Watchmen

[pete]

that's a GT I've known and loved.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

the best film to really encompass the possibilities of what comic books can be on film was Dark City.

Pretty spot on, man.  I never really thought of it like that, but I totally see it.

[socketlevel]

the best film to really encompass the possibilities of what comic books can be on film was Dark City.

Pretty spot on, man.  I never really thought of it like that, but I totally see it.

or is it just film noir meets science fiction? i fail to see the comic book element.

[Gold Trumpet]

the best film to really encompass the possibilities of what comic books can be on film was Dark City.

Pretty spot on, man.  I never really thought of it like that, but I totally see it.

or is it just film noir meets science fiction? i fail to see the comic book element.

It can be attributed to all actually. See, the comic book element comes into play because the film is based on an elaborate visual structure. The constant repitition of the camera going in circlular motion at the beginning relates back to the importance of circles in the story. The detective who has figured out things are amiss and kills himself is obsessed with circles and draws them everywhere. The film taps into his paranoia by continually editing at jarring speed and always rotating the camera in a circular motion. His paranoia is our paranoia because we too understand not everything is right, but we don't understand exactly what. The film doesn't calm itself until the world is fully revealed.

The reason comic books can be implicated in this is because the action of the story is set to a moving visual identity. No comic book is the same, but the action oriented comics are always about the motion of the scenes and how they play out in dramatic moments. The quiet scenes are quiet, but the action scenes are about expelling the drama out in a specifically visual way. Dark City is less action oriented in what actually happens, but it finds a visual structure where the drama reveals itself at a constant visual movement. The elaborate design work in the editing, composing and tone of the camera work relates back to what a comic book would look like when adapted to film.

The noir and science fiction influences are there too, but they have to deal with other things. Science fiction you find in the story and world while noir you find in the look and set design production mainly. None of those things intrinsically relate to the filmmaking of Dark City, but comic books, in a lot of ways, do.

[Stefen]

I didn't get a comic book feel from Dark City, either. Maybe in hindsight it is, since it seems to have inspired more comic books than it was initially inspired by.

[Stefen]

the best film to really encompass the possibilities of what comic books can be on film was Dark City.

Pretty spot on, man.  I never really thought of it like that, but I totally see it.

or is it just film noir meets science fiction? i fail to see the comic book element.

See, the comic book element comes into play because the film is based on an elaborate visual structure.

Wasn't that more German expressionist than comic book?

[socketlevel]

the best film to really encompass the possibilities of what comic books can be on film was Dark City.

Pretty spot on, man.  I never really thought of it like that, but I totally see it.

or is it just film noir meets science fiction? i fail to see the comic book element.

See, the comic book element comes into play because the film is based on an elaborate visual structure.

Wasn't that more German expressionist than comic book?

you've just come around full circle to film noir by mentioning German expressionism. you'll get the same answer i got due to the lineage of the two genres.

i think watchmen is a message story more than it is anything else. i don't like (as stated in a previous post) what the film did to the message. too bad you don't like the book GT.

[Gold Trumpet]

I don't use German Expressionism because it doesn't fully compliment what makes Dark City good. When the style became widely used in Hollywood, it went so many different routes. Few were experimental routes, but most normal extension of German Expressionism became visuals and moving camera to show storytelling. Dark City has moving camerawork, but it doesn't litter its story with them the same way Martin Scorsese and Stanley Kubrick do. Those filmmakers are better products of German Expressionism, but they became products of that style by being influenced by filmmakers who were influenced by it themselves. So they are closer to cousins of the movement.

I also don't use German Expressionism because it was never noted for its high attention to editing. The Soviet filmmakers like Eisenstein and Pudovkin were better with basing their films in editing techniques, but their editing techniques were also philosophies that they taught at schools so it became rigid for them. You can't just attribute intricate editing to them because each filmmaker had a different idea of what was most interesting about editing.

I use comic books not because Dark City feels like a comic book, but because it is a conceptual design of what comic books can be when adapted into film. Comic books are open ended about their visual nature, but the important thing is that are based on visual structure in how scenes are specifically told. They are more aware of the sense of movement and composition when telling a story than the standard film which is based in a style that is meant to come off as invisible to the viewer. Thus I feel confident in designing a general philosophy based on a general idea of comic books. Both aspects are meant to evolve and grow.

[Gold Trumpet]

i think watchmen is a message story more than it is anything else. i don't like (as stated in a previous post) what the film did to the message. too bad you don't like the book GT.

I never read the book so cannot say.

[pete]

I totally got the comicbook feel, so did the few kids in my little high school who saw it.  I remember some unsophisticated friend of mine saying outloud that he wished Batman looked like that.
it was gothic in a hip way, noir in a lavish way, hoaky in a stylized way - I guess that's how I see it as being comicbook-like.  Because in essence, it alters the artifices of the said genres - noir, german expressionism, sci-fi - and makes them more intentionally "artificial" (not in the sense that they're man-made but in the sense that they're sets in an alternate world), and that's something quite evolved in American comicbooks.  the noir and sci-fi aesthetics have been quite ingrained and intertwined in the comicbook world anyways, so you can't exclude one genre by naming the other two.
ah what's the use, if you didn't see if you didn't see it.  fuck you and get some eyes.

[socketlevel]

lol wowza.

i guess i can see the comic book element, i just thought that aesthetic existed before comics.  kinda like giving credit to the art that was influenced not influential.  but this is beyond a moot point, i will go fuck myself and get some eyes.

[modage]

Terry Gilliam on Zack Snyder's Watchmen: 'It Needed a Kick in the Ass'
Source: Movieline

I spoke to director Terry Gilliam yesterday, and while our interview will run much closer to the Christmas Day release date of his newest film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, I couldn't help but ask him about Watchmen. Gilliam twice attempted to mount Watchmen for the screen (even going so far as to pitch it as a television miniseries) but could never make it work, so I was curious what he thought of Zack Snyder's theatrical adaptation of the graphic novel, which came out earlier this year.

"I felt a lot of it was so good," Gilliam began. "It got the look of it brilliantly. But it suffered from some of the things I was having problems with when I was trying to write a script. It's too short. It's also too long! It's a very weird thing and they had to make so many compromises and changes. I was always saying it should be a five-part miniseries. I still believe that."

As Gilliam continued, he echoed the prevailing critique of the film: "But he got the look right, and the Rorshach stuff is really, really great. I think I felt if there was any fault, it was almost too respectful of the original." Gilliam laughed. "It needed a kick in the ass, frankly."

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

i guess i can see the comic book element, i just thought that aesthetic existed before comics. 

Comics existed before Dark City.

[socketlevel]

i guess i can see the comic book element, i just thought that aesthetic existed before comics. 

Comics existed before Dark City.

huh?

no the aesthetic of this "comic book" feel the thread has been trying to pinpoint (or at least i have). My guess would have been that sci-fi and film noir influenced comic books and not vice versa in the case of dark city.  that the aesthetic of comic books was borrowed from other sources.  and not passively borrowed like casual influence (as all things are), but more directly.

like the movie this conversation is becoming a spiral.

[mogwai]

Haven't seen Dark City but I saw Watchmen a little bit but the violence got a bit tiresome. But I'm deciding to give it another try. Is the Ultimate Cut the best one? And is also Dark City a recommend (blind) buy?