Things to Come (OUAN402)

Based on a short story written by H.G. Wells in 1933, "Things to Come", the movie made in 1936, takes a stab at predicting the far flung future leading all the way up to 2036. And if there's one thing I bloody love, mate, it's old films that try and predict the future and then get it wrong.

I love it when a director pours their heart and soul into creating their vision of the future, only for little bastards like me to look back on those visions and sneer at them purely because I had the luxury of being born now, with the virtue of hindsight.

This isn't how people dressed in the 1960s, H.G. Wells! You bloody stupid idiot. Predict the future right next time.

I can't wait for 2036 fashion to come around. Don't want to touch your bare calves to one of those marble floors though. That'd be well cold.

BESIDES that, there's a lot to be taken away from this film. I hugely enjoyed 1930s era sets, props and costumes. I still say that there's something really special about a handmade set, creatively incorporated into the scene. A little movie magic like that is part of what makes a film a piece of art!

Look a this big spaceship-boarding-platform thing. It looks so massive and cool!

This is thanks to art director William Cameron Menzies, a real master of production design. Orson Welles once said of him "He brought the illustrator’s eye to the camera and graphic validity to an art form that was all too often theatrical rather than cinematic", which is true! "Things to come" is full of bold cinematography and impressive set pieces that made me go "woah, that's cool" and would probably have made some 1930s guy's heart explode from excitement.

Like this cool underground laser drill.

The cinematography packs a lot of awe into it. Every detail has been really nicely thought out to give the impression that the world is real, tangible, yet has a sense of wonder in it's exuberant design. It's shot with GUSTO, in a style I'm keen to emulate. 

William Cameron Menzies, drawing a window with lots of things going on outside it.

The main problem was that it had a tendency to drag a little, which is often a feature of old films. I think it was because 1930s acting requirements seemed to be less stringent than today's. I reckon that if you started method acting back then or tried to find the emotional centre of a scene the director would smack you with a gin bottle and tell you to just read the lines.

Look! She looks at the camera! And it lasts about 5 seconds!

- "hey look it spells out 'gullible'"
- "what really where"
- "haha lol not really"