The Wicker Man

The Wicker Man is a 1973 British horror film directed by Robin Hardy and written by Anthony Shaffer. The film stars Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Diane Cilento, Ingrid Pitt, and Britt Ekland. Paul Giovanni composed the soundtrack. The film is now considered a cult classic.

Shaffer read David Pinner’s 1967 novel Ritual, in which a devout Christian policeman is called to investigate what appears to be the ritual murder of a young girl in a rural village. Shaffer decided that it would serve well as the source material for the project.

Inspired by the basic scenario in Ritual, Shaffer wrote a screenplay which centres on the visit of Police Sergeant Neil Howie to the isolated island of Summerisle, in search of a missing girl the locals claim never existed. Howie, a devout Christian, is appalled to find that the inhabitants of the island practice a form of Celtic paganism.

Shaffer wanted the film to be ‘a little more literate’ than the average horror picture. The idea of a confrontation between a modern Christian and a remote, pagan community continued to intrigue Shaffer, who performed painstaking research on paganism. Working with director Robin Hardy, the film was conceived as presenting the pagan elements objectively and accurately, accompanied by authentic music and a believable, contemporary setting.

The image of the wicker man, which gave the filmmakers their title, was taken from a paragraph in The Gallic War, Julius Caesar’s account of his wars in what is now France. Caesar wrote:

‘The whole of the Gallic nation… believe that unless one human life is offered for another the power and presence of the immortal gods cannot be propitiated. They also hold state sacrifices of a similar kind. Some of them use huge images of the gods, and fill their limbs, which are woven from wicker, with living people. When these images are set on fire the people inside are engulfed in flames and killed. They believe that the gods are more pleased by such punishments when it is inflicted upon those who are caught engaged in theft or robbery or other crimes; but if there is a lack of people of this kind, they will even stoop to punishing the guiltless.’ (Julius Caesar, The Gallic War, 6.17).

The Wicker Man, released in 1973, became a cult classic. Hardy and Schaffer also collaborated on a novelization of their film.

In 2011, a spiritual sequel entitled The Wicker Tree was released.

It was directed by Robin Hardy, and featured an appearance by Christopher Lee. Hardy first published the story as a novel, under the name Cowboys for Christ.

First announced during April 2000, filming on The Wicker Tree began on 19 July 2009. It follows two young American Christian evangelists who travel to Scotland; like Neil Howie in The Wicker Man, the two Americans are virgins who encounter a pagan laird and his followers.

Here is a trailer: 

 

 

Those involved in the production of the film have given conflicting statements regarding the identity of Christopher Lee’s character, referred to only as ‘Old Gentleman’ in the credits Writer/director Robin Hardy has stated that the ambiguity was intentional, but that fans of The Wicker Man will immediately recognise Lee’s character as Lord Summerisle.

Recently, it was announced that a fully-restored print of The Wicker Man is due to be released on DVD as The Wicker Man (The Final Cut). Robin Hardy has confirmed this.

Here is a trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXFYU3v-wL4

 

 

The Wicker Man

(c) R J Dent 2013

www.rjdent.com

Felix Salten

Felix Salten (September 6, 1869 – October 8, 1945) was an Austrian author and critic in Vienna. His most famous work is Bambi (1923).

 

 

Felix Salten was born Siegmund Salzmann in Budapest, Hungary. When he was four weeks old, his family relocated to Vienna, Austria.

 

When his father became bankrupt, the sixteen-year-old Salten had to quit school and begin working for an insurance agency. He also began submitting poems and book reviews to journals. He became part of the “Young Vienna” movement (Jung Wien) and soon received work as a full-time art and theatre critic. In 1900 he published his first collection of short stories.

 

He was soon publishing, on an average, one book a year, of plays, short stories, novels, travel books, and essay collections. He also wrote for nearly all the major newspapers ofVienna. He wrote also film scripts and librettos for operettas. In 1927 he became president of the Austrian P.E.N. club as successor of Arthur Schnitzler.

 

Felix Salten’s most famous work is Bambi (1923).

 

 

 

Bambi, a Life in the Woods, is a 1923 Austrian novel written by Felix Salten and published by Paul Zsolnay Verlag. The novel traces the life of Bambi, a male roe deer, from his birth through childhood, the loss of his mother, the finding of a mate, the lessons he learns from his father and experience about the dangers posed by human hunters in the forest. An English translation by Whittaker Chambers was published in North America by Simon & Schuster in 1928, and the novel has since been translated and published in over 20 languages around the world. Salten released a sequel, Bambi’s Children, in 1939. Janet Schulman released a children’s picture book adaptation in 2000 that featured realistic oil-paintings and many of Salten’s original words.

 

The novel was well received by critics and is considered a classic, as well as one of the first environmental novels ever published. In 1933, he sold the film rights to director Sidney Franklin for $1,000, and Franklin later transferred the rights to the Walt Disney Studios. It was adapted into a theatrical animated film, Bambi, by Disney in 1942.

 

Life in Austria became perilous for a prominent Jew during the 1930s. Adolf Hitler had Salten’s books banned in 1936. Two years later, after Austria had become part of Germany, Salten moved to Zurich, Switzerland, where he lived until his death. He was married to the actress Ottilie Metzl and had two children.

 

Felix Salten’s novel, Bambi is a fascinating and informative textbook of jungle warfare and survival techniques. It is also a powerful political allegory on the treatment of Jews in Europe, as can be deduced from the fact that it was subsequently banned in Nazi Germany in 1936, due to it being considered an anti-Nazi work of fiction.

 

Bambi was banned, and Salten was hunted by the Nazis. The last section of Bambi contains Salten’s famous (and very well-written) critique of Hitler:

 

‘He isn’t all-powerful as they say. Everything that lives and grows doesn’t come from Him. He isn’t above us. He’s just the same as we are. He has the same fears, the same needs, and suffers in the same way. He can be killed like us…’

 

Salten wrote another book based on the character Bambi, entitled Bambi’s Children: The Story of a Forest Family (1939).

 

 

The sequel follows the lives of Bambi’s twin fawns as they grow from fawns through adulthood.

 

Salten wrote the sequel while living in exile in Switzerland after being forced to flee Nazi occupied Austria as he was of Jewish heritage. Originally written in German, the novel was published in English in the United States in 1939 by Bobbs-Merrill. It was not published in Germany until the following year. Its language is gentler than that of Bambi, A Life in the Woods.

 

Salten’s novels Perri (1938) and The Hound of Florence (1923) inspired the Disney films Perri (1957) and The Shaggy Dog (1959).

 

Selected works

 

Bambi, a Life in the Woods (1923)

The Hound of Florence (1923)

Animal Novels: 15 Rabbits (1929)

Florian the Emperor’s Horse (1933)

Perri (1938)

Bambi’s Children (1939)

 

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David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ ™

 

One of the great films/movies of 1999 is David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ ™, starring Jude Law, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Willem Dafoe, Christopher Eccleston, Ian Holm, and Sarah Polley.

 

 

Here’s a plot summary: Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is the designer of eXistenZ ™, a new game system so advanced it uses biology to transport players into gaming experiences beyond virtual reality. Allegra is a star – worshipped, cosseted and constantly under threat from fanatics and rival game companies alike. It is up to Ted Pikul (Jude Law) to protect her.

 

 

When a terrorist attack disrupts the first ever demonstration of eXistenZ ™, Geller and Pikul find themselves on the run in a strange and dangerous world where reality and fantasy merge and in which Geller and Pikul discover they can trust no one – perhaps least of all each other… for who can really tell where real life ends and the game begins?

 

Frighteningly vivid and tense, David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ ™ is a terrifying journey through betrayal, death, and the seductive world of game playing. It tackles notions of identity, art, creativity, the dangers of fiction, the reality/cyberspace dichotomy, and Martin Heidegger’s notion of ‘being’.

 

 

There is, of course, a soundtrack album for David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ ™. The film/movie is scored by long-time Cronenberg collaborator, Howard Shore. The album is worth owning, as it is very rich, melodic and atmospheric. Here’s a sound-bite:

 

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David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ ™ has been turned into a fast-paced and very well-written novel by Christopher Priest (writing as John Luther Novak).

 

 

  

Priest follows Croneberg’s plot precisely, but has added extra detail to round out the characters and the situations.

 

There is also a graphic novel, David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ ™, with illustrations by Sean Schoffield.

 

 

The 110 page graphic novel, published by Key Porter Books, contains set of a cast pictures, a glossary of technical terms, the graphic novel itself, and an interview with David Conenberg talking about the pre-production, the filming and the aftermath of eXistenZ ™.

 

Each of the different versions of eXistenZ ™ is worth a look. Watch the film/movie, read the novel, listen to the music, or enjoy the graphic novel – they’re all worth spending time on. David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ ™ is a razor-sharp science fiction thriller – with an intriguing plot and some great acting from Law and Leigh.

 

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Try David Croonenberg’s eXistenZ ™ – you might enjoy it.

  

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Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999)

I’ve always been a great admirer of the films of Stanley Kubrick.

Stanley Kubrick

I missed out on Fear and Desire (1953) and Killer’s Kiss (1955), but from 1956 onwards, I’ve seen everything he ever made. I’ve watched and enjoyed:

The Killing (1956)

Paths of Glory (1957)

Spartacus (1960)

Lolita (1962)

Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Barry Lyndon (1975)

The Shining (1980)

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

Apart from Eyes Wide Shut (1999), which is a disaster and a mess, the rest of Kubrick’s films are classics.

Paths of Glory is a great anti-war film starring Kirk Douglas. Here’s the trailer:

Spartacus is also a great anti-war film starring Kirk Douglas, but set in a different time and place to its predecessor. Here’s the trailer:

Lolita had the League of Decency hound Kubrick out of the US. Here’s the trailer:

Dr Strangelove is a great anti-war film starring Peter Sellers. Here’s the trailer:

2001: A Space Odyssey is an LSD inspired space trip. Here’s the trailer:

A Clockwork Orange is a black comedy/serious study of a juvenile delinquent. Here’s the trailer:

Barry Lyndon is a beautifully-filmed version of Thackeray’s novel. Here’s the trailer:

The Shining has entered film folklore – so no need for me to comment. Here’s the trailer:

Full Metal Jacket is a great anti-war film starring Matthew Modine. Here’s the trailer:

The attention to detail is fantastic, the cinematography is nearly perfect, certain scenes are classic film moments; moments that define what film is – and what it can do.

Try watching any or all of the nine Stanley Kubrick films listed above. You won’t regret it.

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Pruitt-Igoe

 

 

The Pruitt-Igoe housing complex consisted of 33 buildings of 11 stories each on the Near North Side of St. Louis, Missouri. In 1950 the city commissioned the firm of Leinweber, Yamasaki & Hellmuth to design Pruitt-Igoe, a new complex named for St. Louisans Wendell O. Pruitt, an African-American fighter pilot in World War II, and William L. Igoe, a former U.S. Congressman. Originally, the city planned two partitions: Captain W. O. Pruitt Homes for the black residents, and William L. Igoe Apartments for whites. The site was bounded by Cass Avenue on the north, North Jefferson Avenue on the west, Carr Street on the south, and North 20th Street on the east. Prior to the project’s construction, the land was known as the De Soto-Carr neighbourhood, an extremely poor section of St. Louis, a black ghetto.

The project was authored by architect Minoru Yamasaki who would later design New York’s World Trade Center. It was Yamasaki’s first large independent job, performed under supervision and constraints imposed by the federal Public Housing Authority. Architectural Forum praised the layout as “vertical neighbourhoods for poor people”. Each row of buildings was supposed to be flanked by a “river of trees”, developing a Harland Bartholomew concept. However, parking and recreation facilities were inadequate; playgrounds were added only after tenants petitioned for their installation.

 

 

Seen here are the 33 rectangular buildings that made up Pruitt-Igoe. The four large branching structures in the foreground was the Vaughn Public Housing Complex (also demolished). Also pictured is the Pruitt School (the four-story building near the centre of the photo) and the St. Stanislaus Kostka Polish Catholic Church, both of which still stand.

 

As completed in 1955, Pruitt-Igoe consisted of 33 11-story apartment buildings on a 57 acre (23 hectare) site on St. Louis’s lower north side, The complex totaled 2,870 apartments, being one of the largest in the United States. The apartments were deliberately small, with undersized kitchen appliances. “Skip-stop” elevators stopped only at the first, fourth, seventh, and tenth floors, forcing residents to use stairs in an attempt to lessen congestion. The same “anchor floors” were equipped with large communal corridors, laundry rooms, communal rooms and garbage chutes. In real life the stairwells and corridors attracted muggers. Ventilation was poor, centralized air conditioning nonexistent.

 

 

Nevertheless, initially Pruitt-Igoe garnered net positive publicity as a breakthrough in urban renewal. Despite poor build quality, material suppliers referenced Pruitt-Igoe in their advertisements, capitalizing on the national exposure of the project.

 

A 1956 Missouri court decision desegregated public housing in the state, and the newly built complex became predominantly populated by black tenants. Whites evidently chose not to take up residence in the new integrated towers.

 

The buildings remained largely vacant for years. By the end of the 1960s Pruitt-Igoe was nearly abandoned and had deteriorated into a decaying, dangerous, crime-infested neighbourhood; its architect lamented: “I never thought people were that destructive”. In 1971, Pruitt-Igoe housed only six hundred people in seventeen buildings; the other sixteen were boarded up.

 

In 1968 the federal Department of Housing began encouraging remaining residents to leave Pruitt-Igoe.

 

 

In December 1971 state and federal authorities agreed to demolish two of Pruitt-Igoe buildings. After months of preparation, the first building was demolished with an implosion at 3 p.m., March 16, 1972. The second one went down April 22, 1972. After more implosions on July 15, the first stage of demolition was over. As the government scrapped rehabilitation plans, Pruitt-Igoe was agonized over for three more years; the site was finally cleared in 1976.

 

Planted with trees, here’s what Pruitt-Igoe looks like today:

 

And here’s another view of it today:

 

There is a Pruitt-Igoe demolition sequence in the film Koyaanisqatsi, with music by Philip Glass. Here it is:

 

 

This text is a modified version of the information found on wikipedia:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt-Igoe

 

www.rjdent.com

George A. Romero’s ‘Dead’ films

 

 

George A Romero has become known throughout the world as the creator, writer and director of the ground-breaking, seminal horror film, Night of the Living Dead. He is also the creator, writer and director of the four (to date) subsequent …of the Dead films. His …of the Dead films are, in chronological order:

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Day of the Dead (1985)

Land of the Dead (2005)

Diary of the Dead (2007)

Survival of the Dead (2010)

The first of the series, Night of the Living Dead is now recognised as a film classic.

Filmed in black and white in 1968, it has a documentary feel that makes the zombie horrors look very real and very horrifying. Here’s the trailer:

The sequel was Dawn of the Dead.

Dawn of the Dead was filmed in 1978 in a Pittsburg shopping mall and is now seen (quite rightly) as a satire on consumerism.  Here’s the trailer:

The next film (in what was becoming a series) was Day of the Dead, which was filmed in 1985.

In many ways, Day of the Dead is the goriest and most violent of the …of the Dead films. It was another critique, this time of the conflict between science and the military. Joseph Pilato’s portrayal of Captain Rhodes is an incredible acting performance. Here’s the trailer:

The next in the series was Land of the Dead.

Fans of the …of the Dead series had to wait until 2005 for its release. Because of its storyline involving class struggle, Land of the Dead is an interesting addition to the …of the Dead canon, although it’s probably the weakest film in the collection. Here’s the trailer:

The next ‘Dead…’ offering from Romero was the highly-charged, hyper-driven gore-fest, Diary of the Dead.

Diary of the Dead (2007) is billed as a reboot – or a retelling – of Night of the Living Dead. It’s more a side story, but it’s still a powerful and scary film with some very good ideas in it. Students making a horror film encounter the far more horrific zombies, and have to fend for themselves. It contains a number of very wonderful scenes. Here’s the trailer:

Survival of the Dead (also known as George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead) is a 2009 American horror film written and directed by George A. Romero and starring Alan van Sprang, Kenneth Welsh and Kathleen Munroe. It is the sixth entry in Romero’s ‘… of the Living Dead series. The story follows a group of AWOL National Guardsmen who briefly appeared in Diary of the Dead.

Survival of the Dead is the latest in the ...of the Dead series. Here’s the trailer:

 

There is also a very good remake of Night of the Living Dead, scripted by Romero and directed by Tom Savini.

Here’s the trailer:

A lot of people ignore George A Romero’s work because he makes zombie films. However, as with every other film in the world, the characters in the film represent something else; something universal. Romero’s zombies are metaphors – very powerful metaphors. Try watching Dawn of the Dead or Diary of the Dead and you’ll see what I mean.

© R J Dent (2016)

www.rjdent.com

Walkabout

One of my all-time favourite films is Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout (1971). It stars Jenny Agutter, Lucien Roeg and David Gulpilil and it is loosely based on Edward Bond’s free adaptation of James Vance Marshall’s novel, The Children.

Walkabout is a poignant, deeply moving, profound, beautifully-filmed, well-acted film classic.

Plot synopsis (includes spoilers): A teenage girl (Agutter) and her younger brother (Roeg) are left to fend for themselves in the Australian outback after their father drives them out there in his car for a picnic, and then kills himself. The children do their best to survive, but they are ill-equipped for the harshness of the outback. An aborigine boy (Gulpilil) gives them some help, leads them to a deserted house, where, after a ceremonial dance, he hangs himself. The boy and the girl follow the road to an abandoned mine, where a solitary employee tells them which way they need to go to find civilization. The film ends a few years later with the girl, now a woman, thinking back in a romanticized way to her outback experience, which she has re-imagined as an idyll.

The mine scene is hauntingly beautiful and quite poignant, and the girl thinking back to her ordeal in a romanticized way is perfect.

The film ends with a quote from an A. E. Houseman poem:

Into my heart and air that kills

From yon far country blows;

What are those blue remembered hills,

What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,

I see it shining plain,

The happy highways where I went

And cannot come again.

There is now a very good Criterion Collection DVD of Walkabout available. It’s the best version of the film that there is. If you haven’t seen Walkabout yet – you should perhaps try it. If you’ve seen it already, you could try watching it again. It certainly won’t be wasted time.

www.rjdent.com

R J Dent on Writing – a writer’s education

 

R J Dent talks about how his education prepared him for writing.

 

The talk was filmed by the Office of Learning and Teaching at the University of Northampton.

 

In it R J Dent mentions some of the things he’s discovered since he started writing and publishing a few years ago.

R J Dent is available for Creative Writing tutorials. For further details, contact his office at: info@rjdent.com

 

 www.rjdent.com

 

 

Philip K Dick’s A Scanner Darkly

One of Philip K Dick’s best novels is A Scanner Darkly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The story is set in a not-too-distant future, and it involves an undercover cop named Bob Arctor, who becomes involved with a dangerous new drug and begins to lose his own identity as a result.

 

It has recently been made into a brilliant film by Richard Linklater.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The film stars Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson and Winona Ryder.

 

Here’s a scene from the film, to give you an idea of its tone and style.

 

 

If you get a chance, read Philip K Dick’s A Scanner Darkly and watch Richard Linklater’s film version of it. They’re both very good – the novel’s worth reading for its insights into surveillance and its attendant paranoia, and the film’s worth watching for its visual style and its script – and for the superb quality of the acting.

 

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Daphne du Maurier’s Best Stories

Readers of Daphne du Maurier’s novels and short stories usually credit Rebecca as being the author’s best work, but there are other, better stories by this very talented writer.

Daphne du Maurier

One very good novel of du Maurier’s is The House on the Strand, a time-travel story in the same vein as Bid Time Return (filmed as Somewhere in Time) by Richard Matheson.

The Birds and Other Stories is a very good collection of short stories, not only for the titular short story (made famous by Alfred Hitchcock’s film version), but also for the inclusion of the macabre novella, The Apple Tree.

The Birds and Other Stories

Don’t Look Now and Other Stories is another very good collection, not only for the titular short story (made famous by Nic Roeg’s film version), but also because of the inclusion of The Way of the Cross, a psychologically complex longish short story of redemption.

Don’t Look Now and Other Stories

Another good collection of short stories is The Breaking Point. This collection includes The Blue Lenses, which is probably the most ingenious of all of du Maurier’s stories and is reminiscent of Eugene Ionesco at his best.

The Breaking Point and Other Stories

Regarding other short story collections, The Rendezvous and Other Stories is worth reading for the title story alone, although the other stories in the collection are also very good.

The Rendezvous and Other Stories

The Doll is another valuable story collection . In the title story, a waterlogged notebook is washed ashore. Its pages tell a dark story of obsession and jealousy. But the fate of its narrator is a mystery.

Many of the stories in this haunting collection have only recently been discovered. Most were written early in Daphne du Maurier’s career, yet they display her mastery of atmosphere, tension and intrigue and reveal a cynicism far beyond her years.

The Doll – Short Stories

Finally, best of all is the novel Castle Dor. This is a strange one, because it is a novel that was started – and then abandoned by author and critic, Arthur Quiller-Couch. Quiller-Couch’s daughter asked Daphne du Maurier to complete it, which she did, giving it a major overhaul in the process. The result is a moody and atmospheric retelling of the Tristan and Isolde story.

Castle Dor

It is not generally known, but Daphne du Maurier was a very good horror, science fiction and fantasy writer. Most of her works fit easily into the Gothic genre and many of her best stories put forward (in a very naturalistic way) themes and situations that are supernatural and other-worldly.

The books mentioned above are a good place to start if you are new to Du Maurier’s work. If you are already familiar with some of her work, try these books I’ve mentioned. You might be surprised at how good a writer Daphne du Maurier actually is.

Daphne du Maurier

© R J Dent (2014)

www.rjdent.com