The style


The whole movie more than any other I've seen from that decade felt like a 1980's commercial for pepsi or similar.
Soft focus extreme highlights, the yuppie looking nerd and the permed blonde hugging in san francisco.

reply

It's targeted for the MTV generation. I mean look at it. From the soundtrack to the premise of the movie itself. Remember, MTV was the IN-thing back then since it was a newly conceived concept for youths.

reply

It's really got nothing to do with MTV. 1984 was the critical mass year of MTV, this would have been conceived, shot and finished during its earliest infancy. The look and style of this film is the coincidental product of the kind of creatives that ultimately made what MTV and music videos in general became known for.

The director went on from here to do lots of big music video projects, for ZZ Top, Madonna, Bryan Adams, some of the biggest names in early MTV. *After* this. This is the guy that made, in the *following* couple years, the Dire Straits "Money For Nothing" video and A-Ha's "Take On Me." Basically, he's a founding father of what music videos became and what put MTV on the map, not the other way around.

The director of photography, on the other hand, was already a well accomplished, slick commercial DP. Prior to this film he shot Excalibur. He shot The Keep. After he shot Year of the Dragon. Legend. Labyrinth.

He likely shot a lot of commercials, which is undoubtedly how he got the gig on Legend, shooting for Ridley Scott, a commercial director. So many of the angles and jib-arm and dolly moves, not to mention lighting, are straight out of big, expensive commercials for the biggest brands. I wouldn't be surprised if either the DP or director, or both, did some of the commercials that are featured in Edgar's quest for culture on television. So much of the contemporary commercial pop culture references read like they're winking at their own careers and past in this film.

It's commercial production, directors and shooters that created what music videos became and this film is a precursor to that phenomenon, not a product of it.

reply

I think the MTV video style, more than anything else, is the trademark of this movie. I cannot recall any other movie being so much like a music video.

reply

Aside from the cinematography, there is something in the way the director presents Miles and Madeline. We see them go through their everyday lives and ups and downs, but a certain distance between them and the audience seems to exist. It has that same vibe of the many movies about children (like Bridge to Terabitha or E.T.) or animals (101 Dalmatians) or in books like Eloise. It's the children who are in the know and the adults just don't get it. Or the dog is in the know and the humans don't. In Electric Dreams, Edgar grabs our attention and Miles and Madeline are the wallpaper in the room.

reply

That may be part of why it worked for me. I must have saw it at the right time. I would consider Fright Night (1985) to be a film that was similar. Perhaps not as music video-ish, but it was a horror movie with a heavy emphasis on the music soundtrack.

---
Sail away tiny sparrow...

reply

MTV had nothing to do with music video production. Europeans had a head start, and I remember UK videos being more creative in the early years. Lots of european music in the movie too.

reply