retro trailer: ‘Meet John Doe’
Take a look back at an old trailer...
Eighteen months to film? “Magnificently” shot entirely on a backlot? I do love this movie, but I think I love how they sold it way back when even more.
Gary Cooper: definitely a selling point. Cast of 5,000 others? I guess that -- and the 18 months to film thing -- worked the way that “$350 million budget!” works today. Not a one of those 5,000 were CGI constructs, though, I’m guessing. How can we trust that they’re worth watching if teams of computer nerds didn’t slave over them for six months getting their hair just right? Where’s the craftsmanship?
Biggest difference: the studio clearly felt no need to find a rave from a quote whore. The studio was totally comfortable telling us straight that “it’s great.”
The upfront hucksterism is more honest, at least.
Meet John Doe is available on DVD in Region 1 and Region 2.
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comments
posted by ceti (Thu Dec 31 09, 12:58AM)
John Doe is one of the most intellectually and politically interesting films ever made. Just the colonel's rant alone about the helots is worth watching the film, but the both sophisticated treatment of the power of corporate media over mass society is pretty powerful. There's a reason why so many endings were proposed, and none tie up the themes of the film satisfactorily without breaking Capra's final idealistic wall.