The Story of Film: An Odyssey (TV Mini Series)

The Arrival of Multiplexes and Asian Mainstream (2011)

Mark Cousins: Self - Presenter

Quotes 

• [first lines] 

  Mark Cousins - Presenter : Movie fans around the world, most of them will have heard of the box office smash hits of the 70s: Jaws, Star Wars, The Exorcist, the Bruce Lee movies from Hong Kong, and the Indian epic, Sholay.

• Stanley Kwan - Interviewee : The Shaw Brothers, such a big studio, made films of many types. And eventually more muscular films about male bonding, in the style of Chan Cheh stood out. This new trend was related to the decrease in age of the audience.

  Mark Cousins - Presenter : But for all the dynamism of Bruce Lee films, if we look again at them, we see that though *he* was fast and furious, the camera work was anything but. It patiently recorded the action. It stayed out of the fight.

• Mark Cousins - Presenter : By the 70s, the Bollywood bauble got bigger and shinier. In 1971 alone, India made 433 films. At least as many as were made in America in the same year.

• Mark Cousins - Presenter : Something happened in American cinema that changed everything. A movie about a shark took 260 million dollars at the U.S. Box office. A scary film about a girl possessed by the devil took 200 million at the box office. A Sci-Fi movie about the Force and the evil Darth Vader demolished all records, taking nearly 500 million. Cinema was on a roller coaster. There'd never been figures like this before. The Exorcist, Jaws, and Star Wars changed American, and then world cinema. Producers started making movies about things people fantasize about seeing.

• Mark Cousins - Presenter : [about Star Wars]  This is the most absurd plot we've yet heard in this story of film, and yet the movie charms. In part because it draws richly from film history.