Tuesday, June 18, 2013

IN SEARCH OF MOEBIUS REDUX

Late last night, as a thank-you to my long day, I watched the 2007 documentary Moebius Redux: A Life in Pictures. It was an enjoyable and interesting film, directed by Hasko Baumann, about the famous French artist Jean Giraud, and his other selves.

Most of us, moi included, learned of the man through the Heavy Metal comics/magazine. A sorta okay animated film, produced by Ivan Reitman, was made here in Canada and released in 1981. My friends and I went to see it and most of us were a little disappointed, I think. About ten years ago I went to see Heavy Metal again at the Bloor Cinema and thought the same as I did years before: Good opening story (Harry Canyon) then hit-and-miss after that... overstaying its welcome, perhaps. Too much of an okay thing. But was John Candy ever funny "as" Den. The most memorable element of the film was Elmer Bernstein's great score.

Off track...

Some of the interview subjects include Alejandro Jodorowsky, H.R. Giger, and Dan O'Bannon. They talk about their various experiences working with Giraud, including on projects, like Dune, which never got off-the-ground.

For me, the fallout of Moebius Redux was that I want to explore, some more, the Metal Hurlant comics.

After watching the doc I did some reading on the film and discovered that what I had viewed was a BBC cut-down version called In Search of Moebius (as it was labelled). About 15 mins was cut out from the 68-minute original. There's another thing I have to find....

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