Things to Come
Science fiction pushes the boundaries, explores the improbable, and envisions the future of humanity. It also exposes us to extravagant visual effects and the inventive power of cinema, reflecting our deepest fantasies. In cinema, science fiction is immersive, creating worlds suddenly within our reach. This summer, over one hundred films from the history of cinema will allow us to witness this!
Scripted by H. G. Wells and partly based on his novel The Shape of Things to Come, this film foresees the Second World War, setting it in 1936. The fictional town of Everytown is devastated, and we follow its reconstruction through a series of bewildering technological and political upheavals over the decades, right up to the year 2036.
William Cameron Menzies
William Cameron Menzies was an American film production designer (a job title he invented) and art director as well as a film director and producer during a career spanning five decades. He began his career during the silent era, and later pioneered the use of color in film for dramatic effect. Menzies joined Famous Players–Lasky, later to evolve into Paramount Pictures, working in special effects and design. He soon worked on such films as Robin Hood (1922), The Thief of Bagdad (1924), The Bat (1926), and Sadie Thompson (1928). His contributions to The Dove (1927), as well as Tempest (1928) led to him receiving the first Academy Award for Best Production Design. His work on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938) prompted David O. Selznick to hire him for Gone with the Wind (1939), for which he won an Academy Honorary Award "for outstanding achievement in the use of color for the enhancement of dramatic mood". In addition, Menzies directed dramas and fantasy films. He made two science-fiction films: Things to Come (1936), based on a novel by H.G. Wells, which predicted war and technical advancement; and Invaders from Mars (1953), which mirrored many fears about aliens and outside threats to humanity in the 1950s.
