It must really mean something to John Carpenter to go from having almost every film of his panned in the ‘80s and ‘90s to now becoming one of the most influential American auteurs on today’s younger crop of filmmakers.
A Film Comment review written by Martin Scorsese many years ago has resurfaced online and is trending in some film circles. In the write-up, Scorsese tackles Carpenter’s “They Live,” going as far as to call it “one of the best films of a fine American director.”
In his review, Scorsese offers a dissection on the pertinently relevant themes in “They Live”: “This movie was Carpenter’s commentary on what he saw as the excesses of the Reagan era, and the movie shares many qualities with pictures made during the Depression, such as Heroes for Sale and Wild Boys of the Road. It’s lyrical and tough at the same time, with a strong sense of community among the displaced people living in makeshift homes on the outskirts of L.A. and the mood is unusually sad and bitter.”
Scorsese also goes on to praise Carpenter’s career, saying of the “master craftsman”, “His pictures always have a handmade quality–every cut, every move, every choice of framing and camera movement, not to mention every note of music (he composes his own scores) feels like it has been composed or placed by the filmmaker himself.”
Scorsese points out some of his favourite Carpenter career moments such as those in “Assault on Precinct 13,” “Halloween,” “The Thing” and “The Fog.”
Carpenter’s imprint can be found all over the current Indie horror wave. Films like “Halloween,” “The Thing,” “Escape From New York,” “Assault on Precinct 13,” and “They Live” have had a magnetic effect on Aster, Eggers, Peele, Saulnier and company.
What’s even more remarkable is that all of these films weren’t that well-received many decades ago, it’s only recently that Carpenter’s filmography has received a much-needed reappraisal, so much so that a new film by him would now be deemed a major event for cinephiles.
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