The Cameraman's Revenge

I saw this for the first time probably in the mid to late 80s (and possibly not since then, I can’t remember). I was much younger then and less critical, and I still knew it was rubbish. With the passage of time, I’m perhaps more inclined to be generous and say it actually looks kind of impressive given the speed with which it was thrown together (apparently the effects technician had never worked on a film before and had just two days to build all the models). Or maybe it’s just that the copy I watched tonight was in French without subtitles—a friend of mine gave me it, having downloaded it without realising it wasn’t in English (I’m just using the BD art to illustrate)—and so I was watching it without understanding most of what was actually being said. It’s infamous, obviously, for being a knockoff of Star Wars produced hurriedly on the cheap in the great Italian tradition, and it accordingly has problems of credibility on many levels; I even noticed an error not listed in the film’s IMDB “goofs” page: on that first planet when the giant robot confronts them, notice how you can see its shadow on the “sky”. I mean, HOW GOOD IS THAT? If you’re trying to make your cyclorama look bleeding obvious, that’s how you go about it, all right, by LIGHTING THE SET WRONGLY… good grief. To say nothing of the way people seem to have no issues breathing unaided in the vacuum of space. It’s ridiculous, and yet I can’t say that it doesn’t possess a certain charm (I’ll give it points for its energy, too, it doesn’t slack off too much). Though whether or not that charm is illusory because I didn’t understand what was being said is something I’ll leave as an open question until I see it again in English…

It just struck me tonight that Suspiria is kind of like Star Wars; both came out in 1977, both were released by 20th Century Fox, both were unexpected hits, and once they were both their creators decided “hmm, let’s see if we can do that again” and announced trilogies. Unfortunately for Argento, the comparison doesn’t end well for him, with Inferno having been a markedly lesser success than either Suspiria or George Lucas’ little film… Notable as Argento’s first film not in ‘Scope (flat 1.85 instead), and for using Keith Emerson to score it rather than Goblin. Apparently Argento hired him cos he wanted something more delicate than Goblin’s usual stuff, which makes me wonder how well he knew Emerson’s work. Which was actually better than I remembered (though the sung bit is still misguided), but it’s not the same… Inferno occupies a difficult position, being not only the middle film in a trilogy (which wouldn’t be completed for 27 years) but also the one that sets the trilogy up, since the trilogy concept didn’t really exist when the first film was made. And it suffers some from having to try and tell more of a story than Suspiria, and doing so with some difficulty, while trying to recapture that film’s peculiar magic (particularly the use of setting and colour), and, well, coming off second best in the contest (though it may have a slight edge in the nastiness stakes, particularly that business with the rats). Not to mention the somewhat mixed effects (Mario Bava contributed some nice stuff, but good Christ the skeletal manifestation of Mater Tenebrarum at the end is risible). Still, though in many ways it really is just an attempt to redo Suspiria to lesser effect, I retain a certain odd fondness for it for some reason even I don’t quite understand; I’d rather rewatch this than those later Argento films I’ve reviewed…

I’m not sure if this or Deep Red was the first Argento I ever saw. If it was this, then it was certainly a good introduction, even in the rather shabby old pan/scan VHS copy I would’ve seen it in back in, what, 1997 or something? Whenever and whatever. It was also the first import DVD I ever bought back in 2003, inaugurating a love affair (?) with spending large sums of money on DVDs not otherwise available in Australia… With hindsight, and having seen almost all his early work recently, it’s obvious Argento was deliberately stepping up his game even more than in Deep Red as far as violence goes (cf. that opening murder, which is probably the most “fucking hell” thing in his filmography to that point), and the switch up into outright supernatural horror marked a nice shift in direction (albeit a short-lived one). And, for possibly the only time in his career, he kind of transcended style-over-substance to the point where the style was the substance in a successful manner; the film’s extraordinary visual sense (and aural sense, let’s not disregard the score by Goblin) is what the film is really about. I mean, yeah, there’s the story about a witches coven based in a dancing school that only really vaguely makes sense after multiple viewings, but that’s not the point; the point is the amazing set design and the astounding colour (Eastmancolor stock printed in the 3-strip Technicolor manner) in which everything is rendered. For some reason it works in Suspiria for me in a way that it doesn’t in other films (I’m looking at you here, The Beyond), and it’s just one reason why I think the impending remake is a bad idea. Probably still my favourite Argento when all is said and done…

Dario Argento’s lost masterpiece? Probably not. To give him credit, he was obviously capable at the start of his directorial career of turning films out in reasonably quick fashion (much more so than later on); this appeared within ten months of Cat o’ Nine Tails. Whether this was necessarily to the films’ benefit I don’t know; in this case I suspect the film may have suffered because Argento couldn’t get his preferred lead actor at the time. Unable to get Michael York, he settled for Michael Brandon instead; alas that he doesn’t exactly make his character terribly interesting. The story is even more straightforward than Cat (and rather less bloody): man is stalked by maniac for ultimately kind of preposterous reasons, the key revelation coming from a bit of pseudo-science that makes some of his later uses of same seem almost rigorous. Such suspense as Argento draws from his tale come from his own deployment of style rather than his lead victim, unfortunately, Brandon doesn’t give us a lot to care about; compare him with the PI he hires to investigate the case, a hapless gay man played by Jean-Pierre Marielle as a not terribly competent but sympathetic figure. That vein of humour is actually one of the film’s most interesting aspects; cf. also the bizarre funeral wares exhibition. It’s not bad, but it’s definitely the least of Argento’s early works (have yet to see Door Into Death and The Five Days, mind you). Still, given its long unavailability (largely thanks, it seems, to American distributor Paramount), it’s nice to know it’s out there, and in pleasing form from Shameless, whose DVD release features a long interview with Argento’s writer and offsider Luigi Cozzi, Mr Star Crash himself, who cheerfully admits the absurdity of the thing, and who also tells an interesting tale of how Deep Purple could’ve supplied the film’s score if Argento hadn’t fallen out with his film editor. Filmmaking: it’s an art of unexpected and strange twists, all right…

I was unsure earlier tonight whether I wanted to watch something kind of respectable or something kind of trashy. The fact that I watched an Argento film and then followed it with this probably indicates what side of the equation I landed on… and there’s a connection between them that I didn’t realise until after the fact: both films feature Cinzia de Carolis, as Karl Malden’s little girl in the other film and the horny teenage neighbour in this. Cannibal Apocalypse‘s title, rather titles, tell you what you need to know about its recent influences; the Italian title translates as “Apocalypse Tomorrow”, while the “cannibal” obviously references a certain Ruggero Deodato film that had appeared a few months earlier. And the scene of a man holed up in an indoor mall by bikers, well, where might audiences have seen that idea before… So not the most startlingly original film ever made, obviously, and certainly no masterpiece of the seventh art; star John Saxon so loathed the experience he still hadn’t watched the film 20 years later when the DVD extras were made, and I daresay he still hasn’t (though someone who—I presume willingly—directed a film called Zombie Death House probably shouldn’t talk too much about others). But there’s something about its combination of Vietnam veteran action and gut-muncher that’s intriguing; placing his cannibals in urban America makes them somewhat more interesting than if they were some Amazonian tribe. And Saxon’s palpable loathing for the film he’s in actually kind of serves it well; his grim demeanour behind the scenes spills effectively onto the screen. I also like Wallace Wilkinson as the foul-tempered police chief who gets some choice lines (“ashes to ashes, shit to shit” in particular). No masterpiece, as I said, but sometimes crudely vigorous cheese is just what you need at this time of night…

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: what’s the point of including multiple language options if you’re not also going to provide subtitles for them as well? It’s nice to be able to listen to a foreign film in its “original” language (and yes, I know I’ve said before that “original language” is a vexed concept in Italian cinema) but it helps if it’s subtitled in a language one actually speaks… bah. Anyway, not one of Argento’s more popular films, least of all with the man himself who has apparently called it his least favourite work; it seems to have done well in Europe but not the US (I think the Maltin guide still only gives it 1½ stars), and I wasn’t expecting great things, but I saw the Anchor Bay edition for $10 at Lawson’s recently so couldn’t resist. And true, I didn’t really get great things as such, but I hardly thought it was as bad as that. Argento plays it as a fairly straight murder-mystery that’s actually about the plot as much as the style, a tale of blackmail, multiple killings and dubious genetics to be unravelled by the unlikely duo of James Franciscus’ reporter and Karl Malden’s blind puzzle compiler (who make an intriguing coupling indeed). Comparisons with Hitchcock are actually not unfair (cf. the barber shop scene with the barber complaining about the police suspecting a barber of being the killer), and the tomb-robbing at night is actually remarkably well done). Maybe the film is comparatively unloved cos it’s just not as violent as Deep Red? I don’t know. I thought it was quite good, though, and for $10 I won’t complain. The question of whether Argento just got lucky in the 70s or whether he had some actual skills that have largely vanished since then still hasn’t really been answered, but this is some evidence in his favour at least…

Apparently Lucio Fulci came up with the flying zombie head. That appears to be the only definite thing I can say regarding who did what on this piece of epic shit, whose production was so infamously horrendous that no one seem to know (or be willing to say if they do know) who to blame for it. Flora Film hired Fulci to make a follow-up to Zombie Flesh Eaters from a script by Claudio Fragasso; I don’t think  any of the accounts of the film’s (un)making) I’ve read agree on exactly what happened next. Fulci hated the script he kept rewriting it. Fulci only filmed a few minutes. Fulci walked off the production before it was finished due to ill-health/hating the script/hating the Philippines where it was being shot. Fulci finished the film, though it only ran some 5o minutes. At some point Flora hired Fragasso and Bruno Mattei to do reshoots and/or take over the production. The end result is mostly Fulci’s work, or Mattei’s work, or Fragasso’s work. The latter has since claimed he didn’t even write most of the script, and that it was really his wife’s work, while Mattei apparently said he always considered it to be a Fulci film (and Flora insisted Fulci retain sole directorial credit) although some people who I presume know more about these things than me reckon it feels and behaves more like a Mattei film than anything. We apparently know the flying zombie head was Fulci’s idea cos he actually said so in an interview. All of this bollocks is more interesting than anything in the film itself, which I watched only for two reasons: 1) it’s featured in the Drive-In Delirium film trailers compilation and I’m kind of trying to see all of those films (god/dess help me) and 2) Ulli Reinthaler, the little chick in the green shirt, looks awfully cute in said trailer (though the copy I scammed from Youtube—what, you thought I’d actually pay money for this?—is so poor you don’t really get a good look at her). Not the best reasons to watch Zombi 3, but then I’m not sure there actually is a good one…

Caligula is one of film history’s greatest follies, colossal trash of a truly epic kind, and the further away we get from it in time, the more batshit mad the whole enterprise looks; I don’t suppose it could ever have been made except at that particular time. So much about it is just jaw-dropping, including the fact that Roberto Rossellini, of all people, wrote the very first treatment for it, the fact that seemingly no one knew producer Bob Guccione intended it to be hardcore XXX, and the fact that it was released at all in whichever of its many versions, given the, well, difficulties of its making, the clash of sensibilities at work, and the welter of lawsuits that attended the process. The production was out of control and so was the “finished” product, if such a thing exists when you’re talking about Caligula. But most bizarre is the fact that, you know, it looks incredible. Amidst all the reams of pornography (sorry), you can’t deny that it looks every cent of the $17m or so it apparently cost (this being when $17m was still worth something, of course). Indeed, I only discovered tonight that the film’s art director Danilo Donati was one of Fellini’s regular collaborators, their first film together having been Satyricon, which makes weirdly perfect sense somehow. It may be a fucked-up mess, but what a bizarrely handsome one. I like Caligula far more than I probably should, but then again I don’t think I’ve ever professed to have impeccable taste in films; if I ever did, be assured I was lying. As extravagant as the recent “imperial edition” release is, I don’t think it exactly reveals an unheralded masterpiece as such,  and I’d always hesitate to actually recommend the film (I don’t think the DVD will exactly make converts of the previously unconvinced). Still, I remain somewhat in awe of its very existence, as a relic of a time that—perhaps mercifully—may never quite come again…

This is a film I’ve wanted to see ever since I saw it discussed in Martin Scorsese’s My Voyage to Italy, even though at that time I was still kind of iffy about Antonioni. I’ve come to at least a bit more of an appreciation in the last couple of years, though, and so I did find it an interesting experience to finally view it. I liked it, although trying to work out what to actually say about it is proving difficult. I quite like this review (even if I do find the assertion that an English dub would make the film more accessible to American viewers frankly laughable. Who’s being an elitist snob?), which draws an amusing parallel with Carnival of Souls; amusing, but also kind of instructive in that it does resonate with this film’s atmosphere of distance and alienation; Monica Vitti’s character in this film isn’t dead but she’s not exactly connected somehow to the world around her, and the world itself seems remarkably empty at times. Similarly, the story itself seems kind of disconnected from whatever’s happened before it begins, and even within the film the sense of time passing is so vague it was like watching Resnais; like Rosenbaum’s booklet essay says, it’s “nothing but narrative drift”, and although it feels linear in its development it’s hard to tell how chronologically close to each other the various scenes are. At the same time there’s still a sense of control over the material, though, you can tell Antonioni’s doing this deliberately rather than just because he doesn’t know any better. It’s kind of difficult stuff even by comparison with the two previous films in the “trilogy”, even further out there in terms of narrative looseness and even less ingratiating, though I still liked it. Think more viewings will be necessary, though.

Apparently this never got shown in the US despite plenty of other Italian films playing there; maybe its distributors thought it was too unlike the earlier gialli that had made it across the Atlantic to succeed with American audiences. Certainly the fact that it’s not a conventional giallo still pisses some people off; apparently if it’s not knocking off Argento or Bava it’s not the real thing or something. Being me, I was fascinated by how it did deviate from the black-gloved norm. It’s the early 50s, and Stefano is an art restorer brought to a pissant little village in the north of Italy to restore a church fresco, a rather ghoulish version of St Sebastian’s martyrdom. The artist, Legnani, vanished years earlier and was, by all accounts, thoroughly unsavoury at best and downright insane at worst, with a particular fascination with capturing the moment of death. As Stefano continues his work and his investigations, he finds the rest of the family, particularly his two sisters, also left something to be desired, although it’s not until the holy-fuck-did-I-see-that-right ending that we find out just how fucked up they are… Pupi Avati was and is not a genre specialist (he’d just done some uncredited writing on Salo), and perhaps that shows in the way he presents his material; while watching it I could imagine how Argento would’ve done it, but evidently Avati preferred to avoid that sort of bravura excess in favour of creating an overall atmosphere of towering dread. There is something hugely wrong going on in this little place, and we’re never really invited to feel safe in it. I’m still trying to grasp some aspects of the film’s logic, as I’m sure there are major things that don’t really make sense even if I can’t quite say what or why, just a feeling… but what the hell. It may hardly be a straight giallo, never mind horror film, but it surely is creepy as hell, whatever it is.