Das schwarze Loch

I have actually gone in here and altered and added to my original comments to make them a little less one-sided.

Did you ever have one of those mutant pets, like a cat with six toes on its front paws, or an extra ear? Well I didn't either, but you can imagine what it must be like. You'd love the thing all the more because of its flaws, because it'll never be perfect, and because it needs someone to love it. And such is my love for "The Black Hole" (1979). It is an interesting story that is rendered and explored in a mechanical manner--although visually, in terms of its set design and special effects, it is really stunning.

It's a Disney product, and like "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," it was put on the slates mainly to cash in on the space opera craze that "Star Wars" had ignited. Movies are commercial art, they exist to make money (hopefully entertaining us at the same time); and the Disney people got their best film-making talent together, assembled a dynamite cast, and cranked this out, in a very lavish and polished way, production-wise. The money is slathered all over the screen, and everything is handled in the tried-and-true Disney Studios fashion of preplanning and choreographing everything down to the tiniest of details (actors don't even PAUSE IN THE MIDDLE OF A LINE unless it was dictated, planned and rehearsed that way)...this was very near the end of Disney's run as a major producer of live-action features, and "The Black Hole" is a fitting finish. It even features cute touches, like the way the nastiest demise is saved for Anthony Perkins. If you're gonna make a slow, mechanical movie, you can at least do it with style, and they did. It is an impressive production.

In a certain way you might say I love/hate the movie. The methodical way it's constructed seems lifeless. But at the same time, it is a strange joy to see its methodical construction. It takes tremendous energy to create something so controlled. It's certainly not a film made by accident or unconsciously.

"The Black Hole," manages to be strangely trance-inducing. Once I put it on, it's hard to turn it off.

It's 2130 and Day 547 on board the USS Palomino with Captain Dan Holland (Robert Forster), Lieutenant Charles Pizer (Joseph Bottoms), Dr. Alex Durant (Anthony Perkins), Harry Booth (Ernest Borgnine) and Dr. Kate McCrae (Yvette Mimieux) with ESP abilities to talk to robots. Robot VINCENT discovers a large black hole and a lost ship the USS Cygnus. McCrae's father is suppose to be on board. The ship is not abandoned as first thought and is filled with robots run by the mad Dr. Hans Reinhardt (Maximilian Schell). He has been alone for 20 years refusing orders to return to Earth. His most formidable robot is Maximilian.

I remember really liking this as a kid. Watching it now, the science is wrong. What's with ESP? I can even see some of the wires. I do like some of the designs. I love the VINCENT and Maximilian robots. The special effects is a mix bag coming after Star Wars. Its 50s sci-fi motif is actually quite interesting for the era. I would love to see this story remade with the science redone. There is a fine mad scientist movie here.

Not only is The Black Hole beautifully made from a technical aspect, it has marvelous performances. Robert Forester (Jackie Brown), Anthony Perkins (Psycho), Ernest Borgnine, Maximillian Schell. It does get a little campy but it is a Disney movie after all and it can be forgiven its attempts at comic relief. This is a very unlikely sort of film for Disney, were it made today it would have been made under the Miramax header rather than Disney, and like another unlikely Disney film, Tron, it is tragically underrated. The special effects and set design are breathtaking, but it is the script which is the best part. The ending is one of the most surreal and haunting in any science fiction film (and especially bold for a Disney film) The characterizations are wonderful and the robots, especially Maximillian (in my book the greatest cinematic robotic villain to date), are unforgettable.

This is a movie with a great premise, a superb villain in Maximillian Schell as both Dr. Hans Reinhardt and his alter ego Maximillian the robot. Some of the staging and shots are among the best of any science fiction movie. And the ending comes close to the ambiguity of A Space Odyssey especially with its shot of the melding of Reinhardt and his robot ending up in a Dantesque vision of Hell, which is incredible given this is a Disney film. Do not forget the haunting music by John Barry which echoes a faint James Bond sound.

The weakness, and there are too many to note, are best seen in the V.I.N.CENT robot and his mentor bot, Bob. These characters were obviously meant to appeal to the kiddies who were no doubt the target audience.

I imagine there were some mighty discussions on the set of this film as to whether they should be making a classic or childish crap. Unfortunately the latter choice seems to driven the bottom line.

The Black Hole was one of many films that were released with the intention of cresting the sci-fi wave created by the huge success of Star Wars (1977). More specifically, this was Disney's attempt at the genre and I think it was the studio's first movie that didn't go for a U certificate. The film that it can best be compared to is Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which was also released the same year. Both movies sport fantastic special effects and production values, while both also are surprisingly - and pleasingly - slightly left-field in their approach. Neither really fall squarely into the action/adventure bracket that Star Wars so obviously did, they rely more on atmosphere, some psychological aspects and have some enigmatic qualities which seem to indicate the influence of the earlier hard sci-fi masterpiece 2001: A Space odyssey (1968). For these reasons, I find both these films to be decidedly under-appreciated and interesting. The Star Trek franchise of course went down a different, more comforting route, from the second feature The Wrath of Khan (1982) onwards, while The Black Hole remained a one off that has become more and more obscure as the years go by. So much so that it could reasonably be considered a cult movie on account of its selective appeal.

From the off, this is visually a very interesting film. It has great sets and model work, which make the giant space craft where the majority of the action takes place an evocative setting. The special effects throughout are in general very impressive and still look good today. But the visuals have been constructed for more than mere spectacle as they combine to create a pretty interesting atmosphere on the whole; they ultimately are used also to set up the strange and ambiguous ending which involves visions of Hell and an alternate universe. This kind of oddness stands out these days, as most big budget sci-fi endeavours mostly avoid such ambiguity, but this is definitely a plus point for The Black Hole. Another serious asset is the really effective main theme from John Barry. This is in all honesty one of his best bits of individual music, its sweeping yet mysterious and complements events on screen extremely well.

The story itself is pretty simple and boils down to a deep space crew discovering a mysterious spaceship near a black hole, they board it and events escalate. The story is perhaps oddly presented in some ways as there is material quite obviously aimed at kids, like the cartoonish robots (the main one, V.I.N.C.E.N.T., being voiced excellently by Roddy McDowell) but at the same time there are also some decidedly sinister aspects to this one too. So I guess it had a bit of a split focus in some ways, not that that is a terrible thing but it may have accounted for its marginalised position in the sci-fi cinematic pantheon. But whatever the case, I consider this to be one of the best that 70's science fiction has to offer. It's mysterious and left-of-centre nature mean that it is one of the more interesting entries in the genre to revisit.