Scary Movie Moments
Dec. 15th, 2005 04:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stickmakerOne of my all-time favorite movies is _The Power_. Made from a novel of the same name (this is one of the few instances where I actually like the movie better than the book) it is set in the mid-Sixties, largely at a research institute assigned the task by NASA of finding the limits of human capacity and ways to extend them.
The producer, George Pal, was from Hungary. In the book and the script, the main villain, Adam Hart, is described as having "Gypsy eyes." Pal told the composer, Miklos Rozsa, who was also from Hungary, to be certain to include the cymbalom, a Hungarian instrument identified with Gypsy music. Rozsa didn't particularly like the cymbalom, but Pal was boss, and Rozsa was professional enough to realize the instrument did fit. The result was one of the most memorable scores in movie history, which went on to win an Academy Award.
You first hear the instrument in the opening theme. Then a long period goes by without it. It appears again in one of those wonderful, tense, spooky moments which appear throughout the movie. At a meeting of the researchers of the institute one of the members is obviously very upset over something, almost hysterical. After several attempts to sidetrack his report, he finally has his say: An anonymous test he gave the staff to provide a baseline for a new intelligence test revealed one member to have a capacity so great it was literally immeasurable by conventional means. The man's concern (to put it mildly) is that not only could this person manipulate the institute like a bored child trying to make a toy do something interesting, but could physically affect matter through thought alone.
Now, these are all very intelligent, well educated people, who are distressed that one of their own is spouting such nonsense, and in front of company, no less. One of the other researchers puts a pencil in a book, spears a piece of paper on the point and stands it in the middle of the table, then says "That should be easy enough to move." A few of them try, though not seriously. The head of the Institute, trying to get the embarrassing situation over with, suggests they all try together.
As the paper begins to spin, the cymbalom starts to play, faster and faster...
The producer, George Pal, was from Hungary. In the book and the script, the main villain, Adam Hart, is described as having "Gypsy eyes." Pal told the composer, Miklos Rozsa, who was also from Hungary, to be certain to include the cymbalom, a Hungarian instrument identified with Gypsy music. Rozsa didn't particularly like the cymbalom, but Pal was boss, and Rozsa was professional enough to realize the instrument did fit. The result was one of the most memorable scores in movie history, which went on to win an Academy Award.
You first hear the instrument in the opening theme. Then a long period goes by without it. It appears again in one of those wonderful, tense, spooky moments which appear throughout the movie. At a meeting of the researchers of the institute one of the members is obviously very upset over something, almost hysterical. After several attempts to sidetrack his report, he finally has his say: An anonymous test he gave the staff to provide a baseline for a new intelligence test revealed one member to have a capacity so great it was literally immeasurable by conventional means. The man's concern (to put it mildly) is that not only could this person manipulate the institute like a bored child trying to make a toy do something interesting, but could physically affect matter through thought alone.
Now, these are all very intelligent, well educated people, who are distressed that one of their own is spouting such nonsense, and in front of company, no less. One of the other researchers puts a pencil in a book, spears a piece of paper on the point and stands it in the middle of the table, then says "That should be easy enough to move." A few of them try, though not seriously. The head of the Institute, trying to get the embarrassing situation over with, suggests they all try together.
As the paper begins to spin, the cymbalom starts to play, faster and faster...
