In 2014, Hooper once again traveled to the Cannes Film Festival to once again have his film screened during Director's Fortnight, this time, a much, cleaner, restored 4k print of the film for the 40th anniversary since its original release. Sadly, Perryman was not able to attend the Festival with him, as he was murdered at his home in Austin 5 years prior.
Cinematographer Daniel Pearl, however, was in attendance this time, along with other colleagues and teammates of Hooper's who worked on the picture originally in 1973.
Danish film director Nicholas Winding Refn gave Hooper a wonderful introduction to Hooper and his landmark film, being someone who holds genuine reverence for both him and the 1974 picture.
The soft spoken Hooper said a few words, speaking from the heart and showing great appreciation for the support and appreciation from the audience (and audiences, in general) for his film - his "baby" as he'd sometimes refer to it. At the end of his speech, Hooper told the audience that he loved them and that he was so overwhelmed with emotion in that moment that he thought it might make him cry, coming across as very sincere and honest in his emotions that evening.
At last, both the film, and himself as a director, were finally getting the long-deserved appreciation and accolades that had largely remained absent from critics and a good portion of film enthusiasts for the last four decades since its original release in 1974.
The film was a remarkable success, despite Bryanston having no money to show for that fact (and never producing what the filmmakers were owed, keeping the profits to themselves to this very day), but the film's status as a significant piece of art and cultural landmark as one of the great American films of the 20th century, along with the real meaning of the picture with its satirical take on sociopolitical issues of the time, wrought with heavy subtext about the moral/ethical concerns with factory farming, the economic hardships on working class Americans in rural areas in particular, the changing American landscape and cultural divide, along with a slew of other interesting pieces of social commentary hidden in the film--which was intended to be, among everything else, a black comedy, in addition to it being a horror film.
This aspect was essentially universally lost on audiences, perhaps in part due to the very shocking, visceral nature of the film and the disturbing subject matter, which was not something that film audiences had seen before in motion pictures. That, coupled with the embellished story of the tale being true, ensured that the work remained firmly in the cultural and artistic landscape, with Hooper and Henkel creating their own modern piece of American folklore like Romero before them with Night of the Living Dead (1968), which is a landmark American film and social/commentary piece in its own right, though with its satirical aspects perhaps just a tiny bit more obvious than with Chain Saw.
Hooper would double down for the film 1986 sequel by making the second Chainsaw entry an over-the-top, wacky, surreal, in-your-face comedy that at times verges on spoof or parody, with a tongue-in-cheek meta disposition and subtle attempts at breaking the fourth wall while largely lampooning 80s horror films and blockbuster comedies, abandoning the gritty realism and cinema veritie styling of the 1974 original work.
This month marks the 48th anniversary since the film's original release, October 1974. Happy birthday, Leatherface.
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