Ray Harryhausen: Titan of Cinema

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seanjonesbw
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Ray Harryhausen: Titan of Cinema

Post by seanjonesbw »

Perhaps there are some other Ray Harryhausen fans on Textkit - a few days ago I went along to the exhibition of his work at the Scottish National Gallery Of Modern Art which includes almost all the models from his most famous films (Jason and the Argonauts, Clash of the Titans etc), as well as his wonderful Doré-inspired preparatory sketches. I must have watched Jason and the Argonauts more than 50 times when I was a kid, so seeing the skeletons and Talos and the harpies in person felt completely impossible. A real treat after months stuck inside.

The magic of Harryhausen's work is not just the design of the models but the way he gave them life by acting through them in a way that was completely unique to him. One of the most interesting parts of the exhibition was an interactive exploration of the techniques he used to animate the models frame-by-frame over the top of the live action footage already filmed, responding to the movements of the actors.

Because of covid the exhibition is now running until Feb 2022. I don't know if they have plans to transfer it afterwards - I hope they do https://www.nationalgalleries.org/exhib ... tan-cinema

You can also, for £10, access a virtual version of the exhibition https://www.nationalgalleries.org/exhib ... experience

A few of the photos I took while I was there:

Image

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Barry Hofstetter
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Re: Ray Harryhausen: Titan of Cinema

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

What great fun. I too was a fan of his work at an early age. I sometimes use these as an example of how the tradition of classical mythology lives on, changed and adapted, but of course that process was very much alive in the ancient world as well.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter

Cuncta mortalia incerta...

Ahab
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Re: Ray Harryhausen: Titan of Cinema

Post by Ahab »

Thanks much, Sean, to the links to the exhibition.

Am also a big fan of Ray Harryhausen. "Jason and the Argonauts" is my favorite film of his, though "Mysterious Island" is a very close second.

Just want to add that he was fortunate to have Bernard Herrmann compose the music for what are widely considered to be his best films: "Jason and the Argonauts", "Mysterious Island", "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" and "The 3 Worlds of Gulliver".
Here is a link to a good podcast discussing this collaboration:
Harryhausen and Bernard Hermann

Description of the podcast:
Episode 18 of the Ray Harryhausen Podcast sees part two of our retrospective on the music of Harryhausen movies. We explore in depth the relationship between Ray and one of the most influential and important film composers of the 20th century, Bernard Herrmann. Four of Ray's most beloved movies were scored by Herrmann- 'The 7th Voyage of Sinbad', 'The 3 Worlds of Gulliver', Mysterious Island' and 'Jason and the Argonauts'. We discuss a selection of the most important pieces from each of these soundtracks, each taken from their original movie recordings.

We are then joined by special guest Guenther Koegebehn from the Bernard Herrmann society, for an indepth discussion on the music of Hermmann, and a little more context on his wider life and works. We investigate the reasons why Herrmann did not eventually score 'First Men in the Moon', as originally planned, as well as exploring the ongoing work of the Herrmann society.
Why, he's at worst your poet who sings how Greeks
That never were, in Troy which never was,
Did this or the other impossible great thing!
---Robert Browning

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Hal Friederichs

seanjonesbw
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Re: Ray Harryhausen: Titan of Cinema

Post by seanjonesbw »

That was a very interesting listen, thank you - and 35 more episodes to work through as well! Something I found very heartening about the exhibition was the effort that the Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation puts in to preserving and publicising his work, so it's nice to see they've made this podcast as well. His daughter Vanessa has also written a book to accompany the exhibition which has lots of nice stories from her childhood about the way he worked.

Jason and the Argonauts is undoubtedly his best film. Say what you like about its treatment of the source material, it is its own sun-soaked fantasy and I wouldn't change a thing (ok, maybe the dancing). I got the impression from the exhibition that by the time he made Clash of the Titans, which came out 4 years after the first Star Wars film and was a bit of a mess, he knew that the sun had set on stop-motion special effects.

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