I received the new revised edition of Kim Newman's NIGHTMARE MOVIES in today's mail and have been spending a marvelous time with it. I rarely get excited about review books arriving in the mail; I hope they will excite me in due course. But this book stands out almost immediately for the quality of its writing, more particularly the quality of its insight, and as the most challenging thing for any creative mind to achieve: a masterpiece of organization. He also knows exactly what needs to be said in a short space and how each film dovetails to another by the same director or a different director working with similar themes, and delivers one knock-out punch after another. I've only pecked through it at random, but it has already shone light into some dim corners for me, showing me that I hadn't been thinking about some titles with the depth they deserved. I would be surprised if a more important book about horror movies was published this year.
Friday, April 08, 2011
Quick Note on NIGHTMARE MOVIES
I received the new revised edition of Kim Newman's NIGHTMARE MOVIES in today's mail and have been spending a marvelous time with it. I rarely get excited about review books arriving in the mail; I hope they will excite me in due course. But this book stands out almost immediately for the quality of its writing, more particularly the quality of its insight, and as the most challenging thing for any creative mind to achieve: a masterpiece of organization. He also knows exactly what needs to be said in a short space and how each film dovetails to another by the same director or a different director working with similar themes, and delivers one knock-out punch after another. I've only pecked through it at random, but it has already shone light into some dim corners for me, showing me that I hadn't been thinking about some titles with the depth they deserved. I would be surprised if a more important book about horror movies was published this year.
Friday, April 01, 2011
First Look: VIDEO WATCHDOG #162
Here's your first peek at the cover of the next issue of VIDEO WATCHDOG, now at the printer! For additional details and a free four-page preview, visit the Coming Soon page on our website.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Gotcha, Mary Kay!
Two nights ago, I was seized by a strong desire to see Peter Bogdanovich's WHAT'S UP, DOC? (1972) again. I hadn't seen it since it played in theaters, and I remembered it as being very funny. I'm pleased to say the film holds up very well, it's still very funny, but it's most enjoyable for assembling a remarkable cast -- so many great character actors, ranging from Austin Pendleton, Kenneth Mars (who in fact died the day I watched it), Michael Murphy (whose screen energy, in a part mostly without dialogue, snaps the film to life at once), Randy Quaid, M. Emmet Walsh, an uncredited John Byner, John Hillerman (who seemed to be in everything that came out of Hollywood in the early '70s)... the list goes on and on, and the film also "introduces" Madeleine Kahn, who arguably steals the film from its stars, Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal -- both, in my opinion, uncommonly charismatic here.When the film reaches its courtroom finale, I noticed Liam Dunn as the hypochondriac judge and Graham Jarvis as his bailiff. Donna recognized the bailiff but couldn't place him, so I explained that Graham Jarvis had been featured in one of her favorite shows of the 1970s -- MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN -- as Charlie Haggers, doting stage husband of would-be country-western star Loretta Haggers, who was played by then-newcomer Mary Kay Place.
As soon as my mouth invoked her name, I was startled to see a young, still-undiscovered Mary Kay Place walking onscreen to deposit two of the film's plaid carrying cases on the judge's bench!
The IMDb has no record of Mary Kay's presence in the film, as they do with John Byner's uncredited appearance, but there she is, right up front, plain as day. The IMDb lists a 1973 episode of ALL IN THE FAMILY, like MARY HARTMAN a Norman Lear production, as her first onscreen acting appearance.
Graham Jarvis passed away in 2003, but Mary Kay Place continues to make welcome appearances in film and television, currently holding down a primary supporting role in HBO'S BIG LOVE. I've got to wonder if she and Graham had the same agent or something, or if they were even conscious of having worked together in this earlier project when they were subsequently cast as "baby boy" and wife.Anyway, a discovery worth sharing with the rest of the world.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
100 Years of Fantômas: The Early Novels
Uncredited cover art for FANTOMAS LE NUOVE AVVENTURE,
a recent Italian publication.
FANTOMAS exploded in the heart of pre-WWI France like a bomb flung from an opera gloved hand. It was the first of 32 novels of terror written by Souvestre and Allain, all paperback originals published monthly between February 1911 and September 1913. Each volume carried the distinctive "Fantômas" logo and a chilling cover painting by Gino Starace─a severed hand clutching a roulette wheel, a nurse screaming in a room splashed with blood, a man disposing of someone's head from a hatbox─establishing their paternal ties to the American crime pulps of the 1930s and '40s. Unlike the 80-page "novels" promised on the covers of The Shadow, each new Fantômas novel was as thick as cake─actually Dickensian in its accumulation
of character and incident─and the French public reached for their pocket knives to cut its signatures with ravenous appetite.
For some reason, the Fantômas novels have been absorbed into the genre of mystery and detection, rather than into the horror genre where they truly belong. As Geoffrey O'Brien observed, "Fantômas is not a puzzle, but an intoxicant." The Starace painting on the cover of Fantômas shows the title character─"The Genius of Crime" (a phrase which Sax Rohmer would appropriate for his Dr. Fu Manchu)─in tie and tails with a black mask and glinting dagger, straddling the whole of Paris. Larger than life, he is seemingly beyond arrest, a Reign of Terror incarnate, but Inspector Juve refuses to accept this. Fantômas may seem a fantastic enlargement of earlier French literary figures such as Rocambôle and Arsène Lupin─those archetypes of "the gentleman thief"─yet the book's true villain of the piece turns out to be a very clever and tangible murderer named Gurn, whom Juve merely suspects of being Fantômas.
What elevates Fantômas to greatness, in my estimation, is that nowhere do Souvestre and Allain explicitly confirm or deny Juve's suspicions.
As the book opens, Juve summons Fantômas into being by speaking his name aloud:
"Fantômas!"
"What did you say?"
"I said: Fantômas!"
"And what does that mean?"
"Nothing... everything!"
"But what is it?"
"No one... and yet, yes, it is someone!"
"And what does this someone do?"
"Spreads terror!"
Did Fantômas exist before this moment?
Remarkably, everything that we learn about this arch-criminal originates with Juve, who holds Fantômas personally accountable for all that thwarts or vexes him. If crime lends meaning to the life of a policeman, might Fantômas be the inverse projection of a detective with a gargantuan ego? Lending credence to this interpretation is that Juve's own colleagues scoff at his belief in
this mythical Fantômas. However, as the book continues, as we repeatedly encounter characters on both sides inhabiting different disguises, Juve's paranoia slowly infects us. The more colorfully a new incidental character is described, the more heavily the stage make-up is trowelled-on, so to speak, the more we delight in sussing out whether they are in fact Fantômas, Juve, or the very person they claim to be.
Throughout the novel, one encounters characters on both sides inhabiting different guises, their ages ranging anywhere from the thirtyish Gurn to M. Etienne Rambert, who is described as twice as old. To Juve, they are all potentially Fantômas. His viewpoint slowly infects the reader, whose appetite is whetted for fantastic intrigue; the more colorfully a new incidental character is described by the authors, as they trowel on the makeup so to speak, the more the reader delights in anticipating whether they will turn out to be Juve, Fantômas, or perhaps merely the person they appear to be, as occurs with one of the book's most outlandish figures, the waggish vagrant Bouzille.
As the mystery deepens, one begins to suspect that Juve himself is Fantômas. In the course of his quixotic investigation, Juve shows himself an equal master of disguise, and when he aids and abets Charles Rambert─a young man wanted for the murder of the novel's first victim─Juve reveals himself as someone who places his personal needs and instincts above the requirements of law. Sensing a kindred spirit in this innocent fugitive, he bestows on him the new identity of "Jérôme Fandor," an alias chosen because it "sounds something like Fantômas." Thus, Juve unwittingly confesses a sense of enchantment with his foe, a dichotomy reflected elsewhere in the character of Lady Beltham, the lover and chief accomplice of Fantômas who is also the widow of a man he murdered.
In the next book JUVE CONTRE FANTOMAS, the authors persist in teasing us with the question of whether Fantômas truly exists─until the final chapter. In a perfunctory finale (at least as represented by the English translation), a figure in black is explicitly identified as Fantômas. The mystery comes to an end, but what arises in its place is one of the most seminal characters in the annals of horror fiction, comparable to Bram Stoker's Dracula in the sheer number and variety of its offspring. Notable examples include Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu, Angela & Luciana Giussani's Diabolik, Grant Morrison's Fantomex, and that quirky Australian imitation of Clarence W. Martin, Ubique─The Scientific Bushranger.
The end of the first Fantômas cycle coincided with the onset of World War I. Pierre Souvestre─the series' prime mover─died in 1914 at the age of 40, less than one year into his military service. Marcel Allain revived the character in 1925 with a series of 34 sixteen-page magazine stories, later collected in five additional books. (A few more followed.) Though Allain's works aren't the equal of those he wrote with Souvestre, all five were translated for the English market─which can be said of only a paltry seven titles from the classic run. Of those seven, Book Three, LE MORT QUI TUE (US/UK: MESSENGERS OF EVIL, 1917), is outstanding, with Fantômas committing murders while wearing the skin of a dead man's hands for gloves, and L'AGENT SECRET (US/UK: A NEST OF SPIES, 1917), the fourth, is arguably the smoking gun behind Fritz Lang's SPIONE (US: SPIES, 1928), James Bond, and all the spy entertainment we enjoy to this day.
FANTOMAS exists in a few different English translations. The earliest, published in 1915 and credited to Jules Verne's translator Cranstoun Metcalfe, is the preferred and most complete text. The uncredited William Morrow translation (1986) is expurgated and rather too modernistic in flavor. There also exists a Mayflower Dell (UK) paperback original, published in 1966 under the bizarre title A MAD WOMAN'S PLOT. This lively, somewhat condensed translation was the work of Raymond Rudorff, who also translated Ornella Volta's novel THE VAMPIRE (1970) and whose own books include STUDIES IN FEROCITY: A BOOK OF HUMAN MONSTERS (1969) and THE DRACULA LEGEND (1972).
JUVE CONTRE FANTOMAS (March 1911)
One hundred years ago today, the criminal genius known as Fantômas was first released into the world in the form of a fat paperback novel printed on uncut pulp paper. Written by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain, it sent shock waves throughout popular culture which resonated in literature (with numerous knock-offs), silent films (the Feuillade serial adaptations, but also notably F.W. Murnau's FAUST, which quoted Gino Starace's striking cover painting), and which still resonate today. One of these still-rumbling shock waves we now know as the Anti-Hero.
To acknowledge this important date, I decided to reprint here my essay on the original Souvestre-Allain novel, which first appeared in HORROR: ANOTHER 100 BEST BOOKS (Running Press, 2005), edited by Stephen Jones & Kim Newman. I have done this, but further browsing through my computer files unearthed a forgotten folder containing notes from my readings of the second and fourth novels of the long-running series in English translation, which I began compiling for some forgotten and unfulfilled purpose back in 2001. So I have also included these, with my apologies for overlooking the third, LE MORT QUI TUE (US: MESSENGERS OF EVIL), which was actually my favorite of those first four -- and my heartiest centenary wishes for the Lord of Terror.
FANTOMAS (February 1911)
US: FANTOMAS (1915)
To acknowledge this important date, I decided to reprint here my essay on the original Souvestre-Allain novel, which first appeared in HORROR: ANOTHER 100 BEST BOOKS (Running Press, 2005), edited by Stephen Jones & Kim Newman. I have done this, but further browsing through my computer files unearthed a forgotten folder containing notes from my readings of the second and fourth novels of the long-running series in English translation, which I began compiling for some forgotten and unfulfilled purpose back in 2001. So I have also included these, with my apologies for overlooking the third, LE MORT QUI TUE (US: MESSENGERS OF EVIL), which was actually my favorite of those first four -- and my heartiest centenary wishes for the Lord of Terror.
FANTOMAS (February 1911)
US: FANTOMAS (1915)
UK: A MAD WOMAN'S PLOT (1966)
US: FANTOMAS (1986)
FANTOMAS exploded in the heart of pre-WWI France like a bomb flung from an opera gloved hand. It was the first of 32 novels of terror written by Souvestre and Allain, all paperback originals published monthly between February 1911 and September 1913. Each volume carried the distinctive "Fantômas" logo and a chilling cover painting by Gino Starace─a severed hand clutching a roulette wheel, a nurse screaming in a room splashed with blood, a man disposing of someone's head from a hatbox─establishing their paternal ties to the American crime pulps of the 1930s and '40s. Unlike the 80-page "novels" promised on the covers of The Shadow, each new Fantômas novel was as thick as cake─actually Dickensian in its accumulation
of character and incident─and the French public reached for their pocket knives to cut its signatures with ravenous appetite.
For some reason, the Fantômas novels have been absorbed into the genre of mystery and detection, rather than into the horror genre where they truly belong. As Geoffrey O'Brien observed, "Fantômas is not a puzzle, but an intoxicant." The Starace painting on the cover of Fantômas shows the title character─"The Genius of Crime" (a phrase which Sax Rohmer would appropriate for his Dr. Fu Manchu)─in tie and tails with a black mask and glinting dagger, straddling the whole of Paris. Larger than life, he is seemingly beyond arrest, a Reign of Terror incarnate, but Inspector Juve refuses to accept this. Fantômas may seem a fantastic enlargement of earlier French literary figures such as Rocambôle and Arsène Lupin─those archetypes of "the gentleman thief"─yet the book's true villain of the piece turns out to be a very clever and tangible murderer named Gurn, whom Juve merely suspects of being Fantômas.
What elevates Fantômas to greatness, in my estimation, is that nowhere do Souvestre and Allain explicitly confirm or deny Juve's suspicions.
As the book opens, Juve summons Fantômas into being by speaking his name aloud:
"Fantômas!"
"What did you say?"
"I said: Fantômas!"
"And what does that mean?"
"Nothing... everything!"
"But what is it?"
"No one... and yet, yes, it is someone!"
"And what does this someone do?"
"Spreads terror!"
Did Fantômas exist before this moment?
Remarkably, everything that we learn about this arch-criminal originates with Juve, who holds Fantômas personally accountable for all that thwarts or vexes him. If crime lends meaning to the life of a policeman, might Fantômas be the inverse projection of a detective with a gargantuan ego? Lending credence to this interpretation is that Juve's own colleagues scoff at his belief in
this mythical Fantômas. However, as the book continues, as we repeatedly encounter characters on both sides inhabiting different disguises, Juve's paranoia slowly infects us. The more colorfully a new incidental character is described, the more heavily the stage make-up is trowelled-on, so to speak, the more we delight in sussing out whether they are in fact Fantômas, Juve, or the very person they claim to be.
Throughout the novel, one encounters characters on both sides inhabiting different guises, their ages ranging anywhere from the thirtyish Gurn to M. Etienne Rambert, who is described as twice as old. To Juve, they are all potentially Fantômas. His viewpoint slowly infects the reader, whose appetite is whetted for fantastic intrigue; the more colorfully a new incidental character is described by the authors, as they trowel on the makeup so to speak, the more the reader delights in anticipating whether they will turn out to be Juve, Fantômas, or perhaps merely the person they appear to be, as occurs with one of the book's most outlandish figures, the waggish vagrant Bouzille.
As the mystery deepens, one begins to suspect that Juve himself is Fantômas. In the course of his quixotic investigation, Juve shows himself an equal master of disguise, and when he aids and abets Charles Rambert─a young man wanted for the murder of the novel's first victim─Juve reveals himself as someone who places his personal needs and instincts above the requirements of law. Sensing a kindred spirit in this innocent fugitive, he bestows on him the new identity of "Jérôme Fandor," an alias chosen because it "sounds something like Fantômas." Thus, Juve unwittingly confesses a sense of enchantment with his foe, a dichotomy reflected elsewhere in the character of Lady Beltham, the lover and chief accomplice of Fantômas who is also the widow of a man he murdered.
In the next book JUVE CONTRE FANTOMAS, the authors persist in teasing us with the question of whether Fantômas truly exists─until the final chapter. In a perfunctory finale (at least as represented by the English translation), a figure in black is explicitly identified as Fantômas. The mystery comes to an end, but what arises in its place is one of the most seminal characters in the annals of horror fiction, comparable to Bram Stoker's Dracula in the sheer number and variety of its offspring. Notable examples include Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu, Angela & Luciana Giussani's Diabolik, Grant Morrison's Fantomex, and that quirky Australian imitation of Clarence W. Martin, Ubique─The Scientific Bushranger.
The end of the first Fantômas cycle coincided with the onset of World War I. Pierre Souvestre─the series' prime mover─died in 1914 at the age of 40, less than one year into his military service. Marcel Allain revived the character in 1925 with a series of 34 sixteen-page magazine stories, later collected in five additional books. (A few more followed.) Though Allain's works aren't the equal of those he wrote with Souvestre, all five were translated for the English market─which can be said of only a paltry seven titles from the classic run. Of those seven, Book Three, LE MORT QUI TUE (US/UK: MESSENGERS OF EVIL, 1917), is outstanding, with Fantômas committing murders while wearing the skin of a dead man's hands for gloves, and L'AGENT SECRET (US/UK: A NEST OF SPIES, 1917), the fourth, is arguably the smoking gun behind Fritz Lang's SPIONE (US: SPIES, 1928), James Bond, and all the spy entertainment we enjoy to this day.
FANTOMAS exists in a few different English translations. The earliest, published in 1915 and credited to Jules Verne's translator Cranstoun Metcalfe, is the preferred and most complete text. The uncredited William Morrow translation (1986) is expurgated and rather too modernistic in flavor. There also exists a Mayflower Dell (UK) paperback original, published in 1966 under the bizarre title A MAD WOMAN'S PLOT. This lively, somewhat condensed translation was the work of Raymond Rudorff, who also translated Ornella Volta's novel THE VAMPIRE (1970) and whose own books include STUDIES IN FEROCITY: A BOOK OF HUMAN MONSTERS (1969) and THE DRACULA LEGEND (1972).
JUVE CONTRE FANTOMAS (March 1911)
US: THE EXPLOITS OF JUVE (1916)
and THE SILENT EXECUTIONER (1987)
A shorter but more focused and energetic book than the first, JUVE CONTRE FANTOMAS finds Souvestre & Allain defining their niche,while at the same time conforming somewhat to popular expectations.
While the first novel was more rambling and picaresque─even padded with character and incident, to an extent─the second is more streamlined, introducing fewer diversions from its central narrative. It is possible that the cinema was an influence; though Louis Feuillade was still a couple of years away from adapting FANTOMAS for the screen, the second novel contains an amusing episode in which Fantômas manipulates Juve into disrupting the filming of a scene for a silent movie and actually grappling with, and shooting, the hapless actor whom he believes to be his arch-nemesis. Also, the first novel had been a cause célèbre, and the authors certainly heard from their public what they liked most about it, and what they would like to see happen in future installments, much as happened to Charles Dickens before them.
Though the publications of the first two novels were separated by only one month, the events of THE EXPLOITS OF JUVE take place three years after the those of the first volume -- at least they do in this English translation, which did follow the first translated novel at a comparable distance.
Perhaps the most surprising episode of THE EXPLOITS OF JUVE reveals it to be a possible inspiration for one of the great future classics of mystery fiction and film. In Chapter XXIX, "Through the Window," Juve poses as a wheelchair-bound paraplegic and takes an apartment adjacent to that of Josephine, keeping an eye on her activities by using a special pair of binoculars that allow him to see what is happening at an angle opposite the direction in which he appears to be looking. One night, he spies on her and sees her reacting in horror to an unseen intruder. Looking on in horror, torn between his desire to see what will happen and not wishing to destroy his cover by racing to her aid past the concièrge downstairs, Juve waits too long and stands helpless as Josephine is flung from her window. Awakening to his greater responsibility, he races to her side, but it is too late to save her. The parallels to Cornell Woolrich's REAR WINDOW, and more particularly Alfred Hitchcock's film of it, are impossible to overlook.
Another influential touch is the rather daring conceit, for its time, of having Lady Beltham pose as the Mother Superior of the Convent at Nogent. As the novel series continued, one of the most famous Starace covers (for LE CERCUILE VIDE) depicted Juve and Fantômas, both garbed as nuns and firing pistols at one another! When Georges Franju directed a sound remake of Louis Feuillade's JUDEX in 1963, he included an hommage to JUVE CONTRE FANTOMAS by having the villainous Diana Monti (Francine Bergé) disguise herself as a nun, who is shown performing devilish acts of kidnapping and murder in her sacred habit before peeling it away from a sinful-
looking, skin-tight, danceskin prior to making an escape by water. (In the original silent Judex serial, which was Feuillade's circumspect apology for the glamorized villainy of his Fantômas chapterplays, Monti─played by Musidora─posed as a schoolteacher rather than as a nun.)
In this book, Souvestre and Allain continue to tease the reader with the question of whether or not Fantômas exists until the final chapter. It is here, in a short and somewhat perfunctory finale, that someone─a figure in a black mask and cape─is specifically addressed in the third person as Fantômas for the first time. The revelation has the distinct feel of a curiously abrupt change of plan. Just a few chapters before this, when Gurn appears before Lady Beltham in his guise as Dr. Chaleck, the villain responds coyly to her point-blank question, "Tell me, are you not, yourself─Fantômas?"
Chaleck freed himself gently, for Lady Beltham had wound her arms around his neck.
Though the publications of the first two novels were separated by only one month, the events of THE EXPLOITS OF JUVE take place three years after the those of the first volume -- at least they do in this English translation, which did follow the first translated novel at a comparable distance.
Perhaps the most surprising episode of THE EXPLOITS OF JUVE reveals it to be a possible inspiration for one of the great future classics of mystery fiction and film. In Chapter XXIX, "Through the Window," Juve poses as a wheelchair-bound paraplegic and takes an apartment adjacent to that of Josephine, keeping an eye on her activities by using a special pair of binoculars that allow him to see what is happening at an angle opposite the direction in which he appears to be looking. One night, he spies on her and sees her reacting in horror to an unseen intruder. Looking on in horror, torn between his desire to see what will happen and not wishing to destroy his cover by racing to her aid past the concièrge downstairs, Juve waits too long and stands helpless as Josephine is flung from her window. Awakening to his greater responsibility, he races to her side, but it is too late to save her. The parallels to Cornell Woolrich's REAR WINDOW, and more particularly Alfred Hitchcock's film of it, are impossible to overlook.
Another influential touch is the rather daring conceit, for its time, of having Lady Beltham pose as the Mother Superior of the Convent at Nogent. As the novel series continued, one of the most famous Starace covers (for LE CERCUILE VIDE) depicted Juve and Fantômas, both garbed as nuns and firing pistols at one another! When Georges Franju directed a sound remake of Louis Feuillade's JUDEX in 1963, he included an hommage to JUVE CONTRE FANTOMAS by having the villainous Diana Monti (Francine Bergé) disguise herself as a nun, who is shown performing devilish acts of kidnapping and murder in her sacred habit before peeling it away from a sinful-
looking, skin-tight, danceskin prior to making an escape by water. (In the original silent Judex serial, which was Feuillade's circumspect apology for the glamorized villainy of his Fantômas chapterplays, Monti─played by Musidora─posed as a schoolteacher rather than as a nun.)
In this book, Souvestre and Allain continue to tease the reader with the question of whether or not Fantômas exists until the final chapter. It is here, in a short and somewhat perfunctory finale, that someone─a figure in a black mask and cape─is specifically addressed in the third person as Fantômas for the first time. The revelation has the distinct feel of a curiously abrupt change of plan. Just a few chapters before this, when Gurn appears before Lady Beltham in his guise as Dr. Chaleck, the villain responds coyly to her point-blank question, "Tell me, are you not, yourself─Fantômas?"
Chaleck freed himself gently, for Lady Beltham had wound her arms around his neck.
"I know nothing. I am merely the lover who loves you." (p. 263)
And later, after speaking of their future plans, Lady Beltham asks her beloved:
"And Fantômas? What will become of him? Of you?"
"Have I told you that I was Fantômas?" (p. 264)
Two chapters later, Lady Beltham─in her guise as the Mother Superior at the Convent at Nogent─hears a voice summon her by name:
At the sound of this voice, Lady Beltham fancied she recognized her lover.
And later, after speaking of their future plans, Lady Beltham asks her beloved:
"And Fantômas? What will become of him? Of you?"
"Have I told you that I was Fantômas?" (p. 264)
Two chapters later, Lady Beltham─in her guise as the Mother Superior at the Convent at Nogent─hears a voice summon her by name:
At the sound of this voice, Lady Beltham fancied she recognized her lover.
"What do you want? What are you doing? It is madness!"
"Nothing is madness in Fantômas!" (pp. 283-4)
The voice compels her to leave by order of Fantômas, and when she balks at this command, it reminds her, "Were you not ready to leave everything, Lady Beltham, to make a new life for yourself with... him you love?"
The careful phrasing, and the absence of a visual image, create a most ephemeral impression; it might be Gurn, but if it were Gurn, why does he not show himself? The answer might be that Gurn has recognized that Lady Beltham is not so much in love with him as in love with the possibility that he may be the larger-than-life Fantômas. He teases and lures her with the possibility into doing as he wishes, always suggesting the possibility of an alter ego, but never confessing. Considering the myriad disguises and ruses employed by Juve throughout the two novels, one may susceptibly interpret this caginess as a police trick to ensnare Lady Beltham, but as the book hastens to its cliffhanger finale, the ambiguity so key to the initial charm of the series is sacrificed.
"Nothing is madness in Fantômas!" (pp. 283-4)
The voice compels her to leave by order of Fantômas, and when she balks at this command, it reminds her, "Were you not ready to leave everything, Lady Beltham, to make a new life for yourself with... him you love?"
The careful phrasing, and the absence of a visual image, create a most ephemeral impression; it might be Gurn, but if it were Gurn, why does he not show himself? The answer might be that Gurn has recognized that Lady Beltham is not so much in love with him as in love with the possibility that he may be the larger-than-life Fantômas. He teases and lures her with the possibility into doing as he wishes, always suggesting the possibility of an alter ego, but never confessing. Considering the myriad disguises and ruses employed by Juve throughout the two novels, one may susceptibly interpret this caginess as a police trick to ensnare Lady Beltham, but as the book hastens to its cliffhanger finale, the ambiguity so key to the initial charm of the series is sacrificed.
The paginations cited here reflect the 1916 edition. THE SILENT EXECUTIONER, the later translation published by William Morrow, is a streamlined affair that removes a good deal of the Dickensian detail that set the atmosphere of these books in an effort to introduce them to a new and younger audience.
L'AGENT SECRET ("The Secret Agent," 1911)
US: A NEST OF SPIES (1917)
A young woman known as Bobinette is conducting an affair with one Colonel Blocq, but unknown to him, is in the service of spies. On the pretext of repossessing some love letters left carelessly in a drawer, she steals an important government document in the Colonel's possession which explains the manufacture of a new military firing device. Before she is long out the door, the Colonel realizes what has happened and pursues her... but is shot dead in his taxi by a silent weapon that fires a small pin into his heart. Juve deduces that such a weapon could only be employed by one so fiendish as Fantômas, but Jérôme Fandor─who is aging into a more practical and pragmatic journalist─disagrees, arguing that the true world of wartime espionage is quite fiendish enough.
Fandor is drawn in deeper when he is approached by a young officer, Corporal Vinson, who confesses that he is a traitor to his country and intends to commit suicide, after baring his breast to the journalist. Vinson explains that he has been insidiously lured into the spy game and is in too far to withdraw. Fandor sends Vinson away for an undetermined period while, following a period of second-hand military training, he dons his uniform to see how the spy ring functions at first hand. He gets away with it for a time, but is eventually caught and imprisoned, accused of the murder of Colonel Brocq on the basis of some banknotes of the Colonel's which Fantômas cleverly arranged to have pass through his hands.
At Fandor's trial, he is acquitted on the strength of the surprise testimony of Bobinette─whom Juve has fortuitously saved from a van in which Fantômas had enclosed her with a hungry bear!─who concludes her admissions by swallowing a phial of poison. She is taken to the prison infirmary, but the novel, hastening to its final chapter after this, passes over including any definitive account of her fate. Likewise, the character of Wilhelmina─certainly the daughter of Lady Beltham (and kept in ignorance of her survival), and arguably the true daughter of Fantômas, in whose care she lives as the daughter of Baron de Naarvobeck─is abandoned on the occasion of the cotillion where she is to announce her forthcoming marriage.
The trap used by Juve to finally defeat Fantômas at Wilhelmina's cotillion involves the surprise participation of the King of Weimar, whose help Juve enlists by eminding him of the time he came to his assistance where Fantômas was concerned. This adventure, strangely enough, was not yet published but would form the next book in the series, UN ROI PRISONNIEREDE FANTOMAS (June 1911; US: A ROYAL PRISONER, 1918)─which leads one to presume that the two books were written simultaneously, and that the industrious co-authors lost track of their narrative chronology.
Due to its subject matter, A NEST OF SPIES is a more sober affair than its predecessors, with few of the flights of macabre fantasy or ingenious structural experiments that animated MESSENGERS OF EVIL, the English translation of LE MORT QUI TUE. On the other hand, it is arguably the seminal work behind the entirety of espionage entertainment, which seemingly first went global with the release of Fritz Lang's SPIONE in 1927.
L'AGENT SECRET ("The Secret Agent," 1911)
US: A NEST OF SPIES (1917)
A young woman known as Bobinette is conducting an affair with one Colonel Blocq, but unknown to him, is in the service of spies. On the pretext of repossessing some love letters left carelessly in a drawer, she steals an important government document in the Colonel's possession which explains the manufacture of a new military firing device. Before she is long out the door, the Colonel realizes what has happened and pursues her... but is shot dead in his taxi by a silent weapon that fires a small pin into his heart. Juve deduces that such a weapon could only be employed by one so fiendish as Fantômas, but Jérôme Fandor─who is aging into a more practical and pragmatic journalist─disagrees, arguing that the true world of wartime espionage is quite fiendish enough.
Fandor is drawn in deeper when he is approached by a young officer, Corporal Vinson, who confesses that he is a traitor to his country and intends to commit suicide, after baring his breast to the journalist. Vinson explains that he has been insidiously lured into the spy game and is in too far to withdraw. Fandor sends Vinson away for an undetermined period while, following a period of second-hand military training, he dons his uniform to see how the spy ring functions at first hand. He gets away with it for a time, but is eventually caught and imprisoned, accused of the murder of Colonel Brocq on the basis of some banknotes of the Colonel's which Fantômas cleverly arranged to have pass through his hands.
At Fandor's trial, he is acquitted on the strength of the surprise testimony of Bobinette─whom Juve has fortuitously saved from a van in which Fantômas had enclosed her with a hungry bear!─who concludes her admissions by swallowing a phial of poison. She is taken to the prison infirmary, but the novel, hastening to its final chapter after this, passes over including any definitive account of her fate. Likewise, the character of Wilhelmina─certainly the daughter of Lady Beltham (and kept in ignorance of her survival), and arguably the true daughter of Fantômas, in whose care she lives as the daughter of Baron de Naarvobeck─is abandoned on the occasion of the cotillion where she is to announce her forthcoming marriage.
The trap used by Juve to finally defeat Fantômas at Wilhelmina's cotillion involves the surprise participation of the King of Weimar, whose help Juve enlists by eminding him of the time he came to his assistance where Fantômas was concerned. This adventure, strangely enough, was not yet published but would form the next book in the series, UN ROI PRISONNIEREDE FANTOMAS (June 1911; US: A ROYAL PRISONER, 1918)─which leads one to presume that the two books were written simultaneously, and that the industrious co-authors lost track of their narrative chronology.
Due to its subject matter, A NEST OF SPIES is a more sober affair than its predecessors, with few of the flights of macabre fantasy or ingenious structural experiments that animated MESSENGERS OF EVIL, the English translation of LE MORT QUI TUE. On the other hand, it is arguably the seminal work behind the entirety of espionage entertainment, which seemingly first went global with the release of Fritz Lang's SPIONE in 1927.
One closing note on the English translations of these books. As noted earlier, the William Morrow translations published in the 1980s were streamlined, even modernized in terms of their language, but even the earliest English translations were not invulnerable to editorial interference. Of these, only the first four books and one later one -- the impressively dense THE LONG ARM OF FANTOMAS (based on the sixth entry of July 1911, LE POLICIER APACHE) -- appear complete or near-complete, with A ROYAL PRISONER cutting out roughly two-thirds of the original text!
For more information about Fantômas in fiction and film, visit The Fantomas Website.
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Tura! Tura! Tura! (1935 - 2011)
Tura Satana in Russ Meyer's FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! (1966)It's like when Mitchum passed.
I tell myself, if Tura Satana can die, none of us is exempt.
I'll remember her not merely as a beautiful face or as a low-cut, tightly packed blouse, but as a clenched fist, encased in black leather and raised in righteous defiance of hard life and its inevitable repossession. A worthy image to leave behind, and not her only one.
Thursday, February 03, 2011
Some Words on LORNA... THE EXORCIST
Having just watched Mondo Macabro's new, long-awaited release of Jess Franco's LORNA... THE EXORCIST (1974), I find myself surprised, shaken and stunned. Before my review appears in VW 162, I want to use this blog to spread the word about this release because it warrants your support, if you're brave enough to go where it will take you.I've seen this film several times in its French version via various ragged, incomplete bootlegs, but now, having seen the film uncut for the first time and as good as it's ever going to look -- given the loss of the original negative and MM's painstaking three-print reconstruction -- I find it a very different and revelatory experience. I must caution my readers that this film contains a good deal of full frontal nudity and lesbian coupling and feels pornographic though it literally is not; it is also not traditionally "well-made" and is quite toxic in its intent. Owing to these qualities, it's not a film I could recommend to casual horror fans.
That said, LORNA is unique in Franco's sprawling filmography because here he summons, from the most shambolic ingredients (including, to be fair, some shots of immense beauty), something I find quite rare within the horror genre: a truly terrifying film.
It's a story, a Faustian fairy tale really, about male weakness and female empowerment. The film builds to a final revelation of Lina Romay's character in which she gives what is certainly her finest work onscreen -- a concise portrait of demonic possession achieved entirely through performance and without special effects. When the scene faded out, I wanted to stand and applaud right there in my living room. It is the hope that I will see at least one more horror film of this uncanny power that keeps me going.
This is powerful, taboo-shattering, primal filmmaking. But what is most compelling about LORNA is how it demonstrates that great actors, elegant cinematography, a consistent sense of style, traditionally good direction and even a completed script can be absolutely irrelevant to producing a film that can reach into the deepest emotions of a viewer and give them a good twist.
Yes, you could point to many things that seem "wrong" about the movie: it's a short story padded to feature length, the character makeup is overdone, the wide-angle lens work often draws more attention to itself than seems necessary, the camera crosses the line, inserted cutaways disrupt the precious suspense of the main scene unfolding simultaneously, the casino flashback goes on far too long and fails to ratchet up any tension, the camera lingers on some shots long after they have made their point... all of this is hard to dispute. But, when all is said and done, what I once called "the sex scream of Jess Franco" has never been more piercing than it is here.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
In Italian Bookstores Today
Elena Cecchini's brilliant translation of my 2005 novel THE BOOK OF RENFIELD: A GOSPEL OF DRACULA, containing unique explanatory footnotes and a post-scriptive essay about the novel by critic Alessandro Defilippi. Published by Gargoyle Books.The new subtitle translates as "The True Story of Dracula's Disciple."
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
VW's Memorable Scenes of 2010
Shortly after asking our contributors to compile their lists of Favorite DVDs of 2010, I decided to ask them an additional question:
"What was the most memorable movie scene you saw in 2010?"
I didn't specify whether the scene should be from a new or an old film; I was simply interested in exploring what kind of scenes and imagery were most enticing to us this year. Here are the results...
Michael Barrett:
It's hard to remember a most memorable scene of the year. There are scenes I admire, but often for intellectual reasons more than emotional ones, such as a certain exhaustively-discussed sequence in Tarantino's war movie. I'd prefer to measure a memorable scene by my physical response. I felt powerful emotions at certain moments in NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, but it wasn't my first time watching that movie; it only felt like it. Is there something the matter with me, or with movies? Aren't any new movies sufficiently moving to me? Am I even jaded to seeing classics for the first time? Why am I always thinking "Oh yes, that's very good--Next!"? I worry about this.
And then something happens out of the blue, like THE INVENTION OF LYING with Ricky Gervais. It should be called THE INVENTION OF GOD, but that wouldn't have played in Peoria, so it's disguised as a romantic comedy. In fact, the conventional romantic triangle rather lets down the picture--oh, but what a premise. Gervais invents Heaven in an effective scene with his mom. This event snowballs until he becomes the world's first and only messiah and we arrive at his "Moses" scene where he explains the Man in the Sky to a credulous crowd. It's so funny, I had to press Stop until I could calm down. That doesn't happen every year. (I'd have been helpless in a theatre, which hasn't happened since THE BIG LEBOWSKI.) When movies can still make you laugh, that's real power.
Ramsey Campbell:
The scene that's haunted me for months is the ending of Kiarostami's CERTIFIED COPY - one of those final scenes (as in LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD or L'ECLISSE) where some of the power of the image comes from the dawning realisation that this will be how the film ends. It's a film I loved, and I thought the resolution or rather lack of one was perfect for it.
John Charles:
My choice would be the final moments of INCEPTION. The last shot might not have had quite the same resonance a few decades back, but so few movies nowadays give you anything of substance to think about, let alone have you leaving the theatre intrigued and with something else to consider.
Shane M. Dallmann:
Short and sweet... INCEPTION featured one of the most diabolically delightful final shots I've had the pleasure of enjoying in recent years.
David Kalat:
There have been a number of superb scenes this year—I could almost grab any random scene from the hilarious BLACK DYNAMITE and be done with it—but the one that has stuck with me the longest, and compelled me to think/talk/write about it the most is a fairly innocuous-seeming moment from the early part of CATFISH.
For those of you unfamiliar with the movie, CATFISH is a low-budget first-person-shooter documentary by Areil (Rel) Schulman about his Facebook-based friendship and romantic flirtation with Megan Faccio, an improbably accomplished multimedia artist from a family of young prodigies in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. As the story unfolds, Rel becomes increasingly alarmed by growing doubts that Megan is who or what she claims to be, and he and his filmmaking buddies take their camera on the road to confront Megan in person. This latter half of the movie is as taut a psychological thriller as anything cooked up by Jimmy Sangster, but to get to it we need those early scenes of Rel and Megan instant-messaging and calling each other. One of those scenes, in which Rel speaks to Megan on the phone, became the focal point of controversy when the movie opened.
By the finale, it is fairly clear that Rel’s suspicions had to be inflamed before they started shooting the movie. Indeed, the only way any of this makes sense is if Rel and his cohorts had an inkling of where this was all headed before they filmed that phone call. But, in that phone call, Rel presents himself as fully invested in his virtual relationship with Megan and completely doubt-free. Let’s phrase this another way: those opening scenes were staged for the camera, with the filmmakers misrepresenting themselves solely to establish footage they needed to tell the story.
Critics jumped on this—even those who were otherwise impressed by the film. Rel’s behavior in those early scenes, and his duplicitous stance in that phone call, was like James Frey’s A MILLION LITTLE PIECES or other phony memoirs, they said. An impermissible intrusion of fiction into a non-fiction realm.
Ahem.
If you’ve read my Fictuality article in VIDEO WATCHDOG, you know I admire the crossover of fiction and non-fiction, and moreover I am deeply skeptical of the ability of “pure” documentary to exist in the first place. Every documentary has an element of the staged about it.
The documentary MY KID COULD PAINT THAT has a lot of topical similarity to CATFISH, but instead of being a first-person presentation it is a traditional-style documentary. MY KID COULD PAINT THAT could be cut down and aired on a TV newsprogram and fit right in to that objective journalistic style. And it starts off presenting an unskeptical treatment of its subject, then gradually allows doubt and contrary evidence to creep in—just like CATFISH. Critics didn’t cry foul (in part because MY KID COULD PAINT THAT was lost on a DVD-only release, whereas CATFISH played in multiplexes in Middle America where it made itself an easier target).
Or consider Errol Morris’ landmark THE THIN BLUE LINE. The film begins with one account of Randall Adams’ alleged crime, and then gradually chips away at it to bring in alternate explanations and contrary facts.
In all three of these documentaries, it is essential to their storytelling success that one hypothesis be advanced first, and then challenged and revised as the film progresses. The films that adhere to old-school documentary technique do this without raising any hackles, but CATFISH’s presentation as a sort of videotaped memoir makes that long-standing and venerable technique seem dangerous, new, and illegitimate.
The world of fiction films posing as documentaries is well established. CATFISH is the herald of a new genre of documentaries that pose as fiction films, and the lines are going to get muddier still in the years to come.
Tim Lucas:
Of the new films I saw this year, two films stand out as offering scenes that made me either laugh out loud or shudder at their visionary truth or audacity. One was in Werner Herzog's THE BAD LIEUTENANT - PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS -- the scene where a coked-up Nicolas Cage urges a compatriot to "Shoot him again! His soul hasn't stopped dancing yet!", followed by a subjective view of the felled man's spirit break-dancing around the wreckage of his body until one last bullet nails it down.
The other was in Joe Dante's THE HOLE, as Bruce Dern struggles to finish drawing the jigsaw pieces that will collectively compose a revelatory image, while sitting in a brightly lit room whose lightbulbs are exploding one by one around him, the pops coming closer as they inch him incrementally toward a final darkness. This is a film meant to address childhood fears, which it does on an admirably sustained all-ages level that is effective without being traumatizing. However, in this scene, Dante stages a simultaneously comic and terrifying metaphor for the most fundamental fear of any artist who has reached middle age: that the time to express ourselves is running out. The scene carries extra weight because THE HOLE is Dante's first feature film in six years and still seeking US distribution.
Eric Somer:
Most memorable sequence from a film released on home video this year? That would be from HOUSE/Hausu, when a piano devours a teenage girl. Words cannot really describe it, so I will leave it at that.
Michael Barrett:
It's hard to remember a most memorable scene of the year. There are scenes I admire, but often for intellectual reasons more than emotional ones, such as a certain exhaustively-discussed sequence in Tarantino's war movie. I'd prefer to measure a memorable scene by my physical response. I felt powerful emotions at certain moments in NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, but it wasn't my first time watching that movie; it only felt like it. Is there something the matter with me, or with movies? Aren't any new movies sufficiently moving to me? Am I even jaded to seeing classics for the first time? Why am I always thinking "Oh yes, that's very good--Next!"? I worry about this.
And then something happens out of the blue, like THE INVENTION OF LYING with Ricky Gervais. It should be called THE INVENTION OF GOD, but that wouldn't have played in Peoria, so it's disguised as a romantic comedy. In fact, the conventional romantic triangle rather lets down the picture--oh, but what a premise. Gervais invents Heaven in an effective scene with his mom. This event snowballs until he becomes the world's first and only messiah and we arrive at his "Moses" scene where he explains the Man in the Sky to a credulous crowd. It's so funny, I had to press Stop until I could calm down. That doesn't happen every year. (I'd have been helpless in a theatre, which hasn't happened since THE BIG LEBOWSKI.) When movies can still make you laugh, that's real power.
Ramsey Campbell:
The scene that's haunted me for months is the ending of Kiarostami's CERTIFIED COPY - one of those final scenes (as in LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD or L'ECLISSE) where some of the power of the image comes from the dawning realisation that this will be how the film ends. It's a film I loved, and I thought the resolution or rather lack of one was perfect for it.
John Charles:
My choice would be the final moments of INCEPTION. The last shot might not have had quite the same resonance a few decades back, but so few movies nowadays give you anything of substance to think about, let alone have you leaving the theatre intrigued and with something else to consider.
Shane M. Dallmann:
Short and sweet... INCEPTION featured one of the most diabolically delightful final shots I've had the pleasure of enjoying in recent years.
David Kalat:
There have been a number of superb scenes this year—I could almost grab any random scene from the hilarious BLACK DYNAMITE and be done with it—but the one that has stuck with me the longest, and compelled me to think/talk/write about it the most is a fairly innocuous-seeming moment from the early part of CATFISH.
For those of you unfamiliar with the movie, CATFISH is a low-budget first-person-shooter documentary by Areil (Rel) Schulman about his Facebook-based friendship and romantic flirtation with Megan Faccio, an improbably accomplished multimedia artist from a family of young prodigies in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. As the story unfolds, Rel becomes increasingly alarmed by growing doubts that Megan is who or what she claims to be, and he and his filmmaking buddies take their camera on the road to confront Megan in person. This latter half of the movie is as taut a psychological thriller as anything cooked up by Jimmy Sangster, but to get to it we need those early scenes of Rel and Megan instant-messaging and calling each other. One of those scenes, in which Rel speaks to Megan on the phone, became the focal point of controversy when the movie opened.
By the finale, it is fairly clear that Rel’s suspicions had to be inflamed before they started shooting the movie. Indeed, the only way any of this makes sense is if Rel and his cohorts had an inkling of where this was all headed before they filmed that phone call. But, in that phone call, Rel presents himself as fully invested in his virtual relationship with Megan and completely doubt-free. Let’s phrase this another way: those opening scenes were staged for the camera, with the filmmakers misrepresenting themselves solely to establish footage they needed to tell the story.
Critics jumped on this—even those who were otherwise impressed by the film. Rel’s behavior in those early scenes, and his duplicitous stance in that phone call, was like James Frey’s A MILLION LITTLE PIECES or other phony memoirs, they said. An impermissible intrusion of fiction into a non-fiction realm.
Ahem.
If you’ve read my Fictuality article in VIDEO WATCHDOG, you know I admire the crossover of fiction and non-fiction, and moreover I am deeply skeptical of the ability of “pure” documentary to exist in the first place. Every documentary has an element of the staged about it.
The documentary MY KID COULD PAINT THAT has a lot of topical similarity to CATFISH, but instead of being a first-person presentation it is a traditional-style documentary. MY KID COULD PAINT THAT could be cut down and aired on a TV newsprogram and fit right in to that objective journalistic style. And it starts off presenting an unskeptical treatment of its subject, then gradually allows doubt and contrary evidence to creep in—just like CATFISH. Critics didn’t cry foul (in part because MY KID COULD PAINT THAT was lost on a DVD-only release, whereas CATFISH played in multiplexes in Middle America where it made itself an easier target).
Or consider Errol Morris’ landmark THE THIN BLUE LINE. The film begins with one account of Randall Adams’ alleged crime, and then gradually chips away at it to bring in alternate explanations and contrary facts.
In all three of these documentaries, it is essential to their storytelling success that one hypothesis be advanced first, and then challenged and revised as the film progresses. The films that adhere to old-school documentary technique do this without raising any hackles, but CATFISH’s presentation as a sort of videotaped memoir makes that long-standing and venerable technique seem dangerous, new, and illegitimate.
The world of fiction films posing as documentaries is well established. CATFISH is the herald of a new genre of documentaries that pose as fiction films, and the lines are going to get muddier still in the years to come.
Tim Lucas:
Of the new films I saw this year, two films stand out as offering scenes that made me either laugh out loud or shudder at their visionary truth or audacity. One was in Werner Herzog's THE BAD LIEUTENANT - PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS -- the scene where a coked-up Nicolas Cage urges a compatriot to "Shoot him again! His soul hasn't stopped dancing yet!", followed by a subjective view of the felled man's spirit break-dancing around the wreckage of his body until one last bullet nails it down.
The other was in Joe Dante's THE HOLE, as Bruce Dern struggles to finish drawing the jigsaw pieces that will collectively compose a revelatory image, while sitting in a brightly lit room whose lightbulbs are exploding one by one around him, the pops coming closer as they inch him incrementally toward a final darkness. This is a film meant to address childhood fears, which it does on an admirably sustained all-ages level that is effective without being traumatizing. However, in this scene, Dante stages a simultaneously comic and terrifying metaphor for the most fundamental fear of any artist who has reached middle age: that the time to express ourselves is running out. The scene carries extra weight because THE HOLE is Dante's first feature film in six years and still seeking US distribution.
Eric Somer:
Most memorable sequence from a film released on home video this year? That would be from HOUSE/Hausu, when a piano devours a teenage girl. Words cannot really describe it, so I will leave it at that.
Monday, December 20, 2010
VW's Favorite DVDs of 2010: Editor's Choice
And now it's my turn.I was fortunate enough this year to contribute to a number of worthy DVD and Blu-ray releases, including Image Entertainment's THRILLER - THE COMPLETE SERIES, Arrow Films' INFERNO and SPIRITS OF THE DEAD (UK), Mondo Vision's SZAMANKA and Synapse Films' VAMPIRE CIRCUS. Since David Kalat omitted from his list those titles he contributed to, as a conflict of interest, I will follow suit. Each of these releases would have earned a place on this list even without my contributions because they are truly remarkable presentations.
THRILLER is without question the most thoroughly and capably annotated archival television release of the year; INFERNO restores Dario Argento's 1980 classic to a level of beauty and clarity I had not even witnessed on the big screen; SZAMANKA introduces to America one of Andrzej Zulawski's most important films (indeed, an important horror film of a most unusual kind); and SPIRITS OF THE DEAD is the long-awaited, definitive version of a hard film to nail down, encompassing Fellini's masterpiece "Toby Dammit." (If truth be told, SPIRITS is probably the year's most important new release for me, being the first home video release of this title struck from the original camera negative and reinstating the English audio option.) VAMPIRE CIRCUS recently arrived by missed being processed for inclusion by the skin of its fangs. The advance word elsewhere on the net has been very positive indeed.
This is the 12th and final list of our annual overview, and I was delighted that so many of the lists provided by our contributors praised discs that fell outside my own viewing this past year. That said, I must admit to a twinge of regret that none of our contributors -- not even I -- was able to find a place in our surveys for a disc as beautiful, generous and detailed as 20th Century Fox's AVATAR - THREE DISC EXTENDED COLLECTOR'S EDITION. With new releases, I suspect we take the bells and whistles more easily for granted. With time, the value of these discs may become more deeply felt and appreciated... but by then we'll likely be on to a whole nother medium.
My list is presented, painstakingly, in order of preference, but I must stress that the entire list is preferred.
1. THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1954, Criterion)Probably one of the five or ten greatest horror films, and transcendent of genre in many ways, this disc contains the most staggering supplement ever to appear on DVD: a 2½ hour documentary composed of surviving raw footage from the original filming. This provides us with a unique glimpse into the work methods of everyone involved in the production of this American masterpiece. What this means is that we can now see actors like Lillian Gish, Robert Mitchum and Shelly Winters not only in performance but in process, and witness how Charles Laughton, in his only directorial assignment, shaped their performances.
2. THE COMPLETE METROPOLIS (1925, Kino on Video)
It's hard to believe now that I first saw METROPOLIS at a public library screening in the late 1960s that was dead silent and ran approximately one hour. I've since seen it numerous times, at numerous lengths, but this two-hour, twenty-plus minute version of Fritz Lang's masterpiece is the most revelatory─not only due to the newly recovered footage (which very nearly completes it), but also to the HD clarity which exposes previously assumed live action, miniatures or scale model shots to be animated drawings or glass matte paintings. The new footage is in rough shape, allowing it to provide its own footnotes; it adds a great deal to Fritz Rasp's sinister role as Joh Frederson's right hand man, smooths the previously jagged edges of Brigitte Helm's extraordinary triple role, and gives the whole film the breathing space to assume its rightful role as a spectacle. What was never quite so apparent to me before is that METROPOLIS is truly an opera, a film thoroughly informed by the filmmaker's love of opera as surely as Dario Argento's best work found its new direction by wedding its cutting and amplifying its visuals to the key of progressive rock. Knowing this makes its dramatic excesses and its oversimplified, perhaps overly symbolic theme into perspective, makes them more forgivable. Because of this, I find that its traditional narrative scoring─however wonderful it may be, and it carries a distinct and glorious prophecy of Franz Waxman's BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN score during the creation scene in Rotwang's lab─rubs ever so slightly against the grain of what Lang's vision truly wants to be. For all that, it is a very fast-moving two-and-a-half hours and the recovered footage only serves to make it more vital, modernistic and approachable.
3. AMERICA LOST AND FOUND: THE BBS STORY (1968-72, Criterion)
Over a three year period, BBS produced seven films: HEAD, EASY RIDER, FIVE EASY PIECES, DRIVE HE SAID, A SAFE PLACE, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW and THE KING OF MARVIN GARDENS─six of which encompass the arc of work that made Jack Nicholson a star and an actor worthy of stardom. This set contains all seven films and couches them in a wealth of exhilarating extras─audio commentaries, documentaries, interviews, archival materials─pertaining to each film and the company as a whole. Though not fantastic in nature, at least not wholly so, this set represents the college attended by the class that graduated from Roger Corman High School and incidentally underscores the value of the work that actors like Nicholson, Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern, Dennis Hopper and filmmakers like Peter Bogdanovich did with Corman. And the HEAD disc contains, for the first time ever on home video, the 1966 screen tests of Micky Braddock (Dolenz) and Peter Tork, as well as ensemble tests that show The Monkees acting with other wannabees. For Monkees fans, this footage alone is worth the cost of the set. It's almost enough to make one overlook the not inconsiderable fact that the film itself has been remixed in 5.1, with the songs sounding far better than they do on Rhino's newly remastered HEAD soundtrack box set.
4. HENRI-GEORGES CLOUZOT'S INFERNO (2009, Park Circus, Region 2)
This documentary by Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea tells the story of the great French suspense director's ill-fated 1963 project with Romy Schneider and Serge Reggiani, about a middle-aged husband's festering jealousy about his younger wife, which ended when Clouzot suffered a heart attack two weeks into the filming. Collected here, for the first time, is an assemblage of loose and edited footage from those two weeks, footage that promises─even at a distance of almost 40 years─to catapult cinema into new visual vocabularies of human psychology and derangement. Clouzot ventures beyond narrative images to dwell obsessively on the beauty of Romy Schneider, using her as the centerpiece of numerous enthralling special effects, color and makeup tests, and superimpositions. Though presented in the scientific context of a documentary, this is one of the sexiest films ever made. Reportedly coming stateside from Flicker Alley.
5. ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S PSYCHO - 50th ANNIVERSARY EDITION (Universal)
I'm working hard to hold myself in rational check here, because Universal's Blu-ray remastering of PSYCHO, coupled with ADX's 5.1 audio remix, begs to be hailed as the restoration of the year. It unearths visual and sonic elements of the film that feel every bit as long-buried as the lost footage from METROPOLIS or Clouzot's INFERNO. I'm talking about the deeper register now available to the double basses in Bernard Herrmann's orchestra, which make the murder of Marion Crane somehow more traumatic and revolting, and the way the rainfall now heard outside the Bates Motel as Marion checks in places us, with her, in a shower from the get-go. The little rear-channel kick in the pipes just before the shower water is heard in the front channels, and the deep idling sound of Arbogast's car motor. Likewise, the refining of the B&W cinematography has become revelatory in its own way, bringing us into more intimate contact with nearly all the performances. In Janet Leigh's case, this scrutiny presents us with one of the great tragic performances of the past half-century, and the densely layered eloquence of Joseph Stefano's dialogue retains its place at the very pinnacle of the genre. The extras on the second disc are mostly ported over from previous editions but remain valuable, with an excellent making-of documentary by Laurent Bouzereau and a sampling of the legendary Hitchcock/Truffaut interview that reveals the two men more at odds than print suggested, building to a satisfying assertion from Hitchcock about PSYCHO being a film that asserts its value almost entirely in cinematic terms.
6. THE WIZARD OF OZ - 70th ANNIVERSARY ULTIMATE COLLECTOR'S EDITION
(Warner)
The regularity with which Warner/Turner/MGM keeps trumping past editions of this title has become tedious, but the first Blu-ray issue of the Victor Fleming classic obliterates even the memory of the $1,000,000 digital three-strip restoration of a few years ago. Every check in Dorothy's gingham dress is herein preserved in crystal clarity, and the ruby slippers sparkle and hold the eye in long shots as they never have before. Remarkably, the enhanced clarity of the presentation doesn't unearth faults so much as the film crew's peerless eye for detail in terms of makeup and set design, a standard of quality that carries through to every department on the production in a truly timeless manner. There is simply infinitely more here to appreciate, and even to notice for the first time. True, the box set is padded with a third disc devoted to a lengthy MGM studio history documentary available elsewhere, but the second disc includes some worthwhile arcana, including the earlier silent film adaptations of THE WIZARD OF OZ and a selection of L. Frank Baum's own Méliès-influenced shorts adaptating his Oz stories, and a made-for-TV movie about Baum starring John Ritter.
7. FANTOMAS: THE COMPLETE SAGA (1914-15, Kino on Video)
In 1998, when I reviewed JUVE VS. FANTOMAS in VW 43, 45m of one serial was all that could easily be seen of Louis Feuillade's epic five-hour serial adaptation of the popular crime pulps of Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain. JUVE VS. FANTOMAS alone runs 62m in this complete edition. This release belatedly follows earlier issues of this material in France and the UK, and is included here for its importance rather than its novelty. The supplements on Universal's PSYCHO disc would have us believe that Hitchcock was sui generis, but Hitchcock learned everything about the fundamentals of suspense from Fritz Lang and Feuillade. Kino's set has some fine supplements, including other Feuillade shorts and two lively David Kalat commentaries, but it is very disappointing that numerous extras from the other sets were not ported over, including Georges Franju's interview with Marcel Allain.
8. THE GENERAL (1920, Kino on Video)
Despite being an admirer of Keaton's work, for some reason it was not until this year that I finally caught up with the film most commonly cited as his masterpiece. I'm glad I did, because this Blu-ray issue is like looking through a glass window into another time -- culled from an archival print taken from the original camera negative, it is a magnificent feat of restoration, and presented with a choice of three different musical accompaniments. Worth seeing not only for the work of genius that is is, but for the ripples it sent out, influencing (for example) Sergio Leone's later work on THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY and even ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST.
9. GEORGES MELIES ENCORE: NEW DISCOVERIES (1896-1911, Flicker Alley)
Flicker Alley's five-disc set GEORGE MELIES FIRST WIZARD OF CINEMA 1896-1913) from 2008 seemed exhaustive but an additional 28 shorts by this seminal fantasist came to light only after its release. Also included are a couple of shorts by Méliès' Spanish counterpart Segundo de Chomón, sometimes mistaken for the work of the French master and no less brilliant.
10. THE T.A.M.I. SHOW (1965, Shout! Factory)
In which James Brown throws down a still-resonating gauntlet to the bill-topping Rolling Stones, who haven't even written "Satisfaction" yet. This all-star live performance, filmed with television cameras at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, has a little something for everyone (Mersey Beat, Motown, soul, girl group, soul, beach music, garage band) and it's all pretty much cream of the crop. Even some of the lesser bands have the power to make one misty. Speaking of crop, it's been impossible to see this film in its original widescreen format since its original release, especially with The Beach Boys' set intact, and this disc restores all that. The surprise of the film, once you notice that Teri Garr is one of the background dancers, is how much musical history she's able to eclipse with her frenzied flailings.
RESTORATIONS OF THE YEAR:
ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S PSYCHO - 50th ANNIVERSARY EDITION (Universal)
THE WIZARD OF OZ - 70th ANNIVERSARY ULTIMATE COLLECTOR'S EDITION
(Warner)
SPIRITS OF THE DEAD (Arrow Films UK)
THE CAT AND THE CANARY (1939, Universal)
THE T.A.M.I. SHOW (Shout! Factory)
HEAD (in AMERICA LOST AND FOUND: THE BBS STORY, Criterion)
HONORARY MENTIONS:
TARZAN'S GREATEST ADVENTURE and TARZAN THE MAGNIFICENT (1959/1960, Warner Archive)
Directed respectively by John Guillermin and Robert Day, these British-produced Gordon Scott adventures raise Edgar Rice Burroughs' character to a level of maturity and rousing excitement that his long-running film franchise would never enjoy so fully again. GREATEST ADVENTURE features one of the earliest screen appearances of Sean Connery, as a stooge to main menace Niall McGuinness, and the heavies in MAGNIFICENT are as good as they come: John Carradine, Jock Mahoney and Al Mulock. Two of the finest matinee movies of their time, these deserved an official release from Warner Home Video, and much more ballyhoo than they got. If you care about action and adventure cinema, don't let anything stand in the way of ordering these burn-to-order discs from Warner Archive.
THE LOST SKELETON RETURNS AGAIN, DARK AND STORMY NIGHT and TALES
FROM THE PUB (2009, Shout! Factory)
While his TRAIL OF THE SCREAMING FOREHEAD (2007) still awaits release, Larry Blamire's subsequent three Bantam Street productions arrived on disc this year in splendid presentations. These movie-smart, absurdist parodies─tackling fantasy-adventure, old dark house movies and ONE STEP BEYOND, respectively─not only share one of the most delightful repertory acting ensembles ever assembled, but they stand on their own comic merits (you don't need the reference points to laugh, yet they run hilariously deep) and they represent pretty much the only real, consistent wit found in American comedies today. Blamire's work is a testament to what can still be achieved when shooting digitally and strictly to low budget, and it's time some forward-looking studio (assuming there is such a thing) repaid his ingenuity with an opportunity to advance to the next level.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Don Van Vliet 1941-2010
"I'm goin' up on the mountain and find me a cave and talk those bears into takin' me in..."-- Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet), "Wild Life" (1969)
A word on the importance of Captain Beefheart.
When I was 16, I was in a bad way: my best friend had committed suicide and my own homelife was becoming unliveable. It crossed my mind more than once that it might be more convenient for all concerned if I wasn't around anymore. Then one morning, I awoke with one clear thought in mind: "I am going to have to start listening to some f****ed-up music."
And so I began to embrace sounds I could not bring myself to embrace before. I started listening to Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, The Mothers of Invention, The Velvet Underground, The Stooges... bands that tapped into emotions that were not traditionally musical -- and I believe hearing those edgier feelings expressed musically, literally saved my life. They also opened my ears to new textures, contours and concepts of beauty.
Beefheart's music may sound crazy to some of you, but it became my refuge from something much crazier. More than any teacher I had, his work taught me to think like an artist and how to use language like paint.
I shared this life-saving confession earlier tonight with a friend, and she wrote back to me, "We should all be so lucky to say that we served such a purpose in this life."
So, thank you, Don, for being the bear on the mountain who took me in -- and godspeed.
Friday, December 17, 2010
VW's Favorite DVDs of 2010: John Charles
John Charles, of course, is VIDEO WATCHDOG's Associate Editor, the author of THE HONG KONG FILMOGRAPHY, 1977-1997 (McFarland), and host of the website Hong Kong Digital. He has chosen to divvy his list between a "Best" and an alphabetical arrangement of "The Rest." - TLBy John Charles
THE BEST:
VIDEO NASTIES: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE (Nucleus Films UK PAL DVD)
Home entertainment has never been more high tech and special features have never been more pervasive, but this superb 3 disc set reminds one of how important it is to support the independent specialty labels. A true labor of love and admirably comprehensive, this is an excellent documentation of how British Right Wing politicians and their allies manufactured a horror videos “moral crisis” to help divert public attention from their own monumental policy failures.
THE REST (alphabetical):
ALICE IN WONDERLAND (2010; Disney Blu-ray)
I was surprised by all the negative reviews for this Tim Burton fantasy, which ranks among his most exquisitely styled, well cast and satisfying works. It was also the only post-production conversion feature released in 2010 to have anything approaching acceptable 3-D (and is also available on a separate Blu-ray release in that format).
DARK AND STORMY NIGHT (Shout! Factory DVD)
I adore 1930s old dark house mysteries and Larry Blamire’s satirical tribute features the look, casting, and creaky plotting of someone who loves them as much as I do.
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (Alliance Films Canada Blu-ray)
Some have expressed disappointment in the second and third entries in this trilogy and I suspect it has a lot to do with just how forceful and enthralling this initial instalment is. Noomi Rapace is fascinating as the titular anti-heroine and watching her character across three movies gave me 7 ½ hours of cinematic bliss.
THE RED SHOES (Criterion Blu-ray)
I have never screened THE RED SHOES in black and white, but I’m sure it would still be superb. In color, it is a ravishingly beautiful experience and the recent restoration is skilfully rendered on this stunning disc.
SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD (Universal Blu-ray)
While well past the target age, I could not help but be charmed by the infectious energy and visual invention on display throughout virtually every moment of this Edgar Wright confection. It is also a wonderful visual treat for those who love Toronto.
SHUTTER ISLAND (Paramount Blu-ray)
People have complained about how obvious the twist in this film is, but it should be obvious to anyone who has seen the trailer. The point was never the mystery, but the opportunity for Martin Scorsese to indulge in a deep and meaningful character study; on that level, coupled with his superb directorial technique and fine performances from the principles, it is a complete success.
SPLICE (E1 Canada Blu-ray)
It goes off the rails in the final reel and overdoes the splatter in one sequence, but Vincenzo Natali’s refreshingly intelligent science fiction/horror thriller depicts basic moral issues of experimentation in frank terms that few filmmakers have dared in the past. It is also wonderfully Canadian in the best Cronenbergian sense.
STAR CRASH (Shout! Factory Blu-ray)
My favorite to date of Shout!’s Roger Corman Cult Classics line offers Luigi Cozzi’s campy sci-fi cult classic in a surprisingly elaborate special edition release that certainly won’t disappoint fans who have been waiting a very long time for this sort of loving celebration.
TOY STORY 3 (Disney Blu-ray)
Another superb effort from Pixar, TOY STORY 3 once again bucks the sequel curse, seeming entirely fresh, appealing and witty (it’s part prison movie send-up and a very good one at that), with the sort of dazzling animation we have come to expect from this company (though as with UP, there is no reason to watch this movie in 3-D). For all of 2010’s vivid horror imagery, Big Baby is still the creepiest thing I have seen all year.
VW's Favorite DVDs of 2010: Kim Newman
Kim Newman contributes to a great many publications in addition to VW, in addition to other authorly duties, and in response to our request for his list of year-end favorites, he rightly pointed out that such a list by him appears in the current issue of SIGHT & SOUND -- "and almost all the things I picked were on other folks' lists." That said, he did agree to list some additional Honorable Mentions on DVD, all of which (like he) hail from the UK. Kim's most recent books are the excellent HORROR! 333 FILMS TO SCARE YOU TO DEATH (co-written with James Marriiott, Carlton) and forthcoming appended reissues of his ANNO DRACULA series. - TL By Kim Newman
The UK BluRay from Optimum of THE GUILLERMO DEL TORO COLLECTION (CRONOS, THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE and PAN'S LABYRINTH) - subtitled, and with a pop-up labyrinth in the packaging.
The ongoing releases, also from Optimum, of THE AVENGERS on DVD in significantly improved versions: SEASON FOUR (black and white) and FIVE (colour) collect Diana Rigg's tenure on the show, and arguably the height of its achievement. Even the lesser episodes sparkle with wit and invention.
Lesser-known genre or fringe genre TV releases from Network - SHADOWS, a children's ghost story anthology from the 1970s, and THE GUARDIANS, dystopian ITV science fiction from the same period with remarkably sophisitcated politics.
Kudos to Odeon Entertainment for its BEST OF BRITISH COLLECTION, making rare titles available on DVD - though the transfers haven't always been great: THREE CASES OF MURDER, RETURN OF A STRANGER, STRIPTEASE MURDER, COVER GIRL KILLER/LIFE IN DANGER.
And, of course, the BFI's ongoing Flipside BR/DVD releases - HERE WE GO ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH, PRIVILEGE, THE PLEASURE GIRLS, PERMISSIVE, etc.
The ongoing releases, also from Optimum, of THE AVENGERS on DVD in significantly improved versions: SEASON FOUR (black and white) and FIVE (colour) collect Diana Rigg's tenure on the show, and arguably the height of its achievement. Even the lesser episodes sparkle with wit and invention.
Lesser-known genre or fringe genre TV releases from Network - SHADOWS, a children's ghost story anthology from the 1970s, and THE GUARDIANS, dystopian ITV science fiction from the same period with remarkably sophisitcated politics.
Kudos to Odeon Entertainment for its BEST OF BRITISH COLLECTION, making rare titles available on DVD - though the transfers haven't always been great: THREE CASES OF MURDER, RETURN OF A STRANGER, STRIPTEASE MURDER, COVER GIRL KILLER/LIFE IN DANGER.
And, of course, the BFI's ongoing Flipside BR/DVD releases - HERE WE GO ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH, PRIVILEGE, THE PLEASURE GIRLS, PERMISSIVE, etc.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
VW's Favorite DVDs of 2010: Eric Somer
This list compiles the selections of Eric Somer, who has been contributing reviews to VW since sometime in 2008. Eric studied journalism at Central Michigan University and works for Family Video in Glenview, IL. He is presently working on a book about prize fighting in the cinema, and we expect it will be a knock-out. - TLBy Eric Somer
*NOTE: I stubbornly ignored multi-film sets this year in the interest of establishing a more level playing field.
1. PSYCHO: 50th Anniversary Edition (Universal)
Start naming the greatest films of all time, and then start compiling the greatest horror films of all time. Next, how many films could conceivably top both lists? That third list would have to be brief, but Universal’s new Blu-ray treatment of PSYCHO prepares further evidence that the Hitchcock classic is the greatest cinematic achievement of all time, and thus the greatest horror film of all time. To watch PSYCHO on a large monitor in its most pristine state to date—and with a crisp new 5.1 digital audio track for those interested—is to re-discover every close-up, every acting nuance, every camera movement, every reason why audiences were so taken back upon the film’s original theatrical run, and every reason why the experience holds up remarkably well today, despite countless imitations, including a pointless shot-for-shot remake. Though the supplements are mostly common to prior editions, this new 1080p transfer necessitates the upgrade, regardless of how many times you have purchased/rented/borrowed/lost PSYCHO already.
2. THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (Criterion)
The elaborate supplemental documentary “Charles Laughton Directs THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER” offers immense ammunition for those who buy into the auteur theory. Some critics have dismissed the once popular school of thought based on the notion that filmmaking is a collaborative process, which it is, but this collection of dailies makes it clear Laughton was not looking for a lot of advice. He obviously had a rigid, predetermined mental image of every sequence, right down to the delivery of each line of dialogue, which he obsessively forced actors to repeat until he was 100% satisfied (he was particularly tough on Shelley Winters and 10-year-old actor Billy Chapin). Can’t really argue with the results, of course. The lone directorial effort from Laughton is a tremendous addition to The Criterion Collection. It’s a shame Laughton never offered a follow up to his hauntingly beautiful fairy tale noir, in which “false prophet” Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) menaces a little boy (Chapin) and girl (Sally Jane Bruce) in pursuit of stolen money. All films are about good vs. evil, but nobody describes it quite like Powell (Spike Lee paid tribute to Mitchum with one of his characters from DO THE RIGHT THING). You might chuckle when Willa Harper (Winters) proclaims she is “quivering with cleanness,” but those words strikingly anticipate her last scene, which is no laughing matter. Considering the film’s original release was in 1955, this was probably the most expressionistic noir film of its decade other than, perhaps, TOUCH OF EVIL. This restored digital transfer is available in both Blu-ray and 2-disc DVD editions.
3. MOON (Sony)
Though settings may be futuristic, sci-fi dramatics almost always revolve around present-day concerns, like the exploitation of the working class. In this rendition of the future, the harvesting of Helium-3 capsules via lunar rock on the dark side of the moon has resolved all of earth’s fossil fuel-based energy issues. A presumably large corporate entity oversees the mining operation from earth, keeping expenses under control by reducing the need for human labor to an absolute minimum—all site work is handled by a lone worker (Sam Rockwell), who is contractually bound to a three-year stint (as in METROPOLIS, workers become extensions of their machines). His only companion is a robot named GERTY (memorably voiced by Kevin Spacey). The film’s resolution juxtaposes a proletarian call to action with nightmarish plutocratic realities. Watch it with a friend and rest assured there will be a lot to discuss later. Sony’s presentation of this impressive feature film debut from Duncan Jones (the son of David Bowie) is enriched by multiple audio commentary tracks. Reviewed in VW # 156 by Michael Barrett.
4. THE BAD LIEUTENANT PORT OF CALL: NEW ORLEANS (First Look)
I reviewed this not-to-be-missed Werner Herzog/Nic Cage teaming in VW #157. The First Look Studios Blu-ray might be the most affordable HD option in my Top 10.
5. THE AFRICAN QUEEN (Paramount)
Better late than never, right? At least Paramount treats the U.S. digital bow of THE AFRICAN QUEEN with an awareness of the film’s many fans. The Commemorative Box Set Blu-ray edition, though alarmingly pricey, looks oh-so-cool in one’s assortment of, well, other expensive gift set purchases. It includes a separate audio CD with the original Lux radio broadcast of THE AFRICAN QUEEN, four 35mm frames that illustrate the Technicolor process, lobby card reproductions, a “making of” special feature, and a miniature paperback copy of “The Making of THE AFRICAN QUEEN” by Katharine Hepburn, and of course a restored presentation of the entertaining adventure itself. For whatever reason, I still crack up when Rose (Hepburn) admits to Mr. Allnut (Humphrey Bogart) she needs help getting back into the boat after bathing.
6. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (Män Som Hatar Kvinnor, Music Box)
David Fincher indeed seems the logical choice to helm the remake of this intense Swedish thriller, but the original might be tough to match in light of the unforgettable performance from Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander. Given the forceful, sometimes shocking narrative material that informs this elaborate search for a girl who long ago vanished, the concluding moments are surprisingly heartwarming and reassuring, a testament to the development of characters worth paying attention to. David Kalat’s full VW review can be found in VW #159.
7. NEW YORK CONFIDENTIAL (VCI)
Now available for the first time on domestic home video. Film noir fans are well-advised to snap up VCI Entertainment's welcome remastering of this excellent example of the genre as it existed in the Fifties. Broderick Crawford and Richard Conte offer performances that serve to underline their respective careers, and the hardboiled dialog is top-notch. My full review can be found in VW #159.
8. THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE (FIRST SEQUENCE) (IFC Films/MPI)
It’s this year’s MARTYRS in terms of gross-out factor—your stomach will have to be in tip-top shape at certain “I wish I didn’t see that” intervals. But there is a surprising amount of suggestive cinematic techniques and an engagingly dire atmosphere underscoring things in this undeniably bold effort from filmmaker-to-watch Tom Six. Be sure to check out our upcoming coverage of the MPI home video treatment in VW #160.
9. GAMERA VS. BARUGON (Daikaijû kettô: Gamera tai Barugon; Shout! Factory)
Shout! Factory has done an amazing job with the original Daiei Gamera series, granting the Shōwa era the serious treatment the respective films consistently have been denied in previous domestic releases. My favorite classic GAMERA film was always GAMERA VS. GYAOS (Daikaijû kûchûsen: Gamera tai Gyaosu) until I revisited this inspired sequel to the original GAMERA. It compares favorably to any kaijū eiga and is a must-own even for casual fans of the genre. August Ragone and Jason Varney team up for the commentary duty.
10. HOUSE (Hausu; Criterion)
Landing officially on U.S. shores this year via The Criterion Collection, this delirious exercise in experimental filmmaking won the hearts of film fans 15 years of age and under at the time of its original theatrical release in 1977, though most everyone older had no idea what to make of it; perhaps it’s Japan’s more violent ALICE IN WONDERLAND. There is a neat moment in the supplemental interview with director/co-producer Nobuhiko Ôbayashi, who recalls how the lighting crew devoted hours to finding a tiny screw that fell out of his eyeglasses. When Ôbayashi asked why they spent so much time looking for something he assumed unrecoverable on a ridiculously cluttered soundstage, one of the men said that Ôbayashi was the first Toho director to address him by name, which moved him so that he and the crew decided to find what the director presumed lost.
Other key home video releases (in no particular order):
2. THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (Criterion)
The elaborate supplemental documentary “Charles Laughton Directs THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER” offers immense ammunition for those who buy into the auteur theory. Some critics have dismissed the once popular school of thought based on the notion that filmmaking is a collaborative process, which it is, but this collection of dailies makes it clear Laughton was not looking for a lot of advice. He obviously had a rigid, predetermined mental image of every sequence, right down to the delivery of each line of dialogue, which he obsessively forced actors to repeat until he was 100% satisfied (he was particularly tough on Shelley Winters and 10-year-old actor Billy Chapin). Can’t really argue with the results, of course. The lone directorial effort from Laughton is a tremendous addition to The Criterion Collection. It’s a shame Laughton never offered a follow up to his hauntingly beautiful fairy tale noir, in which “false prophet” Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) menaces a little boy (Chapin) and girl (Sally Jane Bruce) in pursuit of stolen money. All films are about good vs. evil, but nobody describes it quite like Powell (Spike Lee paid tribute to Mitchum with one of his characters from DO THE RIGHT THING). You might chuckle when Willa Harper (Winters) proclaims she is “quivering with cleanness,” but those words strikingly anticipate her last scene, which is no laughing matter. Considering the film’s original release was in 1955, this was probably the most expressionistic noir film of its decade other than, perhaps, TOUCH OF EVIL. This restored digital transfer is available in both Blu-ray and 2-disc DVD editions.
3. MOON (Sony)
Though settings may be futuristic, sci-fi dramatics almost always revolve around present-day concerns, like the exploitation of the working class. In this rendition of the future, the harvesting of Helium-3 capsules via lunar rock on the dark side of the moon has resolved all of earth’s fossil fuel-based energy issues. A presumably large corporate entity oversees the mining operation from earth, keeping expenses under control by reducing the need for human labor to an absolute minimum—all site work is handled by a lone worker (Sam Rockwell), who is contractually bound to a three-year stint (as in METROPOLIS, workers become extensions of their machines). His only companion is a robot named GERTY (memorably voiced by Kevin Spacey). The film’s resolution juxtaposes a proletarian call to action with nightmarish plutocratic realities. Watch it with a friend and rest assured there will be a lot to discuss later. Sony’s presentation of this impressive feature film debut from Duncan Jones (the son of David Bowie) is enriched by multiple audio commentary tracks. Reviewed in VW # 156 by Michael Barrett.
4. THE BAD LIEUTENANT PORT OF CALL: NEW ORLEANS (First Look)
I reviewed this not-to-be-missed Werner Herzog/Nic Cage teaming in VW #157. The First Look Studios Blu-ray might be the most affordable HD option in my Top 10.
5. THE AFRICAN QUEEN (Paramount)
Better late than never, right? At least Paramount treats the U.S. digital bow of THE AFRICAN QUEEN with an awareness of the film’s many fans. The Commemorative Box Set Blu-ray edition, though alarmingly pricey, looks oh-so-cool in one’s assortment of, well, other expensive gift set purchases. It includes a separate audio CD with the original Lux radio broadcast of THE AFRICAN QUEEN, four 35mm frames that illustrate the Technicolor process, lobby card reproductions, a “making of” special feature, and a miniature paperback copy of “The Making of THE AFRICAN QUEEN” by Katharine Hepburn, and of course a restored presentation of the entertaining adventure itself. For whatever reason, I still crack up when Rose (Hepburn) admits to Mr. Allnut (Humphrey Bogart) she needs help getting back into the boat after bathing.
6. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (Män Som Hatar Kvinnor, Music Box)
David Fincher indeed seems the logical choice to helm the remake of this intense Swedish thriller, but the original might be tough to match in light of the unforgettable performance from Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander. Given the forceful, sometimes shocking narrative material that informs this elaborate search for a girl who long ago vanished, the concluding moments are surprisingly heartwarming and reassuring, a testament to the development of characters worth paying attention to. David Kalat’s full VW review can be found in VW #159.
7. NEW YORK CONFIDENTIAL (VCI)
Now available for the first time on domestic home video. Film noir fans are well-advised to snap up VCI Entertainment's welcome remastering of this excellent example of the genre as it existed in the Fifties. Broderick Crawford and Richard Conte offer performances that serve to underline their respective careers, and the hardboiled dialog is top-notch. My full review can be found in VW #159.
8. THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE (FIRST SEQUENCE) (IFC Films/MPI)
It’s this year’s MARTYRS in terms of gross-out factor—your stomach will have to be in tip-top shape at certain “I wish I didn’t see that” intervals. But there is a surprising amount of suggestive cinematic techniques and an engagingly dire atmosphere underscoring things in this undeniably bold effort from filmmaker-to-watch Tom Six. Be sure to check out our upcoming coverage of the MPI home video treatment in VW #160.
9. GAMERA VS. BARUGON (Daikaijû kettô: Gamera tai Barugon; Shout! Factory)
Shout! Factory has done an amazing job with the original Daiei Gamera series, granting the Shōwa era the serious treatment the respective films consistently have been denied in previous domestic releases. My favorite classic GAMERA film was always GAMERA VS. GYAOS (Daikaijû kûchûsen: Gamera tai Gyaosu) until I revisited this inspired sequel to the original GAMERA. It compares favorably to any kaijū eiga and is a must-own even for casual fans of the genre. August Ragone and Jason Varney team up for the commentary duty.
10. HOUSE (Hausu; Criterion)
Landing officially on U.S. shores this year via The Criterion Collection, this delirious exercise in experimental filmmaking won the hearts of film fans 15 years of age and under at the time of its original theatrical release in 1977, though most everyone older had no idea what to make of it; perhaps it’s Japan’s more violent ALICE IN WONDERLAND. There is a neat moment in the supplemental interview with director/co-producer Nobuhiko Ôbayashi, who recalls how the lighting crew devoted hours to finding a tiny screw that fell out of his eyeglasses. When Ôbayashi asked why they spent so much time looking for something he assumed unrecoverable on a ridiculously cluttered soundstage, one of the men said that Ôbayashi was the first Toho director to address him by name, which moved him so that he and the crew decided to find what the director presumed lost.
Other key home video releases (in no particular order):
WINTER’S BONE, KICK-ASS, BAD BIOLOGY, THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, THE HORSEMAN, THE CHASER, AN EDUCATION, CRONOS, 44 INCH CHEST, TORMENTED.
Notable disappointments:
Notable disappointments:
INCEPTION (interesting on paper and entertaining on film are not always the same thing), ANTICHRIST (admit it Lars, you hate women), MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE (Herzog might have something here if he trimmed it down to under 60 minutes), THE CRAZIES (God-awful remake of my favorite Romero film), SHUTTER ISLAND (see comment on INCEPTION).
VW's Favorite DVDs of 2010: Sam & Rebecca Umland
Long-time VIDEO WATCHDOG critics Rebecca and Sam Umland are both educators based at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Their books include DONALD CAMMELL: A LIFE ON THE WILD SIDE and THE USE OF ARTHURIAN LEGEND IN HOLLYWOOD FILM. - TL By Sam & Rebecca Umland
1) 3 SILENT CLASSICS BY JOSEF VON STERNBERG (Criterion)
1) 3 SILENT CLASSICS BY JOSEF VON STERNBERG (Criterion)
Along with Flicker Alley’s CHAPLIN AT KEYSTONE and Kino’s and Eureka’s THE COMPLETE METROPOLIS, one of the three or four most incredible home video releases of the year containing classics from the silent era.
2) CHAPLIN AT KEYSTONE (Flicker Alley)
Another incredible box set consisting of about 10 hours of early, silent era Chaplin, representing virtually all of Chaplin’s work for Mack Sennett’s Keystone Studios. Years in the making and made possible by the cooperative efforts of film archives worldwide.
3) THE COMPLETE METROPOLIS (Kino US and Eureka UK)
Yet another important silent era film representing the virtually complete version of Lang’s silent era SF classic. Available in Blu-ray.
4) THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (Criterion)
Criterion’s welcome edition of this Charles Laughton-directed classic features a splendid Blu-ray transfer along with some important supplemental materials.
5) AMERICA LOST AND FOUND: THE BBS STORY (Criterion)
BBS—an acronym for Bob, Bert and Steve, the creative team of Bob Rafelson, Bert Schneider, and Steve Blauner—made the series of seven Hollywood films contained in this box set between 1968 and 1972, financed by the profits they made from the hugely popular NBC series THE MONKEES. As “countercultural” cinema, the films included here were both critical and commercial successes (e.g., EASY RIDER, FIVE EASY PIECES, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW) as well as box-office bombs (e.g., HEAD, DRIVE HE SAID, A SAFE PLACE). The Blu-ray presentations are stellar, and the supplements interesting and informative.
6) SHUTTER ISLAND (Paramount)
Narrative coherence is not as important as the fully immersive visual experience of Scorsese’s engaging and compelling psychological thriller. Paramount’s Blu-ray issue of the film is outstanding.
7) APOCALYPSE NOW: FULL DISCLOSURE EDITION (Lionsgate)
The 1979 theatrical version of Francis Coppola’s acknowledged masterpiece is included here (finally) for the first time in its proper aspect ratio (2.35:1), as is the Redux, both in HD. The “Full Disclosure Edition” has the additional essential supplement, HEARTS OF DARKNESS, Eleonor Coppola's outstanding documentary on the making of the film.
8) THE DAMNED (THESE ARE THE DAMNED, included in THE ICONS OF SUSPENSE COLLECTION: HAMMER FILMS, Sony)
Joseph Losey’s haunting, memorable film in the most complete version yet available on DVD.
9) PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (Shock Blu-ray import)
We were happy to renew our appreciation of this haunting 1975 mystery directed by Peter Weir on Blu-ray. Shock’s Blu-ray disc contains the “Director’s Cut” (as opposed to the original theatrical version) and doesn’t include the array of supplements contained on Second Sight’s valuable 2008 SD DVD issue, but the improved HD image and sound make this a highly worthwhile edition of the film.
10) MICKEY ONE (Sony Pictures Screen Classics By Request)
Unaccountably neglected, never before released on DVD, and shot by master cinematographer Ghislain Cloquet (perhaps best known for the many pictures he shot for Robert Bresson), this fascinating Arthur Penn-directed, Kafkaesque film noir features Warren Beatty as a comedian on the run from the mob. Image and sound quality on this video-on-demand disc is excellent.
VW's Favorite DVDs of 2010: Heather Drain
Heather Drain is VIDEO WATCHDOG's newest contributor, appearing for the first time in VW 160 (on its way to our subscribers now). Her work has also appeared in the pages of SCREEM, ULTRA VIOLENT, THE EXPLOITATION JOURNAL and several other publications, and her blog Mondo Heather can be found here. The only predictable thing about Heather is her unpredictability, and her Favorite Discs list takes a different approach than the others I've posted here, being written in paragraph form, amounting to fewer than five titles, and veering entirely away from our staple genres of horror and fantasy. However, since our point in publishing these lists is to direct VW's readers to interesting and offbeat DVD releases which may have escaped their notice, Heather's endorsements certainly fill the bill. - TLBy Heather Drain
2010 has honestly been one of those blur years, when plenty of great stuff has come out but, due to circumstances, finances and creative ADD, I have not had the chance to properly devour a lot of the discs that have come out this year.
That said, there have been a few recent standout titles that I have had the good fortune to watch. Before going into my brief but mega-worthy list, I will preface it by saying that, yes, one of the four titles was technically released in 2009. But as someone who prescribes to the notion that years do not end and begin cleanly and instead bleed into one another, it works. Plus it's my Favorites list and I will fudge if I want to! Anyway, off to the titles!
First up is the Tribeca film release THE WILD & WONDERFUL WHITES OF WEST VIRGINIA. A documentary produced by Johnny Knoxville's company Dickhouse, this is a gritty and unforgettable peek into the famous/infamous White family from Boone County, West Virginia. They garnered national recognition back in the day for patriarch D. Ray White's unique brand of traditional Appalachian folk dancing. In the wake of D. Ray's violent death, his son, Jesco White, took up the mantle and got even more notoriety thanks to appearances on the DIFFERENT DRUMMER series on PBS. The popularity of that led to the now cult shorts, DANCING OUTLAW and DANCING OUTLAW 2: JESCO GOES TO HOLLYWOOD. Between then (1994) and now, Jesco, along with his bad-ass sister Mamie, have become underground folk heroes. The White family has even been immortalized in numerous songs, the best being Hank Williams III's “Legend of D. Ray White,” which is well utilized in the film.
Charles Bukowski had the quote that nobody suffers like the poor and this fact is all too clear here. The heartbreak of being stuck in a poor, working-class rut, thanks to locale, class status, an extremely faulty system and self destructive behavior that is often the result of the prior factors, is deeply felt. Being someone who has worked and been related to people very similar to this family, it hit especially close to home. The biggest impact, though, is seeing the charismatic Jesco and Mamie, who both are the big survivors of the brood, dealing with the shrapnel of life around them. While you get a good peek into the younger Whites, it is these two that will stay with you long after the disc has played.
Speaking of folk heroes, there's also Troma's two-disc release of Phillipe Mora's MAD DOG MORGAN. While I still feel like this film probably should have been in the hands of a company like Criterion, since it is basically an art film more in the vein of someone like Sam Peckinpah than, say, Lloyd Kaufman, it is still nice to have this film in print and getting some cherry extras. It's a beautifully made film with one of Dennis Hopper's best performances as Dan “Mad Dog” Morgan, an Irishman with a good heart who ends up becoming an outlaw and bush ranger in the wilds of Australia. For anyone used to seeing Hopper playing manic-eyed and occasionally scenery-gnawing characters, it is refreshing seeing him playing such a vulnerable man.
A film that has absolutely nothing to do with Australian folk heroes or documentaries but does have a connection to dancing is the Amero Brothers' cult adult film musical BLONDE AMBITION. Video-X-Pix went all out for this release, complete with a beautiful print, a well-written booklet, a B&W promo card of star Suzy Mandel, two small strips of the negative and two commentary tracks, the first being from John Amero himself. If you're not familiar with the man, John (along with his brother, Lem) was a pioneer in the world of fringe cinema, helming such early sexploitation gems as THE LUSTING HOURS and, later on, BACCHANALE. It's a great commentary from a warm, talkative man. The second one is from none other than the late, great Jamie Gillis. While Jamie's part in the film is a glorified but funny cameo as an effete porn director, his commentary is also fun with a lot of good stories from the days when the adult genre had real actors and filmmakers. The film itself is a frothy and charmingly silly musical comedy centering on the ambitious Kane Sisters, Candy (Dory Devon) and Sugar (former BENNY HILL actress Mandel.) The sex is secondary to the film making, so even if seeing the dirty hula in action isn't your bag, the odds are still good that you will enjoy this film.
Another disc that rocked my world in 2010 was the documentary about the classic Canadian progressive band Rush with RUSH: BEYOND THE LIGHTED STAGE. This Zoe Records release has lots of rare, behind the scenes footage, some dating back to their pre-Neal Peart days, this film is a dream with the perfect mix of live performances and interviews, giving a rounded view of this amazing band. It's another two-disc beast with loads of extras, so it truly is a prog rock feast.
So when you think of this year's releases, as we begin to edge ever so closer to 2011, please think of gritty documentaries, history-based art films, MGM styled musicals with enough skin and sequins to please the eye and of course, Canadian progressive rock bands. I know I will!
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