Rambaldi: When SFX are too good
“There’s no question that these computer films are well packaged but the charm has disappeared…” – Carlo Rambaldi
The value of CGI is beyond dispute. There are innumerable things which practical effects are incapable of where CGI must step in. The additional expense and labour required for animatronics are two other good reasons for their shy presence today but I believe the paying public may have mistaken popularity which effectiveness.
As pliable as CGI is 99% of the time you can tell it’s computer generated. A reduction in light helps mask things but then you have to contend with movement which doesn’t always look right, isn’t properly effected by gravity. In cartoons and fantasies you can get away with those shortcomings because rules can be bent, but when you’re trying to replicate real life (gore for example) there are issues.
Trying to create disgust in the viewer is difficult when you can see it’s not tangible. The concept of bumping into or smelling something hideous is lost. Practical effects can still have a greater impact on screen, even when you can tell they’re fake because you can see it exists in this world – there’s an underlying reality to it which gives even the poorer efforts a better shot at being disgusting.
From the largest ever mechanical creature for a film in 1976’s King Kong to the animatronic wonder of 1982’s E.T. Italy’s Carlo Rambaldi was the master behind many universal monsters, but not everybody knows he holds the distinction of being the first special effects artist to have to prove his creations were not real in a court of law.
Lucio Fulci, cult B-movie director known for his excessive gore, teamed up with Rambaldi in his 1971 psychedelic murder mystery A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin. Halfway through this artistic slice of cinema comes the scene which had Fulci charged with animal cruelty. As Carol Hammond (played by Florinda Bolkan) is trying to get away from an attacker she tries to open many doors to flee. One of them does, but it’s not nice what she discovers…
Four small dogs suspended on this strange apparatus. All of their torsos have been cut open and yet they’re still alive (being sustained by some kind of blood flow via tubes). Cue whimpering noises and brilliantly realised hearts and lungs which undulate in a most lifelike manner. After getting a good eyeful Carol faints. Today this scene still holds up on blu-ray. It’s easy to see why a ’71 public would have been freaked out watching this at a grainy cinema.
The ugly yet friendly face of E.T. remains the front cover to Rambaldi’s life’s work, but somewhere in there is one of the great disturbing scenes, proving in one horrible moment the worth of practical effects and the breadth of his talent.
