Bettie Page, Bizarre nr. 14
If your interest goes just a little bit beyond vanilla sex, you’ve probably come across Bettie Page.
Bettie Page (April 22, 1923 – December 11, 2008) was an American model who became famous in the 1950s for her fetish modeling and pin-up photos, taken by Irving Klaw.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0Ynlp7sxZs]
American 2000s documentary
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysclVAOLOd8&]
Bettie’s Punishment
The whole of her is Icon of Erotic Art #38.
I’ve always been weary of the genre mix of comedy and horror, but that is probably because of my dislike of the Scream franchise.
Yesterday, I find this[1] intertitle and I thought it was hilarious.
A word on intertitles
Since silent films had no synchronized sound for dialogue, onscreen intertitles were used to narrate story points, present key dialogue and sometimes even comment on the action for the cinema audience. The title writer became a key professional in silent film and was often separate from the scenario writer who created the story. Intertitles (or titles as they were generally called at the time) often became graphic elements themselves, featuring illustrations or abstract decorations that commented on the action of the film or enhanced its atmosphere.
In the silent film era, films were as much a literary as a filmic medium. I’m quite sure you could ‘watch’ the film by reading the intertitles.
Coming back to Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde, I find the humour in sentences such as “England in the 19th century was not all that it might have been — It might have been Italy but wasn’t,” and “We squirm under the tumult of Good and Evil ever — warring within us, yet were Science to separate them, Bad would flourish. Crime run riot — even Saxophone players would be tolerated,”[3] quite refreshing for 1925, when this film was released. We sometimes think that Monty Python started this kind of absurd humor, but clearly that is a mistake. To my knowledge the earliest modern instance of this kind of humor is Alfred Jarry‘s Ubu Roi, and going further back in the history of derision there is Rabelais and even before that there is the Facetiae by Poggio.
Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde is World Cinema Classic #73.
P. S. Another fave intertitle is this one[2] from Caligari, used to dramatic effect in that film.
RIP Beverly Garland (1926 – 2008)
Beverly Garland in It Conquered the World (1956) by Roger Corman
Beverly Garland (October 17, 1926 – December 5, 2008) was an American film and television actress, businesswoman, and hotel owner. She is known to international cult audiences for her roles in the Roger Corman films It Conquered the World, Swamp Women, and Not of This Earth.
Forrest J Ackerman (November 24, 1916 – December 4, 2008) was an American collector of science fiction books and movie memorabilia and a science fiction fan. Ackerman was influential to the wider cultural acceptance of science fiction as a literary, art and film genre. To a general audience, Ackerman is best remembered as the editor-writer of the magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland, as the producer of Vampirella, and as literary agent.
Vampirella magazine (France, 01/1970), published by Publicness
image sourced here.
Most of us have a passing interest in horror. In his Ways of Hearing book presentation, David Toop revealed that he discovered the Price, Corman and Poe-connection (the connection between 19th century literary horror to 20th century cinematic horror) via Famous Monsters of Filmland.
Harpo Marx @120
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wtc9a4TgRus]
Harpo Marx (1888 – 1964) was one of the Marx Brothers, a group of Vaudeville and Broadway theatre entertainers who achieved fame as comedians in the American film industry, greatly admired by the French surrealists and properly identified as American Surrealism.
Harpo was well known by his trademarks: he played the harp; he never talked during performances, although he often blew a horn or whistled to communicate with people; and he frequently used props – one of his most commonly used props in films was a walking stick with a built-in bulb horn.
He is exemplar of selective mutism, aphonia and the silent protagonist.
A little known fact is that in 1937 Salvador Dalí visited Harpo Marx in Hollywood to write the scenario for Giraffes on Horseback Salad, a film that was never produced. Photographic evidence of this encounter is perhaps this: “Dalí sketches Harpo Marx at the barbed wire harp”[1].
In search of intentional and unintentional similarities in fiction
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrV1sfJHLHg]
Addio Zio Tom (Goodbye, Uncle Tom) (1971) by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi
Thus opens or closes Goodbye Uncle Tom of which a clip is listed above and it provides an excellent introduction to the tenuous relation between fiction and reality.
Addio zio Tom (1971) – Gualtiero Jacopetti, Franco Prosperi
Image sourced here. [Dec 2005]
Two more quotes provide further food for thought:
If we represent the relationship between fiction and reality on a sliding scale we find on the left hand side: fiction which makes no claim to reality. This kind of fiction is nowadays always preceded by the fiction disclaimer:
The above is sometimes preceded by “The characters in this film are fictitious,”.
This kind of fiction is helped by Poe’s quote in its theoretical approach. If done well, this kind of fiction is called the fantastique, that area of literary theory which provides us with an unresolved hesitation as to our position on the reality/fictitiousness scale. Another growth of this kind of fiction is the roman à clef a novel and by extension any sort of fiction describing real-life events behind a façade of fiction. The reasons an author might choose the roman à clef format include satire and the opportunity to write about controversial topics and/or reporting inside information on scandals without giving rise to charges of libel.
On the right hand side of the scale we find fiction that does make claim to reality. This kind of fiction is nowadays usually preceded by the claim based on true events:
This kind of fiction is helped by Twain’s quote in its theoretical approach. Real stories are often so unbelievable that we need to make the claim that they are based on actual events.
As a narrator of fiction, one is always aided by this claim to capture the audience’s interest. This is true in the case of a joke (tell it as if it has happened to you), in the case of novels (Robinson Crusoe was soi-disant based on actual events) and film (Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) was supposedly about Ed Gein)
A whole range of concepts falls into this category, listed under the heading fictionalization: faction, based on a true story, false document, nonfiction novel, true crime (genre), histories (history of the novel), stranger than fiction and mockumentary.
The funny thing about the right hand position on the fiction/reality scale is that the act of narrating alters reality by default. I always illustrate this point by going back to your youth. You had a brother or sister and you fought with him over something. You went to your mother or father or any other judge-figure, who gave you both the opportunity to tell the story. You both came up of course with a different version.
Which brings me to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and the observer effect. If the act of perception alters reality, the act of telling a story alters reality. That is why I dislike films such as Schindler’s List because in this case, “real” documentary material is available. Maybe this is also the case for Goodbye Uncle Tom, but boy, I sure would like to see that film.
The Howling (1981) – Joe Dante [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
I woke up yesterday night bathing in sweat. I get up. I look outside, full moon. That explains. My inner werewolf was trying to get out.
So I give you Joe Dante‘s The Howling, IMNHO the best werewolf film since WWII. Dante was an alumnus of Roger Corman, for whom I have an excessively soft spot. The film is WCC #71.
An xtabay is a femme fatale in Mesoamerican mythology.
Sumac was first brought to my attention via Incredibly Strange Music (on outsider music, lounge music and space age pop), but is also listed in David Toop‘s book Exotica: Fabricated Soundscapes in a Real World. Both volumes are recommended.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeFy9S0MKp4]
I mentioned her previously here[3].
Is she a World Music Classic or a guilty pleasure?
The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929-1968 (1968) – Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris, born on October 31, 1928 in New York, is a U.S. film critic and a leading proponent of the auteur theory of criticism. He is generally credited with popularising this theory in the United States and coining the half-English, half-French term, “auteur theory,” in his essay, “Notes on the Auteur Theory,” which was inspired by critics writing in the French film magazine Cahiers du cinéma.
He wrote book The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929-1968, published in 1968, an opinionated assessment of films of the sound era, organized by director. The book helped raise an awareness of the role of the film director among the general public.
He is often seen as a rival to Pauline Kael, who had originally attacked the auteur theory in her essay, “Circles and Squares“.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9VWC8eB9ic]
October 30, 1938 radio broadcast
Orson Welles first gained wide American notoriety 70 years ago today for his October 30, 1938 radio broadcast of H. G. Wells‘ The War of the Worlds. Adapted to sound like a contemporary news broadcast, it caused a large number of listeners to panic, now commonly and somewhat euphemistically referred to as mass hysteria. Welles and his biographers subsequently claimed he was exposing the gullibility or naïveté of American audiences in the tense preamble to the Second World War.
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