What’s it about?
Cable channel executive James Woods goes out looking for the next big thing in television -- something that will break barriers and shock viewers into massive ratings. He thinks he’s found it when he stumbles across a pirate broadcast of a show called “Videodrome”. The program has no content except for depictions of torture, mutilations, and murders which all take place in the same featureless room.
Woods, believing the program to be staged, attempts to find the creators so he can offer them a broadcast deal. The trail leads him first to renowned television prophet and personality Brian O’Blivion, and then deeper into a shadowy underworld. Meanwhile, Woods begins having powerful and disturbing hallucinations, which he eventually learns have been triggered by signals hidden in the Videodrome broadcasts. By the time he realizes he’s caught up in a weird conspiracy, it seems too late for Woods to save himself.
Is it any good?
I’ve been avoiding writing about David Cronenberg movies because -- well, just because. I watched both THE BROOD (1979) and SCANNERS (1981) back when I was covering the years they were released in, but couldn’t work up the enthusiasm to say a whole lot about them. I got pretty close with THE BROOD, since I was interested in how it used a “soft” science like psychology as the springboard for sci-fi speculations instead of a harder science like robotics or physical medicine or computer science. I also mentioned THE BROOD in my entry about ALTERED STATES (1980) when I talked about the mind-over-matter themes of that latter movie.
After watching a couple more David Cronenberg movies, it certainly seems like he keeps obsessively returning to those mind-over-matter themes. SCANNERS is about warring factions of folks with telepathic powers -- including the ability to link in to other peoples’ bodies and affect their bodily functions (sometimes with explosive consequences). Likewise, VIDEODROME is at least partly interested in how hallucinations can change subjective (and possibly objective) reality.
There are really two sci-fi stories running in parallel in VIDEODROME, though they are unavoidably intertwined with each other. The first is Woods’s quest to find ever more shocking content for his cable channel. This leads him to seek out programs that feature sex, violence, gore, perversion, or (ideally) some combination of them all. To be honest, the sci-fi edge here is a distinction in degree rather than in kind -- and only by the slightest degree. The quest for shock value certainly isn’t new of itself, and the programs that Woods reviews don’t even necessarily seem more depraved than some that exist in the real world. In 1983, it wouldn’t have been so easy to distribute such things on a mainstream cable channel, but today the Internet has removed essentially all doubt that there’s an audience out there for even the most envelope-pushing or stomach-turning content.
The other sci-fi twist involves Videodrome’s ability to trigger hallucinations in those who watch it. If you look at that from a metaphorical point of view, it could be saying something about how watching violent or perverted content can warp a person’s view of reality. It also pretty clearly separates “those who watch” from “those who don’t” -- anybody who watches enough of the show will be easily recognizable by their raving insanity. When Woods finally meets the folks responsible for the shows, for instance, they ask him why on earth a person would want to watch a show like Videodrome. They’ve never seen it themselves -- if they had, they would have gone crazy too.
On a more surface level, the hallucinations are part of a plot to do something or other. To be honest, I’m not really clear what the makers of Videodrome were trying to accomplish. They don’t appear to be anarchists who are just intent on driving everyone crazy. Seemingly the hallucinations are controllable -- that is, the shadowy forces in control of Videodrome use Woods’s freak-outs to control his behavior, and at one point even get him to assassinate some people for them. (Though the logic behind the assassination is never clear either.) So potentially Videodrome could be a recruitment tool for insane assassins, but it’s such a blunt tool that it would be difficult to really manage the program. The movie doesn’t really spend much time developing that part of the plot either, which is probably just as well. As far as brainwashing assassins goes, I can’t really imagine that VIDEODROME would be able to top the audacity of similar plots in movies like THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962) and THE PARALLAX VIEW (1974).
David Cronenberg has a reputation as a guy who loves disturbing or gross images. I haven’t seen that many of his movies besides the ones I mentioned already, but I can see where folks might get that impression. THE BROOD isn’t particularly gross, but it does make use of some freaky child-like killers in creepy masks. They’re a bit too similar to the big gotcha from Nicholas Roeg’s DON’T LOOK NOW (1973) to be deeply disturbing, but there are a few frightening moments. These killers are also the physical manifestations of mental anguish, and one late scene where one is shown budding out of a woman’s body is pretty darn grotesque.
SCANNERS ups the gore considerably with its iconic exploding head. It’s an amazing special effect, and it still looks cool even when watching it happen frame by frame in slow motion. The climactic battle between the final two telepaths is a revolting splatterfest as well. When the fight’s over, we’ve seen ruptured blood vessels, burst eyeballs, and burning and melting flesh.
VIDEODROME takes things in a different, but no less unnerving direction. We never see the worst of the torture on the Videodrome program -- it’s still unpleasant, but it’s very brief and never particularly graphic. James Woods’s hallucinations, however, are extremely graphic, and they seem to have a recurring theme of combining organic flesh and technology. In one recurring bit, Woods’s appendix scar splits open, allowing access to his innards so videotapes or guns can be deposited inside his body (or, later in the movie, retrieved for use). There’s not a lot of blood and gore necessarily, but Cronenberg seems to hone in instantly on what makes people say “yuck”. I’ve got at least THE FLY (1986) and NAKED LUNCH (1991) upcoming from him as well, so I expect to be saying “yuck” many more times.
Ultimately, I don’t think that any of the three Cronenberg movies I’ve seen so far are that great. They all start out with very interesting premises, but then end up in pretty standard patterns. THE BROOD turns into a slasher flick in the second half, and both SCANNERS and VIDEODROME end up as conspiracy thrillers. The conspiracy part of VIDEODROME is especially half-baked -- as I said, I’m still not clear on what the objective of the conspiracy is, and I have no clue whatsoever why the bad guys went to all the trouble they did to rope in Woods. (A half-hearted answer is given to that second question, but it doesn’t really make any sense.) VIDEODROME looks better than either of the other two, and the special effects on the hallucinations are worth seeing. It’s kind of unpleasant at times, but it’s also fairly unique (at least in the early going). And James Woods is a great actor for this role. Based on all this, I’m really looking forward to seeing Jeff Goldblum in THE FLY. I could easily see that being the magic combination that makes a really great movie.
Showing posts with label mind control. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mind control. Show all posts
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
1980: FLASH GORDON
What’s it about?
New York Jets quarterback Flash Gordon and travel agent Dale Arden get drafted by rogue scientist Dr Zarkov to help stop an attack on Earth by intergalactic warlord Ming the Merciless (the latter played by Max Von Sydow). Arriving on the planet Mongo in Zarkov’s rocket, the three find themselves embroiled in complicated political infighting among Ming’s subjugated vassal tribes.
After being captured by Ming’s guards, all three suffer seemingly final fates -- Flash Gordon is slated to be executed, Zarkov to have his mind wiped and reprogrammed, and Dale Arden to become Ming’s personal concubine. Meanwhile, Earth’s moon is being shredded by Ming’s firepower and threatens to destroy the entire planet. Even after escaping from their several dangers, Flash and his friends must convince Ming’s vassals to quit fighting each other and team up against the merciless overlord they all serve.
Is it any good?
I have never had much interest in the old sci-fi serials of the 1930s, since they are for the most part obviously intended for children. From the little I’ve seen, they have a general lack of interest not only in anything to do with “science” but also apparently anything that resembles “fiction” as well. Characters have no personality, themes are nonexistent, and events happen merely because they provide convenient excuses to move from one episode to the next. On the other hand, they do also seem to have a lot of creativity and inventiveness when it comes to spectacle, peril, and suspense.
The 1980 film adaptation of FLASH GORDON apparently takes its basic plot from the comics and serials of the 1930s -- and luckily takes a lot of the creativity and whimsy as well. Like BARBARELLA (1968) it’s a Dino De Laurentiis production, and the similarities are instantly obvious. Both movies are campy, light-hearted, fast-paced, and full of brightly stylized special effects and production design. Watching FLASH GORDON is a bit like watching a big budget stage musical -- the artifice is all perfectly obvious and brightly lit, but the “fakeness” of everything doesn’t reduce the enjoyment you get from seeing it all so expertly choreographed.
Somehow I had never seen FLASH GORDON before -- I think I had expected it to be ossified under the production design, like an actor slathered in so many layers of make-up, masks, and costumes that he can no longer emote or move. In other words, I expected it to be like BATMAN AND ROBIN -- a movie where a misguided sense of production design overwhelmed everything else. But it turns out that FLASH GORDON is nothing like that at all. It’s great fun from start to finish, and even though it has its own distinctive style, the movie never lets the spectacle get in the way of the adventure for a second.
I don’t know a whole lot about Dino De Laurentiis, except that he has produced a slew of movies including BARBARELLA, the Jeff Bridges/Jessica Lange KING KONG (1976) remake, FLASH GORDON, CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982), DEAD ZONE (1983), DUNE (1984), the original Hannibal Lecter movie MANHUNTER (1986), EVIL DEAD 2 (1987) and ARMY OF DARKNESS (1993), and numerous other projects covering a wide range of genres.
Producers don’t often get a lot of credit for creative input. Directors and screenwriters are the ones who win Academy Awards and get most of the attention. And maybe most producers really don’t have a lot of creative input compared to the folks working for them. But there are certainly exceptions to this. George Lucas has had a great deal of creative input on many of the movies he’s credited primarily as producer -- not least of which are THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980) and RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983). Val Lewton at RKO and, to a lesser extent, Carl Laemmle, Jr., at Universal are the classic examples of creative producers in the horror world. And Charles Schneer and Ray Harryhausen were clearly at the driver’s wheel in most of the movies they produced.
I’d like to add Dino De Laurentiis to this list, but I just don’t know enough about the guy. I get the sense from BARBARELLA and FLASH GORDON that there is a clear line connecting the two -- a consistent creative personality that is propelling them both. If you like one of those movies, you should go and check out the other right away. They aren’t exactly the same, but they both hearken back to the same tradition and tap into the same spirit in a way that practically no other science fiction movie does. FLASH GORDON may have been released in 1980, but it seems to be the product of a world where movies like 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) or CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977) or STAR WARS (1977) or ALIEN (1979) never existed.
If anything, it chooses histrionics over naturalism, artifice over immersion, and self-awareness over seamless plotting. In that way, it’s a bit like PLANET OF THE APES (1968) or ZARDOZ (1974) or THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) or THE CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981). It’s a movie for people who like movies to look good -- not necessarily real. And for people who like movies that have stories that are exciting -- not necessarily believable.
I guess I’m probably not going to say very much about specifically about FLASH GORDON, but I don’t really know if anything I could say would really be very helpful. BARBARELLA and FLASH GORDON seem to comprise an entire alternate history of science fiction in cinema -- they exist outside of other contemporary influences. If you like sci-fi, and especially if you enjoy a good space opera from time to time, then you have no excuse not to watch one or the other. Go out and experience them. You may not like them, but I guarantee a different movie watching experience than almost anything else you’ll get from other movies of their times.
Also, Timothy Dalton is in FLASH GORDON and he is awesome.
New York Jets quarterback Flash Gordon and travel agent Dale Arden get drafted by rogue scientist Dr Zarkov to help stop an attack on Earth by intergalactic warlord Ming the Merciless (the latter played by Max Von Sydow). Arriving on the planet Mongo in Zarkov’s rocket, the three find themselves embroiled in complicated political infighting among Ming’s subjugated vassal tribes.
After being captured by Ming’s guards, all three suffer seemingly final fates -- Flash Gordon is slated to be executed, Zarkov to have his mind wiped and reprogrammed, and Dale Arden to become Ming’s personal concubine. Meanwhile, Earth’s moon is being shredded by Ming’s firepower and threatens to destroy the entire planet. Even after escaping from their several dangers, Flash and his friends must convince Ming’s vassals to quit fighting each other and team up against the merciless overlord they all serve.
Is it any good?
I have never had much interest in the old sci-fi serials of the 1930s, since they are for the most part obviously intended for children. From the little I’ve seen, they have a general lack of interest not only in anything to do with “science” but also apparently anything that resembles “fiction” as well. Characters have no personality, themes are nonexistent, and events happen merely because they provide convenient excuses to move from one episode to the next. On the other hand, they do also seem to have a lot of creativity and inventiveness when it comes to spectacle, peril, and suspense.
The 1980 film adaptation of FLASH GORDON apparently takes its basic plot from the comics and serials of the 1930s -- and luckily takes a lot of the creativity and whimsy as well. Like BARBARELLA (1968) it’s a Dino De Laurentiis production, and the similarities are instantly obvious. Both movies are campy, light-hearted, fast-paced, and full of brightly stylized special effects and production design. Watching FLASH GORDON is a bit like watching a big budget stage musical -- the artifice is all perfectly obvious and brightly lit, but the “fakeness” of everything doesn’t reduce the enjoyment you get from seeing it all so expertly choreographed.
Somehow I had never seen FLASH GORDON before -- I think I had expected it to be ossified under the production design, like an actor slathered in so many layers of make-up, masks, and costumes that he can no longer emote or move. In other words, I expected it to be like BATMAN AND ROBIN -- a movie where a misguided sense of production design overwhelmed everything else. But it turns out that FLASH GORDON is nothing like that at all. It’s great fun from start to finish, and even though it has its own distinctive style, the movie never lets the spectacle get in the way of the adventure for a second.
I don’t know a whole lot about Dino De Laurentiis, except that he has produced a slew of movies including BARBARELLA, the Jeff Bridges/Jessica Lange KING KONG (1976) remake, FLASH GORDON, CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982), DEAD ZONE (1983), DUNE (1984), the original Hannibal Lecter movie MANHUNTER (1986), EVIL DEAD 2 (1987) and ARMY OF DARKNESS (1993), and numerous other projects covering a wide range of genres.
Producers don’t often get a lot of credit for creative input. Directors and screenwriters are the ones who win Academy Awards and get most of the attention. And maybe most producers really don’t have a lot of creative input compared to the folks working for them. But there are certainly exceptions to this. George Lucas has had a great deal of creative input on many of the movies he’s credited primarily as producer -- not least of which are THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980) and RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983). Val Lewton at RKO and, to a lesser extent, Carl Laemmle, Jr., at Universal are the classic examples of creative producers in the horror world. And Charles Schneer and Ray Harryhausen were clearly at the driver’s wheel in most of the movies they produced.
I’d like to add Dino De Laurentiis to this list, but I just don’t know enough about the guy. I get the sense from BARBARELLA and FLASH GORDON that there is a clear line connecting the two -- a consistent creative personality that is propelling them both. If you like one of those movies, you should go and check out the other right away. They aren’t exactly the same, but they both hearken back to the same tradition and tap into the same spirit in a way that practically no other science fiction movie does. FLASH GORDON may have been released in 1980, but it seems to be the product of a world where movies like 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) or CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977) or STAR WARS (1977) or ALIEN (1979) never existed.
If anything, it chooses histrionics over naturalism, artifice over immersion, and self-awareness over seamless plotting. In that way, it’s a bit like PLANET OF THE APES (1968) or ZARDOZ (1974) or THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) or THE CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981). It’s a movie for people who like movies to look good -- not necessarily real. And for people who like movies that have stories that are exciting -- not necessarily believable.
I guess I’m probably not going to say very much about specifically about FLASH GORDON, but I don’t really know if anything I could say would really be very helpful. BARBARELLA and FLASH GORDON seem to comprise an entire alternate history of science fiction in cinema -- they exist outside of other contemporary influences. If you like sci-fi, and especially if you enjoy a good space opera from time to time, then you have no excuse not to watch one or the other. Go out and experience them. You may not like them, but I guarantee a different movie watching experience than almost anything else you’ll get from other movies of their times.
Also, Timothy Dalton is in FLASH GORDON and he is awesome.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
BONUS BLOG -- 1976: IN THE DUST OF THE STARS
What’s it about?
A space-faring civilization sends a rocket mission in response to a distress signal from an unexplored planet. Arriving several years after the signal was sent, the crew lands safely on a strange and seemingly peaceful planet, but only after some emergency maneuvers during landing. After attending a party thrown by the local leader, most of the crew is strangely in favor of just leaving and starting the years long journey back to their home.
The sole member of the crew who stayed home from the party begins to suspect that there are some mind control shenanigans at work. He takes a probe out to investigate, and luckily discovers a shaft leading down underground -- where it is quickly apparent that an entire race of people is enslaved. It was these slaves who sent the distress signal, but it seems unlikely the small crew of the rocket can help them much -- especially after one of them is captured and tortured by the oppressive surface dwellers.
Is it any good?
This is a pretty unremarkable sci-fi flick, so I wasn’t originally planning to write about it. But it was produced by a Soviet bloc country (the third one I’ve seen from East Germany so far) and that alone should be worth remarking on. So I figured there’d be no harm in doing a short write-up and trying to find something to talk about.
IN THE DUST OF THE STARS feels like an extended episode of STAR TREK. A rocket crew lands on a planet and encounters a mystery, some cajoling, some deception, some threats, a horrible secret, and then some violence. The movie isn’t all that long, and there are some weird interludes that feel like padding (such as a lengthy nude dance by one of the mentally blocked crew members), so it’s easy to imagine the whole thing cut down to forty-five minutes.
I’m always kind of confused when I run across sci-fi movies like this. I expect science fiction movies to be “big” in some way. The bigness is often literal -- giant monsters always give a feeling of grandeur to things. Or the bigness can simply be that the entire Earth is threatened by destruction, or that there is some appropriately expansive theme or spectacle playing out. Of course, there are plenty of small science fiction stories -- they don’t all have to be epic. But I suppose I feel like these kind of small mysteries are more “television sized” for some reason.
Part of the reason for the small feeling here is that the story is set in some completely made-up galaxy and Earth is never mentioned at all. Both the planet where the rocket comes from and the one where it lands are made-up sci-fi worlds. There’s no sense that any of this will ever affect the Earth at all -- and not even any sense that the races in question are related to or descended from Earth folks. (Everyone does look 100% human though.)
I’m sure that using completely fantastical settings was the safest way to make sci-fi in the Soviet bloc. Talking about real nations would mean following the party line (whatever it might be that day), but putting your action on some distant world with no relation to Earth would help isolate the film makers from any criticism or repercussions if they did want to say anything subversive. On the other hand, IN THE DUST OF THE STARS is not really subversive of anything at all. The anti-slavery message is one that works equally well in communist and western societies. (These aren’t metaphorical wage-slaves after all. They are just the normal chain gang kind that everybody objects to.) There’s some disapproval of decadent lifestyles as well, which hardly seems like it would be controversial on groundbreaking on either side of the Iron Curtain. The harmless clowning in IVAN VASIELIVICH: BACK TO THE FUTURE (1973) seems more likely to subvert the party than anything in this movie.
Things do get a bit “bigger” towards the end of the movie. The dilemma that the rocket crew finds themselves in is pretty interesting, though it’s not exactly spelled out. The crew consists of four women and two men, and obviously their numbers are not enough to do much against the entrenched aristocracy. The captain believes that they are honor-bound to stay and help the slaves resist their captors -- even though it will take many years (or generations) until they can be free again. The rest of the crew doesn’t believe they have any such obligation. This is a question worth wrestling over, and the movie doesn’t deliver any easy answers in the end.
There’s also a bit of appealing weirdness about the movie. The alien party is both futuristic and hedonistic -- the better to seduce the straight-arrow crew members, I suppose. And weird bits like the long nude dance I alluded to before actually add a bit of an off-balance feeling to the movie. So even though the plot could probably be compressed into television size, some of the atmosphere would probably be lost along the way. Still, if anybody is actually interested in Soviet bloc sci-fi movies, I would recommend THE END OF AUGUST AT THE HOTEL OZONE (1967), EOLOMEA (1972), and SOLYARIS (1972) before you even think about watching this one.
A space-faring civilization sends a rocket mission in response to a distress signal from an unexplored planet. Arriving several years after the signal was sent, the crew lands safely on a strange and seemingly peaceful planet, but only after some emergency maneuvers during landing. After attending a party thrown by the local leader, most of the crew is strangely in favor of just leaving and starting the years long journey back to their home.
The sole member of the crew who stayed home from the party begins to suspect that there are some mind control shenanigans at work. He takes a probe out to investigate, and luckily discovers a shaft leading down underground -- where it is quickly apparent that an entire race of people is enslaved. It was these slaves who sent the distress signal, but it seems unlikely the small crew of the rocket can help them much -- especially after one of them is captured and tortured by the oppressive surface dwellers.
Is it any good?
This is a pretty unremarkable sci-fi flick, so I wasn’t originally planning to write about it. But it was produced by a Soviet bloc country (the third one I’ve seen from East Germany so far) and that alone should be worth remarking on. So I figured there’d be no harm in doing a short write-up and trying to find something to talk about.
IN THE DUST OF THE STARS feels like an extended episode of STAR TREK. A rocket crew lands on a planet and encounters a mystery, some cajoling, some deception, some threats, a horrible secret, and then some violence. The movie isn’t all that long, and there are some weird interludes that feel like padding (such as a lengthy nude dance by one of the mentally blocked crew members), so it’s easy to imagine the whole thing cut down to forty-five minutes.
I’m always kind of confused when I run across sci-fi movies like this. I expect science fiction movies to be “big” in some way. The bigness is often literal -- giant monsters always give a feeling of grandeur to things. Or the bigness can simply be that the entire Earth is threatened by destruction, or that there is some appropriately expansive theme or spectacle playing out. Of course, there are plenty of small science fiction stories -- they don’t all have to be epic. But I suppose I feel like these kind of small mysteries are more “television sized” for some reason.
Part of the reason for the small feeling here is that the story is set in some completely made-up galaxy and Earth is never mentioned at all. Both the planet where the rocket comes from and the one where it lands are made-up sci-fi worlds. There’s no sense that any of this will ever affect the Earth at all -- and not even any sense that the races in question are related to or descended from Earth folks. (Everyone does look 100% human though.)
I’m sure that using completely fantastical settings was the safest way to make sci-fi in the Soviet bloc. Talking about real nations would mean following the party line (whatever it might be that day), but putting your action on some distant world with no relation to Earth would help isolate the film makers from any criticism or repercussions if they did want to say anything subversive. On the other hand, IN THE DUST OF THE STARS is not really subversive of anything at all. The anti-slavery message is one that works equally well in communist and western societies. (These aren’t metaphorical wage-slaves after all. They are just the normal chain gang kind that everybody objects to.) There’s some disapproval of decadent lifestyles as well, which hardly seems like it would be controversial on groundbreaking on either side of the Iron Curtain. The harmless clowning in IVAN VASIELIVICH: BACK TO THE FUTURE (1973) seems more likely to subvert the party than anything in this movie.
Things do get a bit “bigger” towards the end of the movie. The dilemma that the rocket crew finds themselves in is pretty interesting, though it’s not exactly spelled out. The crew consists of four women and two men, and obviously their numbers are not enough to do much against the entrenched aristocracy. The captain believes that they are honor-bound to stay and help the slaves resist their captors -- even though it will take many years (or generations) until they can be free again. The rest of the crew doesn’t believe they have any such obligation. This is a question worth wrestling over, and the movie doesn’t deliver any easy answers in the end.
There’s also a bit of appealing weirdness about the movie. The alien party is both futuristic and hedonistic -- the better to seduce the straight-arrow crew members, I suppose. And weird bits like the long nude dance I alluded to before actually add a bit of an off-balance feeling to the movie. So even though the plot could probably be compressed into television size, some of the atmosphere would probably be lost along the way. Still, if anybody is actually interested in Soviet bloc sci-fi movies, I would recommend THE END OF AUGUST AT THE HOTEL OZONE (1967), EOLOMEA (1972), and SOLYARIS (1972) before you even think about watching this one.
Monday, September 14, 2009
1974: ZARDOZ
What’s it about?
Sean Connery is an “exterminator” in a savage world, a job that consists of slaughtering the hapless and defenseless masses who inhabit the countryside on the orders of the god Zardoz. But unlike most gods, Zardoz regularly manifests himself physically in the form of a giant flying stone head to issue edicts, dispense weapons, and collect tribute. One day, Connery hides inside a tribute of wheat and sneaks aboard to find out what is really going on behind the giant flying stone head.
What he finds when it lands is a secret village full of peaceful, educated immortals who have been controlling the outside world for hundreds of years. Though the immortals are afraid that Connery will disrupt their seemingly idyllic life, they decide to let him stay for a while -- more out of boredom than anything else. But their fears begin to come true when Connery’s presence begins to bring long-festering dissatisfactions to the surface. Before long, he’s actively colluding with rebellious elements among the immortals to bring the whole society down.
Is it any good?
I’ve thought about watching ZARDOZ a few times before, but I’ve always assumed it was pretentious, self-consciously weird, and (worst of all) boring. My prediction hadn’t really changed at all -- I mean, just look at that trailer -- but I figured this would be the perfect time to watch it nonetheless. It’s not as though there aren’t plenty of other sci-fi movies that are pretentious, self-consciously weird, and boring. Luckily, it turns out that ZARDOZ is never actually boring, and in fact is not nearly as weird as I expected it to be.
Yes, this is a movie where a giant stone head flies around and talks to men who wear nothing but red diapers and belts of ammo across their chests. But that’s considered weird even within the world of the movie. One character, as he is confronted with the reality of how the “outlands” are being managed, notes that nobody else wanted the job and the current manager is at least leavening his barbarism with some wit.
And the way the story is told is very straightforward. This isn’t some experimental narrative like 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) or THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (1973), or even THE SEED OF MAN (1969) or THX-1138 (1971). In fact, the movie is precisely as weird as FAHRENHEIT 451 (1966) and BARBARELLA (1968) and PLANET OF THE APES (1968) and LOGAN’S RUN (1976). In other words, its story depends on the existence of a strange, semi-allegorical, upside-down society that could never really exist -- but which is nonetheless perfectly consistent and logical as soon as you make concessions for the impossible conditions it operates under.
In the case of ZARDOZ, those conditions are the division of the world into two distinct groups: the ageless immortals living in intellectual seclusion, and the masses of brutals killing and dying all around them. Despite the fact that the main character -- Sean Connery’s exterminator Zed -- is a brutal himself, we see very little of the way the world works in the outlands. All we know is that some brutals (the exterminators) constitute a very slightly privileged class that either kills or enslaves humanity as they are ordered. The world of the immortals, on the other hand, is extensively shown. Practically every element that we see, from the perfunctory democracy to the clinging conformity to the frustration and ennui, ring true. The movie seems to be saying that any society (even one with the noblest of intentions and the finest of citizens) so afraid of change that it outlaws aging, death and reproduction will necessarily stagnate and fester until it becomes self-destructive.
Even before Connery arrives among the immortals, they are already falling prey one by one to either of two social diseases. Some become rebellious and begin acting anti-socially, which is invariably punished by democratically selected sentences of aging. Eventually, the rebellious ones receive so many sentences that they age into senility and are placed in a kind of demented rest home apart from the others. Other immortals simply opt out of social life instead -- becoming “apathetics” who do nothing but stand around dumbly all day. Slowly but surely these two fates are spreading to more and more of the immortals, and it seems in time that it will eventually touch all of them.
When Connery arrives, then, the world of the immortals is already a hollow shell surrounding a pit of dissatisfaction, resentment and boredom. One interesting aspect of Connery’s character is that the immortals soon realize he is in fact superior to them in every way -- except possibly education. But physically and mentally, his powers exceed their own. In other words, Connery is not (as he first seems) some ancient relict of a simpler, earthier time. Instead, he is called a “mutant” -- the product of careful selective breeding, and potentially the next step above and beyond the immortals.
Which is not to say that Connery doesn’t have his earthy side. He spends much of his early life killing and raping other brutals in the outlands. True, he believes he is following the orders of the god Zardoz, but he also never seems to gain any awareness of his crimes even as he becomes more educated. (It is clear by the end of the movie that he won’t go on killing and raping -- but whether he has any remorse for his past actions is never explored at all.)
The ending of the movie is a bit bizarre, as these things tend to be. We learn that Connery knows more than he has been letting on, and that his arrival was no mere accident. When he sneaked aboard the flying giant stone head, he fully expected to discover an imposter behind the “god”. He probably didn’t imagine the kind of world that he landed in, but the plan was always to destroy whoever the imposter turned out to be. Connery soon discovers that many of the immortals would welcome such a release -- they have forgotten how to end their lives, and many simply want to die. But this requires destroying a computer that automatically resurrects any immortal who is killed, though none of them remember where the computer is or how to destroy it.
The events that surround the discovery and destruction of the computer don’t all make a whole lot of sense. Some of the immortals do escape to live out their lives naturally. Others are slaughtered by an invading army of brutals. In the carnage and confusion of the moment, Connery separates himself from both groups, and we never learn exactly what shape the world takes in the wake of the passing of the immortals.
What else happened this year?
-- A couple of arrogant scientists meet their match when they tangle with some super-intelligent ants alone in the desert in PHASE IV.
-- Afrofuturist cosmic jazz band leader Sun Ra returns from outer space to free the black race and take them away to a planet with no white people in SPACE IS THE PLACE.
-- And Mel Brooks directs Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Teri Garr, an almost unrecognizable Gene Hackman, and a sadly under-utilized Madeleine Kahn in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN.
-- There’s also an interesting musical adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s THE LITTLE PRINCE. I only watched a little bit of it, but the sets and special effects look pretty amazing. The songs, not so much.
If you only watch one sci-fi movie from 1974...
ZARDOZ is the obvious choice.
Sean Connery is an “exterminator” in a savage world, a job that consists of slaughtering the hapless and defenseless masses who inhabit the countryside on the orders of the god Zardoz. But unlike most gods, Zardoz regularly manifests himself physically in the form of a giant flying stone head to issue edicts, dispense weapons, and collect tribute. One day, Connery hides inside a tribute of wheat and sneaks aboard to find out what is really going on behind the giant flying stone head.
What he finds when it lands is a secret village full of peaceful, educated immortals who have been controlling the outside world for hundreds of years. Though the immortals are afraid that Connery will disrupt their seemingly idyllic life, they decide to let him stay for a while -- more out of boredom than anything else. But their fears begin to come true when Connery’s presence begins to bring long-festering dissatisfactions to the surface. Before long, he’s actively colluding with rebellious elements among the immortals to bring the whole society down.
Is it any good?
I’ve thought about watching ZARDOZ a few times before, but I’ve always assumed it was pretentious, self-consciously weird, and (worst of all) boring. My prediction hadn’t really changed at all -- I mean, just look at that trailer -- but I figured this would be the perfect time to watch it nonetheless. It’s not as though there aren’t plenty of other sci-fi movies that are pretentious, self-consciously weird, and boring. Luckily, it turns out that ZARDOZ is never actually boring, and in fact is not nearly as weird as I expected it to be.
Yes, this is a movie where a giant stone head flies around and talks to men who wear nothing but red diapers and belts of ammo across their chests. But that’s considered weird even within the world of the movie. One character, as he is confronted with the reality of how the “outlands” are being managed, notes that nobody else wanted the job and the current manager is at least leavening his barbarism with some wit.
And the way the story is told is very straightforward. This isn’t some experimental narrative like 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) or THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (1973), or even THE SEED OF MAN (1969) or THX-1138 (1971). In fact, the movie is precisely as weird as FAHRENHEIT 451 (1966) and BARBARELLA (1968) and PLANET OF THE APES (1968) and LOGAN’S RUN (1976). In other words, its story depends on the existence of a strange, semi-allegorical, upside-down society that could never really exist -- but which is nonetheless perfectly consistent and logical as soon as you make concessions for the impossible conditions it operates under.
In the case of ZARDOZ, those conditions are the division of the world into two distinct groups: the ageless immortals living in intellectual seclusion, and the masses of brutals killing and dying all around them. Despite the fact that the main character -- Sean Connery’s exterminator Zed -- is a brutal himself, we see very little of the way the world works in the outlands. All we know is that some brutals (the exterminators) constitute a very slightly privileged class that either kills or enslaves humanity as they are ordered. The world of the immortals, on the other hand, is extensively shown. Practically every element that we see, from the perfunctory democracy to the clinging conformity to the frustration and ennui, ring true. The movie seems to be saying that any society (even one with the noblest of intentions and the finest of citizens) so afraid of change that it outlaws aging, death and reproduction will necessarily stagnate and fester until it becomes self-destructive.
Even before Connery arrives among the immortals, they are already falling prey one by one to either of two social diseases. Some become rebellious and begin acting anti-socially, which is invariably punished by democratically selected sentences of aging. Eventually, the rebellious ones receive so many sentences that they age into senility and are placed in a kind of demented rest home apart from the others. Other immortals simply opt out of social life instead -- becoming “apathetics” who do nothing but stand around dumbly all day. Slowly but surely these two fates are spreading to more and more of the immortals, and it seems in time that it will eventually touch all of them.
When Connery arrives, then, the world of the immortals is already a hollow shell surrounding a pit of dissatisfaction, resentment and boredom. One interesting aspect of Connery’s character is that the immortals soon realize he is in fact superior to them in every way -- except possibly education. But physically and mentally, his powers exceed their own. In other words, Connery is not (as he first seems) some ancient relict of a simpler, earthier time. Instead, he is called a “mutant” -- the product of careful selective breeding, and potentially the next step above and beyond the immortals.
Which is not to say that Connery doesn’t have his earthy side. He spends much of his early life killing and raping other brutals in the outlands. True, he believes he is following the orders of the god Zardoz, but he also never seems to gain any awareness of his crimes even as he becomes more educated. (It is clear by the end of the movie that he won’t go on killing and raping -- but whether he has any remorse for his past actions is never explored at all.)
The ending of the movie is a bit bizarre, as these things tend to be. We learn that Connery knows more than he has been letting on, and that his arrival was no mere accident. When he sneaked aboard the flying giant stone head, he fully expected to discover an imposter behind the “god”. He probably didn’t imagine the kind of world that he landed in, but the plan was always to destroy whoever the imposter turned out to be. Connery soon discovers that many of the immortals would welcome such a release -- they have forgotten how to end their lives, and many simply want to die. But this requires destroying a computer that automatically resurrects any immortal who is killed, though none of them remember where the computer is or how to destroy it.
The events that surround the discovery and destruction of the computer don’t all make a whole lot of sense. Some of the immortals do escape to live out their lives naturally. Others are slaughtered by an invading army of brutals. In the carnage and confusion of the moment, Connery separates himself from both groups, and we never learn exactly what shape the world takes in the wake of the passing of the immortals.
What else happened this year?
-- A couple of arrogant scientists meet their match when they tangle with some super-intelligent ants alone in the desert in PHASE IV.
-- Afrofuturist cosmic jazz band leader Sun Ra returns from outer space to free the black race and take them away to a planet with no white people in SPACE IS THE PLACE.
-- And Mel Brooks directs Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Teri Garr, an almost unrecognizable Gene Hackman, and a sadly under-utilized Madeleine Kahn in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN.
-- There’s also an interesting musical adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s THE LITTLE PRINCE. I only watched a little bit of it, but the sets and special effects look pretty amazing. The songs, not so much.
If you only watch one sci-fi movie from 1974...
ZARDOZ is the obvious choice.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
BONUS BLOG -- 1961: THE RETURN OF DR MABUSE
What’s it about?
German police inspector Gert Frobe is assigned to investigate the murder of a courier who was transporting evidence against an American criminal organization called “the Syndicate”. Despite the lack of any apparent connection Frobe almost immediately suspects the crime was commissioned by the mysterious Dr Mabuse -- a mentalist and criminal mastermind who was presumed dead years earlier. Frobe’s hunch is verified when his investigation takes him to a local church where the bad doctor (still unseen) starts issuing cryptic warnings through the public address system.
Other brazen murders (including one committed by flamethrower) put Frobe on the trail of a sophisticated gang that appears to be operating out of “cell block D” at the local penitentiary. Soon, an FBI agent and a pretty young journalist join the investigation as well. By pretending to send the FBI agent to prison on a trumped up conviction, they infiltrate the organization and learn that the evil Mabuse plans to use an army of prisoners under the influence of mind-control drugs to sow mayhem and destruction throughout the world. Frobe and friends must stop the first plot to blow up an atomic power plant and unmask Mabuse before it’s too late.
Illustration copyright 2009 Dennis J. Reinmueller
Is it any good?
Dr Mabuse is practically unknown in the United States, but the character is reportedly a horror phenomenon on par with Dracula or Frankenstein in parts of Europe. Approximately ten Mabuse movies were produced over a span of five decades -- starting with a couple of Fritz Lang films in the 1920s and 1930s, and the rest following mostly in the 1960s. I’ve seen six of the Mabuse films so far and I would describe myself as a fan, but even I am not totally clear on exactly what the attraction is. One thing I am sure of is that Dr Mabuse is far more than the sum of his parts, so any single Mabuse movie (except perhaps the original four-hour silent epic MABUSE THE GAMBLER) is likely to be disappointing taken in isolation.
THE RETURN OF DR MABUSE isn’t even the best of the 1960s Mabuse flicks, but it follows pretty closely the pattern for the movies. Step one: Murder! Step two: An investigator (preferably a character or actor who has appeared in previous installments) irrationally suspects Mabuse despite having no evidence. Step three: Everyone else points out that Mabuse is dead. Step four: Mabuse reveals himself unnecessarily by issuing warnings. Step five: Mabuse’s plan to sow anarchy throughout the world using some sci-fi contraption is foiled. Step six: Mabuse is unmasked, revealing he is some character from earlier in the movie, and he escapes to plot another day. There are other elements that recur time and time again: masks, facial disfigurements, disembodied voices, player pianos, wooden legs, hidden surveillance, faked deaths, switched identities, mind control, the use of numbers instead of names, and even a group of actors (including Gert Frobe, Wolfgang Preiss, Peter van Eyck, and Werner Peters) who each appear in several different roles throughout the franchise.
Taken individually, the movies are often confusing, weird, unsatisfying, cliched, or some mixture thereof. They feel like second-rate procedurals or thrillers where people behave irrationally for the sake of twists, and where everybody’s plans are far more complicated than they need to be. The plots are difficult to follow, the characters are simply puppets acting for or against Mabuse, and the movies often lapse into dullness. And, seemingly worst of all, Mabuse is forever a cipher. He only appears in the final moments of the movie when he is finally unmasked -- otherwise he’s reduced to simply barking orders or threats from behind concealment. But strangely, as the series goes on and the movies reinforce each other, they acquire this weirdly compelling symbolic dimension. The recycled actors, characters, situations, themes, and objects give them a dreamlike, half-remembered quality. They all blend together effortlessly into a single plotless and surreal entity. More than once I’ve had nagging recollections of some mythical Mabuse movie that I could swear I’ve seen, but turns out to be simply something my memory has assembled from pieces borrowed from all the others.
In this hazy blend, Mabuse actually somehow becomes a compelling character (or at least a compelling concept). He is literally evil incarnate -- he has no motives, no objectives, no personality, and he seeks nothing more than to plunge the world into chaos and anarchy. As such, it’s fitting that he is often hunted down by simple lawmen. Mabuse’s foils are usually ordinary homicide detectives or FBI agents -- schlubby guys who doggedly work leads and follow hunches and put clues together. It’s also interesting that these guys are always irrationally obsessed with Mabuse, as though they have some ancestral memory and hatred of him that drives them to track him down even when everyone else is convinced he’s only a myth. Mabuse always executes his diabolical schemes through agents (usually controlled by hypnotism or some similar method) while he himself remains obscured in the shadows, and at the end he’s always revealed to be another character in disguise just before escaping the clutches of the law at the last moment. It’s a weirdly faithful retelling of the same story, very similar to other deathless franchises like Frankenstein or Dracula or Godzilla that revisit the same territory again and again and again. In the case of Mabuse, the story about the tendency of evil to emerge precisely when we think it’s been destroyed, the way it hides itself within seemingly good men, and the need for ordinary folks to be diligent in rooting it out whenever it arises.
If anybody is interested in the Dr Mabuse movies, I would suggest starting with one of the three that Fritz Lang made. At four hours long, the silent MABUSE THE GAMBLER is like the rest of the series in microcosm: by the time it’s over, you’ve forgotten where it began and all that remains is an impression. It’s also the movie where Mabuse is most developed as a villain. Meanwhile, THE TESTAMENT OF DR MABUSE (1933) sets some of the template for the movies to come. In an attempt to ground Mabuse in the real world, Lang pits him against the Inspector Lohmann character from M (1931) even as Mabuse develops fantastic plots to overthrow the rule of law in the world. Finally, in THE 1,000 EYES OF DR MABUSE (1960), Lang introduces many more elements -- including several actors -- who would recur repeatedly in many of the other Mabuse movies of the sixties.
German police inspector Gert Frobe is assigned to investigate the murder of a courier who was transporting evidence against an American criminal organization called “the Syndicate”. Despite the lack of any apparent connection Frobe almost immediately suspects the crime was commissioned by the mysterious Dr Mabuse -- a mentalist and criminal mastermind who was presumed dead years earlier. Frobe’s hunch is verified when his investigation takes him to a local church where the bad doctor (still unseen) starts issuing cryptic warnings through the public address system.
Other brazen murders (including one committed by flamethrower) put Frobe on the trail of a sophisticated gang that appears to be operating out of “cell block D” at the local penitentiary. Soon, an FBI agent and a pretty young journalist join the investigation as well. By pretending to send the FBI agent to prison on a trumped up conviction, they infiltrate the organization and learn that the evil Mabuse plans to use an army of prisoners under the influence of mind-control drugs to sow mayhem and destruction throughout the world. Frobe and friends must stop the first plot to blow up an atomic power plant and unmask Mabuse before it’s too late.
Illustration copyright 2009 Dennis J. Reinmueller
Is it any good?
Dr Mabuse is practically unknown in the United States, but the character is reportedly a horror phenomenon on par with Dracula or Frankenstein in parts of Europe. Approximately ten Mabuse movies were produced over a span of five decades -- starting with a couple of Fritz Lang films in the 1920s and 1930s, and the rest following mostly in the 1960s. I’ve seen six of the Mabuse films so far and I would describe myself as a fan, but even I am not totally clear on exactly what the attraction is. One thing I am sure of is that Dr Mabuse is far more than the sum of his parts, so any single Mabuse movie (except perhaps the original four-hour silent epic MABUSE THE GAMBLER) is likely to be disappointing taken in isolation.
THE RETURN OF DR MABUSE isn’t even the best of the 1960s Mabuse flicks, but it follows pretty closely the pattern for the movies. Step one: Murder! Step two: An investigator (preferably a character or actor who has appeared in previous installments) irrationally suspects Mabuse despite having no evidence. Step three: Everyone else points out that Mabuse is dead. Step four: Mabuse reveals himself unnecessarily by issuing warnings. Step five: Mabuse’s plan to sow anarchy throughout the world using some sci-fi contraption is foiled. Step six: Mabuse is unmasked, revealing he is some character from earlier in the movie, and he escapes to plot another day. There are other elements that recur time and time again: masks, facial disfigurements, disembodied voices, player pianos, wooden legs, hidden surveillance, faked deaths, switched identities, mind control, the use of numbers instead of names, and even a group of actors (including Gert Frobe, Wolfgang Preiss, Peter van Eyck, and Werner Peters) who each appear in several different roles throughout the franchise.
 |  |
Taken individually, the movies are often confusing, weird, unsatisfying, cliched, or some mixture thereof. They feel like second-rate procedurals or thrillers where people behave irrationally for the sake of twists, and where everybody’s plans are far more complicated than they need to be. The plots are difficult to follow, the characters are simply puppets acting for or against Mabuse, and the movies often lapse into dullness. And, seemingly worst of all, Mabuse is forever a cipher. He only appears in the final moments of the movie when he is finally unmasked -- otherwise he’s reduced to simply barking orders or threats from behind concealment. But strangely, as the series goes on and the movies reinforce each other, they acquire this weirdly compelling symbolic dimension. The recycled actors, characters, situations, themes, and objects give them a dreamlike, half-remembered quality. They all blend together effortlessly into a single plotless and surreal entity. More than once I’ve had nagging recollections of some mythical Mabuse movie that I could swear I’ve seen, but turns out to be simply something my memory has assembled from pieces borrowed from all the others.
In this hazy blend, Mabuse actually somehow becomes a compelling character (or at least a compelling concept). He is literally evil incarnate -- he has no motives, no objectives, no personality, and he seeks nothing more than to plunge the world into chaos and anarchy. As such, it’s fitting that he is often hunted down by simple lawmen. Mabuse’s foils are usually ordinary homicide detectives or FBI agents -- schlubby guys who doggedly work leads and follow hunches and put clues together. It’s also interesting that these guys are always irrationally obsessed with Mabuse, as though they have some ancestral memory and hatred of him that drives them to track him down even when everyone else is convinced he’s only a myth. Mabuse always executes his diabolical schemes through agents (usually controlled by hypnotism or some similar method) while he himself remains obscured in the shadows, and at the end he’s always revealed to be another character in disguise just before escaping the clutches of the law at the last moment. It’s a weirdly faithful retelling of the same story, very similar to other deathless franchises like Frankenstein or Dracula or Godzilla that revisit the same territory again and again and again. In the case of Mabuse, the story about the tendency of evil to emerge precisely when we think it’s been destroyed, the way it hides itself within seemingly good men, and the need for ordinary folks to be diligent in rooting it out whenever it arises.
 |  |
If anybody is interested in the Dr Mabuse movies, I would suggest starting with one of the three that Fritz Lang made. At four hours long, the silent MABUSE THE GAMBLER is like the rest of the series in microcosm: by the time it’s over, you’ve forgotten where it began and all that remains is an impression. It’s also the movie where Mabuse is most developed as a villain. Meanwhile, THE TESTAMENT OF DR MABUSE (1933) sets some of the template for the movies to come. In an attempt to ground Mabuse in the real world, Lang pits him against the Inspector Lohmann character from M (1931) even as Mabuse develops fantastic plots to overthrow the rule of law in the world. Finally, in THE 1,000 EYES OF DR MABUSE (1960), Lang introduces many more elements -- including several actors -- who would recur repeatedly in many of the other Mabuse movies of the sixties.
 |  |
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