction of Philip K. Dick ... "consumed more, stay calm and stay tuned ..."
"THX-1138" may seem far removed from the subsequent work of Lucas. But in hindsight, by its very nature an enormous collage of material taken from science fiction sources as diverse as classical and modern, makes it very similar to "Star Wars", which incorporates the same way, thousands of concepts and objects taken from other films or works of fiction, science fiction and not to the point of making him a veritable encyclopedia of popular culture.
The betrayal of George Lucas, so it's all here. In having been able to draw from the failure of his debut film then the teaching that made him so famous and admired, to have been able to transform "THX-1138" (dark, paranoid, alienating) in "Star Wars" ( huge, bright, spectacular). This has taken away a great film for fans of science fiction, and gave the rest of the spectators a great director of adventures.
How do I love?
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Filmography:
- film
1999 - Star Wars: Episode I - preview
1977 - Star Wars
1973 - American Graffiti
1970 - THX 1138
- short films made by students:
1967 - Anyone Lived in a Pretty (How) Town
1967 - The Emperor
1967 - THX 1138:4 EB
1966 - 1:48:08 to qualify
1965 - Wipeout
1965 - Freiheit
1965 - Herbie
1965 - Look at Life
The website of "USC"
http://cinema-tv.usc.edu/
A great site dedicated to THX-1138:
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/1817/thx/THX.HTML
The screenplay of the film in text format:
http://www.thx-1138.org/media/text/THX1138.TXT
The man who escaped from the future -
THX-1138 1971 - USA, Zoetrope & Warner, color, 1'35 "
director: George Lucas
with Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasance, Maggie McOmie, Don Pedro Colley
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