Mr. Hitchocock, meet Mr. Dick, Mr. Burns, Mr. Eisner and, oh, yes, Mr. Gilliam, who brought us all together

I happened to be awake early Friday morning, 3 a.m. early. What was running on TV but one of my favorite movies, “12 Monkeys?”
I have not seen it all the way through since I saw it in1995 at the Cla-Zel Theater in downtown Bowling Green, Ohio. So stunning was the film’s effect on me, I had deliberately avoided seeing it in pieces because I wanted to watch it whole if I was to watch it. Since I had never happened upon it as it was starting, I never had seen it again.
Friday morning, however, about a half-hour of the movie had passed, and I decided to watch the rest, anyway. In the early morning hours, sometimes you change your mind about things.
As before, I started watching and was swept along, completely trapped by the movie, until it was over. As before, I was captivated by the skilled and unique storytelling of director Terry Gilliam.
In watching “12 Monkeys,” I was almost trapped by the movie. I wasn’t guessing along with it to see what happened. I was a passive observer, reacting to what I saw on the screen. Perhaps this is the greatest compliment that can be paid to a filmmaker.
The future world in which James Cole lives looks like a weird, run-down version of our own, which is perfectly sensible for storytelling, since, in the story, the human race nearly died out from a plague virus released in 1997. Everything the survivors had was derivative of what they had when they fled underground a few years earlier.
(The Cla-Zel was the perfect setting to watch the movie, because it was a building that had once been a beautiful place to see a movie, but by 1995 needed major restoration work. This was as close to a merger of fantasy and reality as I have ever experienced in a movie theater.)
Gilliam uses camera angles differently than any other film director, favoring bird’s-eye and worm’s eye views as well as tipped horizon shots where everything is slanted and angled. The only other common example of this technique is the “Batman” TV show in which the villains’ lairs were always shot at this skewed tilt.
Gilliam also favors the use of extremely wide-angle lenses, which produces a depth of field so clear the viewer can always see everything in the background.
These two techniques give a certain weirdness to the look of his movies, as the camera angles are so different than what the normal human eye sees. The wide angle sometimes distorts the edges of the screen, stretching them out as the action moves through.
The movie’s stunning visuals enhanced the screenwriting, by David and Janet Peoples, which tells a story that’s part science fiction, part myth, part psychological thriller and part action film. Alfred Hitchcock meets Philip K. Dick in a rotting Victorian Catholic Church, if you will.
But, you ask, “Why do I care about “12 Monkeys” now and why are you telling me this in your ever-purple prose on your silly blog 15 years later?”
In addition to yet another opportunity to extend my list of never having written anything substantial without a typo in it, I said all that to preface the following video link for the movie “La Jetee.”
Huh? What’s some French film got to do with anything?
In 1995 when I saw the “12 Monkeys,” I knew it was inspired by “La Jetee.” It says so in the opening credits.
In 1995, the Internet was rather undeveloped, and we did not have YouTube.
I never was able to see “La Jetee” to dig deeper into the origins of my favorite movies.
This time, however, a day or so after watching "12 Monkeys," YouTube smiled upon me. I even had several choices of how to see the 1962 original: in the original French; with an English narrator; or with English subtitles.
After a viewing the few different options, I decided the English subtitled version was the best You Tube could offer.
I generally like subtitles better than dubbing anyway. I find it less distracting, and you get the sense of what the movie was supposed to sound like.
So, what do I say to compare the films?
The basic plot is the same in structure, but different in execution. I see no reason to go into detail here. If you have not seen either film, I’d just as soon not spoil either by telling you what happens in the end.
“La Jetee” is short. It’s only 28 minutes. It’s a series of black-and-white still photos with a narrator telling the viewer what’s going on. It’s a still photographer artistic stream-of-consciousness dream.
It is as visually unique and compelling as “12 Monkeys,” but in a totally different way.
To compare, think about a somber, chiaroscuro Ken Burns documentary with the camera panning across photos. Or, perhaps, a black-and-white Will Eisner “Spirit” comic book, images with no movement, with a somber narrator and plodding Russian music playing in the background.
I am talking too much here. If you are still reading this, thanks. I am not even still reading this, and I am writing it. If you went right to the link, you are probably viewing something at this very moment far more interesting than what I am writing about it.