Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Laszlo Kovacs, 1933 - 2007

Laszlo Kovacs, 1933 - 2007

Again not a summation of a career, but a short tribute to one of the man's lesser-known works:

Psych-Out was on the flip side of DVD of The Trip that I assumed to be yet another Corman quickie, but it turned out to have been directed by Richard Rush, with Laszlo Kovacs as cinematographer. It was a chance to see the difference between a brilliant producer and cunning director like Corman and a real filmmaking talent like Rush; the imagery is more fluid, the colors (thanks to Kovacs) brighter, more intense. Kovacs notes in the 'making-of' documentary the use of racking focus, to link together a series of images in a single shot--you see this in the scene where a long string of beads is taken up and tangled over the furniture, stairway, everything--hallucinatory imagery with only a minimum of special effects.

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