US director John Carpenter is considered a master of horror. Arte is now dedicating a focus to the filmmaker, which will be available in the Arte media library in June.
by Katja Nicodemus
You can see the documentary “Big John Carpenter” as well as three films by the director: “The Rattlesnake”, “Sie Leben!” and “The Princes of Darkness”.
“The rattlesnake”: Kurt Russel has to save US president
Snake Plissken, alias Kurt Russell, hero of John Carpenter’s film “the rattlesnake“from 1981, is a hardened pragmatist. The prisoner is sent on a kamikaze mission: New York is a cordoned off zone populated by criminals. Plisken is supposed to get the American president out of this criminal hell.
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For Snake (Kurt Russell), his mission in Manhattan is a matter of life or death.
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Like all films by John Carpenter, “The Rattlesnake” (available until June 21) holds up a gloomy distorting mirror to reality. The USA has become a country of delimitation and exclusion. Everyone fights everyone, in New York there are gladiator fights. The camera moves through littered streets, cracked concrete and devastated skyscrapers to the cool electro sound typical of John Carpenter, which he composed himself for almost all of his films.
In “The Rattlesnake”, Snake (Kurt Russell) has to save the US President in Manhattan within 24 hours. external
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“Big John Carpenter”: Carpenters Lust am Kino
In the Arte documentation “Big John Carpenter“, which is available until February 1, 2022, the director talks about his love for music and his admiration for the Hitchcock composer Bernard Herrmann. Carpenter drives through Los Angeles smoking in an inconspicuous middle-class car, visits the street with the film team, in which he shot his horror classic “Halloween” with Jamie Lee Curtis in 1978 and tells of his first film experiences in his favorite historic cinema.
“Big John Carpenter” – The documentary about the master of US horror in the Arte Mediathek, until February 1st, 2022. external
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John Carpenter talks about “Halloween” with Jamie Lee Curtis
Carpenter raves about western directors like Howard Hawks and John Ford. He explains that he prefers to shoot his science fiction films, horror shockers and action thrillers on a small budget in order to reduce the influence of the studios. He raves about his actors and actresses and ponders the United States.
The murderous car in the film “Christine”, an alien who decimates the researchers of a polar station in “The Thing from Another World”, the psycho killer Michael Myers in “Halloween”, the horror characters in “The Fog” – Carpenter says his films were created out of a desire for cinema, action and entertainment.
Science fiction in “They Live!”: Aliens in human form
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In “You Live!” Nada (Roddy Piper) aims in a bank at all who do not seem to belong to the human species.
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But Carpenter’s films also reflect their own entertainment requirements. From June 14th to 20th, Carpenter’s most political film will also be on Arte “You live!“To see – a reckoning with Ronald Reagan’s economic policy of the 80s. The USA is in the grip of aliens who propagate unrestrained capitalism. The aliens crawl into people, replace their bodies, which is a leitmotif of John Carpenter’s science fiction But luckily the hero, an unemployed oil worker, finds a box with sunglasses, and whoever puts them on can see the skull-like heads of the aliens beneath the human faces.
Here, too, John Carpenter proves to be an all-rounder, responsible for direction, script and music. And the film “They Live” is permeated with the self-irony typical of John Carpenter. The scene in which the hero stirs up a bank populated by greedy aliens is a delight in itself. And here, too, it becomes clear that John Carpenter’s humor was never made for the great commercial seriousness of Hollywood.
Two cinema chains have announced their nationwide opening dates: UCI opens on June 17th, Cinemaxx on July 1st. more
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Dramedy with Maria Furtwängler, Nordic Noir and a Sadcom: There are many extraordinary films to be found in the media libraries. more
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Most cinemas are expected to open at the beginning of July – with Oscar winners such as “Der Rausch” and “Nomadland” as well as Otto Waalkes’ “Catweazle”. more
