George Lucas... maybe I can sneak peak ROTS?
An Entire Look at George Lucas
Now, the article written by Steve Silberman is
not just an interview, it is an entire life in review. Actually, the article
covers the last two decades [plus] of Lucas' life plus what he has got in
store for the future. Along the way the article offers quotes from Lucas
that confirm what Steve is stating is true.
However, the greatest parts to this article is when Steve debunks widely
known myths about Lucas and how he came up with many of his stronger film
ideas. One example is how Lucas always tried to claim that he was talked
into film school, even though that now doesn't seem to be the case. Where
there is passion, there is success-- something that has held true for George
Lucas.
Here is a snippet from the article:
At USC, Lucas joined the first generation of film students who were influenced more by the explosion of world cinema than by the silver screen canon. One of his classmates, John Milius, the future cowriter of Apocalypse Now and director of Red Dawn, introduced him to the epics of Akira Kurosawa, whose depictions of Japanese feudal society were a key influence on Star Wars.
Lucas' sense of his own mission crystallized in animation classes and in a course called Filmic Expression, which focused on the non-narrative aspects of filmmaking - telling stories without words by using light, space, motion, and color. The professors screened animated shorts and documentaries sponsored by the National Film Board of Canada, which has been funding cinematic exploration since the 1940s.
The work of three Canadian directors in particular excited Lucas about the potential of experimenting with the tools of filmmaking. An animator named Norman McLaren explored novel ways of creating images and sounds with every film he made, mixing human actors, animation, and special effects as Lucas would do digitally 20 years later. Lucas was also impressed by the documentaries of Claude Jutra, who used the artistic strategies of Godard and Truffaut to tell real-life stories. One of the reasons the first Star Wars film seemed so vivid compared with previous sci-fi fare, Lucas explains, was that he shot it like a Jutra documentary, covering the scenes with multiple cameras and staging them loosely on purpose so they would unfold with an edge of spontaneity. (Another reason was the salty insouciance of Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, blissfully unaware that they were about to become action figures.)
If you have ever wanted to get inside the head of George Lucas, learn how
he came up with 'the force', or see a wish-list created by Robert Ebert
intended for George Lucas, head over to Wired
Magazine.
For the trailers, movie clips, movie stills, and synopsis, go to the Revenge
of the Sith Movie Page. |
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