Dracula & Drácula ("Fixing a Hole")

As with Frankenstein, which kicked off the series, I've commissioned another writer to conclude "Universal Horror Month." Jaime Grijalba, a native of Chile and author of Exodus 8:2 (where he is currently wrapping up an ambitious "31 Days of Horror" series), uses his love of horror and knowledge of both Spanish and English to examine the two versions of Dracula, shot simultaneously in different languages back in 1931. I've provided a tantalizing taste of his engaging piece, and a link for you to read the whole thing.

Happy Halloween!

Read "Dracula & Drácula" on Wonders in the Dark

"And maybe that’s the reason why Drácula, the Spanish version of the classic film, is so fresh to the eyes and the mind. It’s different. You react to it in a different manner; the film feels like when you remember a half-forgotten dream, when you see a full vision of what a parallel universe could’ve been if you’d chosen the blonde and not the brunette. Because it is the full vision and scope of what Dracula, the legendary character and its story, can be, this version being far more complete, especially when you watch these two back to back in what can be one of the most splendid double features. While you are in awe due to the visual and poetic nature of the English version, then you are surprised and admiring the longer and more paused plot of the Spanish version, as well as its bold visual and camera style."

Reality Cinema 2002 - 2006 • "32 Days of Movies" Day 31

Thirty-first chapter in "32 Days of Movies", an audiovisual tour through 366 films
(2015 update: included Vimeo embed after the jump)

The first clip contains footage from inside the World Trade Center on September 11, and the third includes images of a violent bus hijacking in Brazil. Neither contains graphic content, but as with the Rodney King footage from Chapter 27, it may not be something people are comfortable watching in this context.

View "Chapter 31: Reality Cinema"

Reality Cinema

This was the age of ubiquituous "reality" - reality TV of course, but also a slew of film documentaries, a form that had never been more popular or prolific. This entry contains more documentaries than any other, from historical subjects to on-the-spot current affairs to raw cinema-verite-style concerts. Some of the non-documentary clips reflect this fascination with reality as well, from ultra-low budget "home movies" to the stylized humanism of a prolific and creative Asian cinema.

Yet there's an element of escapism too, not the old-fashioned bang-bang kind, but something more ethereal and moody - a sort of impressionistic daydream stylization reflecting the era of iPod and internet, in which inner space expanded to swallow up a whole generation. Sometimes the two trends (impressionism and realism) merge, as they do in the last clip, a sad and brilliant sequence mirroring the first clip across an unbridgeable gap of time and space. To a certain extent, today's chapter plays like a fitful waking dream, mixing fragments of memory, fantasy, and reality.

Before reverting to a more straightforward title, I considered calling Chapter 31 "Screening Reality" as a play on words, because this was a time not only of reality onscreen but filters and strategies applied to take the edge off of it.

(continued below, along with NSFW warnings)

The Millennial Mood 1999 - 2002 • "32 Days of Movies" Day 30

Thirtieth chapter in "32 Days of Movies", an audiovisual tour through 366 films

(2015 update: included Vimeo embed after the jump)


View "Chapter 30: The Millennial Mood"

The Millennial Mood

From optimism to despair (which arrives next week), the fleeting mood of the new millennium can sometimes seem longer ago than ten years. Yet we are still living in its aftermath - here are several movies stylized to the nth degree, in a fashion that would come to characterize the new century. The clips tend either towards a candy-colored lightness or (more often, at least in this early stage) a grim, monochrome palette - color photography is more than ever a tool to capture an impression rather than a filter to catch reality.

(continued below, along with NSFW warnings)

Living in the Nineties 1995 - 1999 • "32 Days of Movies" Day 29

Twenty-ninth chapter in "32 Days of Movies", an audiovisual tour through 366 films

(2015 update: included Vimeo embed after the jump)


View "Chapter 29: Living in the Nineties"

Living in the Nineties

When I was in jr. high, I used to see infomercials for a CD compilation called "Living in the 90s." It struck me as absurd at the time - nostalgia for a decade that was still unfolding - but it also made me think. How would people remember the nineties? From the standpoint of 1997 or so, the decade seemed hard to classify. The eighties were gaudy, flashy, and plastic, the seventies shaggy and mauve, the sixties bright and psychedelic. Of course it was easy to think this way when I'd more or less missed out on these eras and could only soak up the pop culture's later depictions of them. Yet I had to wonder: would later decades be able to classify and identify the nineties in such a way?

I'm still not so sure we can - partly because the pop culture had become too self-aware and fast-paced to fall into a "natural" groove, partly because there were few larger-than-life events (with the Cold War over, economic prosperity fostering complacency and inward absorption) to unify cultural experience. Yet if the nineties can be characterized, I think these clips capture some of its spirit.

(continued below, along with NSFW warnings)

Name That Film

First off, apologies to those who tried to visit "Pulp and Popcorn", the latest entry in "32 Days of Movies" this morning. The video link was not working, but it has been fixed.

Since some people were curious/baffled/frustrated about what movies were used in the rapid-fire "60 Years of Cinema (in 40 Seconds"), I created a video post to "decode" it. Truth be told, it's a bit redundant for readers of this blog, as you can find out the films simply by checking out my video series, but you may enjoy the screen-caps and music anyway, or find it simpler to look here than look through every chapter and find out the films right now (though I hope you'll keep returning to do so over time!).

Plus, this offers a sneak preview of the picture post going up Wednesday, in which twice as many screen-caps with titles will be compiled for a picture directory linking directly to the videos that incorporate that particular film (albeit to the beginning of the chapter, as I couldn't create bookmarks).

Without further ado, then, here are "The Answers for 60 Years of Cinema (in 40 Seconds)":

Pulp and Popcorn 1993 - 1995 • "32 Days of Movies" Day 28

Twenty-eighth chapter in "32 Days of Movies", an audiovisual tour through 366 films

(2015 update: included Vimeo embed after the jump)


View "Chapter 28: Pulp and Popcorn"

Pulp and Popcorn

Here is where the history of the movies truly begins to coincide with my own personal movie history. I was ten years old in the fall of 1993, and already an avid movie buff, combing the weekly listings to see what was coming out, studying the box office reports as if they contained esoteric messages from the beyond, and wandering down the hallway of coming attractions at the local movie theater to study the teaser posters. That said, I think I only saw one of these films in theaters at the time - however, I was aware of the presence of all of them, and it was only a few years later that I would see them on video as a teenager.

(continued below, along with NSFW warnings)

Musical Countdown - An American in Paris

This is an entry in the Wonders in the Dark musical countdown - an epic enterprise; make sure you check out the whole thing!

•

An American in Paris (1951/United States/directed by Vincente Minnelli & choreographed by Gene Kelly)

stars Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant, George Guetary, Nina Foch

written by Alan J. Lerner • photographed by Alfred Gilks (ballet photographed by John Alton) • designed by Preston Ames, Cedric Gibbons • music by George Gershwin, Conrad Salinger • costumes by Orry-Kelly

The Story: Wealthy, debonair Henri (Guetary) loves pretty young Lise (Caron), a girl he cared for during the war. Lonely heiress Milo (Fochs) loves cheerful yet skeptical artist Jerry (Kelly). Unfortunately Lise and Jerry love one another and as they dance their way into each others' hearts against a romantic Parisian backdrop, they must struggle between the pull of money and loyalty on the one hand, and true love on the other.

_____________

First of all, this isn't just an American in Paris, it's an American Paris - not a City of Lights that is or ever was, but rather a Paris dreamed of across miles and miles of sea and continent, far away in Hollywood. That's an important point. This Paris is full of authentic touches (productions of the time attempted to reproduce specific areas on soundstages) and cultural references, but it's also purposefully artificial. Likewise, Jerry is more an idea of a painter than an actual painter - we only glimpse his canvases, and his patter consists of the cliches of bohemian artist life (though Kelly's a rather clean-cut bohemian) rather than technical insight or the passion of vision. For those who don't like musicals because of their gap from reality, this is not the musical to win you over. But for those who love bravura dancing, full of machine-gun-fire taps and the gracefully propulsive gestures and flexes Kelly specialized in, or intensely creative choreography and stage direction, replete with artfully tangling and untangling bodies and sensuous, eye-popping colors, An American in Paris is right up your avenue. And yet it isn't all make-believe.

A Dark Dawn 1990 - 1993 • "32 Days of Movies" Day 27

Twenty-seventh chapter in "32 Days of Movies", an audiovisual tour through 366 films
(2015 update: included Vimeo embed after the jump)

Today's chapter includes footage from the Rodney King assault, an essential element of the scene that incorporates it; that sequence is an important part of both American and cinema history, but not something everyone will feel comfortable watching in this context. So fair warning.

View "Chapter 27: A Dark Dawn"

A Dark Dawn

The early nineties was a time that Dickens could have written about, full of hope and promise alongside frustration and worry. The Cold War was over and Mandela was sprung from jail, but an uncertain world - characterized by the Gulf War and violence in the Balkans - was cause for concern as well as relief. In America, the economy slumped while police brutality and racial violence dominated the headlines - yet there was also a certain optimism in the air, an excitement about a new era, characterized by new forms of pop culture, from hip hop to postmodern TV shows. This spirit, a continuation of yesterday's but with a darker edge, found its expression in the cinema too.

(continued below, along with NSFW & spoiler warnings)

New Age 1987 - 1990 • "32 Days of Movies" Day 26

Twenty-sixth chapter in "32 Days of Movies", an audiovisual tour through 366 films

(2015 update: included Vimeo embed after the jump)


View "Chapter 26: New Age"

New Age

There was something in the air. Perhaps it was the breeze of "Glasnost" spreading outward from Russia, as the Soviet government once hoped Communism itself would. Maybe it was the end of the Reagan era in America, with a restless populace hoping to move away from the dominant spirit of hardheaded materialism (well-represented in today's second clip). Or it could have been generational - after all, these were the years when the baby boomers, onetime youthful rebels now on the cusp of middle age, with families, mortgages, and careers, came into their own, culturally speaking.

The engineers of pop culture are always going to be people between about thirty-five and fifty-five and the boomers were just entering that age group. Sure enough, more than half the filmmakers in this chapter were born between 1946 and 1954 - and most likely this new, entirely postwar generation brought a new perspective to film. Anyway, for whatever reason, there was a loosening, a freshness, and a spirit of wondrous inquiry to cinema, television, and pop culture in general in the late eighties and well into the early nineties. You could call it a mood of curious mysticism.

Musical Countdown - 42nd Street

This is an entry in the Wonders in the Dark musical countdown - an epic enterprise; make sure you check out the whole thing!

This post consists of an essay and a video piece (not just a scene from the movie intended as an addendum, but something I actually created as an important part of my contribution to the countdown). You can take it any order, but I open with the video to highlight its relevance to this entry. It shows through juxtaposition and structure what I am saying in the essay itself, and maybe makes my point better than words can do.

The five-minute video opens with dialogue from the film, follows with a rehearsal montage set to "Getting to Be a Habit With Me" (showing the progression from casting call to finished production), and closes with the dance sequence of "Young and Healthy" in its entirety, just to show what the film was building up to. Altogether the video demonstrates how the raw and often frustrated urges of the characters for sex and power are sublimated and transmuted into the discipline of a creative act, and then shows the end result in all its glory. The essay pursues the same theme.

And don't worry - they're both fun!

•

42nd Street (1933/United States/directed by Lloyd Bacon & choreographed by Busby Berkeley)

stars Warner Baxter, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Bebe Daniels, George Brent, Guy Kibbee, Una Merkel, Ginger Rogers

written by Rian James, James Seymour and Whitney Bolton from Bradford Ropes' novel • photographed by Sol Polito • designed by Jack Oakey • music by Al Dubin & Harry Warren • edited by Thomas Pratt & Frank Ware

The Story: Determined to direct a hit show, even if it kills him, Julian Marsh (Warner Baxter) struggles with romantic entanglements, last-minute injuries, and a nervous ingenue named Peggy (Ruby Keeler). Will the curtain open or come crashing down on "Pretty Lady"?

_____________

"Pretty Lady" - the stage extravaganza at the center of 42nd Street - owes its existence solely to sex. Well, don't we all? Some musicals present themselves as good, clean fun but 42nd Street, God bless its dirty face, is not one of those musicals. At the root of its massive appeal, kinetic energy, and increasingly exciting narrative and musical structure are three simple motivating factors: sex, sex, and sex. Well, a fourth too: money – and in this film the two are wound around each like the two strands of DNA.

As Chaos Theory holds that a butterfly need just flap its wings to spawn a typhoon halfway around the world, so Dorothy Brock (Bebe Daniels) has only to spread her legs. Thus is birthed a larger-than-life production, upon which the career of a broken, possibly dying director relies, through which a naïve young ingénue will become the biggest name on Broadway, and from which two hundred hustling, horny, hungry human beings will draw their daily bread (and dreams of glory). Dirty old man, sugar daddy, and cuckold Abner Dillon (Guy Kibbee) tells Dorothy he’ll do something for her (finance the show she wants to star in) if she’ll do something for him (guess what?). And with that, we’re off!

The Weird Eighties 1984 - 1986 • "32 Days of Movies" Day 25

Twenty-fifth chapter in "32 Days of Movies", an audiovisual tour through 366 films

(2015 update: included Vimeo embed after the jump)


View "Chapter 25: The Weird Eighties"

The Weird Eighties

On the morning of my fourth birthday, I innocently tuned in to a Saturday morning cartoon based on "The Pied Piper of Hamlin." Apparently I was not familiar with the story, because when the piper led all the children off to, well, candyland, or death, or oblivion or whatever awaited them away from the safety net of parental observation, I became greatly distressed. As I recall I even wanted to put off my birthday party, though by the time the guests (and their presents) had arrived I had moved on. The version of "Pied Piper" I saw was, I recall, a fairly straightforward animation and thus not the version you will see in today's chapter.

If I'd seen that in my tender youthful condition I probably would not only have postponed that day's party, but all future ones as I curled up in a ball in my room, a nervous wreck for all time (seriously, it's pretty creepy - and cool; see for yourself). But the film featured below reminds us of a crucial fact, and one that ties in to some of my other childhood frights (namely the bizarre and ghoulish "Hansel & Gretel" episode of Shelley Duvall's "Faerie Tale Theatre"), if not this particular one. It's a fact that people sometimes forget but those of us who were young enough to live through the era with the fresh, easily perplexed eyes of childhood certainly remember: the eighties were weird.

(continued below, along with NSFW warnings)

60 Years of Cinema (in 40 Seconds)

The twenty-fourth chapter in "32 Days of Cinema" already went up this morning, but I'm bumping it (still check it out though! I think it's one of the most interesting ones) to mention something else, albeit related to the series. Saturday night I put up an extract from Chapter 19 on Wonders in the Dark: the rapid-fire video montage which concludes a leg of the series by recapping everything already covered in well under a minute (each film appears for just four frames). This fragment, titled "60 Years of Cinema (in 40 Seconds)" seems to have been a hit; it was praised in all too flattering terms by fellow blogger Srikanth Scrivasson, who also said it "plays out like the output of a malfunctioning super-projector in its final minutes of operation." This afternoon it was linked up on Huffington Post and got some tweets, so I thought I would share it again here. Those of you who've seen Chapter 19 (which, to be honest, is an audience in the single digits) will have already seen it, but the You Tube clip is cleaner and higher-quality, crucial since the images flash by so quickly. Hope you enjoy it again, or for the first time:

You can also view the segment in its original home, as the climax to Chapter 19, and check out all the entries in the ongoing "32 Days of Cinema series" in my Video Gallery.

Read the comments on Wonders in the Dark, where this video was originally published.