Needs A Lucas-Styled FX Upgrade?
Warner Home Video is releasing a Bluray of Ken Russell‘s Altered States (’80) on 7.10. I’m not sure if the primitive FX are going to look worse or better in high-def. I love how William Hurt, Blair Brown, Bob Balaban and Charles Haid tear through Paddy Chayefsky‘s whip-snap dialogue during the first three quarters, but the film loses dramatic tension when Hurt turns into an ape man.
And yet Brown’s line about having sex with Hurt — “I feel like I’m being harpooned by some raging monk in the act of receiving God” — will live forever.
Bonkers film. Might have to dust of my old DVD now.
the pilot for Hawaii Five-0 (1968) opens with an isolation tank sequence very similar to the one in Altered States …
I wonder if it’s a test run for the “banned” Ken Russell film.
“I love how William Hurt, Blair Brown, Bob Balaban and Charles Haid tear through Paddy Chayefsky’s whip-snap dialogue during the first three quarters..”
I love that too. All due respect to Chayefsky, he wrote some of the weirdest and most non-naturalistic dialogue ever spoken on film for Altered States. Far as I know, Russell told the actors to fly though the dialogue in order to keep the running length down. It’s a pretentious, glorious folly of a script, and I think Russell shot it as such.
“Far as I know, Russell told the actors to fly though the dialogue in order to keep the running length down.”
Russell was barred from changing a single line (under threat of litigation, I read, after Chayefsky left the film), which prompted him to order the cast to speed through it.
Haven’t seen a minute of this since I saw it in the theaters when I was ten (bless you, Mom, for taking me to see whatever I wanted). I distinctly remember not knowing what the Hell was going on in that movie, particularly at the end. Might have to finally give it another look.
FWIW here’s what the grain monks at dvdbeaver thought of it. It’s not even a 50 GB disc so that should tell you something.
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film4/blu-ray_reviews57/altered_states_blu-ray.htm
i like it very much
Ira Parks says…
Tom Foolery says…
Jeff Wells says…
“I feel like I’m being harpooned by some raging grain monk in the act of receiving God”
Great idea Jeff – this wild ride of a flick needs some digital tweaking. It looked superb at the cinema. Plenty of old school efx movies great impact – cutting edge back in the day- are dminished significantly as HD tends to make the opyical printing / photo chemical process all too obvious.
the correct answer to the thread title is “no”
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Ira Parks says…
Tom Foolery says…
Jeff Wells says…
“I feel like I’m being harpooned by some raging grain monk in the act of receiving God”