Hi, reader
Today, I'm off to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art for the 'Ray Harryhausen: Titan of Cinema' exhibition. Long before CGI, Ray Harryhausen was terrifying cinema audiences with his awesome creations.
I've got a ticket booked for 2pm.
Anyone who considers themselves a movie fan should be familiar with his name and his work, but if you somehow haven't heard of him, here's some information (taken from the National Galleries website):
"Film special effects superstar Ray Harryhausen helped elevate stop motion animation to an art. His innovative and inspiring films, from the 1950s onwards, changed the face of modern movie making forever. This is the largest and widest-ranging exhibition of Ray Harryhausen’s work ever seen, with newly restored and previously unseen material from his incredible archive.
Ray Harryhausen's work included the films Jason and the Argonauts, the Sinbad films of the 1950s and 1970s, One Million Years B.C. and Mighty Joe Young. He inspired a generation of filmmakers such as Peter Jackson, Aardman Animations, Tim Burton, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg, and his influence on blockbuster cinema can be felt to this day.
Titan of Cinema traces Harryhausen’s career as a special effects guru, whose only limits was his boundless imagination. Titan of Cinema shows his creative processes: from embryonic preparatory sketches, through to model making and bringing characters to life who went on to terrorize and delight audiences in equal measure on the cinema screen."
And his creations certainly terrorized me as a kid! Stand out memories include the Medusa scene in Clash of the Titans (1981), the gigantic, emotionless killing machine, Talos from Jason and the Argonauts (1963), the dinosaurs from The Valley of the Gwangi (1969), the Cyclops from The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958) (from the land beyond, beyond ... from the world past hope and fear), the many-armed Kali statue from The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973) and - of course - the epic skeleton battle at the end of Jason and the Argonauts!
I'm off to the exhibition now, and I'll post up some great pictures and videos soon.
Thanks for reading,
Brian
Excellent place for a visit, Brian. I took a week off social media but am catching up now. Sounds like you're still having a great time. Oh, and the package you left me has turned up at the primary school, so thanks for that. We don't know how it got there but perhaps one of the teachers or TAs saw it and took it there. All safe and sound, so cheers. Started watching 'Foundation' last week. Wonder if Harryhausen thought of sci-fi at all.
ReplyDeleteIt really was a brilliant exhibition, Russ. You'd have loved it. I'm just finishing up my blog post on it now and it'll be online shortly. Glad the package turned up in the end :)
Delete