Rating: 3.5/5
Hooptober 3.0 | 14/31 | Before 1970 1/5 | Decades 1/5 | 60s
Be silent in that solitude, Which is not loneliness — for then The spirits of the dead who stood In life before thee are again In death around thee — and their will Shall overshadow thee: be still. — Edgar Allan Poe, Spirits of the Dead
This film is a horror anthology with no overarching narrative, collecting three shorts by three directors, each based on an Edgar Allan Poe story. These shorts differ from most horror anthologies in that they have a budget and subtext.
I watched the French language one, not the AIP-distributed one with Vincent Price’s narration.
Metzengerstein — Roger Vadim *** Frédérique, Countess of Metzengerstein, inherited her family’s fortune at 22. Since then, she has ruled by capricious whim. The Metzengersteins have a longstanding rivalry with the Berlifitzings. Baron Wilhelm Berlifitzing lives alone in his family’s castle. Though the two have never met, Frédérique openly mocked him any chance she had. But Wilhelm remains uninterested in her or her hedonistic lifestyle.
One day, Frédérique steps into a trap in the woods. Wilhelm comes across her and saves her. She becomes enamored with him, but he remains uninterested. She acts out on her anger by setting the Berlifitzing stables on fire. This invites a strangeness into her life that will become her doom.
I remember reading the original story with capital-G Gothic tones and morality tale structure. This short omits the more obscurant elements, such as an ironic prophecy and ambiguously satirical details, which have only confused critics and historians regarding Poe’s intent. The result feels like the grounding for every Amicus story in their anthologies.
Jane Fonda is great as the petulant Frédérique. You could replace Peter Fonda with a sock. Having siblings play potential lovers is quite a Poe move.
This came out shortly after Vadim’s Barbarella. This is the least horny thing I’ve seen him direct. Which isn’t a high bar — he’s a horny director (aka French).
My only complaint about this one is that it’s a tad meandering. In most horror shorts, a narrator or character often verbalizes the meaning of the passage of time. Most of the time, I prefer this approach.
The filmmakers tell the story well, but it lacks interest beyond the Gothic vibes.
William Wilson — Louis Malle ***.5 William Wilson runs through the streets of Bergamo in Northern Italy. His face is bloody and his military uniform is sweat-soaked. In his mind, he sees a man falling from a bell tower onto the city streets. Over and over, the image strikes him.
He runs into a church. The bell-ringer shows William his scabbed and bleeding hands. He pushes the priest into the confession booth and confesses to a murder. The person? A stranger, yet someone he has always known.
William tells the perplexed priest the story of his life of cruelty and how, in childhood, he met a boy also named William Wilson who bested him in everything.
I enjoy a good doppelgänger story. I watched Kotoko yesterday, and it deals with the fascinating concept of seeing other people’s doubles — the manifestation of what she believes their true intentions are.
Here, like Metzengerstein, the short omits some nuances of the story, such as William Wilson being a fake name the narrator gives, which only adds further confusion when he meets another William Wilson.
This story feels like genuine horror. Alain Delon’s William Wilson is a nightmare person. The story is okay, but the filmmaking makes this far more compelling. The effect of cutting into the man’s chest looks realistic! I’m not sure, but they may have used an actual cadaver.
Toby Dammit — Federico Fellini ** An airplane lands. A round display’s video feed disconnects from the screen. A strong wind in the airport blows nuns around. Hasidic Jews walk backward up the escalator.
Everyone looks. It’s Toby Dammit! Paparazzi unfurl like smoke from recesses in the wall to get his picture. The lights disturb him, so Toby throws his suitcase at one, knocking him over. He gives a melodramatic speech about detesting light.
Toby gets in a car with the filmmaker he’ll be working with. They rant about their influences, from Roland Barthes to John Ford, littering their language with pseudo-intellectual nonsense.
The story continues in this chaotic structure, during which Toby, an alcoholic, has visions of a girl carrying a white ball. This may or may not be the devil.
This story takes the most liberties with the Poe story but also captures the sense of alienation and misanthropy that drives the original. In the same way that Poe used his story to critique writers and styles of his time, Fellini uses images and references to directors and artists of his time.
The atmosphere is quite surreal and artificial — more so than I’ve seen in any Fellini, but I also have seen nothing past 8 1/2 and his LSD experiments.
I’m going to give up on trying to analyze this one — it’s like, uh, trying to describe a Fellini movie. I love it, though.