A writer-director best known for his vivid and ghoulish modern horror films, he has made a number of fine action and science fiction films, as well. If BRIAN DE PALMA is the heir to ALFRED HITCHCOCK, then John Carpenter is the heir to HOWARD HAWKS. Like Hawks, Carpenter shoots his movies with an “invisible” style; the audience is rarely aware of the camera’s presence or the editor’s splices. Also like Hawks, Carpenter excels at action movies. Most telling of all, at least two of the younger director’s films are based on earlier Hawks movies; Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) is a modern-day version of the Hawks classic western Rio Bravo (1959), and Carpenter also remade the 1951 Hawks production of The Thing in 1982.
As a youth, Carpenter was interested in both music and movies. In 1962, while still in his early teens, he made the choice to pursue a film career, making short films that culminated in an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Subject for The Resurrection of Broncho Billy (1970). Five years later he made his feature film directorial debut with the lowbudget science fiction spoof, Dark Star (1975). In addition to directing, he also produced, wrote the screenplay, and penned the score for Dark Star.
Carpenter built a reputation on low-budget independent productions that could not be ignored, especially when he made the most financially successful independent movie in the history of the motion picture business, Halloween (1978), a film that spawned (and that’s certainly the right word) a number of highly commercial sequels.
Tentatively accepted by Hollywood, he wrote the screenplay for the FAYE DUNAWAY horror thriller, The Eyes of Laura Mars (1978). Finally achieving financial backing to direct bigger budget movies, Carpenter began to make films as diverse as The Fog (1981) and Escape from New York (1981). After directing the adaptation of the Stephen King novel Christine (1983). Carpenter reached the peak of his critical and commercial acceptance with the touching and thoughtful hit science fiction movie Starman (1984). He faltered somewhat thereafter, directing the flop action film Big Trouble in Little China (1986) and the disappointing horror movie Prince of Darkness (1987).
In The Films of John Carpenter (2000), John Kenneth Muir argued that Carpenter continued to do interesting work during the 1990s. Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992) was a disappointment that starred Chevy Chase and Darryl Hannah. Though Big Trouble in Little China was not a commercial success in 1986, it has since gained a considerable cult following. Film critic Leonard Maltin was impressed by Carpenter’s remake of the 1950s classic film Village of the Damned (1995), but it grossed little more than a disappointing $9 million. On the other hand, Escape from L.A. (1996) was both a sequel and a sort of remake of Escape from New York, set in “a new city, a new state, and a new century,” as Muir noted, with Kurt Russell reinventing the central character of Snake Plissken because younger viewers had no clue of who this “legendary” hero was. Here Carpenter followed the lead of Howard Hawks, who remade Rio Bravo as El Dorado and as Rio Lobo. This film, which shamelessly imitated a galaxy of good “bad” movies, was spectacularly goofy but found its audience of young thrill seekers and earned more than $25 million. Though In the Mouth of Madness (1995) grossed less than $9 million, it earned Carpenter some of the best reviews of his career. Vampires (1998) was first released in France as a commercial and critical success before its American premiere.
Reviews were mixed (“Ridiculous without being awful enough to be hilarious,” Lawrence Van Gelder wrote in the New York Times, countered by Peter Travers in Rolling Stone, who called it “a bracing blend of fright and fun”), but the film did well commercially. Carpenter is a master manipulator who has said of his audiences, “You can’t gross them out because you’ll lose them. . . . Don’t cut to the blood,” because “If you suggest it, they’ll do it right up here, in their heads.” Carpenter has established an impressive body of work. Sure-handed in his direction, his films have always contained excellent pacing, rhythm, and an acute visual style. At the same time, his films have become richer and more emotionally insightful.
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