SMC Pod #220: Inverting one movie to make another (Gemini movies)

About this episode

The episode explores the concept of inverting movies to create new narratives, highlighting examples from classic films.

One of the most clever ways moviemakers make new movies is to take a movie they love and invert it-do the opposite of key aspects of the movie and problem solve how to make that work. Peter Jackson famously took George Romero's zombie classic Night of the Living Dead where zombies are outside trying to get into a house and made Dead Alive where zombies are inside a house and the hero is trying to keep them from getting out. The first three Indiana Jones movies are all clever inversions of classics like Casablanca, Gunga Din, and From Russia with Love. And Casablanca gets another crazy inversion in the form of the 1946 classic Gilda starring Rita Hayworth. Secret Movie Club founder Craig Hammill dives into this fascinating way of flipping a movie on its head to make a totally new movie.

People in this episode

Host: Craig Hammill

Topics covered

• movie inversion
• filmmaking techniques
• classic films
• creativity in cinema
• storytelling
• film analysis

Keywords

• movie inversion
• filmmaking
• classic movies
• Peter Jackson
• Night of the Living Dead
• Dead Alive
• Indiana Jones
• Casablanca
• Gilda

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Night of the Living Dead, Dead Alive, Indiana Jones, Casablanca, Gunga Din, From Russia with Love, Gilda

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