Author Archives: pathannon74

Carnival of Blogs

This week was interesting for many reasons, but the part I enjoyed most, was getting to watch our screening before we discussed the readings for this week. “Carnival of Souls” was a very engaging film, even thought it was written intentionally slow.

I found the titles during the opening scenes of the movie to be very artful and creative. The way they hugged the horizontal rocks and fit into every landscape that they were placed into, was honestly ahead of its time. The car crash however, seemed rather unconvincing, but was perhaps the best technique they could use with their budget, and the technology available to the industry at the time.

This film featured another cool travel montage. While the main character was on her way to Utah, different camera angles gave life to her journey. The transitions were also sharp. I did find it interesting that even though this film was intentionally slow, the transitions were so abrupt at times.

My favorite part of this film was the sound isolation during periods when the main character was in public. There were two distinct times when all that was audible were the sounds of her footsteps. These periods gave the entire story more depth. As suddenly as these periods began, they ceased with the sounds of birds chirping.

I am not a big fan of getting scared, but I do enjoy watching horror movies, if I am with other people. This film, though not scary, had some elements of un-comfortability. The man that our main character kept seeing, and then eventually kept encountering, really creeped me out and made my skin crawl. The most prominent example of this was when the neighbor was in Mary’s room, and was being quite forward with his advances. She was perched against the dresser and it seemed that the neighbor had put his head into her neck, when in fact it was the man Mary had been visited by since she got to Utah.

Throughout the entirety of this film, it was never in my mind that Mary was in a state of purgatory. I simply just thought that she was dealing with some sort of post- traumatic stress following the car accident that occurred just minutes into the film.

Our readings this week were pleasantly surprising. I was very glad to see that they were all connected in their own way. The most connected thought through these readings, was the work of Benjamin. These readings referred to Benjamin’s thoughts of a film’s aura. The aura of the film is what makes it great. As we discussed in weeks prior, that this aura could be destroyed by mass replication of products, but it can also be strengthened by adding other elements into films. Examples of these included well known composers writing musical scores for films that were low budget in every aspect, or star-studded actors appearing in films that would otherwise lack any sort of luster. These techniques have successfully brought many films from their respective periods of creation, and into our film class, and many like it across the world present day.

It is clear to me that the aura of this film is the beautifully shot scenes, the masterfully executed sound isolation, and the unexpected purgatory.

An Unexpected Detour

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This week we got back into the groove of reading one day, then watching a film, and being able to better digest it and write about it. I was really impressed with this week’s reading leaders. I especially appreciated the un-packing of Benjamin’s “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction.” Although in my opinion this reading was a little challenging, it became much clearer with secondary media. The replication of works of art, cause them to lose their “Aura”. When we brand something as a “work of art”, it should be kept as such; a labor-intensive creation that has come to exist, simply because the artist wanted it to. Benjamin’s literature, along with our class discussion, helped me better understand this concept, and basically held my head in the direction of these crimes.

I also found the concepts of camp, and para cinema to be very interesting. One of the best things about film is that most people have seen all the things we talk about in class, but they have never fully known or understood what they were seeing. For instance, the next time I see someone defend a Frankie Avalon “Beach Party” film from a negative review, I can take their side, but I also will know that I am partaking in para-cinema.

The film we watched this week was “Detour.” It was directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and produced by PRC. My attention was taken completely after the first set of voice-overs and flashbacks. Little did I know that the entire movie was going to be the story that brought Al Roberts to the diner in the first scene.

One of my favorite parts of this film was the fog used in place of actual set during the first series of flashbacks. The documentary we watched after the film was over, talked about the fog as a funny thing because they didn’t have to use a lot of the budget constructing a New York city set. Even though the reason for the fog wasn’t just because it would look cool, in my opinion it did look cool.

One of the wackiest moments of “Detour” was the hitch-hiking montage. It clearly looked like Al was getting into the driver side of every car he entered, and then the steering wheel was on the opposite side that it normally is in the US. We later learned that this was merely a camera technique or possibly a mistake that was left in because they couldn’t afford to re-shoot it, so they just left it in. Honestly, it doesn’t matter to me why this whacky montage has these flaws, it still provided a few funny shots that brought me closer to Al and his story.

The moment I was most surprised while watching “Detour” was when Vera realized that Al was lying about who he was. After a few seconds of leaning back and relaxing, she shot up and began to yell questions about the whereabouts of the true owner of the clothes Al was wearing, and the car he was driving. Their whole story for the rest of the movie was a gripping back and forth that continued to reveal the rest of Al’s story.

In my opinion, “Detour” was a film that I didn’t know I had to see, but I guess that’s just one more reason why I am in love with this class, and cinema in general.

A Maniac Grindhouse

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The first cult film that we were exposed to this semester was the film “Maniac” directed by Dwain Esper. This work was written by Esper’s wife, Hildegard. I found this film to be quite entertaining, but one of the most interesting aspects of this film for me was the many “educational” interjections of white titles rolling on a black background that gave laughable information following mind boggling scenes.

As I scrambled to make sense of what I had just seen, I was then confronted with words such as “combat fear by replacing it with faith”, as I had just seen one bad actor shoot his louder counterpart. When you couple these aspects with the scenes where the cat was obviously thrown into the frame, the absence of a narrative within this film just seems right. Of course, I will always long for the tying of the loose ends, I have come to terms with this cult movie, and have gained a better understanding as to why it was created.

Dwain Esper, and many directors of this time, were only in this business to make money. Now I see nothing wrong with that because if it weren’t for shoe-string budgets, and money hungry directors, we would not have seen films like this. As Robert G. Weiner wrote, Esper did not care about the artfulness of his cinema, he was simply trying to milk profits from cheaply made films. Weiner also points out that Esper and many of his peers did not submit their movies to the motion picture board for approval. It was his disdain for the movie codes, and his drive to make money that left his mark on the cult Cinema world that we are studying this day.

I agree with Emma’s answer the question that was raised on Monday during the discussions of the readings. The question was along the lines of “do you think exploitation films would still have been made if it weren’t for directors like Esper?” We know that the major catalyst for the exploitation era was the Paramount decision, but even if that hadn’t have happened, men like Esper would still be directing, and showing their movies wherever they could. The Salesman of the world would stumble upon the film industry and use their talents to push through cost-effective media that was accepted by the public for lack of better things to do.

The documentary we watched on Wednesday titled “American Grindhouse”, reinforced a lot of things that I learned from the intro to film class that I took last year. Once I learned about what exploitations films were, I realized that I really like them. Its not necessarily always about what is on the screen though, but about what occurred to get the films to the year 2020. The amount of peddling and persistence that went on just to get a film into a “Grindhouse” has always impressed me.

Hearing John Landis talk about films is always funny, because he takes a no BS stance, and obviously knows his stuff as he directed “Animal House,” which is a movie that will no doubt live on forever. The only part of the exploitation era that always brings me down are the darker sides to these films. The genre “Roughies” was created because as George Muller said, “They couldn’t show sex, so they showed violence.” This just goes to show that no matter what, if there is money to be had, the films will be made, and later generations will study the masterpieces that result.