Carnival of Souls (1962)

When I saw that Luke didn't like Carnival of Souls, I was a bit surprised. When I got around to seeing it myself, I didn't expect much. But, wow. Did we see the same movie? I wish I could say that, but I did notice a lot of the flaws that he noticed. Yes, there are some unintentionally hilarious gaffes in the film. The acting is pretty bad. The story isn't the most original or the most fascinating. On the whole, the entire film seems very amateurish. Not surprising, when you consider it was the only feature film made by a company that produced industrial and educational films. This is not the work of master craftsman by any means. But, all things considered, it's a great, haunting film.

I'm reminded of the work of Val Lewton, specifically Cat People. Like Herk Harvey and company, Lewton and his crews worked with miniscule budgets, relying on a more subtle, psychological horror. Lewton's films focused on darkness, relying on the idea that a person's imagination can be more frightening than anything he could have cooked up. Carnival of Souls is somewhat the same; Harvey does like darkness, but the mood invoked in this film is very psychological and unsettling. However, the biggest comparisons I can draw between the two works is what is under the outer surface of the film. Because Lewton worked with such small budgets, he had less restraints from RKO and could put some very risque themes into the films he produced, often revolving around sex or death. Carnival of Souls, I think does the same thing. Carnival of Souls is no more about ghouls chasing a woman than Cat People is about a cat-woman stalking her victims. In Cat People, Simone Simon's character is a young bride who is, essentially, afraid of her own sexuality. In Carnival of Souls, the protagonist, Mary, is consumed by loneliness and isolation.

There's a pretty frightening scene well into Carnival of Souls; Mary goes into a dressing room to change, and a strange dissolve takes place in the film. She leaves the room to buy the dress she had on and the saleswoman doesn't notice her, doesn't even acknowledge her existence. In fact, nobody in the store does. She leaves, distressed, and finds herself on a crowded street where a construction crew is working, she sees all kinds of machinery running and men jackhammering. Yet, she hears nothing, we hear nothing, only Gene Moore's moody organ score. Not only is she ignored by everyone around her, the busy world she inhabits has become completely silent to her. This is one of the most effective moments that I've ever seen in a film. Watching it, I was reminded of my own life, the loneliness that I feel each and every day. I've felt like that many times, as if I didn't exist to the world, and sometimes, that silence in your own head can become quite deafening.

I thought that this connection was unintentional, merely one of those strange coincidence that comes when an individual views any film. Afterwards, Mary is in a doctor's office, trying to explain what is happening to her. We've seen this a million times, the 'victim' of the film recounts his or her story to somebody who could possibly help. It can wear a little thin, recounting the events we've already seen, the doctor asking questions we already know. But, in Carnival of Souls, this scene is important for two reasons. Naturally, it gives us a moment to catch our breath after the horror of the previous scene. But, also, it lets us dwell on the events again and on Mary's character, noticing things that we didn't even pick up earlier. The doctor asks Mary if she has a boyfriend, and she tells him no, that she's not interested in men. She's not interested in any people at all. Suddenly, it all clicks into place. In the film we've never seen her close to anybody. Her boss at the church, her landlady, the man staying in the boarding house, they all try to get close, but Mary isn't interested. We don't know if this is the way she's always been, or if the accident at the beginning of the film was the catalyst, but we do know that Mary lives a lonely, empty existence at this point.

Loneliness is strange, because it can drive a person insane, and also force them to refuse the one thing that they crave the most- human contact. Mary is like this, her life is devoid of other people, devoid of emotion. It tortures her, but it also prevents her from changing this. Even after the scene with the doctor, she tries to get close to Mr. Linden, the lodger, but simply can't seem to form a connection. This is where the lack of talent in the film comes in handy. Candace Hilligoss, who plays Mary, has no chemistry with Mr. Linden or anybody else. Maybe Harvey knew this when he cast her, because it adds to her character even more. She is completely unable to form any kind of bond with another person, but, as is the case on her date with Mr. Linden, she's desperate to be with anybody, just as long as she's not alone. She knows if she's alone again, the ghouls will come for her.

One interesting thing I noted in the construction of the film is how much it disregards the language of film, at points. When Mary arrives in Utah, she asks the man at the gas station where her boarding house is. He points her in the direction and the camera follows his finger into the darkness. The blackness of the night hides a jump cut into the dark bedroom of the boarding house, just as a door opens. It's a pretty jarring cut, and, for the life of me, I can't seem to remember any similar cuts in other films. Also, the strange dissolves that show the world changing around Mary when the world goes silent seem pretty strange too. The whole film seems to be constructed of ingenious touches like this; not in accord with the true grammar of film, simply ideas being toyed with by people making their first, and only film.

One line that caught my ear early on, before Mary leaves for Utah, a man tells her she needs to put more of her soul into her playing. Later on, when she's compelled to play something, I imagine, isn't very church-like, her boss dismisses her and asks her if she even has a soul. Knowing the way the film ends, these two moments seem very telling, as in a film like Fight Club. But, when they occurred, they struck me, again, as having to do with loneliness. A soul is what we all have, it is our essence. When you say somebody is full of soul, you mean they are full of life. Mary, as pointed out by Mr. Linden, doesn't enjoy music, or drinking, or men, or anything else. Her life is without fulfillment, it is completely empty. Her life is no life at all, for she has no soul. This, obviously, can be taken literally, because we assume she's been dead in the car throughout the whole film, but I think it has a deeper psychological depth that most people don't even notice.

These are just my own thoughts and ideas on the film. That's one of the great things about film, different people interpret it different ways, get different things out of it. My theorizing is note entirely airtight. The ending, particularly, leaves me baffled, in the grand scheme of things. It seems kind of out of step with everything else about loneliness and isolation that I got from the rest of the film. You could argue that, in the end, she was consumed by her own loneliness, her own emptiness, or you could say that it's nothing more than a cheap trick, typical of a B-movie of this kind, one the audience was meant to forget halfway home from the drive-in.

Punishment Park (1971)

(Note: I saw Punishment Park 2 months ago and only took a few scant notes, so my impressions are pretty lame.)

I became interested in Punishment Park after seeing it among Eureka's Masters of Cinema line. I haven't seen any of their discs because importing is expensive, but I like the films they've chosen. New Yorker Video has recently released a great edition of Punishment Park in R1, which seems to be on par with Eureka's efforts. I wasn't sure what to expect of the film, and, as I've found, that's the best way to go into almost any film.

The best way I can describe Punishment Park is to say it's Kafka meets The Most Dangerous Game with hippies done in a very effective documentary style. The film is fiction but it is meant to look like a documentary. Unlike most films of this nature, Punishment Park enjoys great success in this aspect. Too many films that make use of this style still manage to feel staged, which not only makes the choice pointless but serves to distract the viewer as well. In Punishment Park, Peter Watkins isn't afraid to let the characters all simply exist, rather than act. The result is a work with breathless realism.

The content of the film is a dystopic mix of fact and fiction in which a number of incarcerated radicals are given a choice between serving the rest of their sentence or competing in 'Punishment Park'. It's designed to be a training exercise for law enforcement officials, but any self-respecting conspiracy nut knows the score. The film is brimming with tension and suspense, laden with foreboding. Watching it, we simply cannot wait to see the conclusion. And, ultimately, the film satisfies our expectations on many levels.

A true masterpiece.

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Edvard Munch (1974)

Edvard Munch is not an easy film to discuss. It's closest cinematic relative would be Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev. But, the connections are scant; both are about artists and their lives, their passion, and both have long runtimes. There are more connections than this, of course, but they are far deeper. In terms of craft, Edvard Munch is nearly impossible to describe. Essentially, it's biographic retelling of Munch's years as a painter. It's loosely chronological in the grand scheme of things, but Watkins frequently intercuts scenes from the past, scenes from Munch's memories, 'interviews' with people in Munch's life.

Watching the film, you get the impression that it's comprised of many layers, both visually and aurally. Like I said, Watkins edits it with bravado with no regard for continuity or space. The film's soundtrack is unique because everything spills out all over everything else. You'll be watching somebody talking, but hear the audio of somebody else speaking in a separate interview, along with the sounds of Munch scratching on his canvas, or the atmospherical details from another scene. It's an entirely unique approach to filmmaking, and I can see it bothering a whole lot of people. But, to me, it proves that there is still a lot of untapped artistic potential in the film medium.

Films about artists are always uniquely fascinating. It's strange when you think about it, using one art form to explore another completely different artform. Here, Watkins uses film brilliantly, not only to inform the viewer, but to try to convey the emotions that Munch feels. It can feel a little bit slow when we're watching members of the Norwegian bohemian scene babble on about this and that, intercut with shots of Munch simply watching, making eyes with various women, but it all serves to clue the viewer into Munch's life and experiences. This makes the scenes where we see Munch creating all the more fascinating. It's amazing to watch, seeing Munch creating something, knowing what's going on in his head, watching how that influences every stroke on the canvas.

It's a certain kind of a masterpiece, but nonetheless, an undeniable masterpiece. It's films like Edvard Munch that show the unique elements that cinema can offer that cannot be duplicated in any other artform.

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Next Tuesday, New Yorker Video continues with it's series of Peter Watkins DVDs with his 1969 film, The Gladiators. They've done a great job with their first two discs, so I'm sure The Gladiators will be a great film and a great DVD. Kudos to them, and I can only hope that more of Watkins' work comes out soon.