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Post by andydecker on Jun 19, 2022 12:41:25 GMT
Tim Lucas – Spirits of the Dead (PS Publishing, 2018, 232 pages)
 This is one of PS Publishing Midnight Movie Monographs. Film critic and editor Tim Lucas writes in depth about Spirits of the Dead or Histoires Extradordinaires from 1967, an European anthology movie based on material by Edgar Allan Poe. The selling point at the time was that it was the work of three distinguished directors: Roger Vadim, Louis Malle and Frederico Fellini.
Beginning with a trip down memory lane – Lucas describes how he saw this movie first, which seems to be the hook of the series – he then introduces the movie, that is to say the three very different parts. Before this he presents the original story by Poe for context, an interesting extra effort.
Metzengerstein was written by Roger Vadim and Pascal Cousin with dialogue by Daniel Boulanger, directed by Vadim, starring his then wife Jane Fonda and her Brother Peter Fonda. The movie was shot more or less simultaneously with the production of Barbarella and before Fonda's work on Easy Rider.
William Wilson was written by Louis Malle, Clement Biddle Wood and Daniel Boulanger, directed by Malle. The cast is Alain Delon and Brigitte Bardot. Both movies are period pieces.
Toby Dammit is a very loose adaption of Poe's Never bet the Devil your Head. Written by Fellini and Bernardino Zapponi it was directed by Fellini. Starring is Terence Stamp.
Who has ever heard an audio commentary on a dvd by Lucas can imagine how this book is written. A nice narrative with an often overwhelming flood of information and trivia. I learned more about Fellini then I thought possible in a book about a genre movie. But it was by no means boring, as I still search for this big Ernesto Gastaldi interview about the time of the Giallo any information about Italian cinema of the time is welcome.
The movie has fallen a bit into obscurity, like Vadim's take on Carmilla Blood and Roses from 1960, but I have it in my collection. I was made aware of it by a movie still of Fonda on a British horror anthology of all things. As it is widely avaiable in different dvd editions it was no problem to get it. So I was interested what Lucas' has to say about it.
Produced at the time of Corman's Poe adaptions the Poe stories are a bit obscure. Vadim and Malle did their movies more or less straight while Fellini did his own thing and a bit of a hommage to Mario Bava with his devil as a little girl with a ball.
Needless to say that the Corman adaptions are very different in style and approach. While Vadim was derided by viewers and critics for Meztengerstein, calling it kinky, in hindsight he did some interesting things with a gender swap of the protagonist and writing her as a sadist. Some great photography and tame non-nude orgies on the screen make this at least nice to look at and forget the bold anachronism. Fonda in her fetish outfit is sure a sight, much less artifical as in Barbarella.
I never was a fan of William Wilson and absolutely don't care for the much celebrated doppelgänger motive. Malle didn't change my mind. It is a nice piece of craft, but Bardot is indeed miscast like the director later moaned.
Toby Dammit is I guess an acquired taste. I don't know enough about Fellini and I never could understood the appeal of movie adaptions which are so far removed from the original. It is a surreal piece of movie making which needs some viewings to understand it, but some sequences are even without background information remarkable to watch and surprisingly timeless.
This will not be the last of the MMM from PS I will read. Lucas did a splendid job with this and delivered everything I like in such books. This is recommended reading for friends of Italian and French genre movies.
As I have seen there are a few avaiable as Ebooks, to buy directly from PS website. Which works like a charm. Our Lord P is among the writers, he did one about so much beloved movie Theatre of Blood.
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Post by helrunar on Jun 19, 2022 16:29:16 GMT
That sounds like a lovely little book, Andreas. I am very fond of "Metzengerstein" even if most do not care for it. Renoir's photography and the music of Prodromides make it the only other Vadim film that evokes the mood of Blood and roses which is one of my all time favorite films in any genre. I wish the English version (which Vadim shot simultaneously with the French version, but as a separate film--this practice was more frequent than I'd realized until a few years ago) would be made available by the studio in an HD version. There's only an old VHS of it that is quite faded and long out of print.
I agree with what you say about the Malle and Fellini films, as well. The Fellini segment has become quite highly regarded by a number of prominent fan critics in recent years.
I'll have to look for this series in electronic form on that prominent online retail site.
cheers, Steve
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Post by andydecker on Jun 19, 2022 17:10:28 GMT
That sounds like a lovely little book, Andreas. I am very fond of "Metzengerstein" even if most do not care for it. Renoir's photography and the music of Prodromides make it the only other Vadim film that evokes the mood of Blood and roses which is one of my all time favorite films in any genre. I wish the English version (which Vadim shot simultaneously with the French version, but as a separate film--this practice was more frequent than I'd realized until a few years ago) would be made available by the studio in an HD version. There's only an old VHS of it that is quite faded and long out of print. I agree with what you say about the Malle and Fellini films, as well. The Fellini segment has become quite highly regarded by a number of prominent fan critics in recent years. I'll have to look for this series in electronic form on that prominent online retail site. cheers, Steve I bought Blood and Roses a few years ago. I quite liked it, maybe because it wasn't done by a genre director. It is so far removed from other Carmilla movies. I don't think the screenplay worked all the time, but it was an interesting approach.
Those PS books are only avaiable in electronic form on their website. I don't know if it is mandatory to make an account. You can use Paypal or credit cards, you get a temporary link and a password and can download both Epub and Mobi version. At 2,99 BP they have a nice price. Understandably not all of the PS books are made into Ebooks.
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Post by helrunar on Jun 20, 2022 1:02:58 GMT
Thanks again, Andreas. I am not familiar with the PS publisher/series--I will look into it.
cheers, Steve
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