Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, from the movie Yellow Submarine
Yellow Submarine
When: May 10, 12 & 17
Where:
The BelcourtI’m willing to bet that a lot of Scene readers are like me: They’ve spent their lives so immersed in The Beatles’ catalog and lore that they reflexively know way more about the band than they really want to. So I’m going to skip over all the Beatle-centric core of Yellow Submarine and get to the good stuff: This is one of the best art films to come out of the 1960s. Art director Heinz Edelmann, who also designed a killer cover for a German edition of The Lord of the Rings in a similar style, set the standard for designers like Peter Max and Milton Glaser, and Terry Gilliam’s animation would arguably not exist if not for Edelmann’s influence.
Yellow Submarine was released in 1968 to commercial and critical acclaim, but it’s now out of print. The version that will be screening at The Belcourt is a recent digital restoration, and due to the delicate nature of the hand-drawn original artwork, no automated software was used in the digital clean-up of the film’s restored photochemical elements. This was all done by hand, frame by frame. Beatles fans won’t need a reason to get to this showing, and neither should fans of psychedelic, modish, brilliantly designed animation.
After the jump, scroll through Edelmann's other art, as well as a few works that show his expansive influence.
