immaryhemphill

Detour is an interesting reflection on the career of its director, Edgar Ulmer, and how his estrangement from the film industry eventually created the hasty film that’s been appreciated for the very qualities that made it a B-movie at the time. Ulmer’s blackballing from the film industry made him an outsider, but also gave him more range to work with in the B-movie industry as it was less censored and allowed for more artistic liberties to be taken. Having worked under many European luminaries at the time, Ulmer had a language in film that was dreamlike and dramatic. His ability to produce a movie in two weeks with minimal set, but the simple employments of light and fog to mimic the cliche settings of the time were all parts of how the explosive but underfunded story managed to carry the film to cult status. Paracinema is a concept I’m familiar with; we studied elements of it in a sophomore art history class that focused on video heavily. It was film acting outside of accepted film, which included video art that followed no plot or was made for visual purpose only. I hadn’t considered this would also include movies made outside of popular acceptance and deemed “trash movies” by elite film culture. Ulmer was working in this industry having already been amongst the elite, and was able to project his ideas with minimal funds and more raw ideas to carry the film. I have a great appreciation for B-movies, largely because they follow no pre existing structure, and often don’t cater to audiences very well making them much more exciting and visceral in that they’re made beyond the sake of profit; or they are so strongly trying to identify as a trope to make money that they parody themselves. This context is what makes the frenzied plot of Detour even more illuminating, and it’s elements of film noir incredibly blunt to watch.

my favorite shot!

Detour is immediately a biased film, as the narrator is shown to be unreliable and self-depreciating. It gives an interesting insight to what men will do to justify their problems, as Al Roberts would blame anything in the world but himself for his bad luck. While he feels righteous in his decision to go to see his girlfriend in the west that left him to be famous, this chase is what bring endless amounts of bad decisions on his part and the eventual murder of two people. Throughout the movie however, Al continues to insist that fate is what leads to this terrible misgiving of people “just dying around him” when the reality is that he very much participates in making these decisions to follow his goal of the fame his girlfriend will bring him. Vera is the only character that sees through his pathetic guise and constantly holds him to his actions. While she was probably considered venomous at the time, when women were undermined for having such boisterous characteristics, she is the most honest character to discover what Al Roberts is really like. I loved the wide-eyed, crazed look she holds while delivering her lines a mile a minute, she’s a heroine that I would be intimidated by today.

great use of “crazy eyes”, what a lady

Her explosive character is killed as angrily and quickly as she appears by Al’s own greed for the inheritance of another guy he “didn’t kill”. He also thinks that her death was an accident, thus making both Haskill and Vera’s death almost imaginary in that his real identity never is associated with them. It causes the audience to wonder if what’s being portrayed is what actually happened or simply through the eyes of a self-absorbed man who thinks the world is out to get him. Is Sue even real? Is the goal of wealth and fame personified to be a love interest that can never really be reached by the protagonist? Could coincidences like the death of two people really happen? Or is Al Roberts a man that justifies doing bad things because he’s a narcissist? It’s 1945.

I didn’t really imagine a definition for “cult films” before reading the general characteristics in “The Cult Film Reader” and had never really questioned it either. Considering I’ve been a part of the crowd of consumers to media my whole life I would generally gravitate towards the cinema of my attraction, which had no formula. I’ve always found a polarizing view on movies to be very boring, and can recognize the worth of a film being “critically acclaimed” but always find that my personal language in movies I’ve seen will ultimately draw me to enjoy something new. I did find particular interest in cult films even without a full understanding of what they were because of the enthusiasm of fans surrounding their existence and that both considerably “bad” and “good” films could be in its rankings. The characteristics that Ernest Mathis and Xavier Mendik go through in the reader are anatomy, consumption, political economy and cultural status, with transgression or “badness” being a side effect sometimes. The consumption of these movies is usually not industry fed and raised, but rather appropriated by a group of people that the film possibly never meant to appeal. I enjoy this concept because the power is given to the audience which allows more room for innovation, such as seeing the fantastic qualities in a mess of a work such as Dwain Esper’s Maniac.

Maniac was an interesting watch, though hard to follow, and made me think about how convincing it may have been in 1934 for a public with much less understanding of mental illness. It’s exploitation of just about every mental illness possible is laughable now, but probably a very different type of frightening and weird for its time. Although the film is shot technically “bad” there are scenes with unexpected terrifying qualities, such as the one where the doctor imposter is crawling up the stairs towards the camera with a deranged look.

By claiming the film to be “educational”, Esper got away with the exploitation of many taboo subjects in the film such as rape, animal abuse, murder, etc. Being in the Pre-code Era of Hayes Code censoring, Esper uses strange-to-the-point-of-humorous techniques to imply dark subjects that speak to audiences on a guttural level. Even with the censorship of movies in the time of its release, the public would still have interests in these subjects because (surprise) people like seeing violence, it’s realistic. This would draw any early example of a cult following to this film, as well as its bizarre film techniques and plot twists that are avant-garde for its time in film history. The appeal of these movies doesn’t lie in its inherent “goodness”, especially in the context of when it was made, but rather the universal raw qualities and its ability to exist outside of structured plotlines. Discussion on whether the film itself or the audience is what makes a movie has long been had, and a film such as Maniac would hardly be remembered in the present day is there wasn’t qualities about it that resonated with audiences even now.