I didn’t realise it was a real community, I thought it was built on the Universal backlot or something. Still, kudos to the location scout then because it does look like a movie set rather than a real place.
MrSarcasticus beat me to it, but the only good thing about The Haunting was the incredible sets. (Of course, they weren’t right for the movie, IMHO, but they were beautiful. And take it from me, there was nothing else going for this piece of film. The sets were so great and the “horror” so pathethic that I showed it to my kids, ages 6 and 11. Shirley Jackson did back flips in her grave.
I’ve been watching Se7en lately for research and am paying a lot of attention to the sets, particularly the sins. A number of them were inspired by actual crime scene photographs, and the attention to detail is pretty staggering. What’s interesting, too, is that the details in the scenes are integral parts of the actual film narrative; Somerset (Morgan Freeman) draws direct attention to this when he talks to Mills (Brad Pitt) about finding one thing in the crime scene that opens it up for the investigator. In Greed, it’s the blood ringed around the D.A.'s wife’s photograph and the upside-down painting on the wall that leads them to Sloth. Sloth, of course, is distinguished by the thousands of Christmas tree air freshners dangling from the ceiling. After Se7en, I never saw one of those the same way again. John Doe’s apartment is also a major exercise in set design detail, with the blacked-out windows, the red neon cross over the neatly made single bed (which admittedly was kind of cheesy and cliche), and although this crosses over into props, the thousands of Mead composition notebooks on his shelves. The amount of work that went into creating those is mind-blowing.
On a related note, I’ve always liked the design for Buffalo Bill’s basement lair in The Silence of the Lambs. When Clarice is down there searching for Bill there’s a shot of her sort of wheeling around while clearing the rooms, and you see the unfinished skin suit in the background, draped on a mannequin. On the DVD commentary, Jonathan Demme cites Roger Corman as saying (paraphrased) the most terrifying shot in cinema is the camera approaching a closed door. Bill’s basement is ALL doors, behind which we get little glimpses of what Bill’s psychopathology is all about.
Hey! No fair! You looked at the liner notes. That’s cheating!
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned
GONE WITH THE WIND- Tara after the war is a masterpiece. Rain ruined wallpaper, denuded floors with the outline of where there were once rugs and discolored wallpaper where there were once paintings, the ripped portrait of Scarlett’s grandmother (or whoever) next to “Miz Ellen’s porteers”, the scarred staircase with a broken bannister, and the dilapidated unpainted exterior without shutters or grass- all of it made you believe that an army of 70,000 men had camped around the place.
On a similar note-
DR. ZHIVAGO- the post-Revolution Gromeko mansions (the one in St. Petersberg and the country estate) were both perfect. The first was destroyed by the “invitation” to dozens of homeless proletariat to occupy it as if it were an apartment house and the second has been abandoned and boarded up for years.
Oh, oh, oh !!! Great O.P. !!
** Alien**. H.R. Geiger’s art work is splendid.
** The Untouchables**. It’s a well designed period piece. A lot of it feels like a stage play, but that’s okay. The look is lovely, the home set for Elliot Ness is filled with small details, as is Malloy’s apartment.
Das Boot. Brilliant. Stunning. Claustrophobic.
A Clockwork Orange. There is a depressing accuracy to what Kubrick did. He looked ahead to the near-future, and damned if he didn’t call a lot of it accurately.
** Kiss Of The Spider Woman**. You make a movie in a prison cell with blank walls, and make the cell a character, filled with mood and emotion. Goodness…they did it with angles, light and shadow. Minimalist art design, nicely done.
** Tess of the D’Urbervilles**. Sumptuous imagery.
There must be more…I cannot think of them right now, but these titles rose RIGHT to mind.
Cartooniverse