Hell’s Club

Hell’s Club is the nightspot where famous film characters go to relax. Or to start a gunfight. It’s an imaginary dance hall where the most unlikely heroes run into each other – from Blade to the T-800. Antonio Maria Da Silva (AMDS) mixes more than a dozen disco scenes, combining the exuberance of Saturday Night Fever with the taut tension of Collateral.

 

This mash-up creates a new virtual space: a cinematic night club that seems set in limbo. The different clips from very different sources are cleverly combined into a coherent whole using a variety of techniques. That most club scenes use a red color palette is helpful. Eyeline matches between actors create a sense of continuity between shots from various movies, even from various decades. AMDS also uses matting to combine shots from different films in one frame: Travolta’s Vincent Vega is looking on as Travolta’s Tony Manero shows off on the dance floor. Even though this fan edit is primarily an exercise in witty remixing, its technique also illustrates the power of (continuity) editing and the potential of VFX to create unity from chaos.

 

This is appropriation at its best. It’s creative thievery: cinematic recombination that splices together different movie’s genes into a new strand. And a funny one, at that.