Bald: The Making of 'THX 1138'

Yes, my summary is facetious. This is the shortest of the three featurettes found on the 2-Disc George Lucas Director's Cut DVD version of THX 1138, released in 2004, with a running time of just over 8 minutes. This starts with a short interview between the maker of Star Wars and Francis Ford Coppola(in which we begin to think that this will, indeed, be a genuine "making of" production, but this impression will not last; I suppose if I had to classify this, it's a sort of experimental movie, and it's good from a technical standpoint), and at the end of it, as a non sequitor(maybe he couldn't come up with an answer, I don't know), the "father"(no, not Sean Connery) of Indiana Jones says that he has this great idea "about shaving everybody's heads". The conversation instantly degenerates(I guess this was trying to say "yes, we know this is weird", and hoping to provoke interest in it, I don't know), and it cuts to, well, a ton of footage of people having all of their hair cut off, and they either react verbally or we hear their "thoughts" dubbed over it. Oh, and one of the girls, afterwards, passes a couple of Hare Krishnas on the street. There are behind the scenes shots and clips of the film(some of them contain spoilers for it). That's... it. I'm not sure what was trying to be accomplished here, other than firsting every audience member and reviewer in pointing out that the actors are bald and that that's unusual. There is a little disturbing content in this. I recommend this to anyone who this appeals to. 6/10

This is an interesting little movie. The concept is Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, than two young up n' comers out to take on the film system, with their new company and ways of making films. George has a vision for his new movie, "THX 1138" and to get you have to one thing... make the actors look like skinheads! We see shots of the actors meeting the film people, in places like the park or a baseball game and we hear their recorded thoughts as their hair is trimmed away. The part that is really weird is when one of the actresses, now completely shaved walks past a group of Hare Krisnas on the street! Interesting to watch, it is featured as a bonus on the Director's cut DVD of THX, so you have to watch it.

Though he goes uncredited, Lucas directed his last documentary - on the making of his own film, THX-1138 - and it has a similar approach to the one he made on his friend Coppola's The Rain People, called Filmmaker. It's really brief, barely eight minutes, and is not really a making of as far as going far in depth into the artistic process. All it really is is Lucas being "interviewed" by Coppola in a staged setting about what inspired him to get into filmmaking (most tellingly for much of the rest of his career he says comic books), and then how he chose to make this future society unique in the way that it didn't exist: all the actors would shave their heads. Then we get to see that, including the actress Maggie McOmie (who played LUH in the film, the actors were possibly traumatized by it.

It could be real tears and freaking out from her and a couple others over their hair being shorn off - Duvall, who was already bald by this point, was more diplomatic about it - or it could be part of the staging. The guessing is part of what makes it interesting, and it wasn't a common thing at the time for actors to shave their heads for roles, certainly not the women, so it makes for a compelling thing to witness (a little like a precursor, however intentional, to the opening of Full Metal Jacket - dehumanization in action). I think if you're looking to this to really be in-depth then you'll be disappointed; if you want to see Lucas have some fun with some staged documentary-style sequences, including co-writer Walter Murch talking with Coppola about what the hell is going on with the hair (and also McOmie in front of what looks like a work of art), then it's... cool.