Skimmed through The Shanghai Gesture. It was fabulously exotic. Note Ona Munson as the Medusa-like dragon lady Madam Gin Sling above. The acting and blocking were incredibly awkward, especially in the big climax. I was surprised to find it was directed by a name director—Josef von Sternberg and that it was released in 1941 (I was thinking no-name director with a suprisingly big budget released in the early thirties).
Is it possible for an artist to be too far ahead of his time? Karel's Zeman's The Fabulous World of Jules Verne looks like a contemporary music video created in After Effects. The idea was to recreate 19th century prints in film. So engraving lines are everywhere, actually painted into the scenery itself. The so-called Misti-mation process seems to be a combination of post-production effects, glass effects, stop motion and live action. Imagine L'Idee + Larry Jordan + live action. This is one of those projects that's like a Stuart Davis painting; you see so many copies that the original starts looking like a copy. We've seen these effects in After Effects so many times that some of the mystery of the film has vanished through no fault of its own.
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