You Are Now Leaving Salò

I've always called myself a glutton for punishment and I really lived up to it this past semester. I signed up for the Italian Cinema class because the professor is one of my favorites. The one big project of the class was with pick a film, not viewed for class, and put together an annotated bibliography on it. As a Grad student, I had to go further and write the first draft of a paper based on said bibliography. My main intersection with Italian cinema is their horror scene but it was only covered very briefly (though I had the opportunity to give an impromptu mini-lecture on Dario Argento), I decided to pick a film that would present a real challenge for me. I've always like a good challenge which is where my procrastination comes from. I tend to wonder, "how long can I wait to do this before it becomes humanly impossible?" Well, I obviously waited too long on the bibliography since it wound up being crazy late. On the upside I learned a word in Italian, "eccolo." It means, "here it is."

Obviously, the film I chose was Pier Paolo Pasolini's final effort before his murder, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975). When I first saw the film back in February it was to check off and mark the 666th film I'd seen from the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die book with which I am obsessed. Seven months had passed and I had to see the movie again before I could really proceed with any work. I wrote an entry here about it and I think my disturbed state comes through so the prospect of a second viewing was daunting at best.

Since misery loves company, I decided to sit my good friend Tyler down and make him watch it as well. As I see it, Salò is a very important film regardless of its reputation and content. Luckily, the Criterion Collection had re-released the film in a two-disc special edition so the quality was outstanding. I think it's a tribute in part to how good of friends Tyler and I are that he'd sit down to this movie that I talked about only with a shudder and watch it without knowing a single thing about it. I offered him a shot before we watched the film. All I told him was to remember the word "manga."

Tyler and I have been friends since early high school and have spent hours upon hours watching the most extreme horror films we could get our hands on. He's a man with a strong constitution, I mean he's married for god's sake (actually, his wife is wonderfully sweet and I adore her). In all the years we've been watching and talking about horror films, I've never seen him that bothered by a movie. I kept hearing him shift in his seat and mutter "oh, god" or "what the fuck?" throughout the film, especially when the title card reading Girone della Merda came up with the "Circle of Shit" subtitle. That issued an "oh, shit" from him. I'll admit I got a kind of sick glee from subjecting Tyler to Salò but I had to sit through it as well.

After the film, he was visible shaken and still can’t stand hearing anything in reference to it. The worst was yet to come for me. I knew that I wanted to write something regarding the politics of the film. The Criterion re-release included a nice booklet with half a dozen new articles about the film and a reprinted on set article by Pasolini's friend Giedon Bachmann. These and a handful of other articles were my sources of information for writing my paper.

What I didn't expect was to become so wrapped up in the research process. The more I read, the deeper my interest in the film became to the point where most of my conversations somehow got back around tothe work I was doing on Salò. I had appreciated the film's artistry after my first viewing but following all the researching and note taking I couldn't get the images out of my head.

I had to take at least a week off from research and from Salò in general to clear my mind. After this sort of cinematic detox period, I was ready to come back to my percolating paper, this time with the feeling that Pasolini's very conscious and literary use of structure was, for me, the key to understand the political allegory. Writing the paper was thankfully smooth and uneventful, my little TV next to me jumping between this scene and that shot. As I said in my blog entry for Salò, the visceral effect of the film is achieved from the overall culmination of the images as they pile up on each other. Viewing the film again in the fragmented form I require to write a paper proved that the "punch" of the film was taken out because a given scene or shot had no context.

So, what's the point of this quasi-editorial? I felt the need to purge Salò from my system, if only for the time being. It has become one of my favorite movies in the past month but one that I could only watch maybe once or twice per year. It is truly haunting but I think that's really a mark of its power and greatness. I see Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom as sort of the black sheep of the international film canon but its place there is firm.

Horror of Dracula (1958)

Director: Terence Fisher
Writer: Jimmy Sangster (screenplay), Bram Stoker (novel)

A damned nobleman and vampire, Dracula, travels from his home in Klausenberg to London to wreak havoc and satisfy his bloodlust.

The first largely successful film from the great English film studio Hammer, Horror of Dracula established a new level and style for the horror film. Gone are the deep shadows and awkwardly long takes of Tod Browning's 1931 classic, replaced by lush, if not lurid, colors and a gothic atmosphere. While the story remains only slightly changed, the approach of director Fisher is what sets Horror of Dracula apart from its predecessors. By the time this film was released, the Golden Age of American Horror had long since come to a close. The Universal monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, the Mummy, the Wolfman, etc.) had denigrated into slapped-together, camp-filled shells of their former selves. Honestly, when a monster meets Abbot and Costello, it's about time to hang up the fangs. The Hammer cycle of classic monsters, however, proved to be enormously successful and lucrative, eventually making Hammer the most financially successful studio in British cinema history.

One of the many fascinating elements of Horror of Dracula is the approach to the supernatural material in the plot. Several times, Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) will either refute or debunk the tried-and-true vampire myths with which we're all so familiar. He's a hardened scientist who only believes what he can see and test. There are a few moments of levity, like the good doctor's scenes with Arthur Holmwood (Michael Gough) and their homoerotic undertones, stemming from the sexual repression that seems so prevalent in Victorian-era British works. Like the werewolf, the idea of vampirism in this context is really more of a metaphor, best portrayed by Mina Holmwood (Melissa Stribling). At the beginning of the film, she acts like the standard, straight-backed Victorian English wife. One can imagine that what little intimacy between the two is most likely performed fully clothed in one of their separate rooms. After her encounter with Dracula (Christopher Lee), she acts more sensual and seductive around her husband. As such, the status quo must repress these unnatural sexual urges in their women. Pity, Mina becomes more attractive when she's lustful.

After Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee is possibly the most recognizable Dracula in cinema history. While Lugosi has that Hugarian accent and mysterious air, Lee elevates Dracula's aristocratic aura to its true and deserved elegance. He comes across not as frightening but approachable, refined without being elitist and quite intimidating with the right lighting. Peter Cushing, in my mind, is the ultimate Van Helsing. His cold, English rationalism makes him more believable foe for the Count's equally cold sense of impending doom.

The narrative of Horror of Dracula is a little different from Browning's film or most other incarnations and is a welcomed change. Instead of Helsing having to convince Harker of vampirism, he's already a protégé of Helsing's and in Klusenburg, under the auspice of a private librarian, to kill the Count at the start of the film. In this film, Helsing has to convince Holmwood that Harker's death (nope, not the hero here) is the result of the Count's vampirism. But iconic story elements are still intact like Lucy demanding the garlic flowers be removed from the room and her coming back from the dead.

But it's not all doom and English gloom, there are humorous moments like the aforementioned homoerotic relationship between Holmwood and Helsing and their scenes with the Customs Official and the Undertaker (my favorite character in the whole film). A fun and interesting take on the Dracula legacy and one of the greatest vampire films ever made. Though my knowledge and experience in Hammer films is significantly lacking, this film alone makes me want to plumb the depths of their catalogue of films.

Recent books of note:

The Hammer Story by Marcus Hearn and Alan Barnes
Hammer Films – A Life in Pictures by Wayne Kinsey
A Thing of Unspeakable Horror by Sinclair McKay

M (1931)

Director: Fritz Lang
Writer: Thea von Harbou and Fritz Lang

A child murderer is on the loose and terrorizing a small German town. The police are out in force and the criminals band together to bring the maniac to justice.

One of the greatest German films ever made, by one of Germany's finest directors: Fritz Lang. M tells the story of a man, Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre), who has the uncontrollable urge to kill children. The film, however, is not a whodunit. We know from the start that Beckert is the murderer. The premise alone is chilling and Lang's crafting of the film only adds to the terror. The first death is the most upsetting and sets the tone for the rest of the tragedy to come. As Elsie Beckmann (Inge Langut) is walking home from school a police officer first helps her cross the street when a car nearly hits her. As she walks she's bouncing a ball but stops to throw it in the air and catch it. Lang's camera holds on her for a moment then moves past her to focus on a large pillar with a poster advertising a 10,000 Marks reward and explanation of the murderer's reign of terror. The poster engulfs the frame but Elsie bounces her ball off the poster, that is until a man's shadow comes into frame and hovers over the word "Mörder." His shadow bends over and he talks to Elsie. After cutting to Elise's mother who is waiting on Elsie, growing worried, Lang cuts to the man (whose face we cannot see) whistling and buying Elsie a balloon.

At the end of the scene with Elsie, her mother is leaning through a window calling her name. Lang then cuts to the empty stairwell, the empty attic, Elsie's unused place at the table, all the while we hear Frau Beckmann's voice calling. Then Lang cuts to a little field where Elsie's ball rolls into frame then to a shot of power lines with Elsie's balloon caught in them. We don't have to see her, but we know Elsie is dead. It's all the more upsetting that we just see her ball and balloon, both strong images of childhood and innocence, without Elsie.

M was Lang's first sound feature and his use of sound is what gives the film its potency. Lang uses the killer's whistling the tune "Hall of the Mountain King" to signal his desire to kill. The consistent use of this tune creates an association in the viewers mind such that whenever the tune is heard, anxiety fills the viewer who wonders, "is he going to do it again?" The most troubling result of the aural connection is Lorre's performance. He taps into the psychology of the serial killer but in such a manner that evokes sympathy in the viewer. We see him struggling to suppress his desire. But that tune, a manifestation of his Id, is too great for him to control and thus he kills. However, he gains no satisfying pleasure from his deeds, as he writes to the press demanding that the police capture him. This act is a haunting precursor to real criminals such as the Zodiac Killer of the late 1960s who wrote to San Francisco newspapers, taunting the police.

Apart from a study of psychopathology, M is also a cutting satire of justice. Because Beckert is on the loose, the police are combing the city and the criminals (that is, the nonviolent criminals like con artists, pickpockets, safe crackers, etc.) can't work. The criminal underground assembles to try to track down Beckert as well. Lang is not saying that the police are incompetent, on the contrary they nearly catch Beckert before the criminals. His point is that while these people may be "criminals," they still have a sense of morality against which Beckert has transgressed. Their form of justice is absolute as demonstrated in the kangaroo court. The band of criminals are more than willing to kill Beckert. However, just before the mob descends on Beckert, the authorities intervene and he is found guilty in proper court.

The final shot of the film, the mothers in mourning, is the most heart-breaking because of Frau Beckmann's feeling that it's her fault, and the fault of the other parents, for not having kept a closer eye on their children. Their complacency in society is to blame for the loss of their children just as much as Beckert.