{"id":14752,"date":"2012-03-24T23:29:32","date_gmt":"2012-03-24T23:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=14752"},"modified":"2012-03-28T19:29:50","modified_gmt":"2012-03-28T18:29:50","slug":"film-notes-3-thx-1138-1971","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2012\/03\/24\/film-notes-3-thx-1138-1971\/","title":{"rendered":"Film Notes #3: THX 1138 (1971)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/THX-11381.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-14753\" title=\"THX 1138\" src=\"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/THX-11381.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"280\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>George Lucas&#8217; debut feature about a dystopian future society forms the third part of my 30-day film program.<\/p>\n<p>For newcomers, the deal is that I must watch a film every day and make notes about it, with the following rules:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>I\u2019ve already seen it<\/li>\n<li>I must make notes\u00a0<em>whilst<\/em>\u00a0I\u2019m watching it.<\/li>\n<li>Pauses are allowed but the viewing must all be one session.<\/li>\n<li>It can\u2019t be a cinema release.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>The point is to capture my instant thoughts about a movie and my overall film diet for 30 days, as well as post interesting links to the film in question.<\/p>\n<p>Here are my notes on<strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0066434\/\">THX 1138<\/a><\/strong> (1971)\u00a0which I watched on a Blu-ray on Saturday 24th March.<\/p>\n<p>[Warning! Spoilers ahead]<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Begins with an old episode of Buck Rogers (!)<\/li>\n<li>Titles going from top to bottom reflects the underground nature of the society in film &#8211; I can&#8217;t think of another film outside Gaspar Noe&#8217;s IRREVERSIBLE (2002) that uses this device and that film used it for the end credits<\/li>\n<li>Widescreen lensing is impressive &#8211; it was shot using Techniscope, a cheaper alternative to 35mm anamorphic which Leone used on his Spaghetti Westerns<\/li>\n<li>Sound design immediately apparent as a key part of the film<\/li>\n<li>Phrase &#8220;consumption is being standardised&#8221; repeated over and over<\/li>\n<li>Appropriate because the shopping mall<\/li>\n<li>Walter Murch co-wrote the screenplay and was obviously closely involved in the sound design<\/li>\n<li>What the hell is going with the lizard in the wires?!<\/li>\n<li>Sense of despair reflective of the cultural malaise of the late 60s and early 70s<\/li>\n<li>The idea of a controlling futuristic society was possibly a big influence on THE MATRIX (1999)<\/li>\n<li>Did the hologram sex channel influence MINORITY REPORT (2002)?<\/li>\n<li>When Duvall confesses about his room mate, it is almost like a Catholic confession or a session with a psychiatrist<\/li>\n<li>The slogan &#8220;buy more&#8221; has a certain irony when it comes to the issue of Star Wars merchandising<\/li>\n<li>Imaginative use of low budget sets<\/li>\n<li>Futuristic officers seem to be influenced by the police who cracked skulls on campuses during the Vietnam<\/li>\n<li>There is even a TV channel which shows officers beating someone &#8211; predicting the Rodney King incident by 20 years! That case also played a key role in TERMINATOR 2 (1991).<\/li>\n<li>Issue of sedation prefigures the issue of antidepressants<\/li>\n<li>The idea of workers trapped inside white anti-septic clothing is an effective idea<\/li>\n<li>Widescreen compositions must have made this a nightmare to pan and scan<\/li>\n<li>Pre-digital era effects are deeply impressive<\/li>\n<li>The robot that Duvall is working on just before the mind block looks C-3PO from STAR WARS (1977)<\/li>\n<li>A computerised industrial society where people are drones has chilling resonances with today&#8217;s inter generational struggle, which is also a theme of THE HUNGER GAMES (2012)<\/li>\n<li>Ironic that Donald Pleasance is in a film where everyone is bald.<\/li>\n<li>Lucas was frustrated at how Duvall would get a scene in take one and Pleasance would take several. In a pre-digital world this was probably a nightmare for the chemistry of a particular scene and maybe led Lucas to pursue digital solutions<\/li>\n<li>Nice touch that Duvall&#8217;s character is actually building the robotic officers who oppress him<\/li>\n<li>The evils of bureaucracy is a persistent theme and the questioning of authority is essentially the whole point of the film.<\/li>\n<li>Ironic that the McCarthy era America was paranoid about Communism and it became an oppressive state itself.<\/li>\n<li>The &#8216;white prison&#8217; is a very striking idea, later explored in Lecter&#8217;s jail cell in Michael Mann&#8217;s MANHUNTER (1986) and then reversed in Jonathan Demme&#8217;s THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991).<\/li>\n<li>It is also a highly effective &#8216;visual effect&#8217; as it creates an illusion of depth &#8211; an optical trick that predates the use of green screen by 25 years<\/li>\n<li>The voices possible influenced by 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)<\/li>\n<li>Couple&#8217;s love making being interrupted is symbolic of the sexual Puritanism and hypocrisy of the 1950s era which Lucas grew up in.<\/li>\n<li>Approach to the issue of drugs is interesting. It goes for an Brave New World approach where drug taking is an oppressive and enforced act rather than a rebellious act. Philip K Dick also explored similar territory in A SCANNER DARKLY (2006).<\/li>\n<li>Excellent use of locations and sets, augmented by Murch&#8217;s great sound design.<\/li>\n<li>Lalo Schifrin&#8217;s score is very effective and moodier than his ones for DIRTY HARRY (1971) and the Mission Impossible.<\/li>\n<li>In particular the car chase at the end is a masterful use of sound which makes the sequence feel bigger and more realistic<\/li>\n<li>Cars are also important in AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973) albeit in a wildly different context<\/li>\n<li>The voices throughout are &#8216;comfortingly sinister&#8217; which makes it an effective metaphor for communist regimes.<\/li>\n<li>But it could also be seen as an indictment of 1950\/60s capitalism which encouraged conformity<\/li>\n<li>It could also be seen as obliquely referencing the Holocaust e.g. people as numbers and the enforced shaven heads<\/li>\n<li>The closing sequence is actually very similar to THE TRUMAN SHOW (1998).<\/li>\n<li>Final shot is hopeful for what some interpret as a bleak film.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><noscript>[&lt;a href=&#8221;http:\/\/storify.com\/filmdetail\/film-notes-3-thx-1138-1971&#8243; target=&#8221;_blank&#8221;&gt;View the story &#8220;Film Notes #3: THX 1138 (1971)&#8221; on Storify&lt;\/a&gt;]<\/noscript><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thirty days of film continues with George Lucas&#8217; dystopian sci-fi debut feature. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2487],"tags":[74,2494],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14752"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}