Jury is out on whether this vanity project is actually a good film, but the trailer is absolutely stunning.
Coppola seems to be heavily influenced by Greek mythology for this tale, and the statues coming to life very much reminds me of Jason & the Argonauts (1963) and the infamous Talos.
*
I thought the Megalopolis CGI statues looked pretty clunky. Harryhausen's 70 year old stop motion animation is better.
I doubt the statues really come to life in the context of this film. It's more likely some heavy-handed allegorical representation of the protagonists' thoughts on the degradation and corruption of New York.
Oh don't get me wrong, I love the animation of Harryhausen too, but I just wondered if the 'Argonauts' where perhaps the inspiration here, perhaps not, but the movie does look steeped in Greek mythology.
I agree the statues coming to life is more likely 'allegorical' - but it's still an interesting way of depicting the literal fall of a civilisation. :)
*
The story is based on an incident in Roman history called the Catalinarian Conspiracy. I guess they had conspiracy theories back then too.
shareThose were ACTUAL conspiracies back in the days. Just like the Dreyfus affair or the Hitler assassination attempt. Has nothing to do with conspiracy THEORIES by crackpot basement dwellers on the interwebs.
shareand the statues coming to life very much reminds me of Jason & the Argonauts (1963) and the infamous Talos.
--
I do believe that Tom Hanks was given the honor of giving an Oscar to Ray Harryhausen some years ago(when Hanks was pretty much peaking as a star.) Hanks introduced Harryhausen by saying "Some say that Citizen Kane is the greatest film ever made. Some say Casablanca. But all of us of a certain age know that's not the case. If you were a kid in the 60's, the greatest film ever made was 'Jason and the Argonauts."
Harryhausen of course created his own stop-motion monster special effects genre (with a historical assist from Willis O'Brien and King Kong) with The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Mysterious Island, and Jason and the Argonauts in the 50s/60s cusp, and then a later batch of stop motion monster movies in the 70's and 1981(his last one, Clash of the Titans.).
To me, the greatest of all Harryhausen stop-motion monsters WAS Talos. He wasn't the amazing technical acheivement of the sword fighting skeletons and the multi-headed hydra in the same movie(imagine the TIME necessary to make those things move), but he WAS flat-out terrifying -- the stuff of my nightmares as a kid.
The way his head turned to look down on the hapless duo(Hercules and some little guy) who stole from his platform. The METALLIC CREAK of his rusted bronze head turning and his eyes locking on the two below. Talos was 'terminator terrifying" in his single-minded, silent determination to kill Hercules, the little guy, Jason ...and all the argonauts, chasing them around his private island with the slow-minded gate of a giant Michael Myers. A GREAT memory of excitement at the movies.
So if Coppola IS referencing Talos...he is referencing one of the greatest of movie memories.
Nice to see another Talos fan here.
The 'head turn' certainly freaked me out as a kid, and the stop-motion only added to his 'creakiness.' I seem to remember the Colossus of Rhodes statue being the inspiration for the scene where Talos stands legs apart over the Argo.
If only Hercules hadn't such a penchant for very large brooch pins :)
Nice to see another Talos fan here.
---
We are legion...especially from our childhoods.
---
The 'head turn' certainly freaked me out as a kid,
---
His immobile face was SCARY, and his musculature (very Schwarzenegger-like) made him seem scarier.
I'm a Hitchcock buff and the head turn is an example of a French term used often in Hitchcock movies called "the frisson"(a French term?) ...the moment when something happens that raises the hairs on our neck and starts a suspense set piece.
---
and the stop-motion only added to his 'creakiness.'
Harryhausen said the irony with animating Talos was "I have to make his movements LESS smooth , when my usual problem is overcoming the jerkiness."
--
I seem to remember the Colossus of Rhodes statue being the inspiration for the scene where Talos stands legs apart over the Argo.
---
Yep. THAT was scary in a different way. The Argonauts thought they were home clear, sailing out to sea, Talos nowhere in sight and then...he appears in FRONT of them stands above them and -- they CANT STOP THE BOAT and they float right into doom. No brakes. More nightmare stuff.
I thought Colussus of Rhodes (a 1961 movie) would be like that, but it wasn't. It was just a statue there. Trivia: Colussus of Rhodes was directed by Sergio Leone...
---If only Hercules hadn't such a penchant for very large brooch pins :)
Ha! Hercules was cast with an interesting actor who usally appeared in suits and ties and military uniforms: Nigel Green. He was in no way a muscleman like Steve Reeves or Arnold. He was simply a tall, strapping , well built man with a lot of charisma.
CONT
A little more on Harryhausen and Talos:
I think Harryhausen knew how much he had "hit the sweet spot of terror" with the statue coming to life in Jason and the Argonauts...and when he got to "come back in the 70's" to make a few more films(all in the Sinbad series before one last Greek legends film)...he kept trying more scenes of blank-faced statues coming to life. They were CLOSE to Talos, but not close enough. Two of them were female: a wooden woman at the bow of a ship -- "she" tears loose from the wooden bow and starts attacking men on board; AND a multi-armed Goddess with a sword in the hand of each arm...swinging her bladed arms like a Cuisinart to slice up Sinbad's men.
But they weren't Talos.
Yes, I think it was the sheer size of Talos that set him apart from Harryhausen's other creations, and yet it was his Achilles heel, quite literally that led to his demise.
The history of Talos is pretty cool too...
The myth describes Talos as a giant bronze man built by Hephaestus, the Greek god of invention and blacksmithing. Talos was commissioned by Zeus, the king of Greek gods, to protect the island of Crete from invaders. He marched around the island three times every day and hurled boulders at approaching enemy ships.
*