Friday, September 6, 2013

Elysium: The Art of the Film - Mark Salisbury (Titan Books)

This could be a first for me.

As a huge fan of fiction, I am more often than not, disappointed by movies based on a book. I think I can come up with a very small handful of titles where the movie was equal to the book and even less where the movie was better than the book.

Jonathan Demme’s celluloid take was the equal of Thomas Harris’ Silence of the Lambs is probably most often my go to choice when the question comes up. What makes this is unique, is the fact that Elysium: The Art of the Film a book about a movie is way better than the film itself!

 

While the film wallows and drowns in director Neil Blomkamp’s flaming, liberal mindset, the design and concepts laid out in the book are sci-fi sleek. The designs often include the range from conceptual art to full blown graphic depictions and modeling.

Blomkamp once again teams with his District 9 production design cohort Phil Ivey and the WETA Workshop crew to develop the full blown look and feel of robots, spacecraft, weapons and even the environments of Elysium and Earth.

Elysium: The Art of the Film is not your mother’s coffee table book but is guaranteed to spawn jealous reactions from all of your geek friends once they get a gander.

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