Carroll Ballard
15 connections found
Filmography
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Connections, in both directions
But in order to figure out why I liked the film without loving it, I went back to one of my favorite human/animal adventure films, Carroll Ballard's exquisite "The Black Stallion."
Stories of human-animal bonds are most powerful when, like The Black Stallion or How to Train Your Dragon, they let the animal act like an animal, free of anthropomorphizing cuteness.
As a boy-and-his-animal tale, the director creates an inter-species relationship that is reminiscent of The Black Stallion ; Richard Parker becomes a fully-developed character in his own right, and the developing bond with his owner is extraordinarily compelling because of it.
It’s “Life of Pi” without the effects but just as thrillingly pieced together.
How to Train Your Dragon (2010)
Directed by Chris Sanders
influenced by The Black Stallion (1979)
Themes
The human/dragon scenario is reminiscent of both the delicate human/animal alliance in such films as The Black Stallion (1979) and the illicit romance of Romeo & Juliet (although here it is definitely a bromance).
Taken from a purely cinematic standpoint, The Passion of the Christ is a visually impressive piece, shot by the outstanding cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, whose lush work on 1979's The Black Stallion still remains one of the most resplendent examples of modern cinematography.
Shot by Caleb Deschanel (The Black Stallion, The Right Stuff), The Passion of the Christ opens on an impossibly blue, moonlit night in the Garden of Gethsemane, where a terrified, sweat-drenched Jesus prays to his Father to save him, moments before being seized by temple guards sent out by the high priest Caiaphas (Mattia Sbragia).
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Directed by Alfonso Cuarón
influenced by The Black Stallion (1979)
He directed maybe the most evocative live-action kids movie since The Black Stallion (1979), A Little Princess (1995), and his failed modern 1998 Great Expectations (set in Florida and New York's SoHo) was a worthy stab at re-energizing a classic.
Weaving together an animal-rights message as well as cautionary warnings about corporate greed, the movie becomes an awkward hybrid blending old-fashioned movies like "Babe" or "The Black Stallion" with the surrealism of Terry Gilliam's "Brazil."
The filmmaker gazes at her quiet, stoic characters the way, say, Carroll Ballard looked at a shipwrecked boy and horse in “The Black Stallion.”
Influences here range from Ken Loach’s 1969 gem Kes, Carroll Ballard’s 1979 classic The Black Stallion, François Truffaut’s timeless 1959 stunner The 400 Blows, John Boorman’s graceful 1987 drama Hope and Glory and Andrea Arnold’s 2009 marvel Fish Tank.
The movie would be unwatchable if it were not filmed so well (the cinematographer is Caleb Deschanel, who also shot The Black Stallion and The Right Stuff) and if its cast were not so stellar.
And the landscapes, photographed by John Toll (who did terrific, unheralded work on Carroll Ballard's tempestuous "Wind"), majestically backdrop all the personal and cultural furies.
Maybe he relied too much on the artistry of cinematographer Caleb Deschanel (The Black Stallion, The Right Stuff, The Patriot, The Passion of the Christ) and by Joe Kraemer’s thumping score, which, during helicopter shots of the crime scene, explodes like God’s farts over Pittsburgh.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)
Directed by David Yates
influenced by The Black Stallion (1979)
Themes
As examples of fantasy filmmaking, as opposed to relics of worship, the "Harry Potter" movies do not, except in snatches, have the lyrical wonderfulness and visionary power that I associate with the finest examples of childhood imaginings on film – the animated films of Hayao Miyazaki (" Spirited Away "), for example, or "The Black Stallion" or "The Red Balloon" or Alfonso Cuarón 's "A Little Princess."
Edward Scissorhands presents this outlandishly strange premise, but with a gentleness worthy of Edward himself, Burton and screenwriter Caroline Thompson (who later directed the remake of The Black Stallion) demonstrate how Edward is just an extreme metaphor for the gangliness and isolation experienced by most adolescents.
The screenplay by the late Melissa Mathison (who wrote “The Black Stallion” and “E.T.”) minimizes the book’s moments of Brothers Grimm darkness, another form of Disney niceness that I wish they’d avoided.
Director Steven Spielberg , 69, and screenwriter Melissa Mathison, who wrote "E.T." and "The Black Stallion" and who died in 2015, struggled for years to figure out how to film "The BFG."
After all, Spielberg – among many other things – directed "E.T." His screenwriter here, the late Melissa Mathison, wrote that, too (and "The Black Stallion").
But true kidcentric classics – like “E.T.” or Carroll Ballard’s “The Black Stallion,” which was also written by Mathison – are not as doggedly one-note as this film.
Melilssa Mathison ("E.T.", "The Black Stallion" (1979) --- a huge favorite of mine), who passed away in November 2015, wrote the screenplay for "The BFG".
Mathison, who died last November at 65, wrote some of the best children’s movies ever, including Spielberg’s own “E.T.: The Extraterrestrial” and “The Black Stallion,” movies that never pandered to their young audiences.
Nevertheless, they never come close to the achievement of Carroll Ballard and Caleb Deschanel in "The Black Stallion," in which the picturesque was transcended and began to illuminate truly elemental longings.
Diverse characters The script, by Robert Rodat ("Fly Away Home"), reportedly with uncredited assistance from Scott Frank and Frank Darabont, imagines Miller's unit as a classic ethnic mix.