The Cinema of Surfaces
On the Aesthetics of Film in the Eighties, by Jürgen Müller & Steffen Haubner. Excerpt of the book 'Movies of the 80s', by Jürgen Müller
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France witnessed a kind of rapprochement between Hollywood and the European tradition. The cinéma du look pioneered by Jean-Jacques Beineix and Luc Besson marked the arrival of design as an autonomous mode of cinematic expression. This artificial "neon cinema" was an attempt by the younger generation to create original myths and to make a clean break with the intellectual tradition of French film. It was this aesthetic stance that made Beineix and Besson perhaps the most representative figures of their time. This goes to show that we can neither speak of a "European cinema" per se-nor of any identifiable, monolithic "European audience."
As ever, film criticism in the Eighties continued to pit art against commerce. One American critic wrote that the exorbitant sum of money Terry Gilliam spent on Brazil (1984) had hurt the project more than it helped it. Blade Runner, too, was sharply criticized for its extreme stylization. The grand illusionists, however, were quite unfazed. Ridley Scott made a robust defense of his film's mannerist style and the unabashed artificiality of the world he had created: "Sometimes the design is the statement."
It was impossible for the cinema of the Eighties to be a medium of enlightenment, for it was less interested in ideas and convictions than in its own seductive power. Correspondingly, the brazen artificiality of the Hong Kong cinema began to exert an increasing attraction on American and European audiences.
Beneath the Surface
Songbirds, nature safely domesticated behind immaculate picket fences, neat rows of family homes under a radiant blue sky, children playing on freshly mowed lawns, and a picture book fire truck with the friendly fireman waving atop as he passes. A tranquil, pristine world, a blessed relief from all these somber trips through neon-lit urban purgatories. Well, not quite. Horror lurks just under the beautiful surface. Yet again, a stylish facade turns out to be a kind of mirage. In the words of David Lynch, Blue Velvet (1985) "...takes us under the surface of American small-town life and on a journey into the subconscious."
With the appearance of a human ear in the grass, the director shatters the idyll and makes a conscious allusion to Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí's An Andalusian Dog (Un chien andalou, 1929). Lynch hereby embraces the Surrealist tradition, the artistic movement that articulated the strongest aversion to any form of "normality." Inasmuch, this piece of visual sampling might be said to have set the agenda for the Eighties.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
France witnessed a kind of rapprochement between Hollywood and the European tradition. The cinéma du look pioneered by Jean-Jacques Beineix and Luc Besson marked the arrival of design as an autonomous mode of cinematic expression. This artificial "neon cinema" was an attempt by the younger generation to create original myths and to make a clean break with the intellectual tradition of French film. It was this aesthetic stance that made Beineix and Besson perhaps the most representative figures of their time. This goes to show that we can neither speak of a "European cinema" per se-nor of any identifiable, monolithic "European audience."
As ever, film criticism in the Eighties continued to pit art against commerce. One American critic wrote that the exorbitant sum of money Terry Gilliam spent on Brazil (1984) had hurt the project more than it helped it. Blade Runner, too, was sharply criticized for its extreme stylization. The grand illusionists, however, were quite unfazed. Ridley Scott made a robust defense of his film's mannerist style and the unabashed artificiality of the world he had created: "Sometimes the design is the statement."
It was impossible for the cinema of the Eighties to be a medium of enlightenment, for it was less interested in ideas and convictions than in its own seductive power. Correspondingly, the brazen artificiality of the Hong Kong cinema began to exert an increasing attraction on American and European audiences.
Beneath the Surface
Songbirds, nature safely domesticated behind immaculate picket fences, neat rows of family homes under a radiant blue sky, children playing on freshly mowed lawns, and a picture book fire truck with the friendly fireman waving atop as he passes. A tranquil, pristine world, a blessed relief from all these somber trips through neon-lit urban purgatories. Well, not quite. Horror lurks just under the beautiful surface. Yet again, a stylish facade turns out to be a kind of mirage. In the words of David Lynch, Blue Velvet (1985) "...takes us under the surface of American small-town life and on a journey into the subconscious."
With the appearance of a human ear in the grass, the director shatters the idyll and makes a conscious allusion to Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí's An Andalusian Dog (Un chien andalou, 1929). Lynch hereby embraces the Surrealist tradition, the artistic movement that articulated the strongest aversion to any form of "normality." Inasmuch, this piece of visual sampling might be said to have set the agenda for the Eighties.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
Movies of the 80s
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Still from 'E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial', USA, 1982
Still from 'Back to the Future', USA, 1985