Ken Adam Congratulations to the 90th Birthday, Sir Kenneth! He was on 5 Born in March 1921 when Klaus Hugo Adam in Berlin. Emigrated with his parents to England when the Nazis came. Studied architecture in England and was a pilot in the Royal Air Force. Since he did not even have British citizenship, was probably the tank-buster
Heinie (his nickname) is the only German who flew as a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force. After the war, he has landed in the British film industry. And if we are his Name may not know, we all know films for which he has supplied the design.
This is because of him, the miracle
car from the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
. The film is based on a short story by Ian Fleming. Albert J. Broccoli produced it. And Ken Adam has also hired the same for the James Bond films. Since he has invented all the gadgets
allegedly tinkering Q for James Bond. Of course all the things, the Aston Martin of James Bond. It was a dream of him to take revenge with such a car to other drivers:
Armed Aston Martin also has a little history. For I had at that time, even a sports car, a Jaguar E-Type. But every time I saw him parked in London he was scarred by anyone or even dented. So I took revenge. The gadgets have now become an important part of the James Bond films. But of course I have developed alone. I had a fantastic special effects engineer who has translated all my ideas into reality . Sometimes I would have loved such a car. Since the rat could be of local politicians (Greens), which last year hit my parked car and if it wanted to be the next day not been back, but what to do.
It's amazing how little is known Ken Adam. People like Roland Emmerich, the only turn toasted term disaster films, which knows almost everyone. But who - apart from the film-makers - Ken Adam knows? If you look at the list of movies
look where he served as art director or production designer, one can only marvel.
I am the eye of the director , Ken Adam once said
the production designer is responsible for everything that you see on the screen . If he allows the studio and director. With a detail fanatic like Stanley Kubrick has always been problems. The room was famous
from Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (sitting on the floor of Ken Adam) there was still easy.
But
Barry Lyndon for the Ken Adam won an Oscar, brought plenty of trouble with it. Adam Kubrick forced all of the 18 knowing century, because this should be a kind of documentary. All the paintings of the time look to know that toothbrushes and condoms were used at that time. The toothbrushes and condoms were not then in the movie. Adam wanted to shoot in studios to generate this better pictures, Kubrick wanted to shoot on location only
and no artificial light use. For this first special camera lenses had to be developed. Adam was right, of course, they would hammer out the studio with less effort. Something good had the whole thing for Ken Adam yet, when he, twenty years later the production designer for The Madness of King George
was (his second Oscar), he did not need to prepare more special.
Ken Adam is a man of the studios. A sentence like:
The studio allows me to create my own reality, is certainly a kind of credo of him. Art directors and production designers are commonly in the development and evaluation of a Film taken far too little. There is a cult of stars and starlets, and some directors are famous (although perhaps less on the performance director as the cameraman or the editor is). Here, a production designer is often more power than the director and stars put together. That will come out of the studio system of the thirties, when the directors were completely irrelevant for a studio. The studio with his production designers and his
Studio Style coined the film. The idea of an auteur cinema
was completely foreign to Hollywood. It took a long time dream to directors of
The Name Above the Title (the title of the autobiography of Frank Capra) could.
Ken Adam, the first series of James Bond films marked, that is, embodied in which Sean Connery James Bond. Actually, that's still a supercooled fifties design, not design this megalomania, which was today's Bond films. We should also remember that apart from the first Bond films, films that show a more realistic picture of espionage. The templates are based on literature, but not on the fantasy world of Ian Fleming, but on the works of authors like John le Carré and Len Deighton. The design of these films is from Ken Adam. The Spy Who Came for
in From the Cold ,
The Ipcress File and Funeral in Berlin
he has created an atmosphere that the
kitchen sink realism the fifties with the bleakness of the Cold War Berlin in the early sixties combined.
world for many spectators, the Berlin did not know before and after the Wall, Berlin was the Berlin of The Spy Who Came
in From the Cold and Funeral in Berlin . Tempelhof Airport Ken Adam has not replicated in the studio (he would probably like to), Funeral in Berlin
has a number of field recordings of a real Berlin. But
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold is almost a pure studio production, which in the
Shepperton Studios near London, and the
Ardmore Studios originated in Ireland. Checkpoint Charlie Included.
Ken Adam has another side. And since he is the link between expressionism and postmodernism, between Dr. Caligari
and
Blade Runner . The underground missile facility
You Only Live Twice found - as well as in the
room was
Dr. Strangelove, the command headquarters of Dr. No and the interior of Fort Knox in
Goldfinger - Elements of German Expressionism. Here in the construction of
You Only Live Twice sees even a little off after Piranesi Carceri
.
This is left here, to illustrate the idea, a picture of Piranesi, two centuries before the films of German Expressionism. This influence Ken Adam has not denied. His older brother was friends with the son of Max Reinhardt:
The two are always gone out and took me to every now and then. I was very affected, even though I was only 12 years old. And so I learned Max Reinhardt and know many other people in the German theater. It was an incredible renaissance in Berlin in those years, whether in the theater, in art, film, literature or the Bauhaus. Above all, a film I was particularly affected: "The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari. The film was a collaboration of so many expressionist artists, which I was already very situated. Later, when I started working, I was never quite sure whether or not I for the movie but want to design for the theater. The "Cabinet of Dr.Caligari" has given me the opportunity to find a compromise between the two disciplines. If I like Fort Knox for decoration "Goldfinger" or the tanker for "The Spy Who Loved Me" designing, then this is not so reality. This is my reality, a reality almost theatrical, but applies to the public more often than the reality. For the reality can sometimes be very boring .
We do not mean that reality is sometimes very boring
is. But we eventually go to the movies. But compared to the apocalyptic visions of postmodern film
Alien to Blade Runner
,
the triumph of art direction over film direction, Ken Adam has an advance. His imaginary worlds are not created on the computer.
1999, the Victoria & Albert Museum held an exhibition, entitled
Ken Adam - Designing the Cold War had . The term Cold War Modern has now been naturalized for his style. Here in this video
the V & A he talks about his life and his work. The Queen has defeated him in 2003 for his services to the British film knighted. It is reassuring that in the world of visionary designs are still something like Ancient Knight.
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