by Joseph Rossi for Curtains Up
In 1993, I became a filmmaker.
Jurassic Park was the film that started my infatuation with motion pictures. Writing about them. Talking about them. Making my own. At its core, it’s just a monster movie. It won’t be held up to films like Citizen Kane or Sunrise but in my eyes, it’s one of most influential films ever made. My eyes. Or better still, a 13-year-old eyes.
My mother took me to see it on opening night in June at the Astre 5 on Lacordaire in St. Leonard. The line was around the building. I knew nothing of the film but my mother knew it promised dinosaurs and I was kind of a dino geek at the time. I had an aisle seat in a packed house, something I rarely see these days because event movies are screened in 5 halls at once; thank you Mr. Multiplex. When the lights went down and the curtains (we had curtains back then) parted, the movie started. I was hooked. The set up was brilliant. A glimpse of a horrific, deadly creature behind bars, an insect trapped in amber that has some sort of significance, the promise of a secret island full of wonder. This was a true boys movie.
Then Steven Spielberg, the consummate showman, showed us the goods. In a field, in the harsh daylight. Everyone remembers that scene. The jeep stops on a hill and we see the most graceful, massive, animal ever put to screen. I looked from the screen to the audience where I saw a sea of silent, wide-eyed faces. Pure awe. Another thing I have rarely felt in a cinema since that day. Awe.
Was it a real animal, a robot? CGI effects were in their infancy so I was asking myself how did they do that. Then the scene with the T-Rex finally arrived and that’s when I said to myself this is what I want to do when I grow up. To make something that causes such a response is what I had to achieve. Watching 400 hundred people jump when that animal slams his head through the sunroof, trapping the kids underneath, was amazing. Then there was the kitchen sequence with the raptors hunting the children that had people gripping their armrests. Pure suspense.
After it was over I couldn’t sleep. What I saw that night changed my life. That weekend I bought Jody Duncan’s The Making of Jurassic Park and read it over and over. I learned what a director does. What an editor and cameraman do. Craftsmen’s names like Michael Kahn, Dean Cundey, and Denis Muren became etched in my permanent vocabulary and over time and countless films later, I knew their filmographies by heart. I ate and breathed movie making until I knew what everyone did to create that film. I still have that book in my cinema literature collection, pages all creased and falling out.
I am a filmmaker. I have made a few movies of my own. I am not Spielberg. He is Spielberg. I’m who I am. I bring my own history and personality to my work. But that push I needed was because of Steven Spielberg. And if I ever meet him, I will thank him for that kick in the butt.
Universal re-released Jurassic Park in 3D this week. I took my 11-year-old son to see it. I’ve seen the film countless times and so has he, so we knew what to expect. But seeing it on an IMAX screen in a good 3D transfer (good, not great, still not a 3D fan) made it new again. It shows signs of age but it’s still a testament to a great director’s craft at turning up the suspense and making us laugh after making us scream. The special effects are still impressive and I still stand by the fact that the T-REX is still one of a most impressive creature effects ever. Today we get all sorts of computer engineered creatures that don’t look half as good.
Watch the film in IMAX in the loudest theatre possible. The soundtrack is impressive. You’ll cover your ears more then once. Trust me. And when John William’s score soars, you’ll soar along with it. One of the last epic movie scores and also, one of the best. This is what they mean when they say blockbuster.
I am writing about this film while on vacation with my family. I wasn’t planning on doing a piece this week but I couldn’t resist. The film affected me like it did 20 years ago. It brought back memories of me using an old camera to try and make movies that inspired wonderment as well as made me relive old dreams of me shaking hands with Steven Spielberg. And better still, dreaming that one day someone will actually clone a dinosaur. The movie affected my son too because I noticed that on the plane he was doodling in his sketchbook a drawing of dinosaur eating someone.
Okay, maybe the cloning thing isn’t the greatest idea after all.
