After Life There Is More
1998
What Dreams May Come (1998)
Full Cast and Crew for
What Dreams May Come (1998)
Directed by
Vincent Ward
Writing credits (in credits order)
Richard Matheson (novel)
Ronald Bass (as Ron Bass)
Cast (in credits order) complete, awaiting verification
Robin Williams .... Chris Nielsen
Cuba Gooding Jr. .... Albert
Annabella Sciorra .... Annie Nielsen
Max von Sydow .... The Tracker
Jessica Brooks Grant .... Marie Nielsen
Josh Paddock .... Ian Nielsen
Rosalind Chao .... Leona
Lucinda Jenney .... Mrs. Jacobs
Maggie McCarthy .... Stacey Jacobs
Wilma Bonet .... Angie
Matt Salinger .... Reverend Hanley
Carin Sprague .... Best Friend Cindy
June Lomena .... Woman in Car Accident
Paul P. Card IV .... Paramedic
Werner Herzog .... Face
Clara Thomas .... Little Girl at Lake
Benjamin Brock .... Little Boy at Lake
rest of cast listed alphabetically
Scott Trimble (II) .... Funeral Guest (uncredited)
Produced by
Barnet Bain
Ronald Bass (executive)
Alan C. Blomquist (co-producer)
Stephen Deutsch (II) (as Stephen Simon)
Ted Field (executive)
Erica Huggins (executive)
Scott Kroopf (executive)
Original music by
Michael Kamen
Cinematography by
Eduardo Serra (II)
Film Editing by
David Brenner (I)
Maysie Hoy (I)
Casting
Heidi Levitt
Production Design by
Eugenio Zanetti
Art Direction
Tomas Voth (I)
Christian Wintter
Set Decoration
Cindy Carr
Costume Design by
Yvonne Blake
Makeup Department
Todd Masters .... prosthetic makeup effects
Production Management
Thomas Clary .... digital production manager: POP Film
Joe Stokes .... digital effects production manager: POP Film
Assistant Director
Charles Croughwell .... second unit director
Stephen P. Dunn .... assistant director
Christina Stauffer .... second assistant director
Sound Department
Scott Martin Gershin .... sound designer
Laura R. Harris .... dialogue editor
Michael Keller (III) .... sound re-recording mixer
David Kneupper .... supervising sound editor
Michael Meier .... cable person
Nelson Stoll .... sound mixer
Peter Michael Sullivan .... supervising sound editor
Jon Title .... sound effects editor
Special Effects
Alison Armstrong .... visual effects associate producer
Caleb Aschkynazo .... visual effects editor: P.O.P. Digital
Film Group
Cheryl Bainum .... digital visual effects producer: POP Animation
Brian Begun .... scanning and recording technician: POP Film
Wayne Billheimer .... visual effects assistant
Nicholas Brooks .... digital visual effects supervisor: Painted
World
John Cornejo .... digital compositor: Mass.Illusions
J.D. Cowles (I) .... lead compositor
Andrea D'Amico .... digital visual effects producer: POP film
Kelly Granite .... visual effects compositor
Michael Hemschoot .... digital compositor
Joel Hynek .... visual effects supervisor: Mass. Illusions
Severine Kelley .... visual effects co-ordinator
Donna Langston .... visual effects producer
Kevin Scott Mack .... visual effects supervisor
Mimi Medel .... visual effects production manager:
MASS.ILLUSIONS
Grant Niesner .... previsualization: Mass. Illusions
Stuart Robertson (II) .... visual effects supervisor: POP Film
Daniel P. Rosen .... visual effects compositor
Ellen Somers .... visual effects producer
visual effects supervisor
Mark Spatny .... visual effects production manager: POP Film
Siouxsie Stewart .... digital visual effects co-ordinator: POP
Animation
Michael Van Himbergen .... visual effects producer: Mass.
Illusions
Talmage Watson .... technical director: Mass Illusions
Stunts
Charles Croughwell .... stunt co-ordinator
Fiona Jackson (I) .... stunts
Fiona Adamo Jackson .... stunts
Darlene Ava Williams .... stunts
Other crew
Bill Abbott (II) .... music editor
Karen Ansel .... computer graphics supervisor: Mobility
Josh Bleibtreu .... director of photography: Venezuela
Lisa M. Bock .... set production assistant
Alan Boucek .... digital compositor: Mass Illusion
Brent Brooks .... music editor
Evan Cecil .... wardrobe assistant
Bundy Chanock .... set medic
Keith Collea .... video assist-keyer: green screen unit
Chad E. Collier .... technical assistant: Digital Domain
Jeffrey Diamond .... business affairs: Mass. Illusions
Jim Dultz .... supervising art director
Deak Ferrand .... matte artist: POP Animation
Alicia Gargaro .... assistant to producers
Rocco Gioffre .... matte artist: POP Animation
Mitch Goldstrom .... system admistrator: Digital Domain
Scott Gordon (I) .... computer graphics supervisor: Mass
Illusions
Robert Grahamjones .... assistant editor
Jon Guterres .... key grip
Brian Hanable .... digital effects compositor
Alan Jacques .... projectionist
John Joyce (IV) .... lead model maker: Cinema Production
Services
Michael Joyce (I) .... model shop supervisor: Cinema Production
Services
Jeffrey Kalmus .... color grading supervisor
Daryl B. Kell .... music editor
Erin Kemp .... set designer
Sherman Labby .... production illustrator
Donna Langston .... visual effects producer
Aric Lasher .... set designer
Kevin Le Blanc .... set production assistant
Jacques Levesque .... digital compositor: POP Animation
Seth Lippman .... computer graphics animator
Kenneth Littleton .... digital effects supervisor: POP Film
Lawrence Littleton .... digital effects supervisor: POP Film
Alicia Maccarone .... set designer
Kevin Scott Mack .... visual effects supervisor
Martha Snow Mack .... matte painting supervisor: Digital Domain
Laura McDermott .... digital effects co-ordinator
Brandon McNaughton .... digital effects compositor
Matt V. Messina .... office production assistant
Richard Michalak .... camera operator: second unit
Monika Mikkelsen .... casting associate
Robert Minsk .... software engineer: ShadowCaster consulting
for MassIllusion
Jasa Murphy .... set production assistant
Howie Muzika .... lead rotoscope artist: Digital Domain
Mark Nettleton .... compositing supervisor: Mass. Illusions
Kris Nicolau .... additional casting
Mike O'Neal (II) .... digital artist: Digital Domain
Tom Pace (II) .... assistant to director
Robert L. Peden .... scenic artist
Dan Piponi .... software developer
Darren Poe .... digital artist
Bobby Powell .... rigging gaffer
John Rauh .... digital effects compositor
Karen Reinhart .... dga trainee
Tom Richardson .... scenic artist
Mark Sachse .... digital services technician: CIS Hollywood
Greg Shimp .... digital imaging operator
Rebecca Erwin Spencer .... assistant to Mr. Williams
Maureen Stanton-Leveque .... assistant production co-ordinator
Jake Strelow .... set designer
Dawn Swiderski .... set designer
Michael J. Talarczyk .... systems administrator
Peter G. Travers .... computer graphics supervisor
Sarma Vanguri .... computer animator: Mass Illusions
Grant Viklund .... digital technical assistant
Carey Villegas .... digital compositing supervisor: Digital Domain
Bob Wiatr .... digital effects compositor
Vernon R. Wilbert Jr. .... digital artist
Steven J. Winslow .... assistant camera: Wescam camera
camera technician
Ami Zins .... film commissioner: Oakland
Paolo deGuzman .... digital matte painter
WHAT DREAMS MAY COME
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1998 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
If you've always been curious about exactly what heaven and hell look
like, WHAT DREAMS MAY COME offers some intriguing suggestions. In
director Vincent Ward's long cinematic sermon on the advantages of a
moral life, the movie depicts heaven as a happy, colorful landscape
painting and hell as an eerie, gray, Holocaust graveyard overflowing
with talking heads.
The rarely subtle film shows two dead children from inside their coffins
during the opening credits. They have died in a car accident, and their
father will shortly die in another, leaving their mother to grieve for
them all back on earth. Although four years elapse between the two car
accidents, the movie dispenses with them quickly so that it can get to
the heavenly beyond.
The father, Chris Nielsen, is a doctor played by Robin Williams.
Annabella Sciorra plays his wife and "soul mate," an artist named Annie.
Both are deeply scarred characters who share their troubles with us in
almost every scene. If the movie were involving, it could have been the
downer of the year. Instead, it stays at the level of visual technical
achievements with the figures in it about as real as those in art
gallery paintings -- lovely to look at, but nothing to get concerned
over.
Cuba Gooding, Jr., first seen only as a blur, plays Albert, Chris's
guide into heaven. Gooding, like the rest of the fine actors, is largely
wasted in a movie that works only at an ethereal level. The magical film
is artistically surreal but only sporadically realistic.
The script by Ronald Bass, based on Richard Matheson's novel, could have
used a little more levity and should have given the characters some
credible depth. "I screwed up," Chris says when he sees his dog in
heaven. "I'm in dog heaven." This delightfully natural humor is
regretfully absent in most of the movie.
The story's pop messages include such trite ones as, "Good people end up
in hell because they can't forgive themselves." (Okay now, let's all
forgive ourselves so we will get to pass through the pearly gates
successfully. Whew, that's a collective load off our shoulders.)
Once in heaven, Chris is amazed to find that he has walked into one of
his wife's paintings. The film shows us a heaven that is a blend of the
nineteenth-century landscape paintings of Turner and Cole mixed with
impressionistic touches. Not only is it gorgeous, the paint isn't even
dry yet. As though in a heavenly version of WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE
FACTORY, Chris gets to sample the paintings by running through them and
squeezing the flowers in his palms as the paint squirts out. These
dazzling images are among the loveliest and most innovative Hollywood
has created in years. With Michael Kamen's dramatic music and Yvonne
Blake's sumptuous costumes for the afterlife, the film works best when
viewed as grand opera as illustrator Maxfield Parrish might have staged
it.
In the tradition of life-after-death pictures, Chris goes back in an
attempt to console his wife on earth. Rather than giving her peace,
these unseen visits increase her depression. Eventually she will die
too, but, through a kind of legal snafu, she ends up in hell. Moral
rules, it seems, are filled with fine print. The body of the movie has
Max von Sydow, as a mysterious character called The Tracker, leading
Chris on a journey into hell to help Chris find his beloved Annie.
A movie filled with absolutely stunning imagery, it is strangely cold
and unengaging despite all its beauty. Still, the pedantic script's
tedium is more than offset by the handsomeness of the production. WHAT
DREAMS MAY COME is a feast for the eyes even if not a particularly
filling meal for the mind.
WHAT DREAMS MAY COME runs 1:48. It is rated PG-13 for thematic elements
involving death, some disturbing images, profanity including the F-word
and brief nudity. The film would be fine for teenagers.
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Web: www.InternetReviews.com
Have I Seen This Movie: Yes
And What Did I Think?: What Dreams May Come is a wonderful movie
filled with stunning visual effects of the after life. Be sure to
watch this with someone you love. Robin Williams gives a great
performance as the lead character in a serious role for him. You
will laugh and cry from both sadness and happiness. The whole
story is rather tragic. A husband and wife lose both their children
in a car crash, 4 years later the husband dies, and the wife commits
suicide shortly after. The wife goes to hell for taking her life,
and the husband, who is in heaven must travel to hell to rescue
her. At least the ending is happy: Both soulmates come together
in heaven and are reunited with their children. They decide to be
reincarnated and meet again as children. Cuba Gooding and Max Von
Sydow have great co-starring roles as well. Besides, the wonderful
story, the visual effects were beautiful as well , especially the
paradise Chris goes to, and the living painting that he is in.
An Oscar was won for the effects as well. If movies about what
happens to us after we die appeal to you, then you definately
need to see this movie.
I give What Dreams May Come 4 out of 5 stars.
Review written June 18, 1999
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