John Carpenter Season
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"A true visionary of the fantastic cinema.” - Village Voice
John Howard Carpenter born January 16, 1948 is an Academy Award winning,
American film director, screenwriter, producer, editor, composer, and occasional actor. Although Carpenter has worked in numerous film genres, his name is most commonly associated with horror and science fiction.
Through April The Star & Shadow Cinema will be showing a season of his best films that date from the 70's and 80's the period regarded as the golden age of Carpenter cult movies.
5 FACTS ABOUT JOHN CARPENTER
His films are characterized by minimalist lighting and photography, static cameras, use of steadicam, and distinctive synthesized scores (usually self-composed).
He describes himself as having been influenced by Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Nigel Kneale and The Twilight Zone.
With the exception of The Thing, Starman, and Memoirs of an Invisible Man, he has scored all of his films (though some are collaborations), most famously the themes from Halloween and Assault on Precinct 13. His music is generally synthesized with accompaniment from piano and atmospherics.
Carpenter is a big fan of widescreen, and all of his theatrical movies (with the exception of Dark Star) have been filmed in anamorphic with an aspect ratio 2.35:1.
Although some of Carpenter's films have not been commercially or critically successful upon initial theatrical release, Carpenter has developed a large cult following through home video releases of his films.
WHAT OTHERS SAY ABOUT HIM
“Although usually misunderstood and under appreciated by audiences and film critics alike, John Carpenter has created some of the most intense, imaginative, influential and successful horror films in cinema history.”
“Regardless of their subject matter, the films directed by John Carpenter are characterized by his mastery of the cinematographical craft, and by the showcasing of engaging narratives that convey a profound commentary on the many social, racial, gender and sexual anxieties of our modern world.”
MARCO LANZAGORTA, SENSES OF CINEMA
"the influence of director John Carpenter is huger than ever, with fawning nods in films as recent as Grindhouse and Doomsday."
JOSHUA ROTHKOPF IN TIME OUT
“Without a doubt, films such asThe ThingandThey Liveestablish Carpenter as a true visionary of the fantastic cinema.”
THE VILLAGE VOICE
WHAT HE SAYS ABOUT HIMSELF
“The second you call yourself an artist,” John Carpenter verbally underlines the last word with a dash of sarcasm, “your dead.”
“Science fiction or horror may seem to the casual viewer to have been the huge influences on me, but it was the western that really dominated my imagination from childhood. A lot of my movies are westerns – ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, THE THING, THE FOG, VAMPIRES – but in a different setting or clothing.”
FULL LISTING HERE:
Films in the John Carpenter Season:
11
Film: Assault On Precinct 13 (1976)
11 Apr 2010, 7:30 p.m.
An L.A. street gang declares war on a police station about to be shut down that has given refuge to a man who has witnessed a gang slaying. Gang members hold siege outside where the precinct has been totally shut off from the outside world.
18
Film: They Live (1988)
18 Apr 2010, 7:30 p.m.
Featuring the longest and possibly the best fight scene of all time!!! A down on his luck construction worker, discovers a pair of special sunglasses. Wearing them, he is able to see the world as it really is as people are being subdued and controlled by aliens through the media and the government.
25
Film: Escape From New York (1981)
25 Apr 2010, 7:30 p.m.
In this futuristic fight for survival adventure a condemned criminal Snake Plisskin (Kurt Russel) is offered his freedom if he can rescue the President of the United States( Donald Pleasance) from the walled prison island of Manhattan after a terrorist brings down the President's plane. Very influential science fiction.
28
Film: The Thing (1982)
28 Apr 2010, 7:30 p.m.
Members of an American scientific research outpost in Antarctica find themselves battling a parasitic alien organism capable of perfectly imitating its victims. As they don't know which members of the team have already been assimilated their paranoia threatens to tear them apart. Classic 80’s horror which ends our John Carpenter season.