Anthony Mann
10 connections found
View:
Connections, in both directions
News of the World (2020)
Directed by Paul Greengrass
influenced by The Naked Spur (1953), Winchester '73 (1950), Bend of the River (1952)
Visuals
The film’s centerpiece—a brilliant mountainside action sequence—utilizes terrain and directionality in ways reminiscent of Anthony Mann’s best work, and is just as intimately tense as the climax of The Naked Spur .
I keep coming back to Stewart and the hard, broken men he played in those remarkable Anthony Mann westerns — “Winchester ’73” (1950), “Bend of the River” (1952), “The Naked Spur” (1953) — and remain in awe of the nerve with which the actor dismantled his “aw-shucks-Jimmy” image.
But until “News of the World,” Hanks had not broached Stewart’s formidable Western filmography, such as “The Naked Spur,” “Winchester ’73,” “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” and more.
I keep coming back to Stewart and the hard, broken men he played in those remarkable Anthony Mann westerns — “Winchester ’73” (1950), “Bend of the River” (1952), “The Naked Spur” (1953) — and remain in awe of the nerve with which the actor dismantled his “aw-shucks-Jimmy” image.
But until “News of the World,” Hanks had not broached Stewart’s formidable Western filmography, such as “The Naked Spur,” “Winchester ’73,” “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” and more.
I keep coming back to Stewart and the hard, broken men he played in those remarkable Anthony Mann westerns — “Winchester ’73” (1950), “Bend of the River” (1952), “The Naked Spur” (1953) — and remain in awe of the nerve with which the actor dismantled his “aw-shucks-Jimmy” image.
Gladiator (2000)
Directed by Ridley Scott
influenced by The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)
Plot Themes
A Cinemascope epic retrofitted for the CGI age, Gladiator combines the autumnal Rome setting of The Fall Of The Roman Empire with the gladiatorial theatrics and populist politics of Spartacus and the nobleman-made-lowly plot of Ben-Hur .
Ridley Scott and the boys from DreamWorks produced the first genuine Roman epic since 1964's The Fall of the Roman Empire with this virtual remake that deals with the transition of power from the sage-like Marcus Aurelius to his monstrous son, Commodus.
Comparisons to Spartacus and The Fall of the Roman Empire are overzealous, but Gladiator does have enough going on both inside and outside the heads of the protagonists to keep us thinking and feeling.
For those new to the fold, these characters include Mal (Nathan Fillion), who is very much cut from the same cloth as the more nihilistic western heroes James Stewart portrayed (think The Man from Laramie and you're pretty damn dead on) as well as a bit of roguish Han Solo tossed in for good measure, the leader of a band of merry renegades that includes Zoe (Gina Torres), Wash (Alan Tudyk), Inara (Morena Baccarin), Jayne (Adam Baldwin), Kaylee (Jewel Staite), Simon (Sean Maher), River (Summer Glau), and Shepherd Book (Ron Glass).
Brolin's Chaney doesn't turn up until 80 minutes in and, when he does, the actor reminds forcibly of Robert Ryan's memorable villain in Anthony Mann's great “The Naked Spur.”
Despite the fact that Cid’s name is never written down for us, those who remember the old Charlton Heston movie El Cid may feel inklings of realization dawning about here.
If anything, "Kingdom of Heaven" feels like a throwback to the days of Anthony Mann's 1961 "El Cid," a similarly hokey-yet-polished tale of heroism and honor in the face of Islamic aggression from roughly the same period and filmed in many of the same Spanish locales.
Like Charlton Heston's selfless warrior in "El Cid," Wallace is a noble subject who needs a nobler king than the would-be Scottish monarch played here by Angus McFadyen.
The Hateful Eight (2015)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
influenced by The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)
Visuals
It is, of course, all part of Tarantino’s quest to make The Hateful Eight an event, along with the 187-minute running time, a 12-minute intermission and the decision to shoot in Ultra Panavision 70, as favoured by mid-20th-century epics like Ben-Hur , The Fall Of The Roman Empire and The Greatest Story Ever Told (well, if it’s good enough for God…).
To eyes old enough to remember luxuriating in the brilliance of Ultra Panavision 70 in its heyday (on films including Ben-Hur, Mutiny on the Bounty and The Fall of the Roman Empire), The Hateful Eight offers a different sort of experience.
John Carter (2012)
Directed by Andrew Stanton
influenced by The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)
Visuals
Based on sci-fi books by Edgar Rice Burroughs , primarily his “Princess From Mars,” the film is about a former Confederate soldier, Taylor Kitsch ’s John Carter, who ends up on Mars and ends up embroiled in a galactic war that looks like a cross between “ The Empire Strikes Back ” and “The Fall of the Roman Empire.”
The movie is a revisionist Western; a genre that, depending on your perspective, started sometime in the '60s, '70s, or with this very motion picture, and which seeks to replace the frothy Romantic idea of a morally untroubled American frontier, as depicted in such undemanding matinee adventures as The Searchers and The Naked Spur and such * , with a grimmer, more consequential depiction of the violence and cruelty and muddy nastiness of a world inhabited by the men and women (but mostly men) who would hear stories of a lawless wilderness largely untouched by human society and the "civilization" of the east, and think that sounded like exactly the right place to be.