MovieChat Forums > The Boston Strangler (1968) Discussion > Potential gem destroyed by cinema gimmic...

Potential gem destroyed by cinema gimmick

posted 14 years ago by JessePomeroy
14 replies | jump to latest

Just saw this for the first time and what a waste of talents. The cinematography, locations, art direction, acting by a first rate cast, all ruined by the split screen schlock throughout. Every time the screen divided I was taken out of the narrative and presented some fool's art house thesis.

I wonder if it is possible to recut this film and present something worthy of the source material. I see this gets a 7+ rating here, to which I laugh. 3 at best.

[–] mwhite182 14 years ago

The split screen was done very well in my opinion. The director was able to include more on-screen at a time than he would normally have been able to. I guess you don't like DePalma either since he utilizes a similar technique in his movies.

That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die.

[–] SteveResin 12 years ago

I thought the split screen really added to the atmosphere of the movie. I enjoyed it.

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Duty Now For The Future

[–] amolad-1 14 years ago

The split screen was used very well in this film. It was a fad in the late 60s and early 70s. Can't say I'm sad it's not a fad anymore.

[–] rp69 14 years ago

Split screen was very popular in the late 60's and early 70's. I don't mind it, but it was definitely a product of the times. It didn't deminish the movie at all. I thought the editing was quite good. Especially Fonda following him through his memories. I loved all the location shooting too. The filthy city remindes me of growing up in NY in the 1970's.

"Life's tough. It's even tougher if you're stupid." John Wayne

[–] TermlnatriX 14 years ago

gimmick? are you stupid? at that time not many films even used split screen.

"Mickey, he y'kn-- he takes a punishment.........I dunno why he does it"

[–] William_Hunt 13 years ago

the editing in this film was excellent imho and the split-screens actually made the movie more interesting since you don't see that so much, certainly no gimmick, I really liked that.

[–] namaGemo 13 years ago

I have to agree. I found most of the film very bland, however, I liked the split screen. It fleshed out what was going on in more than one person's pov.

[–] przgzr 12 years ago

Split screen enables simultaneous presenting of the actions that happen on different places (maybe just a wall away) but what can hardly be felt as simultaneous in any other form (Vantage Point uses different approach to do similar).

I guess that if split scenes disturb you and make it difficult to follow the movie plot you simply have to hate modern movies when you have plot split in different story lines happening in different periods of time, skipping from one period to another without any signs what happens at certain period and at which points these periods switch. So, movies like Prestige, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Usual Suspects, Weight of Water, and of course Memento, must be on your black list...

[–] Errington_92 12 years ago

Had nothing against the split screen. If anything it enhanced the action therefore adding suspense on part of the audience.

"I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not".

[–] svenrufus 11 years ago

Why would you assume not liking the split screen means you don't like certain other films? I actually agree with the OP, the split screen really grated with me, was unnecessary, didn't add much to perspective or breadth of understanding, and frankly felt quite gratuitous - like someone who has just learned a new trick, but not yet learned the self restraint that lifts something into the category of 'special' rather than merely 'interesting'.

The films you list that apparently I shouldn't like, I've seen all but Weight of Water, and liked them all, particularly Usual Suspects and Memento. I've seen split screen in other films where it didn't irk me so much. To dismiss the view that this effect may have detracted from the film, and in fact that anyone who feels that way us incapable of appreciating a whole raft of other cinema, is a huge overreaction. In the end, cinema is a form of art, and the appreciation or otherwise of the form is purely subjective. Your view is just as valid as mine, or the OP's, but your condescension undermines your point.

[–] przgzr 11 years ago

The list of the movies was written as the answer to the OP, and is not supposed to be a suggestion, critic or insult to anybody else. The OP says that he can't handle the story because it becomes too complicated when split screen appears, and this is something completely different from your arguments which can be accepted or rejected, but must be considered a valid analysis of a person who understands film as an art. However, the way that OP presented his problem makes me believe that he doesn't view movies the way that you and I do, and is limited to straight film line of teen comedies or plain action movies. This doesn't mean that he shouldn't express his opinion, this is an open forum and I am against any kind of censorship, but when you post something you often say more about yourself than about the subject. Maybe I fell in a trap and did something similar presenting myself as narrow-minded. But sometimes I simply feel tired by people who have opinions about things that they didn't understand because this things are above the level of their knowledge (general or art), age, experience (life) etc, or even haven't watched the movie at all but they have an important message for the rest of the world based on rumors they heard about the movie.

So, sorry if I've overreacted.

[–] JimmyCagney 11 years ago

Split screen is an interesting method of narration. Some people like it others don't. Personally I belong to the second category, but it is clearly a matter of personal taste.
What didn't work, however, in this movie, is that Fleischer tried so hard to be innovative in his structure, that he went completely off balance. He made a movie too complicated for it's time, yet too outworn for today.
Let me remind you, first of all, that he didn't use split screen only when 3 or 4 frames should be presented simultaneously. There are several scenes where the picture is being cropped, while the rest of the screen was left black. Innovative, but meaningless and absolutely unsuccessful.
Furthermore, the fact that Richard Fleischer was trying to be artistic is clear by the way he used his script, his camera, his editing and obviously the flashback scenes with Curtis and Fonda having a dialogue inside his narration.
I'm pretty certain what Fleischer tried to do was make a movie totally different from anything being done until then. That's not bad. Film makers often do that.
Unfortunately for him, though, being innovative isn't just a matter of taking 10 different gimmicks, mixing them all together and serving them to the audience. Movie history is full of directors who failed as miserably as Fleischer did, in their effort to do so.
Not all of them were called Orson Welles or Stanley Kubrick.

[–] mrmathexpert4 10 years ago

The split screen gimmick was annoying, but it's the last 45 minutes that ruined the film. I blame it on the director for his ineptness.

[–] BaronVonSwollen 10 years ago

For all the griping people have about split screen, it was used pretty sparingly. Of the handful of films that employed the technique, many are very memorable- The Thomas Crown Affair, Woodstock, Sisters, Airport, Kill Bill, Pillow Talk and this film, to name a few.

It's just a stylistic shot, nothing more. Like extreme close-ups(Leone) or long tracking shots(Kubrick).

I'm not Charlie! Don't shoot!