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A matte painting hand-painted by Rocco Gioffre during the production of Renny Harlin's Cliffhanger. While the film was largely shot in real mountains in the Dolomites of Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, certain sequences required the use of matte paintings to extend the frozen mountain scenery around composited-in actors. This matte painting was made under the supervision of matte department supervisor Michele Moen for the production, but ultimately unseen in the final cut. While unseen in film, a photograph of Gioffre painting the matte can be found in Cinefex issue 54 on page 42.

Celebrated matte painter Rocco Gioffre's career has spanned nearly 50 years, starting with his work as an assistant matte artist on Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and continuing on through cinema classics including Robert Wise's Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Joe Dante's Gremlins, and Paul Verhoeven's Robocop into more recent films such as Damien Chazelle's Academy Award®-winning La La Land. He and Moen also collaborated on the matte work for such beloved films as The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and I Am Legend.

This lot comes from the personal archive of Richard Edlund, visual effects artist and founding member of Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). Hand-painted on gray masonite, this matte painting depicts an icy mountain ravine with a distant walkway stretching over the river below. One section has been painted black, which is where separately-filmed footage would have been composited in the finished shot. It exhibits some stray paint marks, wear along the edge of the masonite board, and an adhered piece of tape in the top-left corner. Dimensions: 80" x 38" x 0.5" (203.25 cm x 96.75 cm x 1.5 cm)

Sold without copyright; see notice in the Buyer's Guide.

Special shipping required; see notice in the Buyer's Guide.

Estimate: $2,000 - 4,000

View all lots from CLIFFHANGER (1993)