A brief disclaimer

I’ve seen discussions about the 2010 adaptation of “Whistle and I’ll Come to You” (featuring the late John Hart as Parkin) resurfacing, and all I can say is to repeat my previous comment about it: it’s overall an ok film, if one likes Haneke and his grim portrayal of relationships in the later stages of life, but an awful adaptation, which doesn’t do any justice to MRJ.

“Ghost of an Idea: Hauntology, Folk Horror, and the Spectre of Nostalgia” by William Burns: already in Cambridge

I finally got my copy of a book I featured in my post a week or so ago: a brief look gives a pretty good idea of what this book is about (“A critical analysis of the 21st-century fascination with the past, from horror films to haunted music,” as the publisher’s website describes it), and I like it so far.

“The Substance” (2024)

Так, ну по «Субстанции»:

1. Честно законспектировали все боди-хорроры масс-культа по списку — Кроненберг, Расселл и проч. Заполировали цитатами из Лиготти, а кто-то из режиссерской группы, судя по всему, вспомнил прочитанного в ранней юности Клайва Баркера.

2. Шоубизу не дает покоя кубриковское aspect ratio из «Сияния», и киноиндустрия пихает его везде, где только можно*.

3. Оммаж Карпентеру, в целом, мог бы быть и поаккуратнее, но уж как получилось: видимо, в гонке за призами всех артхаусных фестивальных сборищ времени на до-обработку сырого материала (лол) не хватило.

4. Гламурный вырвиглаз цветопередачи и много глиттера — новая искренность™ антиметапостмодерна.

Review | “The story is old, but the horror feels fresh“ by Mark Dery (The Washington Post)

Love to see all my favourite things mentioned in one paragraph. And the artworks (illustrations, posters and such) made by Richard Wells aka Slippery Jack are highly recommended.

Folk horror was a literary genre long before it made its screen debut. “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1835), “The Great God Pan” (1894) by Arthur Machen, “The Wendigo” by Algernon Blackwood (1910), “The Dunwich Horror” by H.P. Lovecraft (1929), “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson (1948) and “Children of the Corn” by Stephen King (1977) are all folk horror. But three films known as the “unholy trinity” established it as a cinematic genre: “Witchfinder General” (1968; based very loosely on the murderous career of the 17th-century witch hunter Matthew Hopkins), “The Blood on Satan’s Claw” (1971) and “The Wicker Man” (1973; about a pagan cult that has survived, on idyllic Summerisle, into the mod 1970s). ©

“Creative Differences” by Tad Friend (The New Yorker, August 29, 1999)

I find this old article (from 1999) about Lynch and his usual whimsical search for making his perfect artwork (Twin Peaks first, then Mulholland Drive) very telling: mind you, it was written BEFORE the actual production was finalised, meaning that the author of the piece hadn’t seen it and the only thing he knew was that (unsuccessful) attempt to make it as TV series for ABC. Quite fascinating. (Apologies for over-quoting, but it’s worth it)

In January 4th [1999—E.T.], Lynch turned in a ninety-two-page pilot script to ABC. Like much of his work, “Mulholland Drive” was conceived as an oddball film noir, opening with some gruesome deaths and then introducing an ensemble of desirable women and baffled or misshapen men. Lynch had kept many of these strange men to himself at the pitch meeting, because, he says, Krantz worried that “getting into them would blow the deal.” The most important, in the completed script, was an edgy young director named Adam, who is forced by a pair of mobsters to cast a particular actress in his new movie. (Adam appears to be a stand-in for Lynch, who is known to fear creative interference of any form. When Lynch was living with Isabella Rossellini, he refused to allow cooked food in the house, lest the smell contaminate his work.) Adam smashes up the mobsters’ limo with a 7-iron, then hops into his silver Porsche and drives home to find his wife in bed with the pool man. He pours hot-pink paint in her jewelry box, gets cuffed around by the pool man, and must eventually take counsel from an oracular cowboy.

«Носферату»: итоги

Борат 2.0 с элементами всех плохо сделанных готик-RPG, вместе взятых (это когда разработчики вместо того, чтобы довести игру до ума, срутся в твиттере или реддите), кровь, говно и муравьи (то есть, крысы), выдаваемые за фолк-хоррор, метаироническая вампука, в которой «он пугает, а нам не страшно». Очень жалею потраченных на стрим фунтов.

1/10

“Vertigo

Rewatched* Vertigo tonight.

I didn’t expect to be *that* stunned, as I’ve seen quite a few visual arthouse masterpieces in my lifetime (only a minority of which were produced in the States), but Hitchcock’s thriller still takes the cake. Weird, non-linear, aesthetically opulent to the point that you feel as if you are going into a dream-like state yourself. The plot doesn’t make a lot of sense, of course (as it should be), but its Ambrose Bierce ambience doesn’t escape you anyway. The romantic line would’ve been silly had it been in any way regarded as important (it wasn’t). The forest scene was the purest magick.

___________

* I did watch it before, but it was more than 30 years ago, and I didn’t remember a thing, except a vague Doppelgänger motif

“Conclave” (2024)

Первые полчаса: ну, операторская работа безупречна.

***

Ну понятно, что фильм об искушении модерностью, но так провалить сюжет в конце все-таки нужно было постараться. Авторы были в полушаге от шедевра, однако ж им зачем-то понадобилось в очередной раз выбить на пластиковых скрижалях максимы претенциозной лже-доброты (средневековая легенда о папессе из Ингельхайма была, по крайней мере, полна яростного и достоверного красноречия).

Лучший момент фильма — монолог героя Файнса об убежденности, которая и фальшива, и в конечном итоге опасна: как тут не вспомнить ницшевское «не сомнение, а несомненность — вот то, что сводит с ума». Тем обиднее, что финал свелся к теплохладному altum silentium.

Once David Lynch said, “Black has depth: you can go into it. And you start seeing what you’re afraid of. You start seeing what you love, and it becomes like a dream.”

True that: his portrait by Stanley Chow Illustration (it arrived today, and I immediately framed it, slightly rearranging my Twin Peaksiana and hanging Audrey’s image, also from Stanley Chow, below) proves his point.

(Apologies for all the reflections: too hard to avoid)

Since today’s the birthday of both Lynch and Fellini, I’d like to imagine them sitting and chatting somewhere—in the White Lodge or on the beach from 8 1/2, where Saraghina is dancing her rumba and Señorita Dido is carefully balancing her flickering golden orb with Laura Palmer’s face inside.