good

sports Cinematic Stories of

Sporting Heroes

March/April 2011
www.thebigpicturemgazine.com
 contents Issue Thirteen. March/April 2011
Features

06 06 | Spotlight
Good Sports:
Six Cinematic Stories of
Real-life Sporting Heroes

14 | Art & Film

directory of Last Exit To Nowhere:
An Innovative Range of

world
Cult Film-Themed T-shirts

24 | Widescreen
Small But Perfectly Formed:

cinema
The World's Smallest
Travelling Movie Theatre

28 | 1000 Words
First Past The Post:
The Influence of Eadweard
Muybridge and Sallie
Gardner at a Gallop

Regulars
0 4 | Reel World
Rocky Runners

1 8 | One Sheet
Sporting Greats
‘The horse is too small, the
jockey too big, the trainer 2 6 | Four Frames
too old, and I'm too dumb The Natural
to know the difference.'

experience global culture

3 2 | On Location
Charles Howard
Milan, Spain

3 6 | Screengem

through the magic of film

Jake LaMotta's
Championship Belt

cover image Knute Rockne All-American (Courtesy kobal)

4 0 | Parting Shot
Copycat Killer
The Directory of World Cinema aims to play a part in moving intelligent, scholarly criticism beyond the
academy. Each volume of the Directory provides a culturally representative insight into a national or regional
cinema through a collection of reviews, essays, resources, and film stills highlighting significant films and
players. Over time, new editions will be published for each volume, gradually building a comprehensive
32 4 6 | Listings
A roundup of this issue's
featured films

guide to the cinema of each region. To contribute to the project or purchase copies please visit the website. The Big Picture ISSN 1759-0922 © 2011 intellect Ltd. Published by Intellect Ltd. The Mill, Parnall Road. Bristol BS16 3JG / www.intellectbooks.com
Editorial office Tel. 0117 9589910 / E: info@thebigpicturemagazine.com Publisher Masoud Yazdani Senior Editor & Art Direction Gabriel Solomons Editor Scott Jordan Harris
Design Assistant Persephone Coelho Contributors Jez Conolly, Nicholas Page, Emma Simmonds, Neil Mitchell, Nathan Francis, Scott Jordan Harris, Gabriel Solomons
Please send all email enquiries to: info@thebigpicturemagazine.com / www.thebigpicturemagazine.com l The Big Picture magazine is published six times a year

www . worldcinemadirectory. org Published by intellect | www.intellectbooks.co.uk

To view our catalogue or order our books and journals visit www.intellectbooks.com. Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG. | Tel: +44 (0) 117 9589910
March/April 2011 3
 Left Slyvester Stallone as rocky BALBOA
reel world Here is a man who
below TROOP 2016 RUNNING UP THE 'ROCKY' STEPS
f i l m b e yo n d t h e b o r d e r s o f t h e s c r e e n
refuses to languish at the
bottom of life powering
himself to the top
through sheer effort...
Rocky
Runners
No sequence in cinema
is as simply inspiring as Syl-
vester Stallone’s first sprint up
the 72 steps that lead to the
Philadelphia Museum of Art
(Rocky [Avildsen, 1976]). The
When Rocky Balboa ran up the steps beneath scene is a strong metaphor –
Philadelphia’s Museum of Modern Art, he here is a man who refuses to
languish at the bottom of life,
inspired innumerable real-life runners to the powering himself to the top
same. Scott Jordan Harris tries to keep up. through sheer effort – but it
appeals to audiences not only
because of its figurative power,
but also because it can literally
be imitated. The Rocky Steps,
as they are now universally
known, returned for four of
Rocky’s five sequels, and each
appearance increased the
number of fans who headed to
them to recreate Rocky’s run.
Indeed, so much a feature
of Philadelphia have ‘Rocky
Runners’ become that the city
gofurther Read Rocky Stories: Tales of Love, Hope, and Happiness at America’s Most Famous Steps by Michael Vitez (Author) and Tom Gralish (Photographer)
4 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com
started its Millennial festivities
with 2000 Rocky fans, all in
costume, making the famous
upwards dash. The motiva-
tions for the thigh-pumping
pilgrimages made by Rocky
Runners are often, though,
greater than a simple desire
to ape a movie scene – or
even participate in city-wide
celebrations – and some of the
most compelling were cap-
tured by Michael Vitez in his
2006 book Rocky Stories.
The same year as Vitez re-
leased his book, Stallone gave
some Rocky Runners an even
greater honour than immortal-
isation in its pages: immortali-
sation in a Rocky movie. After
the final bell rings in Rocky
Balboa (Stallone, 2006), the
credits scroll alongside images
of dozens of delighted Rocky
Runners. Seldom have the
movies and real life collided as
famously, or as powerfully, as
do at the Rocky Steps. [tbp]
March/April 2011 5
 cover
feature
Y spotlight
c i n e m a ' s t h e m at i c s t r a n d s

Good
Sports 'Knute Rockne All-
The sports biopic is perhaps the most popular sub-genre of American' AKA 'A
the sports movie. J e z C on olly and N e il M itc h e ll team up Modern Hero' (1940)
to look at six cinematic stories of real-life sporting heroes. Dir. Lloyd Bacon

Knute Rockne is the American

football-themed film that
gave former US President
Ronald Reagan the nickname
‘the Gipper’. Reagan plays
freshman George Gipp, who
is discovered by Notre Dame
team coach Rockne (Pat
O’Brien) and added to the
team as halfback, leading to a
winning streak. Tragedy dims
the team’s triumphs when Gipp
is struck down with a fatal
illness. Cue Coach Rockne’s
much-repeated and frequently
parodied half-time ‘win one for
the Gipper’ pep talk during a
key game in the 1928 season.
Reagan is only on-screen for
eight of the film’s 98 minutes
but his four scenes stand out as
its emotional heart; the ‘Gipper’
tag stuck and was used to mock
and champion Reagan with
equal measure throughout his
political career. O’Brien’s per-
formance as Rockne, gradually
crippled by phlebitis and even-
tually killed in a plane crash,
helped make Knute Rockne All-
American an early example of
a sports film that made grown
Kobal (2)
Reagan is only men cry. [Jez Conolly]
onscreen for
eight of the film’s Above and left
98 minutes but Ronald Reagan

his four scenes

stand out as its
emotional heart

6 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com March/April 2011 7


Tom Hooper’s
adaptation of David
Peace’s novel...is
an affectionate and
humourous portrait of
the hubris, arrogance
and unyielding drive of
‘the greatest manager
England never had’.
8 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com
spotlight good sports
Kobal
Seabiscuit was
a knock-kneed,
undersized, overlooked
Seabiscuit (2003) thoroughbred...His
Dir. Gary Ross was a classic story of
the underdog winning
Seabiscuit was the perfect hero through against
for Depression-era America – his
was a classic story of the under-
the odds
dog winning through against the
odds – but we have to wait over
40 minutes into Gary Ross’ screen
adaptation of the Laura Hillen-
brand 2001 bestseller, Seabiscuit:
An American Legend, before we
actually get to see the eponymous
legendary racehorse. This is a film
focused at least as much, if not
The Damned United more, on the human story of the
three men behind Seabiscuit’s suc-
(2009)
Dir. Tom Hooper
cess as about Seabiscuit himself.
The horse’s owner, car magnate
Charles Howard (Jeff Bridges),
trainer Tom Smith (Chris Cooper)
One of the fiercest rivalries Eng-
lish football has seen came not
and jockey Red Pollard (Tobey
Maguire) all carry deep emotional
between two teams but between
legendary manager Brian Clough
wounds and are brought together
by a damaged horse – Seabiscuit
(Michael Sheen) and Don Revie
(Colm Meaney), whose cham-
was a knock-kneed, undersized,
overlooked thoroughbred – in
pionship-winning Leeds United
Clough dubbed ‘the dirtiest and
which they see hope and find
most cynical team in the country.’
Tom Hooper’s adaptation of Da-
healing. This critically lauded film
failed at the box office despite its
vid Peace’s novel, a fictionalised
account of Clough’s disastrous
successful attempt to embody the
best and most noble qualities of
44-day reign as Leeds’ manager,
the human spirit. [Jez Conolly]
is an affectionate and humorous
portrait of the hubris, arrogance above left
and unyielding drive of ‘the great- Michael Sheen
est manager England never had.’ opposite
Alongside Clough and Revie’s Tobey Maguire
enmity, The Damned United charts
the touching ‘bromance’ between
Clough and his long-time assis-
tant, Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall).
The briefly estranged colleagues
are re-united after Clough’s chas-
tening sacking from Leeds, with
‘Ol’ Big ‘Ed’ falling to his knees
and begging Taylor ‘Baby, please
take me back.’ After the events of
the film, Revie’s career petered
out, while the pair took Notting-
ham Forest to European Cup-
winning glory in 1979 and 1980.
[Neil Mitchell]
March/April 2011 9
Kobal (2) spotlight good sports

Prefontaine (1997)
Somebody Up There
Likes Me (1956) Dir. Steve James
Dir. Robert Wise
The short life of American middle
and long distance runner Steve
Paul Newman’s career-making
Prefontaine (Jared Leto) is cele-
portrayal of Rocky Graziano’s
troubled life and turbulent Rocky’s early life brated in this film by Hoop Dreams
(1994) director Steve James.
rise to boxing’s middleweight
championship of the world tells was marred by an Prefontaine was tragically killed
in a car accident at 24, but his life
a real life tale of sporting glory
achieved very much against abusive father, street story was packed full of sporting
achievement, dramatic events and
the odds. Born Thomas Rocco
Barbella in New York City, the
fighting, petty crime, moments of controversy.
Displaying an aggressively
future champ was, as respected
boxing writer Bert Sugar noted,
reform school, jail and single-minded determination, the
‘raised on the Lower East Side,
where both sides of the tracks
eventually military diminutive Prefontaine, born with
one leg slightly shorter than the
were wrong.’ Rocky’s early life
was marred by an abusive father,
prison. other, was a central figure in the
‘running boom’ that swept Amer-
ica in the 1970s. James’ film en-
street fighting, petty crime, reform
compasses his dramatic failure to
school, jail and eventually military
take a medal at the 1972 Munich
prison; but it was his fearsome
above Olympics, his much-criticised dis-
reputation as a brawler that RONALD LEE ERMEY, ED O'NEILL AND JARED LETO
eventually gave his wayward life
the focus it needed. Graziano was
above left
Paul Newman
The diminutive Prefontaine, born pute over appearance fees with the
Amateur Athletic Union (AAU)
firmly established in American
sporting legend by the three
with one leg slightly shorter than and his staggering record of 120
victories in 153 races. Coached
ferocious title bouts fought against
his fierce rival Tony Zale (Court
the other, was a central figure by Bill Bowerman (R. Lee Er-
mey), whose Blue Ribbon Sports
Shepard). He may have only held in the ‘running boom’ that swept company later became Nike, Pre-
fontaine was adored by his fans,
the title for a year, but his is an
inspirational story for all of life’s America in the 1970s. smashed records and ran his way
into sporting history.
underdogs. [Neil Mitchell]
[Neil Mitchell]

10 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com March/April 2011 11

 spotlight
c i n e m a ' s t h e m at i c s t r a n d s

The Pride of the

Kobal
Yankees (1942)
Dir. Sam Wood

Considered by many to be the

finest sports film of all, The
Pride of the Yankees tells the
rags-to-riches story of baseball
legend Lou Gehrig and his he-
roic losing battle against illness.
The baseball theme shares
the screen with a moving love
story (included to appeal to
women, the main body of US
wartime cinemagoers) and a
stirring patriotism designed to
rouse the nation in the wake of
the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Gary Cooper, starring as
Gehrig, worked hard to emulate
the great man but, being right-
The Pride of the handed, had to rely on some
Yankees tells the screen trickery to replicate
rags-to-riches Gehrig’s left-handed batting
style: director Sam Wood filmed
story of baseball Cooper batting right-handed
legend Lou Gehrig and flipped the negative to
and his heroic make him appear left-handed.
To avoid the obvious oddities,
losing battle the lettering on Cooper’s cap
against illness and uniform had to be reversed
and, when he hit the ball, he
had to remember to run to third
base instead of first.
[Jez Conolly]

left
Gary Cooper

go further [bookS] The Damned United by David Peace and Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand

12 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com March/April 2011 13

 art&film The idea for the company
visual art inspired by film
developed from my love

Exit
of cinema, collecting

Last T-shirts, and a feeling of

being creatively stifled
at the design agency I
clockwise from top left
Forrest Gump
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
There Will Be Blood
Raiders of the Lost Ark
worked for at the time. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Taxi Driver

When and how did the initial

concept for Last Exit to
Nowhere come to be?
The idea for the company
developed from my love of
cinema, collecting T-shirts, and

to Nowhere
a feeling of being creatively
stifled at the design agency
I worked for at the time. My
brother is a screen printer by
above trade, and I’ve always been
Superman II (1980) able to take ideas from popu-
lar/retro culture – including
films – and design and produce
bespoke garments.

Can you describe your

creative philosophy?
I like to design T-shirts that ref-
erence my favourite films. I’m
happy for people to buy them
if they like them too.

What was the first T-shirt

design you created?
It was a band T-shirt for a UK
death metal band in 1987. The
first film based design was a
Thorn Industries T-shirt based
upon the fictional company
seen in The Omen (Donner,
1976; Taylor, 1978; Baker,
1981) trilogy in 1998.

How do you choose the film

and detail to develop into one
of your designs?
The quintessence of cool, the range of cult film-themed T-shirts by Last Simply by watching films!
Exit To Nowhere have taken the market by storm, bridging the worlds Is it a struggle to identify
of geek fandom and retro culture in style. Mike Ford, who once played new films and details to de-
guitar for Nottingham punk band Consumed, is the guiding force behind velop into fresh designs?
I think there is a wealth of
the innovative clothing line, which has paid homage to films as diverse ➜
ideas and new inspiration to be
as The Thing (Carpenter, 1982) to The Karate Kid (Avildsen, 1984) with drawn from old and new films.

their sharp and witty designs. The Big Picture caught up with Ford to
discuss Last Exit To Nowhere’s cinematic couture.

14 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com March/April 2011 15

 art&film
visual art inspired by film
clockwise from below
Brazil / antiheroes throughout cinema / alien / Blade Runner / Soylent Green / The Blues Brothers
How long does the design
process take from original
idea through to the finished
T-shirt?
Some ideas come and it can
take just a couple of weeks to
turn it around. Other ideas stay
locked away for months before
making an appearance.
Do you often find yourself
noticing details watching re-
cent films which would make
great Last Exit to Nowhere
designs?
Yes. It’s almost impossible for
me not to now.
16 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com
left
ghost busters
below
Paul
Have you ever wanted to de-
velop a detail from a film into
a new design but have been
denied the right to do so?
Not so much denied, but
encouraged not to – for legal
reasons. We’d love to be able to
do references from the Duncan
The first film based Jones film Moon (2009).
design was a Thorn Have you ever received re-
quests for any particular
Industries T-shirt films or details to be made
into a design?
based upon the Yes, we encourage people to
send in their ideas and sug-
fictional company gestions to us. It’s good to
know what folk think about
seen in The Omen what we do.
trilogy in 1998.
seemore... [web ] www.lastexittonowhere.com
What has been your most
popular design to date?
Our sci-fi T-shirts are probably
the most successful.
What are your company’s
forthcoming projects and
overall plans for the future?
We’d like the company to con-
tinue in the way it has been
developing, offering new and
interesting designs along the
way. If you ‘Join Us’ at Last
Exit To Nowhere you can
qualify for discounts and spe-
cial membership offers. With
enough members we are hop-
ing to conquer a small country.
[tbp]
March/April 2011 17
 one sheet
deconstructing film posters

Sporting
Greats
Whether about tennis or football, surfing or skiing,
cinema has served up some memorable sporting stories.
Nic hol as Page looks at a few of the posters that sold them
to us. Images courtesy of The Reel Poster Gallery, London.

s
ports are an increas-
ingly important part of
our culture and society
and so it is fitting that
the sports movie has
become such an important part
of cinema. As the following
examples prove, the genre is re-
sponsible for some wonderfully
designed movie posters.
Chariots of Fire (1981)
Original US One Sheet
The use of space and composition in
this poster for Hugh Hudson’s Chari-
ots of Fire is outstanding. The poster,
which shows a group of athletes from
the film training for the 1924 Olym-
pics in Paris, uses negative space in
order to emphasise (to quote the Brit-
ish writer Allan Sillitoe) ‘the loneli-
ness of the long distance runner’. Un-
fortunately, this brilliant and some-
what unconventional design wasn’t
initially used to market the film in the
West. After the success of Chariots
of Fire at the 1981 Academy Awards
(where it scooped four awards), the
film was a promoted in America us-
ing a more standard poster so as to
show off these recent achievements.

gofurther... www.reelposter.com [book ] Josef Vyletal: Painter of Death by Rostislav Sarvas

18 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com
 Hard, Fast and Beautiful (1951)
Original US Insert
This poster for Ida Lupino’s tennis
drama Hard, Fast and Beautiful is
slightly more conventional than the
other posters here, but does well to
encapsulate the importance art once
held in the creation of successful
movie marketing material. Just as we
see with the posters for commercial
releases these days, it has always
been important to feature each of the
movie’s stars in order to sell it suc-
cessfully – and at the very least this
meant employing an artist who could
accurately draw characters that would
then be recognised by the general
public. This, of course, isn’t the finest
artistic example, but it does also show
us an early use of the tagline.

Downhill Racer (1969)

Original US One Sheet
Art by Stephen Frankfurt
This iconic poster for Michael
Ritchie’s 1969 film Downhill Racer
is one of a number by successful
designer, art director and advertis-
ing mogul Stephen Frankfurt. At just
25 Frankfurt was noticed and hired
by producer Alan J. Pakula to design
the title sequence for Robert Mul-
ligan’s 1962 adaptation of To Kill a
Mockingbird. What Frankfurt came up
with changed the art of title design,
and led to the realisation that mov-
ies could – and perhaps should – be
packaged and sold in their totality. For
Frankfurt, simplicity and directness
(note the use of the tagline here) was
a must, and this can be seen not only
in this but also the remarkably similar
poster he designed for Roman Polan-
ski’s Rosemary’s Baby the year before.

What Frankfurt came

up with changed the
art of title design, and
led to the realisation
that movies could – and
perhaps should – be
packaged and sold in
their totality.

20 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com
one sheet sporting greats
new
The Endless Summer (1966)
Original US One Sheet
Art by John Van Hamersveld The Film International Website
www.filmint.nu
Illustrator and graphic artist John
Van Hamersveld is perhaps best
known for designing the album
sleeves and concert posters of
popular and psychedelic bands
during the 1960s and ‘70s. He was

Come experience the miracle

behind such covers as those used
for The Beatles’ Magical Mystery
Tour, Jefferson Airplane’s Crown of
Creation and The Rolling Stones’
Exile on Main St. From there, he
descended into the corporate world
of logo design, but not before
contributing this poster for Bruce
Brown’s 1966 crossover hit movie,
The Endless Summer. Here, Van Resurrected – Redesigned – Reanimated
Hamersveld uses his experience
as a graphic designer for popular
surfing magazines to create a
striking image of one fleeting but
memorable moment in American
history. [tbp]

Van Hamersveld uses his experience as

a graphic designer for popular surfing
magazines to create a striking image of
one fleeting but memorable moment in New look, new material, features, reviews,
American history.
interviews, classic favourites, frequent updates.

22 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com
 widescreen
seeing film in a wider context

small
but
perfectly
formed
developed by Swansea
based non-profit production
company Undercurrents, The
Sol Cinema is just one in a
series of initiatives set up by the
company to highlight envi-
ronmental issues in a fun and
creative way. The Sol Cinema
certainly ticks both these boxes
plus a few more as it reflects
both the macro Eco-cool con-
sumer trend for all things green
as well as the nostalgic vintage
trend. The 1960s caravan con-
version snugly seats 8 adults and
offers up a unique cinematic
experience - screening an ec-
lectic range of short films with
inspiring environment themes.
Lavished with pride, style and
Powered entirely by the rays of the sun, the a bubbly crew of usherettes, the
aptly named Sol Cinema is the World's smallest micro cinema uses lithium bat-
teries to store the energy from
(and sweetest) travelling movie theatre. the Sun to power the cinema
throughout the day and night
to f i n d o u t m o r e v i s i t w w w. t h e s o lc i n e m a . o r g
and the photovoltaic panel har-
nesses the sunlight, even as the
films are being shown, so they
never run out of power.
The cinema is currently in the
running to win £5,000 from
The Co-operative group for the
best project to educate about
climate change, so to cast your
vote simply visit www.co-oper-
ative.coop and click on the 'Join
The Revolution' link. [tbp]

24
24www.thebigpicturemagazine.com
www.thebigpicturemagazine.com March/April
March/April 2011
2011 25
25
 four frames
t h e a r t o f a b b r e v i at e d s t o r y t e l l i n g

When Barry Levinson

tried to make a baseball
movie for more than

Beyond Baseball
baseball fans, he hit a
home run. J e z C o n o l ly
The Natural, Dir. Barry Levinson, 1984 takes us out to the ball
game.
1 2

‘You don’t have to love

[insert sport here] to love this film.’
It’s a phrase often used by reviewers
keen to convince non-sports fans
that a movie isn’t going to be a just
another ball game – albeit one shot
from multiple angles. The phrase is
often close to the truth but it has never
been closer than in the case of Barry
Levinson’s The Natural (1984). Forget
about shortstops, pitchers, curveballs
and home runs. This is more than a
film about baseball: it is a film about
fundamental darkness and light.
Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel’s
backlighting technique and use of
filters to direct and diffuse light sources
lend the film its sense of nostalgic
magic realism. In a key scene, an
angelically lit Glenn Close inspires
Robert Redford to a hit that takes
out the scoreboard clock; a moment
captured by the flashlights of the press
3 4
photographers. In that instant her astral
presence has caused time to stop.

Read More f o u r f r a m e s online at

www.thebigpicturemagazine.com

26 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com March/April 2011 27

 left
sallie Gardner at a gallop When they tire of
discussing whether the Mike
Tyson of 1987 could beat
the Muhammad Ali of 1974,
those who like to debate box-
ing often argue over who is
‘pound for pound’ the best
boxer of all. They suppose
there is an equation in which
a boxer’s amount of ability
Eadweard Muybridge’s nineteenth century can be divided by his weight
to give a per pound measure
short of a galloping a horse named Sallie of his powers. In this way a
1000 words inspired scientists, artists – and cinema
itself. S c ot t Jor da n H a r r i s saddles up.
featherweight can, at least in
a boxing fan’s fantasies, be
m o m e n t s t h at c h a n g e d c i n e m a f o r e v e r
fairly matched against a su-
per heavyweight.

First
Were films assessed by
a similar method, with a
movie’s amount of influence
divided by its running time,
there would be one undisput-

Past
ed pound for pound cham-
pion of the cinema. Eadweard
Muybridge’s three-second
short, Sallie Gardner at a Gal-
lop, has legitimate claims to
be both the first and most
influential film ever made

x the x
– and, while the influence
of most monumental films
extends only to other films, its
influence reaches into science,
art and photography.
Muybridge shot Sallie

Post
Gardner at Palo Alto, Califor-
nia, on 19 June 1878. Present
were an array of reporters
and Leland Stanford, an
industrialist with whom (de-
pending upon which sources
you consult) Muybridge was
either engaged in a noble
experiment or locked in a
The Influence of Eadweard Muybridge high-stakes wager. Their pur-
pose was to answer a simple
and Sallie Gardner at a Gallop but puzzling question: did
a horse at full gallop ever
lift all four of its feet off the
ground simultaneously?
Muybridge, already a re-
nowned photographer, had
found the answer a year ear-
lier, when he took a series of
pictures of a racehorse called
Occident; but questions over
the processes to which he
subjected his photographic
negative caused his findings to
➜
be discredited. His set-up at
Palo Alto ensured the results
of the Sallie Gardner experi-
ment could not be doubted.

28 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com March/April 2011 29

1000 words first past the post
He planned and measured
the course the horse would
run, and then he planned and
measured a path parallel to
it. Along this he positioned
24 regularly spaced cameras
and a rigged series of trip
wires that, once broken by
the horse, would each activate
one of the cameras. To make
the process as transparent as
possible, he not only had the
press in situ, but also the fa-
cilities to develop the pictures
as soon as they were taken.
And so, ridden by a jockey
known as ‘Domm’, Sallie
Gardner began her gallop. A
few seconds passed, 24 shut-
ters snapped, and the pio-
neering pictures were taken.
Muybridge developed them
and, once he had finished, the
results were clear. Soon, the
world knew that a horse in
fast motion did indeed lift all
four hooves from the ground
at the same time.
As worthy of celebration
as this is it does not account
for the experiment’s influence
on cinema. That came when
Muybridge adapted the im-
ages so they could be shown
as a moving sequence through
the proto-projector he had
invented. Viewed via the Zoo-
praxiscope, Sallie Gardner at
a Gallop became perhaps the
world’s first film.
Whether it really was the
world’s first film will always
be debated. Certainly, Sallie
Gardner was a motion picture
go further... [book] Read Muybridge’s Horse: a poem in three phases by Rob Winger and Eadweard Muybridge, the Complete Locomotion Photographs by Hans-Christian Adam
30 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com
– but, as essentially a high-
speed slide show, was it really
a film? The famous Roundhay
Garden Scene, made ten years
later by Louis Aimé Augustin
Le Prince in the eponymous
area of Leeds, was the first
movie shot on celluloid,
which is to say it was the
first movie to be made using
film – and that gives it a very
strong claim to the title of
the world’s first film. But, if
a film must be made on film
to earn the name, are movies
shot entirely on digital cam-
eras not truly films?
Such arguments tend
towards the endless and, ulti-
mately, whether Sallie Gardner
was the first true film is im-
material. What matters is the
enormous significance it had
in the development of film-
making. Eadweard Muybridge
When the Wachowski and his Zoopraxiscope led
to Thomas Edison and his
siblings, and their visual Kinetoscope, which led to the
Lumière brothers and their
effects supervisor, John Cinématograph, which over-
took the Skladanowsky broth-
Gaeta, came to create The ers and their Bioscope, to lead
us to the earliest incarnation
Matrix trilogy, they used of cinema as we know it.
the 120-year-old film as a Few films, then, can boast
of an influence on cinema
model while developing the equal to that of Sallie Gardner
– but none can boast of com-
techniques necessary for bining it with Sallie Gardner’s
impact upon photography, art
their now-famous ‘bullet and science. The film’s influ-
ence on film was almost inci-
time’ effect. dental (after all, Muybridge
was seeking to solve a scien-
tific problem, not invent an
art form). More immediate
above
the matrix was its influence on the way
scientists understood biome-
chanics and the way artists
appreciated motion.
While it seems unlikely
that scientists still refer to
Sallie Gardner during their
work – its appeal for them,
surely, is purely historical
– its appeal for artists per-
sists. Muybridge’s studies
of bodies in motion have
inspired artists as promi-
nent as Francis Bacon and
Marcel Duchamp (whose
1912 ‘Nude Descending a
Staircase No. 2’ is famously
descended from Muybridge’s
1887 ‘Woman Walking
Downstairs’) and are clas-
sic reference models for
animators and cartoonists.
Sallie Gardner in particular
continues to inspire: in 2007,
Canadian poet Rob Winger
published Muybridge’s Horse,
a book-length poem retelling
the story of Sallie Gardner
and its creator.
Even more impressively,
when the Wachowski siblings,
and their visual effects su-
pervisor, John Gaeta, came
to create The Matrix trilogy
(1999–2003), they used the
120-year-old film as a model
while developing the tech-
niques necessary for their
now-famous ‘bullet time’ ef-
fect. Though the still cameras
used in filming The Matrix
trilogy’s ultra-slow motion
sequences were far more
numerous and sophisticated
than those used on Sallie
Gardner (in The Matrix up to
120 camera were employed,
allowing recording of up to
12,000 frames per second),
the principles were remark-
ably similar to those used
in, and were drawn directly
from, Muybridge’s work.
And, of all the evidence
of Sallie Gardner’s signifi-
cance, its influence on the
Wachowskis and Gaeta
– twenty-first century film-
makers looking to stretch the
boundaries of cinema – is
the most persuasive. When
Muybridge took 24 quick fire
photographs of a racehorse
in the summer of 1878 it
wasn’t simply a moment that
changed movies: it was a mo-
ment that is still changing
them now. [tbp]
 on location
t h e p l a c e s t h at m a k e t h e m o v i e s

xmilan x
Standing in the shadow of its colossal
cathedral under typically grey skies, it’s
difficult not to feel inspired by Milan’s
Gothic beauty. N i c h ol as Pag e takes a tour.

La Notte (1961) Rocco and His Brothers

(1960)
Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni
Italy, 115 minutes Dir. Luchino Visconti
Starring Marcello Italy, 168 minutes
Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau, Starring Alain Delon, Renato
Monica Vitti Salvatori, Annie Giradot

Michelangelo Antonioni’s La Notte Rocco and his Brothers follows a

concerns, among other things,
the embattled wife of a suc-
cessful writer (played by Jeanne
Moreau), who one day, while
feeling particularly alienated from
her current life, decides to escape
the party thrown to celebrate the
release of her husband’s new book
and embarks on an aimless walk
through the streets. From an op-
pressive circle of cocktail glasses
and chatter, she is thrust into a
city of humming machinery, the
rhythmic beating of engines and
the screeching of sirens. This is
modern Milan, and few have ever
depicted it – indeed, have depicted
many things – in quite the same
way as Antonioni.
poor Southern family who migrate
to Milan during the economic
boom of the 1950s in search of
work and a better life. Led by
their embattled mother, Rosaria
(Katina Paxinou), four of the five
brothers – Simone (Renato Sal-
vatori), Luca (Rocco Vidolazzi),
Ciro (Max Cartier) and Rocco
(Delon) – travel to the North by
train with the hope that the fam-
ily’s eldest son, Vincenzo (Spiros
Focas), will be able to find them
all somewhere to stay. Simone
and Rocco find some success as
boxers before eventually fighting
over the beautiful Nadia (Annie
Girardot), a prostitute with dark
eyes who enters their lives as if
by chance and eventually cause a
fatal rift in the family.

kobal
32 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com March/April 2011 33
 on location
left
Miracle in Milan The bored daughter-in-law of a
wealthy Italian textile baron, upon
below
t h e p l a c e s t h at m a k e t h e m o v i e s I Am Love

discovering the homosexuality of

Miracle in Milan (1951)
Dir. Vittorio De Sica
her artist daughter, is inspired to
Italy, 100 minutes
Starring Francesco Golisano,
find her own liberation.
Emma Gramatica, Paolo Stoppa

Vittorio De Sica had a difficult task in creating a film

with similar themes to his beloved 1948 film Bicycle
Thieves as a follow up to it. And yet Miracle in Milan
stands in its own right as a tale of poverty, freedom and
happiness in post-war Italy. Using both actors and non-
actors in the classic neorealist way, De Sica’s fantasy
documents the struggles of a young boy named Totò,
who is found in a cabbage patch and adopted by an old
woman, before being shunted into an orphanage by the
system once she passes away.

I Am Love (2009)
Dir. Luca Guadagnino
Italy, 120 minutes
Starring Tilda Swinton, Flavio
Parenti, Edoardo Gabbriellini

In dealing with the lavish upper rungs of Milan’s

social ladder, Luca Guadagnino’s I Am Love has drawn
numerous comparisons from critics to the work of
influential Italian film-maker Luchino Visconti. It stars
English actress Tilda Swinton as Emma Recchi, the
bored daughter-in-law of a wealthy Italian textile baron
who, upon discovering the homosexuality of her artist
daughter, is inspired to find her own liberation. To this
end, Emma is drawn towards one of her son’s friends,
a local chef named Antonio (Gabbriellini), and the pair
begin a tentative romantic relationship.

go further... [film ] Watch Il posto (1961) Cronaca di un amore (1950), Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963)

34 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com March/April 2011 35

 screengem
e vo c at i v e o b j e c t s o n s c r e e n

jake
lamotta's

Championship
y

Bel� Raging Bull (1980)

Nothing in Raging Bull sums up Jake LaMotta better
than his championship belt. Scot t Jordan H arris
tries not to take a hammer to it.

Robert DeNiro’s Jake
LaMotta is seldom up on
his luck, but in one of the
passages of Raging Bull
when he is most definitely
down on it, he becomes
desperate for money. Seizing
the title belt he earned as
middleweight champion
of the world, he smashes
it with a hammer to break
off its jewels. Taking these
to a pawnshop, he is told
what we already know: that
the jewels themselves are
worthless – but the belt they
came from was a unique
item that could surely have
sold for a high price.
It is seldom discussed as
such, but the championship
belt in Raging Bull is one
of the most evocative
objects in American cinema.
Most big biopics centre
on a subject – a politician
given to making quotable
speeches, say, or a writer
whose aphorisms may be
easily appropriated for the
script – with a talent for
verbal expression. LaMotta
has no such faculty, and
nor does anyone around
him. And so it is his actions
that define him – and no
action defines him more
succinctly than the way
he treats his title belt, the
physical symbol of his
best accomplishments.
Like almost everything of
importance in LaMotta’s
life, he battles to get it –
and then wilfully destroys
it thinking he is doing the
right thing. [tbp]

seemore Read ‘Screengem: Bingham’s Backpack’ on TheBigPictureMagazine.com

kobal

36 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com
 Intellect
Books & Journals
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 parting shot
i m i tat i o n i s t h e s i n c e r e s t f o r m o f f l at t e r y

Copycat
Gus Van Sant’s 1998 remake
of Alfred Hitchcock’s
Psycho (1960) is essentially
one long act of audacious
imitation – for the most part

Killer
a shot-for-shot copy, with
the action transposed to the
modern day. Although it’s
inferior in every respect,
it’s perversely watchable as
there’s a certain mileage in
comparing and contrasting it
to the superior original.
Gus Van Sant’s lurid, near-identical rehash of In this brazen facsimile,
Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is an act of earnest the unfortunate Marion
but ultimately misguided experimentation. Crane is played by Anne
Heche, who, as before, ab-
e mma si mmo nd s can’t believe her eyes. sconds with a fortune before
kobal
meeting a grisly end in the
Bates Motel at the hands of
mummy’s boy, Norman –
now Vince Vaughn.
Psycho ‘98 retains both
the original’s script and the toutlecine.com
iconic Bernard Herrmann
score, with minor tweaks by
the original screenwriter Jo-
seph Stefano and celebrated Although it’s inferior
contemporary composer
Danny Elfman respectively. in every respect, it’s
The darting horizontal and
vertical lines of the opening perversely watchable
credits also remain intact,
but the monochrome is re-
as there’s a certain
placed by vibrant flashes of
wicked green.
mileage in comparing
Hitch’s cameo is replaced
by one by Van Sant himself,
and contrasting it to the
who is wittily shown being superior original.
reprimanded by a Hitchcock
impersonator. Van Sant also
adds candy colour, masturba- above and right toutlecine.com
tion, male and female nudity Psycho (1998)
– and adjusts the stolen cash
for inflation. It is both a gar-
ish, cynical imposter and cin-
ematic curio; it may well have
introduced a new generation
to Hitchcock as intended, but
ultimately it’s testament to
the reality that you just can’t
fake greatness. [tbp]

kobal
left and bottom right
Psycho (1960) go further Read ‘Ace in the Hole: Your Guide to Anal Fixation in Psycho’ on TheBigPictureMagazine.com

40 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com March/April 2011 41

 four frames

thebigpicture
t h e a r t o f a b b r e v i at e d s t o r y t e l l i n g

kiss goodbye A Place in the Sun Dir.George Stevens, 1951

Wishing a fond farewell 1 2

to a screen siren who sure
knew how to kiss a fella.
words by J e z C o no l ly.

A s a t r i b u t e to Elizabeth Taylor
let us linger for a while over what
is surely one of the greatest ever
onscreen kisses. If proof were needed
that, in her heyday, Taylor photo-
graphed better in close-up than pretty
much any other actress, this George
Stevens romance surely provides it.
To begin with, it’s worth noting that
unlike most other characters in the
film George (Montgomery Clift) is
shown most frequently in medium
or long shot, quite deliberately so
as to suggest that he is the object of
scrutiny. The distance also implies his
relative anonymity; he often seems
somewhat dwarfed in both his exterior
and on-set scenes. We only really get
to see him in close-up when he is with 3 4
Angela (Taylor), as though it is only
when he is with her that he is in focus,
as though she has drawn him in and
somehow completed him.
In among the many slow, languid
dissolves that Stevens employed to tell
his story, this kiss stands out as espe-
cially rapturous and all-consuming. It
is during this clinch, when the couple
are dancing, that they express their
deep love for each other for the first
time. The lines that are exchanged
emphasise the intimacy but no words
are really needed. The extreme close-
ups, with mouths mostly obscured or
occupied in the kiss, speak volumes:
this is love.

Read More f o u r f r a m e s online at

www.thebigpicturemagazine.com

42 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com March/April 2011 43

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 Backpages

Film Index intellect

So you’ve read about the films, now go watch them! Plublishers of this here magazine... 9;B;8H7J;I*,O;7HIE<9?D;C79EL;H7=;
Rocky (1976) The Matrix trilogy (1999–2003) Each issue of The Big Picture is produced
Dir. John G. Avildsen Dir. Andy and Larry Wachowski
by Bristol based publisher, intellect.
g see page 4/5 g see page 30/31
FkXb_i^[ZX_#cedj^boXo
Knute Rockne All-American (1940) La Notte (1961)
Dir. Lloyd Bacon Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni
g see page 6/7 g see page 32/33
publish original thinking
j^[_dj[hdWj_edWbboh[demd[Z
The Damned United (2009) Rocco and His Brothers (1960)
Dir. Tom Hooper Dir. Luchino Visconti
g see page 8 g see page 33 <_bcIeY_[joe\B_dYebd
Seabiscuit (2003) Miracle in Milan (1951)

9[dj[h"<?BC9ECC;DJ
Dir. Gary Ross Dir. Vittorio De Sica
Intellect is an independent academic publisher
g see page 8/9 g see page 34

Somebody Up There Likes Me

in the fields of creative practice and popular
I Am Love (2009)
culture, publishing scholarly books and journals
fhel_Z[i]beXWbYel[hW][e\
(1956) Dir. Luca Guadagnino
Dir. Robert Wise
g see page 10
g see page 34/35
that exemplify their mission as publishers of
Raging Bull (1980)
original thinking. Theyaim to provide a vital
Prefontaine (1997)
Dir. Steve James
g see page 11
Dir. Martin Scorsese
g see page 36/37 space for widening critical debate in new and Y_d[cW_dYbkZ_d][nYbki_l[
Psycho (1960) emerging subjects, and in this way they differ
The Pride of the Yankees (1942)
Dir. Sam Wood
Dir. Alfred Hitchcock
g see page 40/41
from other publishers by campaigning for the _dj[hl_[mi"_d#Z[fj^h[l_[mi"
g see page 12/13
Psycho (1998)
author rather than producing a book or journal
The Natural (1984)
Dir. Barry Levinson
Dir. Gus Van Sant
g see page 41
to fill a gap in the market.
Z_iYkii_edie\d[mh[b[Wi[i
g see page 26/27
A Place in the Sun (1951) Intellect publish in four distinct subject areas:
Sallie Gardner at a Gallop (1878)
Dir. Eadweard Muybridge
Dir.George Stevens
g see page 42/43
visual arts, film studies, cultural and media WdZYbWii_YÒbci"Wkj^eh_jWj_l[
g see page 28/29 studies, and performing arts. These categories

The Big Picture Issue 14

Available 15 May 2011
host Intellect’s ever-expanding topics of enquiry,
which include photography, drawing, curation,
community music, gaming and scenography.
Intellect titles are often multidisciplinary,
’’ fheÒb[iedbkc_dWh_[i_dj^[
_dZkijho"WdZZ[l[befc[dji

’’
presenting scholarly work at the cross section of
arts, media and creative practice. _dj^[Whje\ÒbccWa_d]$
For further information about the company and
to browse their catalogue of titles simply visit: <_bc9ecc[djh[]kbWhbofkXb_i^[iiec[e\j^[X[ijmh_j[hi_dj^[mehbZWdZ
www.intellectbooks.co.uk
j^[ofheX[WdZfWhi[Y_d[cW_dj^[mWoj^WjZ[[f[diekh[nf[h_[dY[e\_j
thebigpicture disclaimer Å K J D ; ? D : ; F ; D : ; D J F H; II8 ; IJ 7 HJI9EL ; H7= ;
The views and opinions of all texts, including
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46 www.thebigpicturemagazine.com
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