Kershner and Marquand's influences

BEFORE WE BEGIN: Please keep this thread to a discussion of their influences. This thread is not to discuss which SW directors you like best, your opinion of one movie over another, etc. etc. Thank you.





Every filmmaker has their influences, and nearly every filmmaker is ready and willing to talk your ear off about them and reference them ad nauseum.

Lucas' influences in his writing and directing of SW is pretty clear, and has been discussed many times: old-fashioned sci-fi serials, the Joseph Campbell myth stuff, Akira Kurosawa... much has also been made of his love of abstract shorts from the National Film Board of Canada, though this is not particularly evident in the straightforward SW narrative.


BUT

Two of the classic trilogy films, as you know, were filtered through other directors, each of whom (presumably) brought his own unique sensibility to shooting the movie.

What were their influences? How do you feel they come across in the SW films they directed?

Kershner, I know, was an avid and accomplished musician, his background more in music and (later) painting than in filmmaking.
I'm also willing to bet he wasn't much influenced by old sci-fi serials (given the radical shift in tone between ANH and ESB).
And (perhaps most significantly) it is said in "Skywalking" (not the most reliable source, I know) he only watched ANH once before beginning work on ESB. If this is so, clearly he didn't want to be influenced by the old film.

I don't really know anything about Marquand.



Discuss.



Rick McCallum loves you!

 

I only think that Kershner had an effect on the overall quality of acting and a lot of small details(obviously due his background in music, he was detail oriented). The performance of the actors in ESB is a little more serious and emotional. It was needed due to the darker nature of these films. Somehow, Padme and Anakin are in a pretty dark position in AOTC but they don't seem at least worried(not Padme anyway, while she is hanging out with a guy who just destroyed an entire village.)

GL is good at directing the happy hero movies, like ANH, TPM and Willow, but when it comes down to characters such as Anakin in AoTC, it doesn't feel right. I think both Kershner and Marquand did a better job.

 

Lucas did not direct Willow, Ron Howard did. Lucas was the executive producer.

 

Valin - with regard to music, it is interesting to note that Lucas (as is evident from American Graffiti) felt very much at home with the contemporary rock 'n' roll music of HIS youth. And of course that served American Graffiti well. But the Beach Boys is very different from Beethoven, Bach and Brahms, more in Kershner's line of training. It could very well account for a major difference between the two.


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Well, GL said that he originally used a temp track of classical songs while writing and making the roughcuts of ANH. ...If that helps move the discussion forward at all.

This random detail brought to you by:

Cometgreen

 

I wd. say that in terms of their SW films the major inlfuence was George Lucas!

But you can't compare Marquand to Kershner.

Kershner came on board when George was trying to Prove Something, in capitals, as he is sometimes wont to do. In this case it was that he is not an anal-retentive control freak who must sit on every nuance of every frame of his movies. So Kersh (as he is so lovingly referred to as) got to create his own storyboards, work with the designers after Lucas was done with them and work alone with the actors on set & location for most of the shoot. Kersh was allowed in the editing room. He worked with JW on the score. ESB can be said to be an Irvin Kershner film.

Marquand came on after George had come to his senses and accepted himself (I'm okay, You're okay) so Marquand was under heavy constraints. He didn't even get to set up his own master shots! Lucas worked directly with the cinematographer, was on set and location every day of the shoot and conducted the reshoots himself. He directed all of the blue-screen bridge & pilot stuff and from what I've read directed most of the Luke-Emperor-Vader material as well. He was *literally* standing behind Marquand for the unmasking of Vader scene. Lucas shot the Force-ghost material himself. Marquand was not invited into the editing suite - Lucas even kicked his wife off the film for a few days! Marquand did not have any input on the score.

That's a big difference.

I know we're not supposed to have an opinion here but: for me I don't care what the resultant film is, I'm interested in certain artists. I don't care a fig for anything Kerhsner has ever done. So I prefer ROTJ to ESB because it's more of a GL movie.

 

Well, what a lively thread this is.


ANYWAY...

This might have not been much of an influence on Kershner specifically, but it shows through in the film:


The African Queen (d. John Huston)

The Bogart-Hepburn characters have a journey and a love story very similar to Han and Leia in ESB (they're at odds at first, but fall in love as they continue their adventure evading all sorts of obstacles).


It would be interesting to know if Kershner picked up on the story's resemblance to this classic film and ran with it.



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