#giallo essays

[celluloidwickerman]

Deep Red; or Renditions of Murder

“But to learn to dye is better than to study the ways of dying.” – Sir Thomas Browne Writing He stalks with a lens, Short hair and floral dresses: Red, Deep red.                                                           The lens is a recollection, Occurring at a wooden desk, With a typewriter, Tapped by fingers, clothed in black leather; Dead skin masks for desperate hands. No…

[cannibalspicnic]

SCREAM (1996) is more reminiscent of the Italian giallo subgenre of horror than of the American slasher. In this essay I will....

[bluegirlteam]

My intro cause why not 🥱🥱

About me:

I don't like people calling me by my real name online (doesn't matter whether you know me personally or not, unless it's through messages), so I prefer to go by my username, "Bluegirlteam" or "Blue" for short.

I don't mind either she/her or he/him pronouns.

I'm 15. (😭😭)

I'm Vietnamese American. 🇻🇳⁉️

What's mainly on my page!!!!!!!!!

- American Psycho

- Re-Animator

-Saw

My main interests and hobbies!!!!! (List above included)

I love anything retro or vintage, the 80s mainly if you were to go by decade. The music, fashion, movies, etc. I'm going to talk like it's an essay now so hahhhhhh 😜😜

Music wise, I'm more into new wave such as Duran Duran, Wham! and ABC. As well as some pop music like Madonna and Hall and Oates, or international music like Luis Miguel and Massimo Raineri. This isn't all, but that's some. If you tell or ask me anything about modern music I'll look at you like 🤨..

Even though I'm not into modern music, I do love modern movies. I still prefer older movies though. I love to watch trashy, campy horror movies, especially those low budget ones. I'm also into giallo movies. I'm mainly into sci fi horror/slasher films basically.

I'm not going to go too much into fashion, but I will say I like to cosplay and elaborate.

All my cosplays are either thrifted or are already in my closet. I prefer to get my clothes secondhand and make/adjust them myself, but if I see something or can't find it anywhere I'll get an item online sometimes. I analylze tf out of outfits, so my cosplays look as accurate as possible. Also my cosplays are mainly on Tik Tok and sometimes IG if you wanna check them out lalallalallalla

My boundaries

If you're a racist; zionist; homophobic/anti-LBGTQ+; proshipper; pedo; ableist; etc, gtfo you're weird.

I'm also very aware that the jokes I make are very suggestive, but if you're going to make inappropriate jokes, don't make them about me as I'm a minor. This specifically goes towards me being in cosplay since it's literally still me but dressed as some character but idgaf if it's my Roblox character or something since it literally isn't me lmaoaoaoa.

Socials 🙏🙏⁉️

IG/Letterboxd/Xiaohongshu: bluegirlteam

Tik tok: patrckbateman

I'm on IG everyday, so if you're going to message me I'll most likely reply faster on there. For safety reasons most of my DMs are off (unless it sends a request that I could accept) but if you comment on something I'll still try to reply.

MY CAT GURT 😈🙏🙏

[whumpfish]

I tell you what, it may surprise some of y'all to hear, but I grew up away from horror content. I had a vivid, visual imagination as a kid. I was at a sleepover when I was like 8 or some shit in the 90s and their mom had decided that Look Who's Talking was a great sleepover movie, and I had nightmares about childbirth for a week. At that point my mom decided no actually scary things for me. And one look at the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark illustrations told me she was probably right.

And boy did I miss out on a lot. All the classics of the 80s and 90s, Goosebumps, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Darren Shan's Demonata, Wes Craven's entire career... but I wasn't ready. So I stayed out of that space.

So I grew up a bit, and got really into Hitchcock - Strangers On A Train, North By Northwest - and having a feel for what I could handle at that point, kept going. We saved Psycho and The Birds for last. Again, good insight on my mom's part, I was not ready for those at the North By Northwest phase. Around this time, I'm also getting into The X-Files, which is kind of a baby's first horror thing. The episode Stephen King guest wrote still fucked me up the first time, though, so I hung back from what I judged to be the hard stuff at that point. I wasn't ready yet. So I stayed out of that space.

I suffered a minor setback when I had the bright idea to watch the network remake of The Shining with a fever of 105. I have never sleepwalked before or since, but I legit got up mid nightmare, still fully asleep, and ran away from the bathtub zombie (hilariously where I hid in my sleepwalking genius was... my bathroom). But by and by, I recovered from Bathtub Zombie Delirium, and started getting into more serious thrillers. And then I steeled myself and watched Se7en, and a new era began. I finally had confidence in my capacity to handle horror. I finally had an appetite for it.

I'm in college at this point, streaming is in its infancy, and FearNet is still a thing. I make a point to go through their whole monthly selection just to see if I can. I'm introduced to Dario Argento and fall in love, suffer through a minor Fulci and learn my lesson, discover indie works of genius like Hard Candy, hear soprano Sarah Brightman as never before in Repo!: The Genetic Opera, finally see Saw. And I say to myself, you know what, I love this shit, I want to keep going. I think I'm ready.

I go international. Junji Ito enters my life and my heart. I watch Ju-On and realize that weird clicky noise I would make when I was a kid just for the hell of it if I was alone and bored is actually kind of terrifying under the right circumstances. I see Eyes Without A Face. I dive into the world of giallo and B-grade Italian horror. Force myself to watch The Beyond and am the donest of dones with Lucio Fulci--then watch Don't Torture A Duckling and spend the rest of the week mad because it's so good and he just. Idk forgot how to movie when he started doing horror?

Giallo leads me down a rabbit hole to extreme cinema, of which I am now an avid devotee. Martyrs was a fucking religious experience. I still marvel at how Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion managed to package most of The Handmaid's Tale as a quartet of exploitation movies, and do a better and more visceral job (imho) than the latter. I could write essays on how Matsushiro transcends the woman's revenge trope. I could write a fucking thesis. Pieces of Found are still seared into my brain in a traumatic way--and pieces of Found are seared into my brain in a positive, visual and conceptual way. I'm still not entirely sure I was ready for Found, but I done did it anyway, and I think I'm the better for it. But had I discovered I wasn't ready, I would not have made it anybody else's problem.

There are things I know I'll never be ready for, like Men Behind the Sun. I couldn't take Schindler's List; no thank you, Unit 731. There are things I could probably take but have no interest in, Joe D'Amato on the lame end and Ruggero Deodato on the competent but way too questionable end. And you know what? I do and will continue to stay out of those spaces.

Everyone moves at their own pace, and that's fine. That's what makes us unique individuals. I was part of the R.L. Stine generation. Our parents were professional pearl-clutchers, from scary books and movies to the *gasp* violence of Mortal Kombat. I was the one kid who wasn't out there trying to see what my gross-out threshold was and then yeet myself over that line. And that's okay.

It was still there when I caught up. Even if I only decided today that I was ready, it would be there just as it was the day it entered the world.

If you’re not ready for something, that's fine. It's fine if you come to it late, or never get there at all... as long as you stay out of those spaces until you are ready, and quietly turn around if you make a miscalculation and see something you're not actually prepared for. You have to take responsibility for your own content consumption. People come together to share something they like because it touches a piece of them, because they find understanding in it just the way it is. It's not right or fair to bulldoze other people's spaces in the name of expanding your own.

It may sound harsh, but it's a fact. If you're out here writing a ton of aftermath sadporn but you can't write the Before half and need basic elements of what is supposed to have caused your perpetually pathetic "whumpee" to become a sad pile of jello tw tagged, especially something as foundational as #blood, you're not ready for whump. Stay in angst spaces a little longer. It's not a race. It's not a competition. And you're not actually entitled to every space in the known universe.

[world-cinema-research]

Final Course Essay - Grant Montoya

Of all the films we were able to watch this semester, these chosen four best illustrate my personal insight into the evolutionary process films have undergone in the past decades. Each are similar in structure I'd say, but each are very different in which aspects are most highlighted or worked on.

The oldest of the bunch (Five Easy Pieces) was released in 1970 and is a part of the American New Wave film era. Many films from the seventies undermine their own narrative goals by mixing irrelevant plot details and stylistic choices that clash with the main story. This is seen in the character dialogue, atmosphere, and plot, and these creative choices have seemed to be inseparable from the way movies are created. Having picture along with words and audio simply allows directors to integrate challenging things!

Here, the character lead Bobby Dupea says this: "Where the hell do you get the ass to tell anybody anything about class, or who the hell's got it, or what she typifies! You shouldn't even be in the same room as her, you pompous celibate!" We never see the spoken-to character again. This happens more than a few times throughout the movie.

"I felt that the character that I was trying to write the movie about should be about a man who was condemned to search for the meaning of his life- and not a very happy search at that."  - Bob Rafelson

Five years later emerges the film Deep Red, a film that is best described as “the underrated Jaws that didn’t quite make it.” This was near the end of the New Hollywood Cinema Era, entering the blockbuster era. In the film we see an increased use of associative horror methods, especially touched up by the director because it is his natural style. We see this in the music cueing, imagery, scenery, and other subtle conventions.

This article informs us in short that Deep Red was a transitional film in Argento’s career, bridging the gap between his earlier gialli and his later leanings towards the supernatural in features like Suspiria, Inferno, and Phenomena. The thing I like most about this film is how it reflects the daring nature of directors of the era, mega franchises haven't been established yet, and the notable, most-referenced flicks of today were still in the making. A simple slasher of a movie such as this is true to the director's vision because there wasn't much to replicate or steal from.

In the mid-eighties, the VHS era was in its mid-life and Blue Velvet was there to endear audiences with its strange vibe. The power of music was harnessed in this film, and like Argento, the power of association via the resurfacing of images, audio, etc. was apparent in the directing of the film.

Frank Booth - "Have you ever been to pussy heaven?"

Out of all films, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions were most prominent from here onward, in this instance there was a strong presence of inescapable masculinity, roles that were inflated and satirized in the most general way concerning characters that were supposed to be part of a thriller/mystery film. 

1986 was one of the most progressive years for the feminist movement, with protests that aimed to keep abortion and birth control legal. “The largest march for women’s rights in U.S. history occurred on March 9th in Washington, D.C." Although Blue Velvet wasn't based off of this event, the transformative years of the US and the arrival of a new digital age probably gave filmmakers a lot of inspiration and motivation to implement these new themes into their movies...

Finally, enter Punch-Drunk Love, the newest film I have watched in this class (2002). I think it perfectly epitomizes everything that even the modern age films today are trying to go for, which is relatability with elements of surprise. The style, lead, and visual chops of the films today are praised more so than the content of their character or the deeper message of the movie. Punch-Drunk Love lands itself in a healthy midrange, while even referencing a one-off event concerning a man 4 years from its release.

"In 1999, the civil engineer from California catapulted into fame after he earned a whopping 1.2 million airline miles by taking advantage of a Healthy Choice mail-in promotion by purchasing a ridiculous amount of pudding." The idea of a single man taking advantage of a coorperation is a wacky instance of the situations we can find ourselves in, in a super modernized world.

While the artsy side of films grew, you still expected a more polished narrative than from something many years before it. To me, the cultural model of Indulgence vs. Restraint is followed but through a more personal way, as the film represents the journey of a person who cannot thrive in an indulgent society. I do not think necessarily that my chosen films nationally represent cultures, however, I can see how this could be the case if my film selections were a bit different and held those discussions.

"Punch-Drunk Love captures the contingency at the heart of post-romance romance. Instead of the layers of expectation habituated into institutional engagements of two subjects meeting, there is the accident of the event of love within which various parties are arrayed with various affects and desires." Even here, the author of a critical evaluation of this movie does one of the deepest dives beneath the surface of any critical resource I've seen yet. After I read this, I wondered just how much I was missing or under appreciating the films I had watched once and got nothing from. To what extent are directors pouring meaning into the meaningless side events in a film? How much have I misinterpreted?

After taking the same writing approach for a couple of months now for many different films, I see now what the course has aimed to achieve and I think it has done so in the best way, a way that only social media could allow. Firstly, social media gives the sense of being a free writer, or making observations of your own volition. The effect is an easy writing process that feels natural, and sometimes I go beyond the expectations and answer my own questions. By collecting critical, historical, textual, and contemporaneous events for a film and listing them out on a platform with your thoughts, it’s clear that a greater understanding of the film era landscape, people involved, deeper messages, technological limitations, and style of contemporary films will be learned about. Feedback from classmates is the cherry on top.

The way I see things, movie discussion, as well as music discussion, will seemingly never be an interest that the majority will partake in. I never hear about the use of Tumblr outside of this course, and I have never had an account before it. There are many independent media discussion forums on the internet, and I think the best hope for a film buff would be to find a niche online and contribute what they can in their little corner of the internet. In critical discussion of film, people not only sharpen their writing skills but also immerse themselves in cultures old and new; it is simply a learning experience like no other.

[weirdletter]

Giallo!: Genre, Modernity, and Detection in Italian Horror Cinema (SUNY series, Horizons of Cinema), by Alexia Kannas, State University of New York Press, 2020. Info: sunypress.edu.

Traces the giallo mystery/horror genre from its genesis in Italian cinema of the 1960s and 1970s to its contemporary place in the global cult-film canon. Italian giallo films have a peculiar allure. Taking their name from the Italian for “yellow”— reflecting the covers of pulp crime novels—these genre movies were principally produced between 1960 and the late 1970s. These cinematic hybrids of crime, horror, and detection are characterized by elaborate set-piece murders, lurid aesthetics, and experimental soundtracks. Using critical frameworks drawn from genre theory, reception studies, and cultural studies, Giallo! traces this historically marginalized genre’s journey from Italian cinemas to the global cult-film canon. Through close textual analysis of films including The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963), Blood and Black Lace (1964), The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), The Black Belly of the Tarantula (1971), and The Case of the Bloody Iris (1972), Alexia Kannas considers the rendering of urban space in the giallo and how it expresses a complex and unsettling critique of late modernity.

[iamcinema]

Suspiria: Phantasmagoric Artificiality | Cinema Cartography

[nofatclips]

Color me Bava

[brokehorrorfan]

Phenomena will be released on 4K Ultra HD on March 8 via Synapse Films, in conjunction with Arrow Films. Limited to 6,000, it's available to pre-order for $59.95 from Synapse.

The 1985 Italian giallo film is directed by Dario Argento (Suspiria, Deep Red) from a script he co-wrote with Franco Ferrini (Demons). Jennifer Connelly, Daria Nicolodi, Dalila Di Lazzaro, Donald Pleasence, and Patrick Bauchau star.

All three versions of the film - the 116-minute original Italian version, the 100-minute international cut, and the 83-minute U.S. Creepers cut - have been newly restored in 4K with Dolby Vision HDR.

The limited edition set includes a slipcase with artwork by Wes Benscoter, reversible sleeve, booklet, fold-out poster, and six mini lobby cards. Special features are listed below.

Disc 1: Italian version:

Lossless Italian DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and PCM 2.0 stereo soundtracks, derived from the original 4-channel Dolby Stereo elements (with English subtitles)

Lossless “hybrid” English/Italian DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack

Audio commentary by Murder by Design: The Unsane Cinema of Dario Argento author Troy Howarth

Of Flies and Maggots - 2017 feature-length documentary with co-writer/director Dario Argento, actors Fiore Argento, Davide Marotta, Daria Nicolodi and Fiorenza Tessari, co-writer Franco Ferrini, cinematographer Romano Albani, production manager Angelo Iacono, special optical effects artist Luigi Cozzi, special makeup effects artist Sergio Stivaletti, makeup artist Pier Antonio Mecacci, underwater camera operator Gianlorenzo Battaglia, and composers Claudio Simonetti and Simon Boswell

Interview with musician Andi Sex Gang

Italian and international theatrical trailers

“Jennifer” music video, directed by Dario Argento

Japanese pressbook gallery

Disc 2: International & Creepers versions:

Lossless English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and PCM 2.0 stereo soundtracks on the international version, derived from the original 4-channel Dolby Stereo elements

Lossless English PCM 1.0 mono soundtrack on Creepers, mastered from the original 3 track DME magnetic mix

Audio commentary on the international version by film historians Derek Botelho and David Del Valle

The Three Sarcophagi - Visual essay by Arrow producer Michael Mackenzie comparing the different cuts of Phenomena

Creepers theatrical trailer

U.S. radio spots

Also included:

Booklet featuring liner notes by Mikel J. Koven, Rachael Nisbet, and Leonard Jacobs

Fold-out poster

Six lobby card reproduction artcards

The young Jennifer Corvino (Jennifer Connelly) is sent to a private Swiss academy for girls where a vicious killer is on the loose. Jennifer has the unique ability to telepathically communicate with insects and an entomologist, Dr. John McGregor (Donald Pleasence), enlists her help in locating the murderer. As the mystery unfolds, they find themselves in a bizarre murder plot with maggots, mutants and razor-wielding chimpanzee mayhem! Can Jennifer uncover the killer’s identity before becoming a victim herself?

[monotropauniflora]

top 5 films !!

Ok, so right now I'd say my favorites, in no particular order, are:

The Lost Boys (1987)

The impact this movie's made on me is.... enourmous. I've watch this once a year, every year, for over ten years now. My friends have joked that watching it with me is like watching it with the DVD commentary track on.

House (1977)

I'm kinda obsessed the Iconography and Themes involved with Houses. Any house that plays an active roll in the narative; whether it's a a haunted house, or a house that's in some way alive, a house that's hungry, a house that wants. Or a house you're trying to get to, or a house you can't leave.

I really love how unique this film feels. From the visuals to the creative death scenes. Melody being eaten by the piano really feels like something from a childhood nightmare.

Suspiria (1977)

I remember seeing a gifset of this a few years back and telling @koolaidbrain needed to watch it together. We were dazzled by the cinematography and the soundtrack and I've been working my way through Argento's work and other Giallo classics ever since. I'm also on a hunt to own Claudio Simonetti's entire Discography.

Mad Max Fury Road (2015)

This is another one I own on DVD and rewatch regularly. In terms of pacing it feels perfect. The word they live in feels so real and fleshed out, but they never slow down the narative to drop a bunch of expotition on you. And the color balance? Mwah mwah mwah (I think might have a running theme of enjoying high saturation movies)

Stalker (1979)

This movie is so fucking gorgeous. I watched it for the first time just recently, and by "recently" I mean early 2022. After I watched it I think it cast a spell on me because I watched it two more times that week. I've actually been planing a mini "essay" on a sort of... off the wall reading I have of the plot and what I think it could symbolize, but I might need to do another rewatch soon.

Bonus mention, Princess Mononoke (1997)

Favorite Ghibli movie hands down! Also I own the soundtrack on vinyl.

[still-single]

Billy Bao – Bilbo’s Incinerator 7” EP (W.M.O./r)

From April 2005:

An essay on the back cover of this EP gives a few clues as to what’s at stake: Bao, a Nigerian vocalist, traveled to Bilboa, a touristy location in the Basque region of Spain. Experiencing the same feelings of oppression he felt in Lagos, Bao found an out through punk rock, quickly assembled a trio of drums and guitar, and spent three hours in a studio channeling his rage. The results are on this 7”, and it is punishingly prescient. Lyrics deal with state control of expression, a horrifying metaphor for what the third-world disenfranchised might like to do to people of privilege (“Give Them Virus”), and gentrification’s effects on those it pushes out. Ugly, atonal, and pounding, these three primitive rock songs slug their way through outbursts of power electronic noise, jackhammer rhythms, and thrashy, repetitive guitar. Vocals sound like the second coming of Kickboy Face, and this as a whole comes off as a terrifyingly real example of what human beings are capable of if pushed far enough. The real world equivalent to the Pissed Jeans 7” (also reviewed in this edition). An important record.

First review on the first edition of Still Single. I’m not cringing at this one (even with the Pissed Jeans reference), and am surprised that the record appears now to be both more and less than what I described it as. Downtuned guitar riffs alongside expanding/contracting rhythms, treated/extreme vocals and extreme treated treatments phasing over top. It’s energetic but slack as the production pulls forth and back again like the zoom lens in a giallo. It’s also not as exciting as it was to hear for the first time, for this path has been trampled on many a time in the intervening years. Definitely stood out in 2005, though, as the signifiers of noise rock were then largely absent from the climate of garage bands and electroclash lip gloss. It was still out there, to be sure, but it took politics, theory, and an old-fashioned fake I.D. to make it as relevant as it sounded here. The drummer Alberto Martin from La Secta, a long-running Spanish garage band that if I am recalling correctly were contemporaries of ‘80s American throwback bands like The Cynics, pounds it out in this session.

An outlet for Basque guitarist Mattin, who had noise guitar works releases under his own name previous to this project, Billy Bao appears to have been the name given to his voice in this project, and exists only conceptually through these recordings. You can discuss amongst yourselves where this seems exploitative. Having spent an interesting evening with him once, I’m qualified to say he is no Rachel Dolezal.

Mattin spent a good while in the States in collaboration with (or assuming control of) a number of projects, and while I can’t recall if there were any Billy Bao live dates in the US, this cell phone video sort of confirms my assumptions regarding identity: a number of backlit people churning out a wall of guitar noise. This project continued as a recording entity for at least the next ten years, with its finest moments coming via the Fuck Separation 10” on S-S, and the last two releases to date (the Lagos Sessions 2xLP on Munster, and the Communisation 12” on Insulin Addicted/Fuck Yoga).

Mattin continues to perform and release music, including a number of collaborative Songbook albums, and the test music project Regler, which took repetition in a genre/form to a thought-choking extreme. Most recently he delivered a second Suicide-esque album as Al Karpenter for Bruit Direct, entitled Musik for a Private Hell, which it most certainly is: minimalist pulses, crooning lyrics of loss, anarchy and destruction, Mattin’s semi-legendary malfunctioning laptop, and in the midst of it all a track called “Eyes Without Faces” that is cut from the same thick, filthy cloth as Billy Bao. (Doug Mosurock)

Billy Bao releases on Discogs: https://www.discogs.com/artist/372492-Billy-Bao

[sayitaliano]

30+1 days Challenge w/ @lovelybluepanda

Everyday this month (May 2022), me and @lovelybluepanda will share our personal finds and opinions on a specific subject we decided beforehand. You can join us too in the comments or simply by tagging us in your post!

DAY 31 - BOOK

Last day of the challenge! I don't know if I did it right, but I tried to mix experience, passions, thoughts and find out some new things about other subjects, it all mized with some Italian, cause in the end, this is still an Italian blog. I might try again on my other blog. I wanna thank Panda (hope you're good, friendo) for joining me in this and bettering my idea.

Now, back to books: As I mentioned yesterday, I'm not reading anymore. I used to read so much in the past, like a very huge amount of books and it was nveer enough. I came to the conclusion that it's also some sort of trauma I subconsciouly relate with my grandma (from whom I took this passion). I connect her with books and probably the fact that I couldn't properly say goodbye or do what I wanted, is still haunting me this way. I took shelter into movies and other means, while looking at all my books lying in my room. I should try reading again though, as Panda suggested me there are Animes and other smaller things that can be enjoyed before going on with books (you know, I also have this problem that I need to end a chapter once I start reading. I cannot leave chapters halfway, so I really cannot even say "okay I'll read one page today": the mere idea gives me anxiety). I do think the time to read again will come one day. right now I probably have to focus on something else. And anyway, it's not that those who don't read have anything wrong. It's all good. Reading is a choice, a way to spend time and enjoy a nice story. But there are other ways like audiobooks and movies, to do the same, maybe while doodling or doing something else. (Am I subconsciously scared of wasting time while reading? Even if that's not the case? Yeah, probably it could be that too... whatever, the reason is not always important. Facts and "solutions", whenever we need to find one, are the most important things).

il libro = the book la storia = the story la trama = the plot il romanzo = novel il romanzo rosa = romantic novel il romanzo giallo (il giallo) = crime/thriller/mystery novel il saggio = the essay la raccolta di poesie = poems' collection il/la protagonista = the main character il racconto = the story/tale la fiaba = the fairytale

Thanks to those who kept track of this challenge, much appreciated. I hope you found something interesting and enjoyable.

[vielefilme]

Mit zwei Filmen hat sich David Hemmings für immer in die Herzen und das kollektive Gedächtnis von Fans italienischer Thriller gespielt. Einerseits dem esoterischen “Blow Up” (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966) und andererseits dem eher expressionistischen “Rosso - Die Farbe des Todes” (Dario Argento, 1975). Ziemlich genau zwischen diesen Filmen hat Hemmings in einem Werk die Hauptrolle übernommen, das auch inhaltlich und formal als Bindeglied verstanden werden kann: Schatten der Angst (Richard C. Sarafian, 1970). Darin spielt er den cleanen Junkie Tim Brett, der einen offenbar erfolgreichen Roman über seine Sucht geschrieben hat und nun in der nähe von Pompei gemeinsam mit seiner Tante Urlaub macht. Diese gialloeske Figur wird auch prompt in eine typische Narration hineingezogen, als die Tante auf dem Forum der antiken Stadt erdrosselt aufgefunden wird. Zurück in England nimmt Tim auf eigene Faust die Ermittlungen auf, in deren Verlauf er bald feststellen muss, dass die Wahrheit sich hinter einem Netz aus Schweigen und Intrigen verbirgt. Während wir uns in Blow Up aber nie sicher sein konnten, ob es tatsächlich einen Mord gegeben hat und seine Realität stets immer mehr verschwamm je näher man ihr kam, hat er sich hier eindeutig ereignet - nur dass sein Sinnzusammenhang durch falsche Polizisten, Drohanrufe, und schließlich auch rohe körperliche Gewalt in einem Dunst aus Wahnvorstellungen verschwimmt. So steigert sich was als Reminiszenz an Antonioni und Vorwegnahme von Argento begonnen hat zu einem surrealen Paranoiathriller der, als leiser Anklang an “Die 27. Etage” (Edward Dmytryk, 1965), auch einen traumatisierten Protagonisten vermuten lässt. Die Paranoia wäre dann nicht Folge einer Verschwörung sondern Symptom einer Verdrängung. - Sarafian hat sich ein Jahr später mit dem existentialistischen “Fluchtpunkt San Francisco” (1971) ein filmisches Denkmal gesetzt, doch schon hier und insbesondere in der überbordend albtraumhaften Hochzeitszeremonie gegen Ende des Films spielt er zahlreiche Trümpfe seines Genies aus. Verantwortlich für diesen Bildrausch zeichnet der legendäre Kameramann Oswald Morris, der hier nicht in Richtung Giallo schielt um ein Farbfeuerwerk wie in “The Wiz” (Sidney Lumet, 1978) zu entfachen, sondern sich an seine Arbeit an “Moby Dick” (John Huston, 1956) zu erinnern scheint und eine entsättigte Farbwelt wählt. - Aber auch darüber hinaus ist das Bild der ansonsten großartigen britischen Blu-ray aus dem Hause Indicator als durchschnittlich zu beschreiben, denn Schärfe und Kontrast erinnern eher an ein Digibeta, denn an Film. Das Bonusmaterial umfasst ein 14 Minuten langes Videoessay von David Kipen über den Drehbuchautor Paul Dehn, ein 10 minütiges Interview mit dem Assistant Director William P. Cartlidge und diverse Trailer und Bildergalerien. Höhepunkt für mich ist aber das für die Erstauflagen von Indicator typische Booklet. Auf 36 Seiten finden sich hier ein Essay von Johnny Mains, eine Reportage über Hemmings und seine Ehefrau Gayle Hunnicutt bei den Dreharbeiten, Auszüge aus einem Interview mit dem Komponisten Johnny Harris und schließlich Ausschnitte aus zeitgenössischen Filmkritiken. Ein wirklich vorbildliches Paket, das den Film kompetent und unterhaltsam einordnet.

[generallygothic]

Like a blood-drenched dagger, 2016's 'The Love Witch' penetrated the heart of the internet's #witchyvibes community and stayed there. But how does the film hold up outside the framework of heavily filtered screenshots? As it is The Season of the Witch here at Generally Gothic, a brand new in-depth review is now up at generallygothic.com/blog for your reading pleasure. Spoiler: Despite not awarding stars in reviews, 'The Love Witch', somehow, still got all of them. 📸: 'The Love Witch' official movie poster via thelovewitch.oscilloscope.net. . #generallygothic #gothic #gothicfilm #gothictrope #thelovewitch #witch #witchcraft #ritual #feminism #feminist #giallo #technicolor #filmtheory #criticism #essay #academic #review #newblogpost #witchaesthetic #witchy #occult #film #filmhistory #35mm #cult #occult #horror #horrorfilm #magick #theseasonofthewitch https://www.instagram.com/p/Bw83xQwnxU_/?igshid=1cqibd43dxhal

[seancekitsch]

for your sleepover: any recommendations of slasher films?

ok yes!! 

michele saovi’s stage fright: which is a giallo weird messy 80s theater themed piece thats so so fun and i show it to everyone

dario argento’s tenebrae: also giallo but much more pretentious and by the suspiria guy but about a horror novelist that gets himself wrapped up into a real life horror 

sergio martino’s Torso!!!

william lustig’s maniac. i could write an essay.

and juan pique simons’ pieces!!!!

[justforbooks]

Pedro Almodóvar’s Essay on Living Through Spain Lockdown and What He’s Watching in Quarantine

The Long Journey to the Night

I had refused to write till now. I didn’t want to leave written proof of the feelings that these first few days of isolation are provoking in me. Perhaps the reason is because the first thing that I’ve discovered is that the situation is not so different to my daily routine – I am used to living on my own and being on a state of alarm; a not so happy discovery. The first nine days I refused to take one note. But this morning there was a headline in the news that sounded more like a magazine devoted to black humor: “Madrid’s ice rink becomes makeshift morgue”. It sounds like an Italian giallo but it’s happening in Madrid, it’s “One of the Sinister News Items of the Day.”

Today is my 11th day in isolation; I started on Friday 13th March. Since then I organise myself in order to face up to the night, the darkness, because I live as if I were in the wild, following the rhythm marked by the light coming through the windows and the balcony. It’s spring and the weather is truly spring-like! It is one of those wonderful everyday feelings, something I’d forgotten existed. Daylight and its wide-ranging voyage till night-time. The long journey to the night, not as something terrible, but joyful instead. (Or that is what I fixate on, turning my back on the agony of the data coming in.)

I’ve stopped checking my watch, I only look at it in order to count the steps I walk down the long side corridor in my home, the corridor where Julieta Serrano reproached Antonio Banderas for not being a good son, referring to me. The darkness outside tells me that it’s already night-time, but both day and night have no timetables. I’ve stopped being in a rush. Of all days, today, 23rd March, my senses tell me that the days are now longer. I can enjoy daylight for longer.

I am not cheerful enough to start writing fiction – everything happens in due time – although I can think of a number of plots, some of a more intimate nature (I am sure that there’ll be a baby boom at the end of all this, but I’m equally sure there’ll also be lots of separations – hell is other people, said Sartre – some couples will have to face the two situations simultaneously, breakup and the arrival of a new member into the newly broken family).

The current reality is easier to understand as a fantasy fiction than as a realist story. The new global and viral situation seems to come out of a ‘50s Sci-Fi story, the Cold War years. Horror films with the crudest anti-Communist propaganda. American B films, generally superb (especially those based on Richard Matheson’s novels, “The Incredible Shrinking Man,” “I Am Legend,” “The Twilight Zone”) despite the wicked intentions of their producers. As well as the abovementioned, I’m also thinking about “The Day Earth Stood Still,” “D.O.A.,” “Forbidden Planet,” “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” and any other film with Martians in it.

Evil always came from the outside (communists, refugees, Martians) and it served as an argument for the crudest populism (nevertheless, I ardently recommend all the films I’ve mentioned; they are still excellent). In fact, Trump already makes sure that the situation we are enduring sounds like a ‘50s horror film, calling the virus “the Chinese virus.” Trump, another of the great illnesses of our times.

I decide to seek entertainment. I normally improvise (but this is not a weekend, my usual days of solitude and isolation), so now I put together a program of films, news bulletins and reading to fill different slots during the day. My home is an institution and I am its sole resident. I also include some home exercise of late. I was too dispirited till now and the only exercise I was doing was walking up and down the long corridor, the same one with Julieta Serrano and Antonio Banderas in “Pain and Glory.”

I choose my afternoon film, a Melville flic (“Dirty Money”/Un flic), and I surprise myself with my choice for the evening as I decide to go for a James Bond film, “Goldfinger.” On days like these (that’s what I thought), the best thing is pure entertainment, pure escapism.

As I’m watching “Goldfinger,” I feel happy about my choice; rather than me choosing it, it was the film that chose me. I met Sean Connery, we were sitting side by side at dinner in Cannes, and I was surprised by his film knowledge, and in particular by the fact that he could have any interest in my work. He no longer lived in Marbella, but he still adored Spain. We parted as friends and exchanged phone numbers – which I was sure neither of us would ever use. And yet, a few months later, it was 2001/2002, he phoned me as he was coming out of a screening of “Talk to Her.” I am not a fetishist, nor a mythomaniac, but hearing him talking about my film left me overwhelmed. As did listening to his deep voice, that of a good actor and an attractive man. I was thinking about all this whilst watching “Goldfinger” that evening. The quarantine, the night, Sean Connery and I, racing thoughts and interruptions included.

I switch on the TV for a second between films and learn that Lucia Bosé has been taken away by this tornado of which we only know its name. And I shed the first tears of the day. I was fascinated by Lucia, both as an actress and as a person. I remember her in Antonioni’s “Story of a Love Affair,” a woman of unprecedented beauty, strange for the times, and that way of walking, androgynous and animal, that her son Miguel Bosé inherited, amongst other things. I will program Antonioni’s film for tomorrow.

I was one of many of Miguel’s friends awestruck and under the spell of this powerful woman who seemed eternal. Like Jeanne Moreau, Chavela Vargas, Pina Bausch and Lauren Bacall, Lucia was part of the Olympus/Podium of the modern woman, free, independent, all of them more manly than the men surrounding them. I apologize for the cascade of “names,” but I was lucky to meet them all and become close to them. It’s the downside of being stranded at home, one is easy prey for nostalgia.

I get through to Miguel in Mexico City and we talk for a long time. It’s been years since we last had a chat and in spite of the tragic situation, I wanted to thank him for the white orchids he’s been sending me for my birthdays throughout the last three decades. Regardless of where I was – almost always outside Madrid – each 25th of September I’d receive a pot of white orchids that lasted for months, together with a big card from MB.

The good thing about not having a timetable during the confinement is that rushing disappears. As do pressure and stress. I am naturally anxious, and I’ve never felt less anxious than now. Yes, I know that the reality outside my windows is terrible and uncertain, that’s why I’m surprised I’m not worried, and I hold on tight to this new feeling of overcoming my fear and paranoia. I don’t think about death, or the dead.

My main task — something new for me too as, in general, I have the bad habit of not answering messages, or just a few — is answering all of those who write to me asking about me and my family. Because for the first time, they are not banal conversations and words do have a meaning. I take answering very seriously and each night I do a round to find out how my family and friends are doing.

When there’s no longer light coming through the window I start watching “Goldfinger.” I am once more fascinated by Shirley Bassey, and the brief appearance of another Shirley, Shirley Eaton, the beautiful actress who paid a very high price for falling into Bond’s arms. Her body painted in gold, lying on the bed, with not one pore left able to breath, is still one of the most powerful images created by the franchise in order to portray desire/greed/eroticism and the madness of super-powerful villains whose only ambition is to destroy the world, with only their vassals surviving.

I have to stop watching to answer the phone to my sister Chus, who tells me that she’s watching me in a documentary on La 2 [Spanish State Television’s second channel]. It’s already halfway through. I jump from the video to TV’s second channel and I find a documentary about Chavela [Vargas], by Daresha Kyi and Catherine Gund. All I see and hear moves me to tears. It’s caught me by surprise, although I’d already watched the documentary back in the day. But this moment is different from anything I’ve ever lived; I cannot establish any comparisons. All I know is that I’m locked in and breaking out at the same time. I watch the news less and less each day. I try to keep panic and anxiety at bay. The getaway I’m referring to (through entertainment and escapism) is anything but monotonous. Even if I’ve already watched the documentary on Chavela, it hits me with such an emotion that I cannot control it, nor do I want to. I cry till the very last frame. I am overwhelmed by memories of all those nights I introduced her at the Sala Caracol or the Albéniz Theatre (the first theater she stepped on as a singer; damned Mexican sexism didn’t allow her to be on a stage dressed in trousers and a poncho, because somebody wearing that outfit could not be a real woman).

I introduced her at the Olympia in Paris. It was difficult, but we managed to fill up the theatre. In the morning, during the sound-check, Chavela asked one of the employees where Madame Piaf used to place herself when she was performing at the venue. And she sang from that very position. From that evening on, as part of my very own ritual, in which Chavela was my Piaf, I would start the show by kissing the few centimetres of stage onto which Chavela would place herself afterwards.

Coming straight from the entertaining James Bond, I wasn’t ready to listen once more to the voice of the Great Shaman, singing or talking, nor was I ready to see myself singing “Vámonos” with her and sharing so many moments of her life in Madrid and Mexico.

I remember I phoned her from Tangier during Christmas 2007; her voice, the articulation of the few words she spoke, scared me. One of Chavela’s many traits was her wonderful Castilian pronunciation, the words sounded complete in her mouth, not one letter missing. On the phone, she only managed to articulate “I love you very much” and “time goes by.” I was worried and two weeks later I turned up at quinta La Monina in Tepoztlán, where she had been sheltered by a friend from her youth. I was ready for the worst. I knew she had been hospitalised three days earlier. But when she’d heard that I was coming to see her, she’d demanded to be discharged the previous night – there was no way you could say no to Chavela – and there she was, receiving us in her little home in Tepoztlán, like one of those poinsettia, radiant, polished and with the same voice as always, which didn’t stop talking for the three hours we were visiting.

We parted in the afternoon, and she was left on her own, confined to herself. An indigenous woman was attending her till five in the afternoon. Then she was left alone till the next day, since Chavela didn’t allow anybody to be employed to take care of her at night. My mum was the same during the years prior to her death; for some incomprehensible reason, strong women become stingy and irrational, there’s no way of warning them about the long nights, mainly because amongst other things they know them well enough, but they do have a superhuman capability for endurance.

We talked about her illness and death, and she told me, as a good shaman would, “I am not afraid of death, Pedro, we shamans don’t die, we transcend.” I was absolutely certain she was right. She also told me “I am calm.” And continued, “one night I will stop, slowly, alone and I will enjoy it.”

The next day, she received us standing and looking forward to be taken out for lunch. Chavela was a woman expert in resurrections. Completely recovered, she gladly offered to show us around Tepoztlán. Beginning with the Chachiptl hill, right opposite the house where she was living (John Sturges had filmed “The Magnificent Seven” in that area). Legend has it that the hill will open its doors, hidden among the rocks and the weeds, when the next apocalypse arrives, and only those who succeed in entering its womb will be saved. I look at her, surprised once more. She was already getting ready for the next apocalypse, and I cannot help but think about the one we are currently inhabiting.

With tears still on my cheeks, I take a breather before I go back to James Bond, but tonight, RTVE’s La 2 is relentless. After Chavela they air another documentary whose title also includes light: “La luz de Antonio”/“Dream of Light.” Antonio is a painter from La Mancha, Antonio López, and the light of his eyes is his wife, María Moreno, the great realist painter who always remained at the margins, behind Antonio and the group of giant realist painters of the ‘50s. I strongly recommend the documentary, and while I’m at it, La 2, for its exquisite programming.

María Moreno died a few weeks ago, I remember her as an angel, the opposite of Chavela, her work oozes a kind, pleasant, mysterious atmosphere, so different to Antonio López’s paintings, with whom she shared the same themes, only a few steps behind. The documentary also addresses her work as an improvised producer for Víctor Erice’s “The Quince Tree Sun,” another film, perhaps the best one, dealing with the miracle of natural light on the objects that shape our world. The light, always the light, in the long journey towards the night, experiencing the different annual seasons.

In Erice’s masterpiece, we can see Antonio López in his studio, sweeping it and preparing the canvas on which he will tackle his new work. It is a gorgeous ritual. Antonio comes out to his home’s humble patio, holding a glass of wine, and we see him enraptured by the quince tree’s yellow fruit, a scraggy tree, completely unassuming and a bit shabby. The quinces are bright yellow, surrounded by dark green leaves. In the morning, Antonio goes around the tree and focuses on the quinces’ rough skin, looks at it fascinated, enchanted. And he decides to paint it, albeit knowing that the image that he’s studying is impossible to transfer to a canvas because the fruit is alive and will carry on changing each day, and the light will not be the same either. The film speaks about the artist’s battle to capture the sunlight on the quince, a battle already lost.

In 1992, Erice’s film played at Cannes Film Festival and I was part of the jury. The film was very justly awarded the Special Jury Prize. I almost got into a fight with Gérard Depardieu, president of the jury, because he didn’t like the film at all and he branded it a documentary. Fortunately, I got the support of the rest of the jury members.

It is already very late when I switch off La 2, but it’s OK, time in confinement is circular, and I don’t want to disappoint James Bond, I don’t want to go to bed till Sean Connery has thwarted the plans of the Machiavellian and fat Goldfinger, and saved us all.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com