IFFI-2008 - International Film Festival of India
IFFI-2008 - International Film Festival of India
IFFI-2008 - International Film Festival of India
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JOHN LANDIS<br />
<strong>IFFI</strong>-<strong>2008</strong><br />
John Landis began his career in the mailroom <strong>of</strong> 20th Century Fox Studios. With enduring<br />
comedies such Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), National Lampoon's Animal House (1978),<br />
The Blues Brothers (1980), Trading Places (1983), Spies Like Us (1985), Three Amigos!<br />
(1987) and Coming to America (1988), Landis has directed some <strong>of</strong> the most popular<br />
blockbusters <strong>of</strong> all time. His horror film An American Werewolf in London (1981) enjoys a<br />
multigenerational fan following. In 1983, Landis reinvented the concept <strong>of</strong> music videos<br />
with Michael Jackson's Thriller. He has been the executive producer and director <strong>of</strong> many<br />
television series. In 2004, Landis produced and directed Slasher, a feature documentary<br />
following a veteran used car salesman, and in 2007, Mr. Warmth, The Don Rickles Project,<br />
honouring the career <strong>of</strong> the famed 'rat pack' comedian Don Rickles which premiered on<br />
HBO. Landis was honored with the Chevalier dans l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the<br />
French Government in 1985. In February, 2009, the Cinemathéque Français in Paris will<br />
honour Landis with a comprehensive career retrospective. He is married to Academy Award<br />
nominated costume designer Deborah Nadoolman.<br />
USA<br />
An American Werewolf in London<br />
1981, 35 mm, Colour, 97 mins, English<br />
Director<br />
John Landis<br />
Screenplay<br />
John Landis<br />
Cinematography<br />
Robert Paynter<br />
Editor<br />
Malcolm Campbell<br />
Music<br />
Elmer Bernstein<br />
Cast<br />
David Naughton (David Kessler), Jenny Agutter (Alex Price),<br />
Griffin Dunne (Jack Goodman)<br />
Art<br />
Leslie Dilley<br />
Costumes<br />
Deborah Nadoolman<br />
Make Up<br />
Rick Baker<br />
Production<br />
George Folsey Jr<br />
Two American college students, David Kessler and Jack Goodman, are backpacking across the Yorkshire moors when they are attacked by a large, unknown animal. Jack is killed,<br />
but David survives the mauling and is taken to a hospital in London. When he wakes up some time later, he does not remember what happened and is told <strong>of</strong> his friend's death. Things<br />
get stranger when he is visited by Jack's ghost, which takes the distressing form <strong>of</strong> a reanimated corpse, who explains that they had been attacked by a werewolf, suggesting that<br />
David himself is now a werewolf. Jack urges David to kill himself before the next full moon, not only because Jack is cursed to exist in a state <strong>of</strong> living dead for as long as the<br />
bloodline <strong>of</strong> the werewolf that attacked them survives, but also to prevent David from inflicting the same fate on his eventual victims. Upon his release from the hospital, David<br />
moves in with the pretty young nurse, Alex Price, who grew infatuated with him in the hospital. David eventually realises that Jack was right about everything and that he is<br />
responsible for several murders. The various prosthetics and fake, robotic body parts used during the film's painful, extended werewolf transformation scenes and on Griffin Dunne<br />
when his character returns as a bloody, mangled ghost impressed the Academy <strong>of</strong> Motion Picture Arts and Sciences so much that they decided to create a new awards category at the<br />
Oscars specifically for the film - Outstanding Achievement in Makeup - a category that has since continued.<br />
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