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THX 1138

THX 1138

Directed by George Lucas

Written by Lucas and Sound Engineer Walter Murch

Produced by Francis Ford Coppola

Starring Robert Duvall and Donald Pleasance

1971

THX 1138 is the first production of Coppola's 'independent' American Zoetrope project as well as Lucas and Duvall's first major release. The film is as noteworthy for its place in production history as it is for it's art. (Recall that the Lucas Sound Recording/Theater certification system is called, also, 'THX'.)

At this point in Hollywood the older production staffs were nearing retirment and independent films oriented towards the youth market were becoming quite successful, including 'Easy Rider'. Basically Warner Brother's gave a bunch of money to the two stars of L.A. Film Schools, Lucas (USC) and Coppola (UCLA). They used the money to set up shop in San Francisco, circa the summer of love and established the most technically advanced studio in America at the time.

As a production effort the company failed, however participants went on to much greater later success, albeit more commercial in nature. Lucas, of course, with Star Wars. Coppola and Duvall with 'Godfather'. Apocalypse Now was orginally conceived as part of this project, though it's long gestation resulted in a movie that arguably is the best ever made.

Filmed in the just completing Bart tunnel projects of San Francisco the movie paints a stark vision of the future - reminiscent of Kubrick and similiar in psychological profile to another best of all time movie, 'Brazil'. In the Lucas/Coppola future, drug 'evasion' is a crime, as is the resulting love affairs that occur in it's absence.

As Lucas says, this movie is a parable about the present. That holds true nearly 40 years later.

Although I don't know this for a fact I'm guessing that the opening shot of this clip was shot in the Zoetrope editing studio.

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