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Originally Posted by John Hodson
Quite so (and quite Fordian  ), but what is remarkable is that Walsh is so assured with Grandeur; the framing is so, well, modern; as someone says in the doco, it's sometimes like looking at a Remington painting. And I'm looking for mattes where there are none; look in the backgrounds and mostly what you see is real - the town, the wagon train, the indian village and as you say that incredible scene where they're lowering the wagons over the cliffs.
The narrative is almost incidental as one sumptuous vista is topped by the next. |
While you might compare it to a Remington painting, I was thinking, as I watched it, of a current-day 16:9 film--only much more beautiful than 95% of what passes for modern-day cinema. It was remarkable how successful an experiment it was. While I am curious about how the 4:3 version looks, I'm not sure I'll be taking the time--anytime soon--to give it a look.
I was, however, thinking just like you about which, if any, of the backgrounds were matte paintings. My conclusion was that there weren't any.
I haven't had time yet to visit any of the bonus features to learn more about the Grandeur process or the film-making process of The Big Trail...but I will surely be making time for those soon!
Charles: I will have to check out The Way West sometime. Haven't seen it.