Real 'body' shot for film??

B

Bruce in West Oz

New member
From today's West Australian newspaper (28 September 1999. People Today section, page 3):

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>In the new George Clooney movie Three Kings, film-maker David Russell used a cadaver to show in graphic detail how a bullet penetrates a body.

Warner Bros was so concerned about the effects of the scene that the studio considered removing it.

But, Russell told newsweek magazine, preview audiences were fascinated.

The movie is about four soldiers who set off at the end of the Gulf war to find a cache of gold.

Co-star Mark Wahlberg said that when he saw the scene with the cadaver he was disgusted.

'I don't even want to pick up a gun again,' he said.

'I see violence on TV and I don't look at it the way I did before.'[/quote]

This is so transparent it riles me:

1. "Warner Bros was so concerned ....." BS!! I'll bet they rubbed their hands in glee.

2. "... preview audiences were fascinated" .... well, there's the shallow "justification" for leaving it in ("We wanted to take it out, but the people demanded it.")

3. Wahlberg's "disgust" .... if he was disgusted when he saw the scene, why wasn't he so disgusted when making it?? Oh, sorry .... disgust is fine after you have your pay cheque, right, Mark??

4. "I don't even want to pick up a gun again," he said. .... Oh, right --- the gun somehow, magically, "caused" the violence, did it? Jerk!!

None of this rates even a close second to my moral qualms about using a real human body to shoot bullets into for "entertainment" -- that is sick.

Did this get reported over there, 'cause I didn't see anything about it on TFL?

B
 
Nope...this is the first I've heard of it.

Probably because if reported here and became known there would be an army of lawyers descending on WB...cadavers are regulated as tightly as drugs, and I don't believe selling or renting one to a movie studio to destroy would qualify as acceptable use.

I also think this takes a bit out of WB's anti-gun stance....defiling a human cadaver for commercial gain seems rather hypocritical

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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" RKBA!
 
I doubt that a real body was used.
DC's right - very tightly controlled... Even if the guy donated his body too film makers.
Not only that - I dont think any film maker would actually consider doing that!

A very real lifelike dummy could have been made... but a real body? Hmmm.... I am going to have to see this film for myself...

HEY! Thats the reaction WB wanted! Just another hook to get you to buy that ticket!

"HYPE its Everywhere you want to be..."

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Not all Liberals are annoying... Some are Dead.
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE
The Critic formerly known as Kodiac
 
Right again, George!

Right or wrong, good or bad-- we're talking about it, and in show business, the only bad press is no press.



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Will you, too, be one who stands in the gap?

Matt
 
I'm not a clooney fan, and I think it sucks that they are making this movie with the exact same plot line. I have not even seen a tribute to Kelly's Heroes. my post had nothing to do with cadavers or other hollywood hype-up attempts, just general disgust in the lack of creativity in Hollywood lately. I think the Matrix was the last original film I've seen in a while, but who knows, maybe it used the idea of an earlier film as well.

my .02
 
Sounds like a publicity stunt to me. Hollyweird thinking seems to say "If you've got a movie that stinks, invent a way to make people want to see it." Controversy sells tickets. But, this one is way out there.
I've seen the previews for this film thought it might be ok, but I'll wait for it to come out on video and just rent it.
Wanna bet it grosses real big now?
 
I had always hoped that Hollywierd would be more realistic about gunshot wounds: that way people don't think that others just fall down and go bye-bye when they get shot. My theory is that many people shoot each other over silly issues because they have never visualized the gruesome horror of what they are doing, because on TV it is no big deal.
I think it might be a good thing if people (like Wahlberg) are disgusted at what a bullet does to a body...maybe then they would think twice about shooting someone over, say, a personal dispute.
 
We're a lot more realistic now than, say, 35 years ago. Back then, a bit of dust off the front of the gunshot victim's chest would be all the reaction from the bullet you'd see, and the man would wheel away, falling dead. Then came Pechinpah's The Wild Bunch, which had people leaving the theatre in disgust, reeling from the "pornographic realism." Now the stuff shown there is pretty much old hat.

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Will you, too, be one who stands in the gap?

Matt
 
I just caught this story off the AP wire service. It may shed some light on where a cadaver can come from. I won't copy the whole story but to sum it up:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>
"Missing cadaver at center of scandal"

The medical school at the University of California at Irvine has fired a mortician accused of selling body parts ...

Christopher S. Brown, 27, was dismissed last week as director of the College of Medicine's Willed Body Program, where his job was to embalm and repair donated cadavers for research and to dispose of them afterward.

.
.
.

Although investigators in Brown's case have found nothing to suggest the bodies were used for anything but education and research, officials say it is unclear where some of the 225 cadavers ended up during his three years of service.
[/quote]

I'm not saying WB would have gotten one for the movie, but it does show that it is a possibility. Also, even though WB may not be guilty, they also may not be the actual producers of the movie. Quite often a small movie producer will get funding from a big studio and the big studio will get the credit. ("This is a Warner Bro.'s production of a Hole in the Wall production of a Joseph Blow film"). WB may not have any say in how the movie was shot, so to speak. As I recall, we have some folks here on TFL that have a lot of experience with major studios. Maybe they can shed more light on this aspect of the business.
 
Alfred Hitchcock had a great line when he was alive,"All actors are like cattle!"
Not much has changed.
Why do people like those cheezy "Faces of death" movies, where half the scenes are fake?
Basically its because most people are like cattle.
(I hope I haven't insulted any real bovines in the audience. Coming from the beef state, thats against the law!)
 
Clooney was on The Tonight Show last week, and Leno asked him about it. He said it was one of those notoriety or interest-inspiring rumors, but that it wasn't true. Who knows for sure, or who is really telling the truth?

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Don LeHue

Salad isn't food. Salad is what food eats.
 
"Three Kings," one star.

If you've seen the trailers for Three Kings, you've seen all you need to see. The concept is great (though stolen from Kelly's Heroes), but that's about it. Even the math in the title is bad. You see, there are four National Guard guys seeking the gold stolen by Saddam Hussein's army, not three. And they're definitely not wise men from the East.

Three Kings is like Kelly's Heroes, but without the entertainment. Even Telly Savalas, Clint Eastwood and Donald Southerland couldn't have saved Three
Kings.

Three Kings isn't even so much a movie as a politically-correct propoganda film thinly disguised as entertainment. In typical Hollywood fashion, all military people are shown as viciously incompetent buffoons whose only means of communication is screaming at the tops of their lungs and whose only goal
in life is to destroy everything that is good and noble. The southerner among the "three" kings is (of course) a semi-literate, racist, unemployed, high school drop-out. PFC Hillbilly is best friends with Marky Mark, who looks all of twenty one years old and plays a National Guard Sergeant First Class. They must promote them fast in the NG!

Somehow the only good guys in the movie are the reporters and the Iraqis, who in this movie are the innocent victims of an oil-hungry America (this point is heavy-handedly driven home by the Iraqi torturer who forces Marky Mark to drink crude oil). The violence perpetrated on Kuwait is dismissed as "well, we're not proud of that, but...." The bad guys of the movie are, of course, George Bush and the US Army. You'll hear the name George Bush more times
during this two hour movie than you probably heard it during the four years of his presidency.

Cool effects, such as the internal view of bullets flying through Marky Mark's body, are poorly integrated into the flow of the movie and manage to come across as cheap gimmicks rather than devices to advance the plot. A real cadaver was definitely NOT used. It looks more like a cartoon than a real body.

All together, quite a let-down.
 
I couldn't stop laughing when Marky Mark's flak jacket stopped an AK round. Other than that, it was mildly entertaining, definately a rental.
 
There are rumors that producers/directors wanting to "push the envelope" will soon make a "snuff" picture for theater release. This is seen as the next "freedom of expression" issue. Why not allow an "artist" to kill someone if that is what it takes to "express his feelings." Don't know how they plan to get a victim, maybe just grab someone off the street that they think is worthless, i.e., not a member of the liberal elite.

Jim
 
Warner Brothers huh? During WWII, right after Pearl Harbor was bombed, there was a lot of concern that California would be invaded. Warner Brothers, that great patriotic institution, was worried that Japanese planes would mistakenly bomb their studio in belief that it Lockeed. Well, they came up with a novel solution. In bold letters the roof was painted, "Lockeed thataway" along with a directional arrow. Later on Warner Brothers came to their senses and agreed to remove it.

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Vigilantibus et non dormientibus jura subveniunt
 
I did hear that a cadaver was used in the movie. I only caught a little blurb while not really paying attention to the TV. It was on ET or some news program, I don't remember and didn't catch the story nor did I see the movie. If people really want to see the effects of a bullet wound then go hunting or at least ask a hunter to see their kill. I realize this isn't quite the same but they can see the wound up close and not be distanced like in a movie. Of course this would not be acceptable for the animal rights hippocrits. Just my $.02
 
I liked the movie.
I like George Clooney - he is a pretty good actor for these roles (this and Peacemaker) the flawed hero type... I can see him playing Harrison Ford and Sean Connery types roles in the future... Since Connery & Ford are getting old for these action movies.

The movie was a mix of Kelly's Heros and other war movies - You will pick up other elements while your watching it.
I dont know about any cadaver shot - but they did do an interesting scene describing the effects of a bullet on a human. It was gross - and not all together correct - leaving out a lot of details regarding to hydrodynamics in terminal balistics. It did not who ever make me think a real body was used. I am not aware of a lot of green fluids in the body other than snot. ;)

The directing was interesting. The way some scenes were shot was pretty slick - making a boring scene almost interesting.
The way they showed the exchange of gun fire in a short fight was pretty cool.

This isnt the greatest movie out there - but it will probably make it into my DVD collection.

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"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity." - Sigmund Freud
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE
 
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