Christophe Gans

[mordenkainen]

Hi everyone, i'm an all-time elric fan but new to this forum.
Mr Moorcock, the Brotherhood of the Wolf was directed by Christophe Gans.He's crap.The movie is crap, too.And the actors in it.I hope no-one seriously thought of Marc Dacascos for ANYTHING related with the Elric movie !!!! I agree with you as regards the atmosphere, though. I think the LOTR movies often look like episodes of Princess Xena's adventures! I'm not sure the director is the only responsible for this, though. You mentioned a very important
point :photography. The director of photography takes a fair part in making the movie look how it should. Then there's the scenery and costume design. Sounds like a good idea to have french people do that part.Or even eastern europeans.Or anyone who knows that a medieval castle is a place where people defecate behind a curtain in the Great Hall and have their yearly bath with their clothes on. I'm serious about this! Legolas in LOTR, after weeks of roving through mountain and forest, wearing clean freshly-ironed bright-coloured clothes? Looks like a Disneyland show performer in his brand new Peter Pan suit!

[mordenkainen]

actually the affair remained unsolved.recentest investigations conclude the beast of gevaudan's crimes could have been commited by a local noble family's young idle sons.
I said Gans and the movie were crap, maybe that was too harsh.I meant the special atmosphere Mr M enjoyed in the movie may not quite be attributed to the director's-very average- talent but to a general european realistic point of view on medieval times.The movie, well....poor dialogues, poor acting....maybe doesn't show so much when dubbed.
Vincent Cassel is great and almost saves his character from shallowness.
Marc Dacascos....Iregret nothing i said about Marc Dacascos!!!

[Michael Moorcock]

The French -- and the British for that matter -- are very good at set design and lighting, something which seems to defeat most Americans.
Maybe it's because of budgets, I don't know. This is also observable on the stage. I've seen several shows on both Broadway and in the West End and Broadway always manages to make everything look too clean, sharp, bright and -- yes, you said it, Disneyfied. Maybe things have changed since Broadway seems to have imported two thirds of its talent from the UK lately. Lots of Americans USED to know how to make much of little with lighting and set dressing -- think of James Whale, for instance -- now they never quite seem to get it right. Part of the secret is in layering sets, so that while not everything you spend is actually seen, you KNOW there is stuff underneath stuff and so on. It might be why it's worth paying real attention to costumes (the way Coppola's Dracula didn't, for instance). The great advantage of subsidised national theatre is that you seem to be able to keep a lot of seamsters and seamstresses on the strength, whose only job is to make authentic costumes. Anyway, LOTR failed for me partly because of all those bloody shots of New Zealand. They just didn't look right. Didn't know why they couldn't have gone to Iceland or somewhere if they'd wanted it looking right, but I suppose it's helped NZ out of a depression. I agree absolutely about those cossies -- not one of them seemed to get very dirty, ragged or otherwise messed up. Maybe elves and such are supernaturally self-cleaning. Wouldn't mind a hobbit hole to live in if that's the case. Save a fortune on electricity and a lot of time on vacuuming.
I do trust the Weitz brothers and their sense of taste. I think they share my preference for bringing movies in under budget, by using imagination rather than millions. It will still cost a lot, but you don't have to waste the dosh (as Van Helsing seems to have done).