Tuesday Musings - The Great Ray Harryhausen
I had been planning this post for a while, then suddenly Harryhausen's name is all over the place in posts, news releases and websites. Why? Next year is the centenary of his birth, so celebrations will ensue. Perhaps the main event will be the the huge show at the National Galleries of Scotland, Ray Harryhausen, Titan of Cinema , which looks like it's going to be quite incredible, but other surprises are planned by The Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation. I'm not going to go into the details of his life and career as you can get all the info you need on Wikipedia or the website of the aforementioned Foundation (which, by the way, is a registered Scottish charity, so that explains the huge exhibit in Scotland next year). Instead, I'm just going to muse a bit on the great man's influence on stop motion and me and mention my favourite works by him.
The foremost film in my mind when Harryhausen's name is mentioned is the 1963 Jason and The Argonauts. I can't tell you the impact this film had on me when I first saw it, and it's one of the very few movies that I could still watch again and again. It showed me that you could make fantasy come alive, make anything come alive through stop motion (although I didn't even know what that was back then). Harryhausen's films were frequently scored by Bernard Herrmann and the ominous music just enhanced the visuals. (Believe it or not, I have a scratchy old LP of the score to Jason!) The most terrifying moment for me is not the army of skeletons even though they are technically one of the most brilliant things the master ever did (and the sound they make as they clack menacingly at Jason still makes my hair stand on end), but rather the titan Talos. The shrieking metallic creaks as he comes to life and suddenly looks down at the miniscule humans below him...he seems like a force of nature; unconquerable. I'm getting the creeps even as I write this. Of course, it's all matter of when I first saw this film (at a very impressionable age) that has made it a lasting memory. Getting back to the army of skeletons, I remember reading an interview with Harryhausen a while back, and he was talking about filming the scene with several skeletons at once. Now if you don't know how stop motion is done, check out my previous musing on the topic because it's important to this story! He had the scene set up and was painstakingly moving each joint of each skeleton in turn when the phone rang...he went to answer it, and by the time he got back he forgot where he was in the sequence! This is the days before digital, so he couldn't just scrub back to see where he was; he had to start over! Yes, all of his work was done on film. Both Talos and the skeletal army appear in virtually every top-10 list of Harryhausen's creations; usually the army justifiably holds first place.
Harryhausen's influence on stop motion and filmmaking in general is immense. He built his own characters and sets (and they aren't huge, making it much more difficult to manipulate). The influence his fantastic vision had on a lot of other filmmakers is undeniable; as the foundation's website states: "Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Tim Burton, James Cameron, Guillermo Del Toro, Nick Park and so many others have cited Ray as a major inspiration to their careers; George Lucas was quoted as saying “Without Ray Harryhausen, there would likely have been no Star Wars”."
The foremost film in my mind when Harryhausen's name is mentioned is the 1963 Jason and The Argonauts. I can't tell you the impact this film had on me when I first saw it, and it's one of the very few movies that I could still watch again and again. It showed me that you could make fantasy come alive, make anything come alive through stop motion (although I didn't even know what that was back then). Harryhausen's films were frequently scored by Bernard Herrmann and the ominous music just enhanced the visuals. (Believe it or not, I have a scratchy old LP of the score to Jason!) The most terrifying moment for me is not the army of skeletons even though they are technically one of the most brilliant things the master ever did (and the sound they make as they clack menacingly at Jason still makes my hair stand on end), but rather the titan Talos. The shrieking metallic creaks as he comes to life and suddenly looks down at the miniscule humans below him...he seems like a force of nature; unconquerable. I'm getting the creeps even as I write this. Of course, it's all matter of when I first saw this film (at a very impressionable age) that has made it a lasting memory. Getting back to the army of skeletons, I remember reading an interview with Harryhausen a while back, and he was talking about filming the scene with several skeletons at once. Now if you don't know how stop motion is done, check out my previous musing on the topic because it's important to this story! He had the scene set up and was painstakingly moving each joint of each skeleton in turn when the phone rang...he went to answer it, and by the time he got back he forgot where he was in the sequence! This is the days before digital, so he couldn't just scrub back to see where he was; he had to start over! Yes, all of his work was done on film. Both Talos and the skeletal army appear in virtually every top-10 list of Harryhausen's creations; usually the army justifiably holds first place.
Harryhausen's influence on stop motion and filmmaking in general is immense. He built his own characters and sets (and they aren't huge, making it much more difficult to manipulate). The influence his fantastic vision had on a lot of other filmmakers is undeniable; as the foundation's website states: "Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Tim Burton, James Cameron, Guillermo Del Toro, Nick Park and so many others have cited Ray as a major inspiration to their careers; George Lucas was quoted as saying “Without Ray Harryhausen, there would likely have been no Star Wars”."
*****
"Joyfully", my most recent motion-graphic work-in-progress is coming along; I'll share some test screen shots next week. Out of the sling and into months of physiotherapy now...I just hope I'm able to do stop motion in time for the launch of the second season of my web series on Hallowe'en! 😧
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