Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Mary Poppins

I had never seen Mary Poppins before today. This somewhat startling fact had become more or less a running gag with certain friends since they just could not fathom why I hadn't seen it and why I had no desire to do so. I was the same with The Sound of Music until I came across it one day on television and figured "it's now or never." My experience with watching that famous 1965 Julie Andrews musical only made my desire to not watch Mary Poppins from one year earlier even stronger. Still, bite the bullet I did and I watched Robert Stevenson's 1964 musical for the first time for The Film Experience's ongoing "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" series.

I'll admit that for as much as I struggled to watch the movie its seemingly interminable series of pantomime and cloying wide-eyed quirkiness, I struggled even more to find a shot that I liked enough. I don't feel Mary Poppins is a particularly well-photographed film. Oh, sure, the sets and the costumes and the animation and the visual effects are all working overtime to make this a lively and energetic picture (there is always a lot going on in nearly every frame), but I don't think the cinematography do it any favours with its unimaginative set-ups and framing. I didn't find many of the musical sequences all that involving and only when they really ramped up the artificiality did I actually get invested in them, which is a curious thing to admit but there you go.

I guess that brings me back to why I just flat out did not like this movie. It feels so crushingly old-fashioned. Consider that West Side Story had come out just three years prior and maybe you can see what I mean. That one is so vibrantly constructed and beats with a modern heart. Mary Poppins, for all of its technological advances, just reeks of mothballs. I know many consider the film to be a lighter than air confection, but I found its dottering and fluttering to be nigh on insufferable. I mean, it certainly doesn't help that Julie Andrews is the only one I could stand to listen to - it's undeniable that she has a pretty voice, yes - but I really struggled to watch this movie without sighing every time an unnecessary song that goes on far too long came on. Cutesy kids alert at red, folks. Eep!

The one aspect other than Andrews that I enjoyed was just how very odd the whole enterprise is. I don't just mean in that characters go about doing odd things, but that the film itself finds itself throwing some truly odd stuff out there in what was probably conceived as a rather innocuous children's flick (upcoming Saving Mr Banks will certainly show us what's what, right? Ummm... maybe not). When it came to selecting a shot I considered the moment the flowers become butterflies in the famous animated sequence (above), or something from Dick Van Dyke's rooftop dancing sequence with the fireworks since there was some beautiful matte work there, or his foggy exit, or even one of the ridiculous shots of nanny's flying away down the street (did nobody find that odd?) No, my "best shot" is one actually from the very beginning of the movie as the camera pans across the London skies and spots Mary Poppins sitting atop the clouds. I found it quite odd, but that's a good thing.

It's a moment that genuinely surprised me. And for a film that didn't do all that much surprising to me in its following two hours and twenty minutes, I figured that was worth celebrating. It's just a supremely strange moment that comes unexpectedly and comes rather peacefully, uncluttered by everything including the kitchen sink that the rest of the film seems determined to throw at the screen. Looking at it just now and it's a rather beautiful image in its own right, and one that looks as if it carries a certain sadness without its cheerful chim-chim-cheree on the soundtrack. I wish the rest of the film was able to make me actually feel something other than painful contempt. I am not surprised in the least that the creator of the Mary Poppins character hated the film.

If you ask me, the best thing this film wrought was the infamous "Scary Mary" recut trailer that reposits the film as an suspenceful horror flick about a vengeful nanny with mystical powers. I'd long enjoyed the video, but now having seen the movie it's based on I can guarantee that it'd be a helluva lot more interesting. Especially since, as the video suggests as well as the aforementioned odd moments, there's a completely different movie going on in there and I want to see it.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: American Graffiti

George Lucas has been saying he's going to leave big budget movies behind and refocus on the small ones that began his career in the 1970s. Anybody who has paid any attention knows that that is never going to happen, even if he has decided to sell his LucasFilm brand and potentially leave the Star Wars (and Indiana Jones, I guess) franchise behind him. He'll surely never truly leave it behind. I mean, he's hung on to that thing for dear life for decades and even against his better judgement has kept spinning it off into new incarnations at the drop of a hat.

Still, even if Lucas' career is one of unfulfilled promise, derailed by the unparalleled success of a genre flipped space opera, that initial promise will always be unforgettable. His 1973 nostalgic ode to the teenage dream of his early life was his second feature after the stripped down science fiction of THX 1138. He was nominated for writing and directing Oscars, winning neither. It was still a huge deal given its origin as a small-budget virtually independent production. It's hard to imagine teenagers today flocking to a film such as this, although I guess Gary Ross' Pleasantville is the closest I can think of off the top of my head.

The film, a sprawling look at a group of graduating seniors on the verge of a tumultuous world. It's one of my favourite movies. A good looking one, however, is not how I've ever particularly seen it. This series at The Film Experience, that asks readers to select their favourite shot from within a given film, proves otherwise. Furthering how much I adore this film, every time I watch it it reveals something new and rich. The visuals, as I said, have never been something I have gravitated towards, but looking at it now it seems silly to have not noticed them earlier. There are some really vivid colours and beautifully crafted images on display here. 

See? Absolutely gorgeous. I particularly love the film's use of shadow and tightness. So many movies are filmed in close shots these days, but here it truly serves a purpose. The shot I chose - sadly after only a skim, I didn't have time to rewatch the entire film as much as I would love to (also: my blu-ray is back home in Australia) - is this moment, which I think sums up the film really rather nicely. These people occupy a sort of limbo land where they want to be adults - smoking, drinking - but knowing full well that the passing of time means the things they take for granted will fall away. 

This beautiful shot of Oscar-nominated Candy Clark, I feel, echoes those sentiments entirely. An almost mournful pose as the cool purple light of the night sky beams down - they won't have moments like this for much longer, and the melancholy nature of the lighting here adds pangs of sadness to this already thick layer of morose that lingers over the characters. It's a gorgeous shot from a gorgeous moment in a gorgeous film. Just gorgeous. Drink up!

Birth of an Unknown Woman

If I were to be the owner of a grand repertory cinema with the ability to curate and put on double features of my choice, I think I found a perfect evening for my patrons. It would be a double feature dedicated to the greatest of all niche genres, "women who lie to themselves", and would feature Max Ophuls' 1948 tragic romance Letter from an Unknown Woman and Jonathan Glazer's reincarnatory love story Birth. The two films really, truly feel as if they couldn't be more dissimilar to one another, and yet as I sat in the Museum of Modern Art watching a 35mm print of Ophuls' seemingly overlooked drama I couldn't help but think the two films, separated by some 56 years of history, were peas in a pod.

It's a beautiful film, for sure, on a visual and dramatic level. The story of a famous pianist who receives a mysterious letter from a woman who claims to have loved him for her entire life only to have been turned away because he was too blind to see who she was. Of course, the tragedy becomes twofold for reasons that seem rather obvious from the opening scene, but that's neither here nor there. For somebody who is notoriously fickle with the tears they shed, I did get quite a bit misty-eyed of Unknown Woman with its delicately fragile lead performance by Joan Fontaine (we were just have a laugh with her last week!) and her tale of operatic woe. The cinematography of Franz Planer is gorgeous with its beautiful rendering of snow and shadow. My particular favourite shot it that overhead shot of Fontaine's "unknown woman" walking away her body casts a shadow as long as her gloom. Just divine.

But where the connection to Birth comes in is remarkable. The films share so much and yet it was something that I only noticed when Unknown Woman, which I had obviously never seen before, utilised the scene of an opera in a very similar way to Glazer's. As Fontaine's Lisa takes her seat to watch Mozart's The Magic Flute, she has just been confronted with the realisation that her one true love has returned. Whilst not quite in the same mysterious fashion as the situation that confronts Nicole Kidman's character in Birth, but the two characters wrestle with their feelings as the power of the music wash over them. It's remarkable how similar the scenes and the character motivations behind them are. Sadly, we are not treated to a masterful three-minute sequence of beguiling close-up in Letter from the Unknown Woman like we are in Birth - I suppose this very mainstream-leaning romance film wasn't quite the place for such a visual move in 1940s Hollywood - but the effect is one and the same. It works.

Image source, FIPRESCI

From there, the two films felt like nothing less than sisters. The stories of Fontaine's Lisa and Kidman's Anne seemingly etched together as they each emerge out of the intimidating shadow of the men who took their former flame's place and decide to persue something that seems foolhardy and destined for failure, but which neither women can truly come to terms with until it's staring them blankly in the face. Both women go to personally tragic places in order to be with the love of their life, only to have it suggested by the man himself that it wasn't that all along. They mourn very obviously on the inside, harbouring long-gestating pain within them, while putting on an external face of strength. And even though the man at the centre of Unknown Woman is obviously a very dashing, handsome man, and the boy at the centre of Birth is, well, a boy, both stories tell a very salient point on what the idea of an all-encompassing love can do to us in the long term if it is interrupted by the natural order of things. Funnily enough, in Unknown Woman the love is interrupted by a birth, and in Birth it is interrupted by death. Make of that as you wish.

That they also share the aforementioned stunning cinematography, plus great musical scores (Desplat's work on Birth remains one of the greatest things my ears have ever heard), and bona fide immaculate performances by the respective lead actors are just cherries on top. Birth has been said to have been influenced by Kubrick, which I think is definitely on point to a degree, but having now see Ophuls' film I can't separate the two. Nor do I want to, even if my mind is just playing tricks. I now covet both of these films separately and together. I want to soak in their opulence and live in a world where I get to yearn for somebody with the strength and dedication as them. Although, hopefully, my yearning would have a happier ending.

Note:
I was thankfully able to view Letter from an Unknown Woman in 35mm print form, which was a wonderful relief. MoMA are screening it again on Monday at 5pm so hopefully I have maybe inspired you to jump on the subway to 53rd street. Coincidentally, Birth will also be screening on 5 June and 12 June at MoMA in a tribute season to cinematographer Harris Savides. I have been told by the MoMA people that it too is screening in 35mm. If somebody would put them together, side-by-side, I think you'd have one hell of devastating double.

31 Horrors: Peeping Tom (#23)

Wherein I attempt to watch 31 horror films over the course of October. 31 horror films that I have never seen before, from obscure to acclaimed classics. We'll see how well I go in actually finding the time to watch and then write about them in some way.

I still have a few of my October viewings left to write up, but Michael Powell's classic Peeping Tom is officially the first of my horror selections to have been screened in November. I ran out of time, but am still wanting to watch the 31. It was inevitable given my late night start times usually resulted in me going "oh, I'll leave that movie that is hailed a masterpiece until another time when I won't have a high chance of falling asleep and, instead, will watch something sillier and lighter." Ya know? Yeah. I still very much anticipate watching Changeling and Don't Look Now, but at the time I felt more like, oh I dunno, Student Bodies instead.

Still, no matter whether I watched it in October or in April, I'd still want to talk about Peeping Tom! More of a thriller than horror - certainly less horror inclined that the film it is frequently linked to, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (yet another instance of my October horror selections having a connection to that particular masterpiece) - it still manages to conjure up an intensely nerve-wracking world that I found entirely captivating. Whether deliberately or not, Peeping Tom embraces an artificial aesthetic that is both glorious to look at and yet a prominent thematic device. The film is, after all, about voyeurism and what better way to subliminally instruct an audience that filmgoing is, essentially, an act of voyeurism than by playing up the cinematic language? Catching audiences off guard with damning themes seems to go down a lot easier when its drawn in bold colours and deliciously constructed imagery.

Known as the first "slasher" film - "Peeping Tom, 1960, directed by Michael Powell. The first movie to ever put the audience in the killer's POV", Scream 4 naturally - and released the same year as Psycho, it's actually quite easy to see how this film caused such a ruckus in Powell's home country of Britain (also Hitchcock's home country, but Psycho was an American production). Presenting England in such a light, especially by one of their own, can't have have endeared him to too many people. The seemingly rather easily replicable nature of the crimes with the increasing popularity of home cameras, too. As a member of the famed Powell & Pressburger team, this was a detour and one that essentially ended his career, which is a particularly cruel fate given the (eventual) rapturous response that Hitchcock's Psycho received. The film was also a very obvious inspiration on the aforementioned Scream franchise (especially number 4), which gets it bonus kudos points from me.

Peeping Tom's biggest hurdle is its lead actor, Karlheinz Böhm. With his breath, somewhat posh, vocal delivery, the character of Mark Lewis is hardly a charismatic one. Of course, he doesn't necessarily have to be. I guess if he were then the scenes wherein we're meant to believe he's coming out of his shell thanks to the inquisitive Helen, played by Anna Massey, wouldn't come off quite as creepy as hell as it does, which was surely Powell's intention. He's a weirdo that most viewers would have had a hard time responding to (much different to Anthony Perkins' Norman Bates) and the acting style that Karlheinz Böhm utilises is occasionally quite distracting in its lack of subtlety.

Still, Peeping Tom doesn't rise or fall simply on the actor's shoulder (and, it must be said that Maxine Audley is super fantastic as the blind mother of Massey's Helen). It's a film deep in rich context that's so wonderfully explained by one Martin Scorsese:

"I have always felt that Peeping Tom and 8½ say everything that can be said about film-making, about the process of dealing with film, the objectivity and subjectivity of it and the confusion between the two. 8½ captures the glamour and enjoyment of film-making, while Peeping Tom shows the aggression of it, how the camera violates... From studying them you can discover everything about people who make films, or at least people who express themselves through films."

Furthermore, the character of Mark Lewis frequently alternating between real world and the world as viewed through his camera, it's almost as he really isn't there. Much like Patrick Bateman who used those almost exact words in one of his pre-homicide monologues, Mark seems permanently poised on the verge of disappearing altogether. Swathed in oversized jackets and uncomfortable without his prized camera possession, his meek demeanor only forms flesh and blood when, well, in the presence of somebody else's flesh and blood. Much like Halloween begins from the perspective of Michael Myers before effectively moving onto a permanent otherly plain of existence, Peeping Tom portrays this man as somebody who never really was. He floats about seemingly unnoticed by many, and those who do don't tend to think too highly of him. Years of seeing his predominant male figure pursuing the act of perverse voyeurism has allowed him to slink through life determined to not be the sort of person that anybody would care about.

Peeping Tom is, perhaps more than anything else, a ravishing visual treat. The cinematography of Otto Heller is marvellous and works wonders in bringing a sort of film noir meets technicolour palace to life. The human figures that navigate his frame frequently weave through as Heller's camera glides ever so gracefully around them, cornering them in their own shadows. The confrontation sequence between Mark and the blind Mrs Stephens is a master of this blend of styles and was, for me, the film's greatest moment. Maximum suspense is wrung out of the otherwise innocuous camera that Mark carries around like a comfort blanket. It's spinning gears capturing death intensely and up close makes for a stunning piece of set decoration long before we discover the secret device hidden within it.

There's obvious much more to go into with this movie, but in a more formal way. I'm sure there are plenty of people who've done that and with far more intelligence than I. I was deeply involved by Peeping Tom, and parallels to Psycho aside, found it to be a startlingly original and daring piece of work. It's entirely apt that Michael Powell's career was ruined because of Peeping Tom since he almost seems to be going out of his way to make a film that can very easily be seen as him blasting audiences for their cinematic bloodlust. It's an endlessly fascinating film and one that shan't forget too soon. A

31 Horrors: Vampyr (#20)

Wherein I attempt to watch 31 horror films over the course of October. 31 horror films that I have never seen before, from obscure to acclaimed classics. We'll see how well I go in actually finding the time to watch and then write about them in some way.

Well, it's easy to see why this has been deemed as so influential, isn't it? Per the Eureka! Masters of Cinema DVD sleeve, Carl Theodore Dreyer's Vampyr was deemed by Alfred Hitchcock as "the only film worth watching... twice", Vampyr is seemingly a very obvious inspiration to Psycho. Vampyr, also the inspiration to Olivier Assayas' Irma Vep in a far more obvious way, is about a man who leaves his life and descends into a fantasy horror upon arriving a motel in the middle of nowhere. What is Janet Leigh's Marion Crane is not a fantastical being on the run? Where does she end? A middle of nowhere motel. While Marion met a far crueller fate than Nicolas de Gunzburg's Allan Gray (the film's unofficial subtitle is The Strange Adventure of Allan Gray), Vampyr too descends into a mystery-solving horror ala Psycho, just with vampires instead of mummy-dressing psychotics. The similarities don't quite end there, however, as Hitchcock appears to have aped several slices of striking imagery too.

Vampyr is the first sound feature that Dreyer ever made, coming on the heels of The Passion of Joan of Arc. Having said that, Dreyer has stuck to a silent aesthetic for the most part and there is minimal dialogue as a result of the producer's wish to record the film in both French and Germany languages. Title cards are frequently used and many of the actors - unprofessional actors for the most part I've since discovered - work more in sinister glances than horrific speeches. Dreyer, too, uses static imagery more than the theatrical horrors of his international brethren. Vampyr's release was actually delayed in Germany so that Dracula and Frankenstein could be released first, certainly one of the earliest sign posts of the international film world working with a domino effect.

At only 72 minutes, Vampyr doesn't exactly dig deep into the vamp mythology, but it does manage to craft an excessively eerie atmosphere. As Allan Gray attempts to solve and break the vampire curse that has swept across his village without succumbing to it himself, Dreyer infuses it with enough images of wrinkled, doom-ravaged faces and sickle-wielding townsfolk to power several films. It's holds an incredible power, a spell if you will, that doesn't break until it's over. A bewitching and altogether stunning piece of brilliantly crafted cinema. A-

31 Horrors: Island of Lost Souls (#19)

Wherein I attempt to watch 31 horror films over the course of October. 31 horror films that I have never seen before, from obscure to acclaimed classics. We'll see how well I go in actually finding the time to watch and then write about them in some way.

I knew as I popped in the Eureka! Masters of Cinema Blu-ray for this 1932 (by coincidence, the second of October's horror flicks to have come from that year) that Erle Kenton's Island of Lost Souls was an adaptation of sorts of HG Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau. Given the title change I figured it was one of those unofficial adaptations where everything's the same, but not. Alas, I was wrong. By the time a character is introduced called, you guessed it, Dr Moreau, it became obvious that this was just a straight out filming of the novel. Well, as close to one as you could probably get in 1932. I haven't read the book so I can't tell you how similar they are, but at least in Europe it was marketed with its original book title in tow.

The film isn't all that special, to be honest, but as an almost schlocky pre-code genre title, it makes for some interesting viewing. Starring Charles Laughton as the aforementioned doc, and Richard Arlen as the shipwrecked man who uncovers his research (if one can call it that) into regeneration and vivisection. There is also Bela Lugosi (Dracula!) as a half-man/half-beast creation known as the "Sayer of the Law", and Kathleen Burke as The Panther Woman. She was supposedly chosen amongst a group of 60,000 candidates and, on the marketing, wasn't even credited by name, but merely as "The Panther Woman". Those old Hollywood types really knew how to sell a woman's soul for financial gain, didn't they!

Island of Lost Souls came out a year before King Kong, and the two share quite a few similarities. So much so that I wouldn't be surprised to learn that that 1933 classic used some of the same sets as Kenton's picture. It opens with a boat sailing the choppy seas and various characters finding themselves amongst a island dense in as much flora as mystery. Admittedly, the first and the third acts hold most of what I found interesting here, with the middle - basically everything about the boring Panther Woman - losing my patience. I enjoyed the opening with its gruff sailors and charming, yet sinister, Charles Laughton. The end, too, is quite intense as the beasts retaliate against their maker - certainly it was Laughton's final scene that earned this movie its status as banned in the UK? At only 71 minutes long though even the stuff I didn't too much care for didn't stick around long enough to prove too detrimental. To be honest, I watched this early in the month and forgot to write it up. I have as little to say about now as I did then, I suppose. B-

31 Horrors: The Omen (#12)

Wherein I attempt to watch 31 horror films over the course of October. 31 horror films that I have never seen before, from obscure to acclaimed classics. We'll see how well I go in actually finding the time to watch and then write about them in some way.

Not even I can quite understand why I hadn't seen Richard Donner's The Omen until now. Sometimes one just has films pass by them, I guess. At least I can't say I've never seen the original, but have indeed seen the recent remake (like, say, House of Wax or The Fog). I remember the remake was released on 06/06/06 and that it starred Julia Stiles and Mia Farrow (and maybe Liev Schrieber?) - actually, I seem to remember more about it than I probably ought to about a film I haven't seen.

Oh wait, we're meant to be talking about the 1976 original.

Actually, maybe we can just scratch talking about The Omen - which is nicely effective with a couple of justly famous scenes (the fish bowl and the hanging) and a couple of wonderful kills (the spike and the decapitation - let's face it, who doesn't love a good beheading in a movie? Except for the, er, beheadee, I guess) amongst a nicely-scored piece of bitter chilly Brit horror - and focus instead of Lee Remick's scared face. She gets to use it enough times and it's rather fabulous.

Other than that, is there really all that much to say? I'm sure more than enough has been said about The Omen that I don't really need to go into what works and what doesn't (although maybe in the hindsight of 30 years maybe somebody needs to address some of the more ridiculous aspects of the film like that trip to Israel... surely there was a less silly way of getting that exposition out of the way? And what's going on with the church-goer expressions?) Still, for every somewhat out-of-place moment there is an even more amazing moment like this.


Or this.


Incredible. B

Can anyone say whether the sequels are worth checking out? Does Damien eventually become the President? Because that would be wild, it really would.

31 Horrors: Cat People (#1)

Wherein I attempt to watch 31 horror films over the course of October. 31 horror films that I have never seen before, from obscure to acclaimed classics. We'll see how well I go in actually finding the time to watch and then write about them in some way.

This past Saturday I made one my regular appearances on JOY 94.9's The Saturday Magazine and this week's special topic was film-noir and vintage cinema with a keen eye on the queer subtext found therein (being a GLBTIQ oriented radio station that certainly makes sense). When co-host - and friend, fyi - Ben Rylan asked me to choose a film to discuss I naturally went to my favourite film-noir, Jacques Tourneur's 1942 masterpiece of feline shadow play, Cat People. The queer element drips off of the screen in that film and it was a joy (ow, my ribs!) to discuss. You can listen to the podcast by clicking on over here (it's the September 29 episode). It's a fabulous episode in its entirety, but if you have a specific desire to listen to my segment you can fast forward to the 45-minute mark. Apologies for, you know, everything about my voice and speaking and general lack of eloquence. You can also hear my housemate, the crowned "Queen of The Astor", Tara Judah discussing celluloid right before me. I can tell you're jealous just thinking about the conversations we have at home whilst in track pants and with terrible bed hair.

I've seen Tourneur's original Cat People many, many times, but I had never seen Paul Schrader's remake, which came to be some 40 years later in 1982. I figured what better time to actually watch it than now? I only had 9 minutes to talk on the radio, but all in the name of "research" and wondered what the remake would illuminate upon the original if anything at all. I admit to assuming that since the original film was so steeped in lesbian subtext, that Schrader - hardly a wilting flower in the face of sex - would up the ante and present it merely as pure text. I was genuinely surprised, however, to find that the '80s redux all but jettisons the lesbian angle outside of the two scenes that directly photocopy the original.

Paul Schrader, also an uncredited co-writer alongside Alan Ormsby, veers his rendition of the DeWitt Bodeen story away from homosexual "oddness" and more abruptly towards incest and general erotica. In fact, Cat People 1982 bares very little resemblance to Tourneur's film outside of general plot similarities and a couple of scenes here or there. The only scenes replicated by Schrader outright is the "my sister" scene, which is actually humourously fobbed off by the Annette O'Toole character as if to say once and for all that this isn't a faithful retelling, and the swimming pool stalker sequence that is more or less the centrepiece of the '42 edition. It's fitting that it's the best scene in this edition as well, although the leopard autopsy sequence rivals it for edge-of-your-seat "what's gonna happen?" suspense.

Cat People 1942 is a superbly stylish film, utilising the aesthetics of film-noir (albeit predominantly due to budget limitations, although it proved popular and Tourneur/Lewton utilised the same look for The Leopard Man and I Walked with a Zombie a year later and beyond including the famous Out of the Past). Schrader's rendition is also stylish, but almost in the complete opposite way. Rather than high contrast blacks, greys and whites, cinematographer John Bailey utilises incredibly bright blues, greens, reds and yellows. Blood is actually quite minimal, but whenever it shows up - like Ed Bagley Jr's delightful arm excision sequence - it splatters in vivid clarity. When Natassja Kinski's Irena visits her brother's (a typically creepy Malcolm McDowell) workplace it is a church hall with rainbow colours (certainly a no go nowadays, yes?) When Schrader decides to recreate the swimming pool sequence, he uses fluorescence in a way that the original film never could.

The remake - much like, for instance, the 2003 "remake" of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, calling it a remake seems disingenuous - is certainly not an improvement on the original, but it works as its own curious beast. The Golden Globe-nominated score by Giorgio Moroder, and "Theme from Cat People (Putting Out the Fire)" by David Bowie(!!), are nice touches, but it is the original story that continues to impress most of all. It seems like such a silly premise, and yet it works because both filmmakers, Tourneur and Schrader, take it with absolute seriousness. Cat People '42: A; Cat People '82: B.

Weirdly Weird

This morning I read a nicely put piece on the issue of "weird for weirdness' sake" that argues people who make such complains about certain films are using a film's very unique quality as a scapegoat for their inability to like a film. I've seen films that are weird and liked them, and I've seen films that are weird and disliked them, but while I can sometimes understand a person's misgivings over a film due to some impenetrable oddness, I also don't think it's a filmmaker's responsibility to be coherent when they're not working in a familiar wheelhouse. Personally, I think to say a film by David Lynch is "weird for weirdness' sake" is to, quite frankly, not be paying any attention whatsoever, but I can certainly see where somebody could find his variety of weird cinema unpalatable. There's a big difference between personally not liking it and thinking the director has nothing to say. This all ties nicely together with a double feature that I attended this last past week of Alejandro Jodorowsky films at The Astor Theatre.

I'd never seen any of this famed Mexican director's work before, so the chance to his two most famous titles together on the big screen in 35mm prints was one I wasn't going to pass up (it meant skipping the press screening of Jennifer Westfeldt's Friends with Kids that I'm not terribly upset about). I had heard much about Jodorowsky's famed 1970 cult breakthrough, El Topo, but I know now that one can never know what to expect. If I see any of this man's other work I certainly won't make the mistake of thinking I know what I'm getting myself in for It's history as one of the original "midnight movies" was a definite lure, and in that regard I am certainly glad I got the chance to see it (one can't have an opinion on a film without actually see it, no matter what the internet tells us these days), but I can't say I enjoyed the film too much. Yes, it's quite strange, but it's strangeness isn't particularly interesting or portrayed in any visually arresting manner. The film's second half, with its exploitation of disfigured incest victims featuring quite prominently alongside its heavy religious iconography, proved to be a further tedious excursion into a rather uninteresting world that Jodorowsky had crafted. I'm sure Jodorowsky was going for something, but what that something was remains a mystery to me, hidden by laboured storytelling and an excessive run time.

Technically there's skill there, no doubt. I found particular fascination within the soundtrack that Jodorowsky constantly fills with noise despite the barren landscapes. Whether its an army of clucking chickens, gusty winds, mulling goats and the like, the speakers are certainly working overtime when other aspects are not. I got a kick out of the costume design by Jodorowsky himself that I could see had influenced the likes of Tarsem Singh's The Fall. Sadly, I found the film just never went anywhere potent enough to justify its crude stylistic flourishes and disturbing imagery.


The second feature, The Holy Mountain, on the other hand, was an entirely different experience. Dealing with a lot of the same issues as El Topo with its frequently confronting religious imagery and weird segues, I was instantly taken by it unlike its predecessor. The Holy Mountain was, I was surprised to discover, the next feature of Jodorowsky's career. A surprise because it feels like a rapid maturation and major advancement over the sloppy El Topo, but also because it proved that it wasn't just my distinct lack of pharmaceutical aid during the screening of El Topo that made me not enjoy it. The Holy Mountain is an awe-inspiring step for Jodorowsky and one that left me in a constant state of slack-jawed admiration. With its clean, assured direction, phenomenal art direction (truly some of the best I have ever seen), absurd imagery, bonkers descent into comedic oddity, and endlessly fascinating mythology I was entranced by The Holy Mountain.


I was disturbed, as one should be, by the very real animal cruelty as well as the questionable prepubescent child nudity and irksome representation of gay figures (all of which were also found within El Topo, and I suspect his later works, too), but at least this third feature of his came accompanied with such a strong, stylistic vision that I found it less troublesome. For the first hour, certainly, I just couldn't keep my eyes off of the screen as Jodorowsky threw dazzling image after dazzling image at me. From the opening scene of a robed man performing a religious act upon two women in a sterile white and black room I was hooked. I don't really know what any of it means, but I was fascinated nonetheless. Pockets of people amongst the audience were chuckling away at the odd imagery - the toad city for instance - but I mostly sat there with my serious face on, soaking it all in. This was powerful stuff and I was determined to not let Jodorowsky's obvious nods to El Topo's pot-headed legacy get in the way. Of course, by the time one character started humping a mountainside, followed by what can only be described as "tiger tits", something in my brain snapped. I ended up cackling for several minutes straight and then at frequent intervals thereafter until the ending. Oh, that ending? Yeah. Wow. I can't even, ya know? I don't even want to know what the director was smoking when he planned out The Holy Mountain. Something dangerous, no doubt. It's of little surprise that John Lennon and Yoko Ono helped finance the picture, also.


These two films seem like excellent mirrors to any debate about "weird for weirdness' sake". Both are weird, sure, but I found only The Holy Mountain did it in the context of a film with the gravity and the scope to give the impression of having a deeper meaning. In contrast, El Topo felt like little more than shenanigans. Even if I didn't entirely get what it was all about, it's a film of truly epic visual power - visuals that took my breath away - and one that really can't imagine experiencing on a small screen. Thank god The Astor Theatre (once again), hey?

Polka Dots & Sunglasses: The Costume Design of Les Diabolique

With so many voices out there on the internet - the last thing we need is another one writing the same ol' retrospective review of the same ol' film that everyone already knows is a classic - I thought it might be interesting to begin looking at specific elements of some of the films I watch, both old and new. I hope it inspires me to write more about some of the great films I see, and inspires you dear readers to try and admire the unexpected.

This entry contains spoilers, granted for a film from 1955, but I successfully avoided any so maybe you should too if you've never seen Les Diaboliques! I can't recall any other films that actively end with text telling the viewer to be silent about what they just saw, that's how blind you should go into this film.

"Vintage". It's a word that gets thrown about a lot today in relation to fashion. Whether it actually is vintage, or just has the same musky, old-timey appeal of something that is, it's become an adjective to describe items of clothes that one would associate with another time and place. Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1955 noir horror, Les Diaboliques, isn't a period film at all - or, at least, I don't think it was at the time - but I couldn't help but think of this phrase, "vintage", whilst ogling the delicious costumes that appear throughout. Despite featuring no credited costume designer, the duds of Les Diabolique are a masterclass of (at the time) contemporary costume design, as outfits of various shapes, colours and designs help inform the characters that wear them. It was just one of many beautiful aspects to this French classic that impressed me upon watching Clouzot's film for the first time last evening.

A black and white checkered dress - with fan - worn by Véra Clouzot in Les Diabolique

The first costume I couldn't take my eyes off was the gorgeous checkered dress that Véra Clouzot wears, shown above. Almost like houndstooth in pattern, it's a stunning sundress that I can easily see being worn today with, perhaps, just a little less formal structure.The fan may be a bit much, but this outfit is just the beginning a trend for the meek Mme Delassalle whose wardrobe consists entirely of outfits that pair black with white. Utilising the good ol' concept of white representing good and pureness, whereas black represents evil and "the devil" (the translation of the title, Les Diaboliques), the costuming of Ms Clouzot is clearly a way of symbolising her character's dangerous dalliance between the two. Later on in the film she wears loose-fitting white shirt with deep v-neck and a long black dress, and then later a white dress shirt and skirt with black shall. Always conservative - Mme Delassalle is a school teacher after all - with her hair braided and tied at the back, she never full embraces the colour of white for her entire outfit until the climactic scenes in the school hallways once she has confessed to her crimes. It's a simple motif, and occasionally very literal - hello Star Wars - but given the very moral discussion of right and wrong, it's a motif that works.


A black and white polka dot dressing gown that even I want!
My favourite costume worn by Véra Clouzot is the black and white polka dot dressing gown warn at several occasions throughout the movie (I do love when a character rewears clothes, it gives a film such a sense of authenticity). Seen up above this paragraph, it's a simple piece of costume that is not only gorgeous to look at, but character defining as well. It's unassuming nature - no glimpse of sex appeal there - perfectly encapsulates the mademoiselle's attitude as a somewhat repressed woman who isn't interested in dressing for anybody other than herself. I admit that even I want a black and white polka dot dressing gown now, preferally one made of material that looks as smoothly elegant as the one shown here. The gloss and the reflection of light make me suspect it's made of a very luxurious fabric and, good grief, wouldn't we all want that on us morning and night?

Simone Signoret, as Clouzot's partner in crime, also gets the black = evil, white = good treatment, except she doesn't come out looking quite so rosy (er, mixing up my colour metaphors there, aren't I?) Pictured here to the left, she is always seen wearing outfits of black, charcoal and dark grey. Yes, I do realise I am discussing colours that are obviously in the spectrum of "black and white" and that the cinematography couldn't determine whether she's wearing crimson or purple or black or gold, but it's obvious to tell she has been deliberately given darker hues to Clouzet's Mme Delassalle because she is ultimately the far guiltier party of the two. Usually dressed in long body-hugging dresses that provide a sex appeal that her friend never does, Signoret's Nicole Horner is frequently the more mysterious of the two and given far less opportunities to show remorse through her costumes. She's a vixen and proud of it. I simply adore the sunglasses she wears in the early scenes at the school that make for effortless cool alongside her near bleach blond hair and dangling cigarette. It's a look I've seen replicated many times in recent years, although one has to suspect that those recreating this look - regular everyday women and celebrities alike - know what era they're basing their looks on.

"So Frenchy, so chic!" goes the saying - although does anybody make reference these days to a "Prince of Wales suit"? I doubt that - and Les Diaboloque proves that. Of the film that they inhabit? Divine. A tingly fright factory that garners scares out of our own imaginations, it's final scenes made my entire body freeze. Without a single peep of a musical score to telegraph the audience's fears and emotions (apart from the opening credits, that is - did Phantom of the Opera ruin organ music for everyone?) it obviously works best if you don't know the twists to come (so I hope you paid heed to that spoiler warning up top if you intended to watch it), but it's such a finely crafted piece of work that repeat viewings would hold such a delicious richness to them. Something the patently ridiculous-looking remake surely can't achieve. Unless Kathy Bates punching someone in the face is your idea of fine craftmanship... actually, maybe it is worth a look after all.

Trash for Treasure

I have been slowly making my way through the Paul Morrissey boxset, "The Andy Warhol Collection". It's been wonderful and weird in equal measure; I liked that Heat was like some warped version of Melrose Place and that Flesh for Frankenstein was their version of a lush, lavish period piece. And in 3D no less! That dinner table sequence with the panning camera was simply divine, and that finale is some sort of cracked out insanity right there! I can't say that any have had the potency and the sticky imprint of Flesh though, which was a rather incredible piece of cinema that is edited through a woodchipper in the same way Lars von Trier does and photographed like the lens has been smeared with grime and sweat. Nick Davis' typically intuitive write-up of that film for his Top 100 Films list has a particularly delicious comparison to Douglas Sirk and melodrama that I can't say I'd particularly thought about before, but now can't do anything else.

Still, it was while researching Trash that I came across perhaps one of the greatest bits of movie trivia ever. Oh sure, some people think it's absolutely wild that Tom Sellick was meant to be Indiana Jones, but I found this bonmot regarding transgendered actress Holly Woodlawn to be the very definition of amazing.

In October she was assigned a bit role in Trash, but so impressed director Paul Morrissey that she was given a larger role. In 1970 she received word from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that George Cukor, supported by others, was petitioning the Academy to nominate her for Trash however, nothing came of this campaign.

Apparently George Cukor, Oscar winning director of My Fair Lady, The Philadelphia Story, and many others, initiated the campaign and got signatures from Ben Gazzara and Joanne Woodward. Doesn't this just blow your mind? Actors and filmmakers of their calibre are not the kind you would expect to go to stumps for a transgendered actress in a no budget independent movie that features intravenous drug use, full frontal male nudity and lots of sex. Woodlawn's performance is electrifying and magnetic, I literally couldn't take my eyes off of her even when she's sharing a scene with a naked Joe Dallesandro (and given he's one of the sexiest actors to grace the screen, that's a tall order). Cukor's initiative was obviously doomed, but it certainly makes me curious as to what other fringe dwellers caught the eye of the Hollywood establishment.

Falling for Leone

Last week I had the eye-popping pleasure of witnessing Tarsem's The Fall and Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West on the big screen on consecutive nights. Such are the benefits of having The Astor Theatre right up the road, I guess. I had seen a couple of Leone's spaghetti westerns (so called because they have Italian heritage, and not because of Bugsy Malone style food fights) - namely A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More - and hadn't been particularly taken by them, but the opportunity to see Once Upon a Time in the West wasn't to be missed. I wrote about Leone's classic western over at Trespass Magazine for a new column in which we see films that we can't believe we've never seen. I think I got my own pieces off to an auspicious beginning.

The idea of having to see films like this on the big screen was worked into my brain long ago and I’m glad my first experience with it was in this way. Those arresting vistas with rocks of red and skies of blue are about as gorgeous as scenery can get; the way Leone and his cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli utilise the widescreen is hypnotic. Ennio Morricone’s music score is one of the all time greats and it goes without saying that watching Claudia Cardinale (The Leopard) for three hours is hardly unbearable. They quite literally don’t make ‘em like this any more.

What I haven't had the chance to discuss yet is Tarsem's The Fall. I have been a huge fan of his first film, the mind-bending serial killer thriller The Cell, since it came out and blew my mind, but his second feature took the long way to my eyeballs. Apparently it received a very brief released some years back at ACMI, but I don't think I was even living in Melbourne at the time. Nevertheless, some five years after completion and three years after its release in America I finally got a chance to behold The Fall on the big screen. It's certainly an experience, that's for sure. Filmed over four years in over 20 different countries, The Fall is the sort of film that was made to be seen in a cinema. No amount of big screen TV's would surely do it justice. Whether it's the imagery of a large elephant swimming alone in a coral reef, a swarm of assassins emerging out of the ruins of an ancient temple or a pasture of green grass hidden amongst a dusty mountainside, Tarsem's V-I-S-I-O-N is frequently awe-inspiring and always admirable.

It's surely no surprise that the film this reminded me of the most was Ron Fricke's Baraka, which was coincidentally the first film I ever saw at The Astor Theatre. They both share that travelogue form, but it's much more than that, with Tarsem's observations at times feeling as deeply rooted in a spiritual desire as Fricke's do in his 1992 masterpiece. I've seen Baraka many, many times and it strikes me every single time and while The Fall lacks some that documentary's wide-eyed power due to some rather average storytelling, Tarsem has succeeded in bringing a little bit of this world's powerful beauty onto the screen and that's a very powerful thing in itself. Both of these films are about observing our own place in the world and that makes everybody's viewing a particularly singular and personal experience. While The Fall grants itself the Hollywood spine of a plot and characters, it's still essentially a film that observes how we as people cope amidst this crazy world and that's something that be profoundly touching.

The Fall is somewhat of a remake of a Bulgarian film called Yo Ho Ho. I had never heard of it it before, but I'm instantly intrigued. Tarsem has surely expanded that film, whatever it was, to the form we see today, but it's still a rather simple and personal film. The central plot device of a suicidal stuntman telling a fantastical story of lost love and revenge to a small child is frequently filled with moments of human beauty just as much as the lavish location shots are filled with natural beauty. Lee Pace, who I'm to believe is quite well-liked in certain circles for his role in Pushing Daisies, is quite excellent as the stuntman who, in a beguiling black and white prologue, tries to turn movie magic in a death march. And anybody who says the young Catinca Untaru is not one of the cutest buttons they've ever seen is clearly a big fat liar. Seriously. Eiko Ishioka's masterful costume work (I cannot wait for the surefire costuming orgy that will be Tarsem and Ishioka's next collaboration, The Immortals), Ged Clarke's evocative production design and Colin Watkinson's extravagant cinematography all aid Tarsem in bringing this singular film to the screen. Any misgivings I had about the film feel inconsequential when compared to the intense feelings I had when viewing the masterful images on display. A-

Halloween: H20 and the Unofficial Scream Sequel

I was watching Steve Miner's Halloween H20 the other night for the first time in many a year - let's face it, John Carpenter's 1978 original is the one most people, myself included, would go to when wanting to watch Michael Myers going chop chop - and recognised that it's actually as much a pseudo entry to the Scream franchise as it is to Halloween. The backstory to Halloween H20's screenplay is somewhat murky, but I think it's known that Kevin Williamson, hot off of the success of Scream, and the in-production I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream 2 and The Faculty (still the Weinstein company's golden boy), was asked to write the screenplay, but that was thrown out except for the bare bones, but then he was brought back in to rewrite parts and... well, it sounds a bit complicated. Nevertheless, Williamson's influence on the film is unmistakable and, really, is far more obvious on the finished product than John Carpenter. In the end. instead of noticing the similarities between Halloween H20 and Halloween (of which there are indeed many: the classroom discussion about fate; "everyone's entitled to one good scare"; etc etc), I was noticing the similarities between Halloween H20 and Scream.

The obvious connections begin right from the opening scene which, besides adopting the new hot "opening victim" trend of the time, utilises Marco Beltrami's music cues from Scream! At first I thought it was just a comical bit of pay back since Wes Craven quite clearly appeared to be doing the same thing with Carpenter's classic score at various points in Scream, but as the film went on it just got more and more noticeable with Beltrami's score reappearing time and time again, and in very obvious ways. Even the way Beltrami's music weaves throughout the action is the same. Sidney Prescott goes to open a door? So does Joseph Gordon-Levitt at the same music cue. It's truly baffling. The long dormitory chase scene between Jamie Lee Curtis, Josh Hartnett and (Young Artist Award nominee for Best Performance in a Feature Film - Supporting Young Actress) Michelle Williams, as well as the final van chase, is scored entirely to pieces from similar scenes in Scream. I also think I hear cues from Tatum and Cici's death scenes from Scream and Scream 2 respectively, as well as Gale's chase scene through the soundproof studio in Scream 2.

Add that to the frequent inclusion of Carpenter's original theme (or variations of it), more Beltrami score, but this time from Mimic, and even a moment of Bernard Hermann's Psycho score during the scene with Janet Leigh, and it's hard to pick up any original music by the film's supposed composer, John Ottman.

Apparently Ottman's music was sparingly used, but that the producers wanted music "more like Scream". I guess coming from the same studio made actually using the music from Scream much easier and probably cheaper. Still, disappointing considering Ottman's score is very good (it was eventually released under the name "Portrait of Terror" and is available on iTunes).

However, it's more than just the music that brings about echoes of Scream. Much like Kevin Williamson's screenplay for Scream has characters named after famous horror icons ("Loomis" for instance), Halloween H20 has characters like "Casey". There's even a line of dialogue where Jamie Lee Curtis' longtime victim tells her son and his girlfriend to "drive down the street to the Beckers". This, of course, reflects upon the opening scene of Scream where Casey Becker's father told his wife to "drive down to the McKenzies", which was of course a reference to the same line being spoken by Curtis' Laurie Strode in the 1978 Halloween. Sheesh, are you still with me? Furthermore, the characters played by Adam Hann-Byrd and Jodi Lyn O'Keefe are clearly photocopies of Stu Macher and Tatum Riley from Scream, plus a large part of the focus being on the more adult characters is similar. I mean, for crying out loud, they even watch Scream 2 here!

Perhaps even more obviously a Scream artifact is the appearance by Janet Leigh. About eighteen different jokes in one, Leigh's appearance alongside her daughter (duelling scream queens if you will) as a character named "Norma" - oh yes - who drives the same car from Psycho while that film's music plays in the background and she recites lines from the original Halloween. That's even more twisted than the opening of Scream 4!

Thankfully, the LL Cool J character is just an original travesty! No erotica authoring security guards in the Scream franchise as far as I can recall! Still, I like Halloween H20. Sure, it's more of its time than the original, which was revolutionary to not just the horror genre, but cinema as a whole. It reminds me of that period of horror that coincided with my own growing love for cinema. The era may be decried by horror enthusiasts, but I will always view titles like this and Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Faculty, Urban Legend and so on with a tad more of a forgiving nature. Scream 4's failure to revitalise the slasher was that film's biggest disappointment. As for Michael Myers and his butcher knife of fun? Well, a 3D sequel to Rob Zombie's reimagined remakes is on the way. I think I'll stick to H20.