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On poets and horror movies
Oct. 5th, 2003 12:04 pmGoing through other reviews yesterday was part fun, part exercise in the predictability of fandom. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
superplin's review rules - just in case anyone hasn't read it yet, go over to her lj and marvel at the brilliance.
Meanwhile, a friend of mine kindly sent me a Times article by Frieda Hughes, about her father's poetry. I'd link, but I'm not registered, so here are some choice quotes for Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes aficiniados. Regarding Cappricio, TH's poems about Assia Wevill (the "other" woman in the Plath/Hughes tragedy who some years later killed herself as well) which were only printed in a private edition, she writes: I am shocked because I remember the woman so clearly; here she is again.
(It didn't occur to me before, though it should have, that Frieda and her brother Nicholas would remember Assia so well - after all, they weren't infants anymore by the time Assia gassed herself, and Assia's little daughter was their half-sibling.)
About Birthday Letters, TH's collection of poems about SP which he published shortly before his own death, Frieda Hughes writes:
To read Birthday Letters again is like hearing the voices of my two parents talking above my head, the way parents do when one is very young. It is a book full of childhood references; The Rag Rug is one. The rag rug lay on the floor in front of the Rayburn at Court Green for years, growing old and dirty, gathering scummy detritus. Wanting to make the place nice for visitors, I asked my father with all the arrogance of an eight-year-old why we could not just throw the dirty thing out. I was ashamed of its filth, but it could not be cleaned, only shaken. My father, however, would not have it moved, and told me the story of how my mother sweated blood over the making of the rug: this was her rug. He described the hours she poured into it and the mountain it became that she had to climb. My heart was then embedded in the rug and it became a symbol of my lost mother and her passionately determined nature.
Her description of Birthday Letters strikes me as the best one can give in one sentence: For 35 years my father had a conversation in poetry with my mother. And again I wonder how on earth the the movie will work without the use of poetry...
Lastly, I watched the DVD of The Haunting. The one and only classic, of course, not the remake. Still my choice for "scariest film ever", and it's all done in allusions and by never showing anything directly, and by great performances. It has an audiocommentary by director Robert Wise and actor Richard Johnson (who plays Markby), with some brief comments by scriptwriter Nelson Gidding and the other actors (Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Russ Tamblyn) thrown in. (ide_cyan, they were all recorded separately.) While it's a pity that Harris didn't say much more than basically "I was depressed when making this movie and kept myself apart from the rest of the cast" and Bloom didn't say much more than basically "I had a great time making this film and playing a lesbian, and got along great with everyone else, but it's a pity Julie Harris was depressed and kept herself away from the rest of the cast", especially since they were both so very good in this film, what audio commentary we do get is most informative.
Robert Wise fell in love with the novel; Nelson Gidding while writing the script had trouble with the novel because suddenly it seemed to him it wasn't a ghost story at all but all about Eleanor having a nerveous breakdown, all in her mind, and so he went to Shirley Jackson and asked whether that was what was truly going on. She replied "No, but it's a damned good idea." They then decided to play it ambiguously in the movie. Wise used infrared film to achieve the effect of the dark clouds, and of the house against the sky. The house had to be established as its own character; when Eleanor arrives, she's shown from the house's pov, not from the pov of any of the other characters. Wise insists it had to be in black and white (it was his last black and white film, shot at a time where colour had already won the war - and indeed Wise already and famously had shot West Side Story in colour - and Richard Johnson, too, scorns the idea of using colour for this story (and bemoans the loss of black and white in today's cinema).
Johnson's aside when we briefly meet Markby's wife, played by Lois Maxwell who went on to play Miss Moneypenny in the Bond movies is one of these amusing actorly things. Sometimes I believe that just as every actress of the 30s and 40s thinks she could have done or ought to have done Scarlett O'Hara, every British male actor of the 50s and 60s has a story about how he was supposed to play James Bond. Mr. Johnson can't resist pointing out that he (as opposed to S.C.) had the background from the novels, having gone to a public school (that's a private school for non-Brits) and knowing the difference between shaken and stirred, but then adds that what made the Bond series the success it became was Sean Connery's performance, that it wouldn't have become as iconic with another actor in the role.
With the "lesbian cliché" hysteria over Tara's death still in my mind, I found it interesting The Haunting refuses to get itself categorized in this regard. Theo, who was intended by the script, director and actress performing her to be a lesbian, comes across as much more relaxed and well-adjusted than poor Eleanor who can be read either as heterosexual with a crush on Markby or as being in deep denial about her (homo-)sexuality. And of course, it's Eleanor, not Theo, who ends up dead. But then again, her death is at the same time the fulfillment of a union, between her and the house. The geeks from the Scream movies would have had a very difficult time to categorize The Haunting, because it breaks all the horror movie rules in this regard - chaste, blonde Eleanor ends up dead, not brunette, sexually active Theo; whenever Eleanor is alone and separated from the group nothing happens to her, though we think it will - only at the end, when the group is acting together, she's driven - or rather drives herself - to her death.
Wise started his career in films as editor in Citizen Kane and you can make an argument for the camera angles being influenced by Welles - or by the German expressionism which influenced Welles. In any case, rewatching The Haunting made me wish the two had collaborated again...
superplin's review rules - just in case anyone hasn't read it yet, go over to her lj and marvel at the brilliance. Meanwhile, a friend of mine kindly sent me a Times article by Frieda Hughes, about her father's poetry. I'd link, but I'm not registered, so here are some choice quotes for Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes aficiniados. Regarding Cappricio, TH's poems about Assia Wevill (the "other" woman in the Plath/Hughes tragedy who some years later killed herself as well) which were only printed in a private edition, she writes: I am shocked because I remember the woman so clearly; here she is again.
(It didn't occur to me before, though it should have, that Frieda and her brother Nicholas would remember Assia so well - after all, they weren't infants anymore by the time Assia gassed herself, and Assia's little daughter was their half-sibling.)
About Birthday Letters, TH's collection of poems about SP which he published shortly before his own death, Frieda Hughes writes:
To read Birthday Letters again is like hearing the voices of my two parents talking above my head, the way parents do when one is very young. It is a book full of childhood references; The Rag Rug is one. The rag rug lay on the floor in front of the Rayburn at Court Green for years, growing old and dirty, gathering scummy detritus. Wanting to make the place nice for visitors, I asked my father with all the arrogance of an eight-year-old why we could not just throw the dirty thing out. I was ashamed of its filth, but it could not be cleaned, only shaken. My father, however, would not have it moved, and told me the story of how my mother sweated blood over the making of the rug: this was her rug. He described the hours she poured into it and the mountain it became that she had to climb. My heart was then embedded in the rug and it became a symbol of my lost mother and her passionately determined nature.
Her description of Birthday Letters strikes me as the best one can give in one sentence: For 35 years my father had a conversation in poetry with my mother. And again I wonder how on earth the the movie will work without the use of poetry...
Lastly, I watched the DVD of The Haunting. The one and only classic, of course, not the remake. Still my choice for "scariest film ever", and it's all done in allusions and by never showing anything directly, and by great performances. It has an audiocommentary by director Robert Wise and actor Richard Johnson (who plays Markby), with some brief comments by scriptwriter Nelson Gidding and the other actors (Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Russ Tamblyn) thrown in. (
ide_cyan, they were all recorded separately.) While it's a pity that Harris didn't say much more than basically "I was depressed when making this movie and kept myself apart from the rest of the cast" and Bloom didn't say much more than basically "I had a great time making this film and playing a lesbian, and got along great with everyone else, but it's a pity Julie Harris was depressed and kept herself away from the rest of the cast", especially since they were both so very good in this film, what audio commentary we do get is most informative.Robert Wise fell in love with the novel; Nelson Gidding while writing the script had trouble with the novel because suddenly it seemed to him it wasn't a ghost story at all but all about Eleanor having a nerveous breakdown, all in her mind, and so he went to Shirley Jackson and asked whether that was what was truly going on. She replied "No, but it's a damned good idea." They then decided to play it ambiguously in the movie. Wise used infrared film to achieve the effect of the dark clouds, and of the house against the sky. The house had to be established as its own character; when Eleanor arrives, she's shown from the house's pov, not from the pov of any of the other characters. Wise insists it had to be in black and white (it was his last black and white film, shot at a time where colour had already won the war - and indeed Wise already and famously had shot West Side Story in colour - and Richard Johnson, too, scorns the idea of using colour for this story (and bemoans the loss of black and white in today's cinema).
Johnson's aside when we briefly meet Markby's wife, played by Lois Maxwell who went on to play Miss Moneypenny in the Bond movies is one of these amusing actorly things. Sometimes I believe that just as every actress of the 30s and 40s thinks she could have done or ought to have done Scarlett O'Hara, every British male actor of the 50s and 60s has a story about how he was supposed to play James Bond. Mr. Johnson can't resist pointing out that he (as opposed to S.C.) had the background from the novels, having gone to a public school (that's a private school for non-Brits) and knowing the difference between shaken and stirred, but then adds that what made the Bond series the success it became was Sean Connery's performance, that it wouldn't have become as iconic with another actor in the role.
With the "lesbian cliché" hysteria over Tara's death still in my mind, I found it interesting The Haunting refuses to get itself categorized in this regard. Theo, who was intended by the script, director and actress performing her to be a lesbian, comes across as much more relaxed and well-adjusted than poor Eleanor who can be read either as heterosexual with a crush on Markby or as being in deep denial about her (homo-)sexuality. And of course, it's Eleanor, not Theo, who ends up dead. But then again, her death is at the same time the fulfillment of a union, between her and the house. The geeks from the Scream movies would have had a very difficult time to categorize The Haunting, because it breaks all the horror movie rules in this regard - chaste, blonde Eleanor ends up dead, not brunette, sexually active Theo; whenever Eleanor is alone and separated from the group nothing happens to her, though we think it will - only at the end, when the group is acting together, she's driven - or rather drives herself - to her death.
Wise started his career in films as editor in Citizen Kane and you can make an argument for the camera angles being influenced by Welles - or by the German expressionism which influenced Welles. In any case, rewatching The Haunting made me wish the two had collaborated again...
