Jason and the Argonauts (1963): ‘a sense of the marvellous’
When lockdown restrictions were relaxed last month, an exhibition devoted to the work of special effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen reopened at Edinburgh’s Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. It might seem strange that an art museum should host a show dedicated to a man who spent much of his career making models for monster movies, said Martin Hannan in The National – but its subject “was no ordinary modelmaker”. Harryhausen (1920-2013) can truly be said to have “changed cinema” forever.
Working decades before computer-generated imagery became available, Harryhausen created astonishing and believable worlds on screen, conjuring up fantastical ephemera – from armies of reanimated skeletons to fleets of marauding UFOs. Using plasticine and other materials, he became a master of stop-motion animation, manipulating his models at the painstaking rate of 24 frames per second. He rarely wrote or directed his m
United-states
Greece
America
Greek
John-martin
George-lucas
King-kong
Martin-hannan
Steven-spielberg
Los-angeles
Jonathan-jones
Peter-jackson