It is difficult in this era full of special effects to choose one that has amazed us pleasantly, but since the beginning of cinema there has been the intention to entertain us visually, this is my selection of movies that have surprised me in the visual section:
Metropolis, 1927 by Fritz Lang.
This film is amazing, it has a visual beauty that endures over time. It is a futuristic vision with a social message that lends itself to multiple interpretations: the American public considered it communist propaganda, so they cut and manipulated the film at will and the Nazi Germans, encouraged by the reconciliation shown at the end, praised it as a film that supported the superiority of the German people.
Impressive are the scenes where the machine that synchronously produces the electrical energy of the city turns into a monster that swallows workers and of course the iconic transmutation of Maria, a girl of humble origin, revered by the lower classes and who preaches good feelings and love, into a robot that replaces her.
Eugene Schüfftan, who was also one of the film's producers, was responsible for the special effects. He created a sophisticated technique, called precisely Schüfftan, by means of which, through reflections and counter-reflections, the effect of the models, which in this case simulated huge buildings, is increased and combined with images, shot separately, of the actors. This technique has been adopted in several films including Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail in 1929 and Peter Jackson's Return of the King in 2003.
In addition, a camera was used for the first time that allowed filming panoramic scenes in all directions.
Fritz Lang develops the story and creates atmospheres through expressionist and symbolic scenarios, also through lights and cinematographic editing.
Since I was a child I had always heard about this film, there was a television program called Cinemateca del Aire where they almost always showed parts of the film and talked about it in detail as an example for any self-respecting filmmaker and film lover. I got a copy of this film on VHS, in 1988, grated and meaningless given the cuts it presented, later in the DVD era I found 3 more copies of the film which differ in length, dialogues and scenes. Thank God for digital media I got the restored version of 2010 where the film is shown almost complete in its entirety.
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The Ten Commandments, 1956 by Cecil B. DeMille.
To achieve this at that time required a great economic effort and an immense artistic ingenuity.
More than a million liters of water were used and gigantic structures were built to amaze the public.
A huge U shaped tank was built at Paramount Studios, where that amount of water was released from the sides. To achieve the turbulent effect of the waves and the rising water, a giant waterfall was also created, the cameras filmed and then reversed what was filmed, so that on screen it looks as if the water was rising.
Separately were recorded the images of the black clouds in the background and Charlton Heston and the large number of extras on the shores of the Red Sea, this images and the tank were mixed with optical printers and so we can see this spectacular scene:
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The special effects of this film were created by John P. Fulton, and the scene presented above was considered at the time as the most complicated to make up to that time.
When I was 9 years old my mother took me to see this movie in a movie theater located next to a Catholic school called Don Bosco, it was the first time I went to a movie theater where the movie, because it was so long, had an intermission. It is a movie that you have to see as much as possible in a widescreen to enjoy its visual section, the plot caught me and especially Moses, (played by Charlton Heston), which at that time I saw as a mystical and powerful magician who could talk to God.
As I saw it, it was to the people of Israel, who in the Old Testament, God gave the Ten Commandments through Moses on Mount Sinai, thus helping his chosen people to fulfill the divine law.
Altered States, 1980 by Ken Russel.
This is a sensory film exploring the effects of hallucinogenic drugs on a scientist who experiments with himself a theory about the limits of reality. It is a science fiction film, but this time the journey is into the interior of the human being.
The scientist, Eddie Jessup (William Hurt), is shown experiencing a series of hallucinations that will eventually obsess him. He is also a professor of psychology specializing in schizophrenia, he understands that madness is as real as sanity, when it comes to state of consciousness. This is the 1960s, where hallucinations and consciousness-breaking experiences are the norm. For Jessup, God and the Devil are states to be discovered.
There are scenes that seem to be from a Salvador Dali painting, we see fish swimming in the sky behind the protagonist, there is a single-celled organism that explodes showing different shapes and colors.
Given the agony of his father, Jessup rejects the idea of God, but in his experimentation he reconnects with religious visions as when he sees a crucified lamb with seven eyes and seven horns.
The film, which mixes science fiction with horror and thriller, grabs you from the first moment you watch it. The protagonist's hallucinations are revealing and he even goes to Mexico, where he will try a powerful drug that will be key to his introspective journey. The hallucination sequences shake us violently.
The film had 14 visual and special effects specialists. Altered States was one of the first films to use CGI in the final transformation segments, to which a granular energy effect was added in post-production, as well as rotoscoping effects. The master makeup artist Dick Smith, was in charge of the transformation scenes and in this film would perfect his techniques giving rise in 1981 to the revolutionary transformation of the werewolf in the film An American Werewolf in London.
At the end of the film and trying to understand it, we find an unconventional love story where the hallucinations of the protagonist manage to mix with the desires of Emily, (Claire Brown), his wife in the film.
This movie was one of the last ones I managed to watch in Beta format, at the time I had no idea who Ken Russell was, I connected with it immediately, I think because of those strange special effects, it was in 2015 that I reviewed it on DVD, and I could finally manage to explain certain parts of the film that for me were not understandable in 1980.
Armageddon 1988 directed by Michael Bay.
The protagonists of the film are a group of oil drillers sent into space to destroy an asteroid about to succumb to the planet Earth. The actors include Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Billy Bob Thornton and Liv Tyler.
The editing of the film is frenetic, and the film was attacked for presenting several scientific inconsistencies, despite the fact that, for the first time in its history, NASA had actively collaborated in the making of the film.
Bay, despite the criticism, manages to film explosive action sequences and gives his films a distinctive look, with ingenious and eye-catching special effects shots.
In 1988 I had a fledgling video club with copies of the latest VHS movies, this film forced me and my partner to buy another VHS recorder so we could duplicate the film, which we did about 20 times as the demand for this film was immense so the tapes degenerated very quickly.
There are plenty of amazing movies, and even some classics of cinema that rely heavily on its visual part, some movies do not stand out much for its script but are entertaining, others can be even pretentious, but only for what they show at the visual level are worth seeing. This is my entry in the CineTV Contest #12 - Visually stunning movies. Link Here
Greetings to this incredible community and good luck to all in this new proposal!