the rattlesnake

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Movie
German title the rattlesnake
Original title John Carpenter's Escape from New York
The rattlesnake.svg
Country of production UK , USA
original language English
Publishing year 1981
length 99 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director John Carpenter
script John Carpenter
Nick Castle
production Debra Hill
Larry J. Franco
music John Carpenter
(with Alan Howarth )
camera Dean Cundey
Jim Lucas
cut Todd Ramsay
occupation

The rattlesnake is a British - American dystopian science fiction film from the year 1981 by John Carpenter . It is one of the most commercially successful films of the early 1980s, is considered a forerunner of the cyberpunk genre and brought about a decisive turn in the career of actor Kurt Russell . The film opened in German cinemas on September 3, 1981.

action

New York in 1997: Crime increased so much in the 1980s that traditional prisons are no longer sufficient. As a result, Manhattan was abandoned in 1988 and the whole island was turned into a maximum security prison. Anyone who is moved there is first sterilized and then left to their own devices, isolated from the outside world and with no prospect of ever escaping from the island again. This has meant that the prisoners have now developed their own forms of society.

In 1997 NATO is at war with the Soviet Union and a nuclear holocaust threatens. When the President of the United States and Air Force One are on the way to peace negotiations with China and the Soviet Union, terrorists hijack the plane and deliberately crash it in Manhattan. The security team put the president in an escape capsule in good time , along with a briefcase in which a transmitter was activated and an audio cassette that contains information about a new type of energy source, nuclear fusion . The president survived the crash in the middle of the prison zone and is taken hostage by the inmates.

When police forces want to rescue the president, they are received by Romero, the henchman of the Duke, ruler of Manhattan. Romero makes it clear to them that the president would be killed if further rescue attempts were made. Therefore, prison director Hauk lets convict and ex-elite soldier Snake Plissken come to him, who was about to be moved to Manhattan. Hauk promises Plissken freedom if he manages to get the president and the audio cassette out of Manhattan safely. Because of the upcoming peace talks, time is short and Plissken only has 22 hours. To make him compliant, Hauk has explosive miniature capsules injected into his throat, which are supposed to detonate after the 22 hours have elapsed, killing him.

Plissken takes a glider to Manhattan unnoticed and lands on the roof of the World Trade Center . He finds out that the President is in the hands of the Duke. He plans to use the president as a protective shield to escape from prison over the mine- riddled Queensboro Bridge . To do this, he has his advisor Harold "Brain" Helman, a former friend of Plissken, draw up a map to bypass the mines. Plissken forces Brain and his mate Maggie to help him find the president. This succeeds, but Plissken is captured by Duke's men.

In Grand Central Station , Duke's residence, Plissken faces a life-and-death battle as Brain and Maggie free the president. Plissken wins and leads the President as well as Brain and Maggie to the World Trade Center, but in the meantime his plane has been destroyed by "Crazies". Then the taxi driver Cabbie shows up and offers to drive her over the bridge to freedom. He also has the audio cassette that Romero gave him.

Followed by Duke and his pack, they reach the bridge in Cabbie's taxi. As they escape, Cabbie, Brain and Maggie die, and only Plissken and the President reach the wall at the end of the bridge. Then the Duke appears, but is shot by the President who, together with Plissken, is brought over the prison wall to safety by the police.

The 22 hours have now almost passed, and the mini-capsules in Plissken's neck are defused just in time. Meanwhile, the President is preparing to address the peace conference participants by satellite. When the audio cassette with the information about the new energy source is played during his speech, it turns out to be a music cassette from Cabbie's taxi. Plissken had switched the cassettes and destroyed the correct one as he left.

Trivia

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.
  • While Plissken floats in over Manhattan in a glider, he sees a computer-generated view of the city in wireframe representation on his monitor . H. you can see the edges of the houses as thin lines. When the film was made, however, a computer that could display this was still very expensive. So they shot the scene by building a model of Manhattan and then painting all the houses black and white edging them. This was then filmed with appropriate lighting and looked deceptively real.
  • You can often see Plissken walking through the night in the glow of flickering fires that are reflected on his face. This effect was achieved by recording the strength of the flickering of a fire and then using the course of this strength to control a headlight so that it flickered at the same irregular frequency.
  • The German film title “Die Ratterschlange” does not apply: Snake's tattoo is clearly a cobra , not a rattlesnake .
  • The main character Snake Plissken served as a model for Solid Snake, the main character in the video game Metal Gear Solid . In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty this is taken up by the main character using the name "Iroquois Pliskin" as an alias. Iroquois means "black snake" in the Algonquin language .
  • The bank robbery scene in which Plissken was arrested has been cut out of the film. According to Carpenter, the scene didn't help Plissken because it humanized him too much.
  • The scene in which Maggie was shown dead on the bridge was filmed in John Carpenter's garage. They forgot to shoot the take in the studios. Adrienne Barbeau was then the wife of John Carpenter.
  • In 2004, the French director brought Pierre Morel with Ghettogangz - Hell before Paris a movie similar themes out the action but moved to a suburb ( banlieue ) of Paris.

Soundtrack

One of the most important features of the film is the soundtrack. It was composed by John Carpenter with the help of Alan Howarth . The entire soundtrack was received mostly positively by the critics. He appeared on the Colosseum label.

  1. Main Title (3:52)
  2. Up the Wall / Airforce (2:29)
  3. Orientation 2 (1:48)
  4. Engulfed Cathedral (Debussy) (3:33)
  5. Back to the Pod / The Crazies Come Out (3:00)
  6. Arrival at the Library (1:06)
  7. Everyone's Coming to New York (2:54)
  8. The Duke Arrives / The Barricade (3:35)
  9. Police State / Romero and the President (3:21)
  10. The President at the Train (2:55)
  11. The President is Gone (2:30)
  12. Chase Across the 69th Street Bridge (2:33)
  13. Over the Wall (3:43)

continuation

1996 Carpenter shot a sequel under the title Escape from LA More a remake than a sequel, this film could not build on the success of the original.

Remake

In December 2017, the script was finalized for a remake , written by Neal Cross and featuring scripts by original writer John Carpenter . The film, produced by 20th Century Fox , was to be directed by Robert Rodriguez , but the film was never made.

Reviews

“A bitter, gloomy, and at times ironic vision of the future that, despite the perfect use of cinematic effects, is by no means geared towards speculative horror; instead, the apocalyptic images give impetus to reflect on reality and a possible near future. "

- Lexicon of international film

“The 'saber-rattling' German title is once again misleading: 'Escape from New York', according to the more accurate original, is less of a heroic epic than the gloomy vision of a neglected, perverted civilization. The sixth film by action and horror specialist John Carpenter earned almost nothing but praise: perfect camera and editing technology, successful effects, coolly calculated, spartan dialogues and the barely electrifying synth music composed by Carpenter himself . "

- TV movie

“... a genre mixture of science fiction, big city westerns, thriller, horror and end-of-time films (...) a claustrophobic, gloomy picture of the future of a ghost town that cleverly plays with real fears about the future (...). The archaic gladiatorial fights and the wretched masses that move through the rampant Central Park symbolize the state-sanctioned relapse into barbarism. Thus, on a further level, there is an intelligent anti-utopian counter-draft to the end of the 1970s (...) renewed optimism in the science fiction genre (...). "

- Andreas Rauscher

literature

  • Frank Schnelle: Suspense, shock, terror. John Carpenter and his films. Verlag Robert Fischer, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-924098-04-2 .
  • Mike McQuay : The Rattlesnake - Escape from New York. Bastei-Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1981, ISBN 3-404-13297-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for The Rattlesnake . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 52587 / V). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. ↑ a b with Pamela Smith - Keyboard
  3. ↑ with Tommy Wallace - guitar
  4. ↑ Escape From New York remake: script is now done - Den of Geek, December 4, 2017
  5. ↑ Escape From New York Remake: Script Done, Robert Rodriguez to Direct - Den of Geek, December 5, 2017
  6. ↑ The rattlesnake. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  7. ↑ The rattlesnake. TV feature film , accessed February 14, 2011 .
  8. ↑ Andreas Rauscher: The rattlesnake. In: Thomas Koebner (Ed.): Film genres: Science Fiction. Reclam (Universal-Bibliothek; 18401), Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-15-018401-0 , pp. 370–372.