Jack Kirby’s Collages
Steven Brower writes a heavily illustrated article on Jack Kirby’s collage work for imprint. I don’t find the central mystery very compelling—why would Kirby occasionally use collage when it was faster to draw?—but he’s astute in linking Kirby’s use of composition back to John Heartfield. Not surprisingly, the most interesting work was produced under the greater restraints, especially that for Fantastic Four.
Mort d’un pourri’s Glassy Visuals
Of greatest interest: Alain Delon is as impossibly magnetic as always. Julien Guiomar (above) is as well, somehow managing a more compelling presence than the rest of the cast—Ornella Muti, Stéphane Audran, and Klaus Kinski. That’s a fair accomplishment.
The visual tone also striking: overcast, cool and limpid. It looks like it was photographed through three inches of green glass, the sub-aquatic dimness shot through with ochres and mustards (rich but never vivid). For all the darkness, the view is remarkably clear. Daylight reads as twilight, night shots are slick with reflected light though it never rains, interiors appear half lit by the concrete outside. Henry Decaë was the cinematographer (see: Le Samourai, Le Cercle Rouge).
More screen caps after the jump.
Un Roi Sans Divertissement
Nominally a product of the Nouvelle Vague, Jean Giono’s adaptation of his own novel is rooted in the pessimistic concerns of France’s public intellectuals after the second world war. It has none of the vibrance or youthfulness other productions from the period, by design. Characters, location, and interaction are weighted down and creaking with meaning. Actors stand in dimly lit rooms expounding on the significance of offscreen events, teasing and prodding thematic concerns in barely differentiated dialogues. A brief running time and (pretty absolute!) commitment to these strategies ameliorate most of the exasperation all this generates.
The suffocating pretension compliments what’s best about Un Roi—Letterier evokes a vast and silent snowbound world in which villagers driven mad by lack of distraction while a creeping portent covers every surface feels like naturalism. Sounds like Lovecraft? It feels very European.
The titular king is a man who kills out of boredom. Here’s the pursuit leading up to his death, to describe the reveal as a spoiler seems contrary to the spirit of the production:
Francois Letterier, 1963
Children of the Stones
This has to be near ground zero, hauntologically speaking, just beyond all those BBC Radiophonic Workshop cues. It’s an ITV children’s serial from 1977 and a cultural touchstone for a generation of British weirdos. Surprising complex for it’s demographic, but what do I know? I was brought up on American TV.
Childen’s entertainment that seeks to unsettle is always a nice surprise. The opening credits establish a disquieting, otherworldly tone, only deepened by the flimsiness of the producion and the flat, you-really-are-right-there quality of the video image. Sidney Sager’s score is arresting, a faux-Icelandic nonsense word (“hadave”) intoned by rocks. And there’s the notion of a time circle—events in a circumscribed area repeat again and again, generating energy & relating to the parallel timeline outside it’s borders. Pretty strange and worth tracking down.
Peter Graham Scott, 1976
Wandering Sounds
Follow this link for loops by Jüppala Kääpiö, but beware: Flash content. The reclamation of natural world tropes from lingering hippie culture continues & for this I am grateful.