Brainstorm (Douglas Trumbull, 1983)
"I want you to knock my socks off!"
Douglas Trumbull was the special-effect maestro on Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. Trumbull's first directorial effort was the excellent 1972 film Silent Running. 1983 saw the release of Trumbull's second full-length feature Brainstorm, an excellent movie about virtual reality, and the potential of such an instrument to be used for -ahem- more sinister purposes.
Christopher Walken & Louise Fletcher play researchers who have created a machine that can record an individual's thoughts onto tape, which can in turn be experienced by another individual. Trouble arises when their boss (Cliff Robertson) turns their research over to the CIA, who in turn want to use such a device for potential mind control & psychological torture. The buggers!
Brainstorm boasts an exceptional cast (Natalie Wood sadly drowned whilst filming), incredible visual effects similar to 2001's 'Jupiter sequence', but it also includes a highly original scene of genuine horror, a scene very much borrowed for the French film The City of Lost Children.
Warner's 2009 re-mastered DVD release is excellent, but the video does switch between a letterboxed 14:9 (ish) ratio and 21:9 widescreen aspect ratio, apparently 'preserving the 35mm theatrical exhibition'... Watching this on a modern TV set is mildly irritating, but Trumbull shot Brainstorm in Super Panavision 70 format for the 'virtual' scenes, and 35mm film for the 'normal' scenes. I suppose the only way to see the movie is in a 70mm equipped cinema. The DVD also includes a booming 5.1 audio mix, which has a deliberately wide dynamic range. Very nice indeed!
Sadly, due to, er, 'creative differences' between the director & the then MGM/UA execs, this was Trumbull's final feature film for Hollywood movie as a director. Trumbull has spent a great deal of time producing a variety of work for IMAX, but his SFX work for 2001, Close Encounters of the Third Kind & Blade Runner - amongst others- have made him a true pioneer. Brainstorm confirms this.
