Sci-Fi

The Illustrated Man (1969) DVDRip (SiRiUs sHaRe)

• 
• 
• Rate this torrent +  |  -

Torrent info

Torrent Files List

Torrent description

The Illustrated Man (1969)

A man, whose body is almost completely covered in tattoos, is looking for the woman who drew all the intricate designs on him. Each tattoo hides a futuristic story, which you experience when you stare at it. Due to be remade in 2010.

Rod Steiger ... Carl
Claire Bloom ... Felicia
Robert Drivas ... Willie
Don Dubbins ... Pickard
Jason Evers ... Simmons
Tim Weldon ... John
Christine Matchett ... Anna

Director: Jack Smight

Runtime: 103 mins

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064473/

Codecs:

Video : 665 MB, 902 Kbps, 23.976 fps, 624*272 (Unknown), XVID = XVID Mpeg-4,
Audio : 79 MB, 107 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, 0x55 = Lame MP3, CBR,

........................................................................................................................................

Even though both Rod Serling and Ray Bradbury hated this film I did not and I always appreciate thought provoking science fiction. Todays shallow and unimaginative audiences seem to hate a film that makes you think but thats what good sci-fi does. Rod Steiger has his usual commanding performance and he is a bit much at times. Hostile and violent, its hard to feel sympathy for him. Robert Drivas is very good and at times the film belongs to him but these are fleeting moments as its always impossible to upstage Steiger. Claire Bloom is enchanting but I never really bought into her "Siren" character. I did enjoy the 3 stories even though number three was a little weak. I like the fact that this film is trying to be different. Watching Drivas stare at the illustrations (Don't call them tattoo's!) and then having the film drift into the story that each design is about to tell him I found very interesting. Its not great narrative but I appreciate the effort to be original. Steiger and Bloom were married at the time and it was the last year of their ten year union. Could they're problems have spilled out on screen during they're scenes? Maybe. Not a great film and certainly it wasn't told in a great way but I do appreciate a film that is thought provoking. Something that todays science fiction films lack completely!

........................................................................................................................................

It seems a lot of people hated this film, which isn't surprising at all. After all, the movie is unique, interesting, visually terrific, the story is a little disjointed, the title character is not a charismatic hero, the dog is kept in a bag, the music score doesn't have any Bon Jovi songs in it, and there is a definite lack of Tom Cruise - or any kind of tomocruisiness or leodecapricity.

TIM is definitely not for the average movie-going Joe Schmoe. It is a very stylish take on one of Bradbury's LESSER anthologies. He is a good writer, but his TIM collection of stories is not as well-written as some of his other material. Hence if it's true that Bradbury hates this movie, he should actually be glad they made something out of very little. By far the best movie version of anything he's ever written.

Someone also mentions that Rod Serling hated this film. Who cares what Serling liked or hated? He had nothing to do with this film, and besides: all his post early-60s screen efforts were crap anyway.

One person even complained that only 3 stories were included in the movie. I guess he would have preferred to have fifteen 4-minute stories instead.

Oh yeah... On the message board a person under the name of "viggolicious_x" refers to this as the "worst movie ever". If a person by that name (probably a teeny-bopper in love with 50 years older Viggo Mortensen) says TIM is an awful film then that is the highest recommendation any movie can get, methinks...

........................................................................................................................................

'The Illustrated Man' shows how good a writer Ray Bradbury was, not to mention how his head was full of fascinating ideas. It shows this because the film is incredibly dated today, from the acting styles to the visions of the future we witness. And yet I remained engrossed throughout, because beneath the anachronisms and barmy notions lie the same powerful film that resonated with me as a child.

A lot of the film has little to do with the title character, although Rod Steiger's menacing performance will never let you forget the man with all-over body tattoos that come to life if you stare too hard. Also, Steiger himself has multiple roles throughout, and he delivers them with a mix of the theatrical bellow and long-faced stoicism of the period, but they still have their impact. Meanwhile of greater interest are the short stories each tattoo reveals. Like Bradbury's 'The Martian Chronicles', this film is a collection of tales woven around a central premise. We view his fears about where human society is heading, thanks to the all-pervading intrusion of technology into our lives.

I'm reminded of a Poe line - "without music or an intriguing idea, colour becomes pallor, man becomes carcass, home becomes catacomb, and the dead are but for a moment motionless". What becomes of the human soul when the machines take over? Add the all-embracing pallor and single-chrome fashion of a typical 1960s vision of the future, and you have a very bleak picture indeed. Yet that's how people saw things then (our guesses on things to come will look just as ridiculous soon enough), and the central theme, given how far we've progressed technologically in the interim, cannot be any less relevant. I'm glad our modern perspective yearns for more colour though - never mind technology killing our souls - the achromatic architecture would make anyone suicidal enough already.

Sojourns into futurity do of course suggest sci-fi trappings. Even putting aside the fact that predictions of the future quickly become dated, Ray Bradbury was never scientifically accurate at the time he wrote his stories. In 'The Martian Chronicles' for example, it is possible to breathe on Mars, water flows through canals, and a few blasts from a rocket's engines can terraform the atmosphere. 'The Illustrated Man' takes the same liberties with reality. Yet to dismiss it because of nonsensical scientific premises is to miss the point. The settings are not more than fabulous window dressing - fantasy masquerading as sci-fi. It is the exploration of the human condition in each tale that Bradbury is concerned with, and they are timeless.

As such, while time has not been entirely kind to this screen adaption of 'The Illustrated Man', its emotional core remains intact. The Bradbury flair for the weird and the wonderful is untarnished, and his thoughts still clear. You just need to take a good long look at a rainbow afterwards.

........................................................................................................................................

* Make-up director Gordon Bau and a team of eight assistants spent ten hours applying the temporary tattoos to Rod Steiger's torso, plus another full day tattooing his hands, legs and lower body.

* According to the Guinness Book of World Records, this film has the record for longest time applying make-up each day, at 20 hours.

* When Jack Smight contacted Ray Bradbury about buying the rights to "The Illustrated Man", Bradbury informed him he would sell it if Smight hired Burt Lancaster, Paul Newman or Rod Steiger for the lead role.

* Average Shot Length = ~6.8 seconds. Median Shot Length = ~7.1 seconds.

related torrents