Making Apes: The Artists Who Changed Film (William Conlin, 2019) USA

Reviewed by Kaio Fadul Farkouh at the 2019 SBFF

This week, the Academy of motion Arts decided to not broadcast 4 categories next Sunday,24, at the Oscar. The chosen ones were, cinematography, editing, live action short and makeup and hair. After I read about it, I could not believe this is actually happening. Cinematography, editing and makeup are of the most, if not crucial things for you to make a good and convincing film – (Updated: the Academy decided to broadcast all the 24 categories ).  I had the privilege to watch this feature at the best time, which is showing how great makeup can be, and how great it was the makeup of the movie that came out in 1968, “Planet of the Apes”, and because of its success, it created a fanbase that still have their love for the movie.

Makeup is such a crucial thing in a movie that movies like the first Dracula, Frankenstein would not have worked if it wasn’t for the makeup artist. Today we can se examples like Nosferatu, The Fly and so it the first Planet of the Apes, which the documentary do a service of showing how great the movie and the makeup was, how its success help develop makeup in Hollywood, and shows the importance of a good makeup.

20th century fox acquired the rights of this book called “Planet of the Apes”, it was a big budget for the time and very risky. So the producers knew the risk, but still wanted to do it! It turned out that the movie was a success (and still is), because of the makeup at the time. They had to create all the apes with makeup, and it was something remarkable at the time.

Makeup is such a big thing in movies, and this documentary make us sure how important it is to have a good makeup. With the time, more movies of the franchise launched, but they started using CGI, and the feature recognizes his value as well, but never let you forget how important makeup was and still is. Even though, we live in an era of technology, still are great movies who can succeed using practical effects and makeups, and this is where we see the true talents. All the hard workers who could achieve something unique for the movie, and not only visual effects, CGI.