The Big Picture Magazine - Issue 2, Film
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thebig
There’s more to film than meets the eye…
FREE
MAY/JUNE
2009
N
o
2
picture
contents
Issue Two. May 2009
*
**
6
Regulars
04 / Reel World
Rick’s Café
18 / One Sheet
Hitchcock’s
Psycho
28 / 1000 Words
Birth of ‘The Talkie’
32 / On Location
Berlin, Germany
38 / Screengems
Dorothy’s Ruby Slip
pers
40 / Parting Shot
Battleship Potemkin
NOT 'ANOTHER
Features
06 / Spotlight
The Face Onscreen
14 / Art & Film
Peter Doig
BL**DY
“You broke my
heart Fredo, you
broke my heart.”
Michael Corleone
22 / Widescreen
Mobile Cinema in Africa
COPSHOW'
32
The Big Picture
ISSN 1759-0922 © 2009 intellect Ltd.
Published by Intellect Ltd. The Mill, Parnall Road. Bristol BS16 3JG
Editorial o� ce
Tel. 0117 9589910 / info@thebigpicturemagazine.com
Publisher
Masoud Yazdani
Editor / Art Direction
Gabriel Solomons
Contributors
Gail Tolley, Jack Wormell, Joanna Beard, John Berra, Tony Nourmand
Special thanks to
Gabriel Swartland at City Screen, Zoe Naylor at the
Independent Cinema O� ce and Caroline Haywood at The Picture Desk
info@thebigpicturemagazine.com / www.thebigpicturemagazine.com
intellect
books & journals
Published as a bi-monthly, full colour journal,
Film International
covers all aspects of
ilm culture in a visually dynamic way. This new breed of ilm magazine combines
the work of respected scholars and journalists to provide an informed and animated
commentary on the spectacle of cinema. Visit www.ilmint.nu for more information.
22
Published by
may/june
2009
3
reel
world
when life imitates art…
Rick’s
“
Of all the gin
joints, in all the
towns...
” How
one American
woman set up
the real Rick’s.
Words by Gail Tolley
Following 9/11
, Kathy Kriger
decided to do something to
demonstrate what she believed
to be true American values.
She left her job in the US
Embassy in Morocco to pursue
her love of the 1942 classic fi lm
Casablanca
, and set about
creating the real Rick’s café
(the legendary location where
Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid
Bergman played out the love
affair between Rick and Ilsa).
Kriger attracted investment
from all over the world
through fl yers which asked:
“Of all the gin joints, in all the
towns, in all the world, I’d like
you to buy into mine”.
The response couldn’t have
been better and, in March
2004, Rick’s Café opened on
the edge of the Old Medina in
Casablanca. Not surprisingly
it holds more than a passing
resemblance to its cinematic
counterpart, with Moroccan
arches, ornate brass chande-
liers and indoor palms creating
the elegance of a wartime ex-
patriate saloon. And of course
there is the resident pianist,
Issam, who receives more
than a few requests to “Play it
again, Issam”.
FIND
OUT
MORE
AT
:
www.rickscafe.ma
4
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2009
5
Café
Casablanca, Morocco
spotlight
About
F
a
ce
The face is the single
most profound signifier
of our changing
emotional state, and
film offers us the perfect
medium to observe this
transormation. When a
performer gets it right,
the face onscreen can
encapsulate a film’s
themes and help us
connect to a human drama
we all share in common.
Words by Jack Wormell
& Gabriel Solomons
THE HUMAN FACE AS STORYTELLER
Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance in
The Shining (1980)
Former teacher and recovering alcoholic Jack Torrance,
accompanied by his wife and son become the winter caretakers of
an isolated hotel where Danny, the son, begins to see disturbing
visions of the hotel’s past using a telepathic gift known as ‘The
Shining’. Stanley Kubrick’s celebrated shocker is a chilling study
in isolation embodied gleefully by Nicholson’s unhinged psycho.
Treading a fine line between humour and horror, Jack is a coiled
spring of rage whose rapid descent into madness is both creepy
and engrossing. The transformation from mildly frustrated
middle aged family man to crazed lunatic is a slow and tempered
one, echoing Kubrick’s fastidious approach to framing, tempo and
set design. The large empty spaces of the hotel’s interior coupled
with sparse dialogue and sound effects all combine to create a
quiet menace that plague Jack’s fragile state of mind and distort
his already skewed view of reality: his face, over the course of the
film, morphing from simple irritation to full blown mania.
➜
Going…
Going…
Gone.
Jack Nicholson slowly
but surely loses a grip
on his sanity
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7
spotlight
Faces
Jack Carter
punches, shoots
and screws
his
way through a
complex trail of
cover-ups among
Newcastle’s
underworld
“
Al Pacino as
Michael Corleone in
Godfather Pt. II (1974)
With a pale gaunt face like a
death mask and immovable
features reflecting an
emotional vacancy, mafia
don Michael is even more
emotionless here than at
the end of
The Godfather
.
In director Francis Ford
Coppola’s own words; “by
the end of this film Michael
Corleone is probably the most
powerful man in America, but
he is a ghost.”
Uma Thurman as
Mia Wallace in
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Michael Caine as
Jack Carter in
Get Carter (1971)
Based on French New Wave
star Anna Karina, Thurman’s
face epitomises
Pulp Fiction
’s
stylish approach to a life of
guns, drugs and fast talking.
Mia’s effortless cool embodies
the movie’s high aspirations
and low morality with her jet-
black hair, pointed features
and piercing glare. A sassy,
smart-mouthed femme fatale,
who, even after having a near
fatal heroin overdose has time
to make a quip.
A bleak gangster tale in which
suave but ruthless Londoner
Jack Carter sets out to exact
revenge for his brother’s
suspected murder. Caine’s
smug, impassive face remains
emotionless throughout as he
punches, shoots and screws
his way through a complex
trail of lies, deceit, cover-
ups and backhanders among
Newcastle’s underworld.
A lean, efficient slice of 70s
cinema that set a precedent
for retribution films to come.
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2009
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