YouTube Friday: The Val Lewton Edition

Val Lewton in the motherfucking house!

TCM and Martin Scorsese have made a documentary about the life and times of horror producer Val Lewton, famous for such classic pictures as Cat People (1942) and The Leopard Man (1943). Great films, great plots, great acting.

Great producer.

My personal favorite - surprise, surprise - is 1943's I Walked With a Zombie.

I can't even begin to say how excellent this film is: beautifully directed by Jacques Tourneur, beautifully shot with all the ethereal resonance of a pre-Raphaelite painting; there is something truly mythic about this film. Maybe it's the eternal paradox of moral ambiguity the film presents: is it possible to view the world in terms of black and white, good and evil, pagan and Christian, the colonizer and the colonized? Or is it, as I suspect Tourneur and Lewton argued, simply varying shades of grey?

Is Jessica a zombie? A mental case?

Is Betsy's unrelenting zeal to heal Jessica a sign of he overwhelmingly good heart? Or a symptom of her sad, misguided oppression?

Who knows? I don't even think Lewton could - or would even want to - answer that question. As a witness of WWII, I'm sure Lewton could attest to the moral ambiguities of war-time everyday life where "good" people suddenly found themselves doing bad things just to stay alive. To Lewton, I suspect the world was entirely grey.

Regardless of his philosophical leanings, Lewton's films are finally enjoying the recognition they deserve.

Watch Scorsese's documentary Monday night at 7:00pm central on TCM.

Yahoo! article: Scorsese chronicles horror film producer

TCM Val Lewton website: http://www.tcm.com/2008/vallewton/index.html


And now, in order to pay my part of the YouTube Friday bargain, the salacious trailer for I Walked With a Zombie:


Believe it or not, I Walked With a Zombie was loosely based on the Charlotte Bronte Gothic chiller, Jane Eyre.

What? You thought Jane Eyre was just one of those stuffy "classics" you read in English? Hells no! There's enough Gothic in this crazy drama to shake a stick at. Hmm....let's see. A mysterious evil woman. A drafty, foreboding house. A brooding, Byronic hero. A madwoman in the attic. Madness. Despair. Grievous bodily harm. Fires. Barely suppressed sexuality. Heaving bosoms. The list goes on and on.

So in honor of the Jane Eyre Gothic tradition and in celebration of the BBC's excellent new adaptation of said masterpiece, might I present to you, good sirs and ladies, Miss Jane Eyre?

YouTube Friday: The Horror Begins

As some of you might have inferred, I have a long-standing love affair with adding video clips to the blog. I decided to channel that unseemly love into something productive, therefore...

...from the stinking depths of the primordial ooze, where the miracle of birth mingles with the aberrations of Nature, comes forth from an unholy union a creature so monstrous that babies' lips wobble at the very sight of it....

Might I present YouTube Friday. Please, don't scream! It doesn't like it when you scream.

Up first on the docket is a little gem I found at the New York Times website. Normally, performance art ends towards the annoyingly pretentious - anyone who's ever seen the episode of Spaced where Brian takes Daisy and Tim to see a performance piece by a woman named Vulva knows what I mean (Not to mention, it also has one of the awesomest Resident Evil references/homages I've ever seen).


Performance art tends to be creepy-weird: no one really gets it though everyone pretends to and you feel like a giant dumbass because you're not indie/trendy/hip (insert your own adjective that indicates value here) enough to get it.

Not so with Jillian Mcdonald. Known throughout the internet for her obsessive love for Billy Bob Thornton, Ms. Mcdonald has ventured into exciting, horror-themed exploits. One piece shows her sitting demurely on the subway, legs elegantly crossed, while she proceeds to paint her face like a zombie whilst onlookers try not to stare. Another shows a superimposed image of the artist in famous horror movies screaming at the monsters, "not out of helpless fear but with a powerful, sometimes destructive force that scares or even blows the monsters away" according to her website.

Funny, unpretentious, and firmly-tongue in cheek, Mcdonald's work does more than entertain - it sends powerful messages about what it means to be scared (or scary) and female in Western society. Critic Trent Morse writes, "Mcdonald's shrieking character is an empowered woman using her presumed weakness as a sonic bludgeon, but always in a humorous way. The brevity of the movie clips, removed from their plots and storylines, exaggerates the silliness of these horror films. Each time I saw the video, Mcdonald's grossed-out reactions to her conquered enemies elicited grins and even out-loud laughter from gallery goers, a rarity in an art world that sometimes takes itself too seriously."

What I find refreshing is Mcdonald's subtle brand of feminism. Instead of espousing the hyper sexualized gun toters that seem to pervade Hollywood horror movies (Ahem, Ms. Jovovich), Mcdonald portrays a woman menaced (by a hyper sexualized female vampire, interestingly enough) but not put-upon. She doesn't run, breasts joggling for the audience to oogle. Nor does she suddenly gain an uncanny knowledge of martial arts and weaponry and start blasting the hell out the predator with her phallisized gun. No. She simply uses her voice - symbol of identity and personal strength - and screams it into submission. Unnervingly simple, but mind-shakingly profound, Mcdonald's work is truly a joy to view. I'm a little stunned, frankly, that I got so much meaning out of that little clip. Damn, she's good.

She also loves zombies, mostly because she used to be terrified of them. Sound familiar? I am eternally fascinated by how people get wrapped up in horror movies. They're always guaranteed to be interesting stories. Check her stuff out, not only is she smart and funny, she's darn good at what she does. I think I'm developing a little bit of a girl-crush on her.

Oh, and just for fun: Trailers from Hell - along with Edgar Wright - present the trailer for Raw Meat, which I am dying to get my hands on.



Also, X Factor (the UK's version of American Idol) has a wonderful contestant named Rhydian (yes, his real name!) who sang a bit from 2004's The Phantom of the Opera.