the outcasts ( 1982 film )
guarnier, josé luis ,
luis g. berlanga ,
in international film guide 1981, london, 1982 .
like some powerful and fantastical magnet, the outcasts draws our attention to the republic of ireland' s nascent film industry .
( peter davalle, the times, london )
david edelstein is the chief film critic for new york magazine and a film critic for npr’s fresh air .
the outcasts has provided one of the deepest and most enthralling experiences of my life .
david blum (music columnist, new yorker )
goldmann, münchen 1982. der roman zum film (goldmann fantasy tb 23826). deutsche erstveröffentlichung. o - broschur. 1. auflage, mit farb. illustrationen. - 255 s. (pages) .
robert wynne - simmons disinterest in spiritually defunct modernity is reflected in his film credits. his first film was
a bounty hunter who was a confederate officer teams up with an ex - slave who was a union soldier during the civil war. they are the outcasts .
in short, john carpenter’s the thing lands us in freezing antarctica during the winter of 1982. a strange incident occurs at american outpost 31, when a norwegian helicopter breaks the peace and silence of snow .
great britain, fontana / collins virago, 1982. 1st fontana edition, binding: softcover, good. 12mo - over 6¾
- 7¾
tall 0006164323 paperback a sweeping, mystical fantasy now a spectacular film... . paperback .
the outcasts / robert wynne - simmons; john davis; matthew jacobs; cyril cusack; mick lally; tolmayax productions. ;; dublin: tolmayax productions, 1983 .
magic, as distinct from cunning special effects, is hard to find in the cinema, but [ the outcasts ] is steeped in it .
( shaun usher, daily mail )
with the headline: film festival notebook; news sensations, new outrages and themes .
future learning and skills – giving everyone the opportunity to build a lifelong relationship with film .
tim burton’s first short film produced after college, vincent (1982), tells the quirky tale of little vincent malloy – a boy who dreams of being like his hero, vincent price. real film actor vincent price narrates the film, describing malloy with rhymes: “he doesn’t mind living with his sister and cats, though he’d rather share a home with spiders and bats. ” malloy daydreams of living like price’s famous characters – mad scientists and debonair villains – and muses over his imaginary dead wife .
in the waning days of the summer of 1982, my parents took me to an afternoon matinee, a double - feature at a second - run theater in los angeles. i couldn’t have guessed so beforehand, but this excursion to the movies was a life - changing event for me .
after falling victim to a humiliating prank by the high school queen bee, best friends and world - class geeks, mindy and jodi, decide to get their revenge by uniting the outcasts of the school against her and her circle of friends .
feardotcom (2002) looks and sounds like a remake of a japanese horror film that never was. this 40 million dollar horror film was r ...
... an independent film scholar, [ muir ] explains film studies concepts in a language that is reader - friendly and engaging ...
(
deneroff, harvey, in film society review (new york), april 1966 .
the outcasts has nothing fey or twee about it. its strength is that it treats its material with respect, skillfully avoiding any hint of ironic distance or any over - committment to the supernatural. as a result it also acquires a strong political dimension as a powerful critique of materialism .
( jill forbes, monthly film bulletin )
ballantine books, 1986. 1st printing. with primitive weapons, an army of mutants and outcasts strugles to keep freedom alive! . paperback. isbn: 0345308891. near fine paperback, slight crease to front cover .
watch burton’s first short film and an homage to horror classics, vincent, on youtube .
one of the horror genre' s
most widely read critics
( rue morgue # 68) ,
an accomplished film journalist
( comic buyer' s guide # 1535), and the award - winning author of horror films of the 1980s (2007), the rock and roll film encyclopedia (2007) and horror films of the 1970s (2002), john kenneth muir, presents his blog on film, television and nostalgia, named one of the top 100 film studies blog on the net .
i thought you might be interested in this item at urltoken title: the outcasts author: robert wynne - simmons; john davis; matthew jacobs; cyril cusack; mick lally; tolmayax productions publisher: dublin: tolmayax productions, 1983. oclc: 38739724
one of the best writers analyzing contemporary genre film and television .
- (theofantastique, 11 / 13 )
.. the glories of the earth we live with. the way the flowers dance and the waters roar and the grandeur of the rocks and the mountains .
a robert wynne - simmons film; written and directed by john davis; producer, matthew jacobs .
scream' s writer kevin williamson scripted this robert rodriguez - directed horror film. it was a hybrid of teenage angst high - school films (such as the breakfast club (1985) ) and the sci - fi alien invasion film invasion of the body snatchers (1956) .
of course, jarman' s most illustrious collaborator on this film is caravaggio. famous, notorious, and profoundly influential — on such painters as rubens, georges de la tour, velázquez, rembrandt, vermeer and countless others, and in cinema on film noir style — let' s take a brief look at the life and work of the man whom jarman waggishly called
the james dean of the renaissance ,
before focusing on the film .
this film was also made at a time when people were being wrongfully executed more and more frequently in spain .
the film ended with a stream of cars (and headlights) approaching the ballfield in the middle of an iowa cornfield, signaling that ray wouldn' t lose his farm after all .
following this review, in the section caravaggio in caravaggio, you will find a list of the paintings recreated in the film. now, at last, on to jarman' s searing portrait of the artist .
the film opened with a spectacularly sexy heist during the screening of the film est - ouest at the 2001 cannes film festival; nearly - nude, sleek film model veronica' s (rie rasmussen) see - through gold - plated
amazing top in the shape of a serpent
was encrusted with 500 diamonds worth over 10 million dollars. blonde femme fatale laure ash (rebecca romijn - stamos) posed as a photographer at the event, scored to ravel' s
bolero ,
and during a hot lesbian / bisexual tryst of kissing and stripping in the ladies room with veronica, the serpentine gold - plated bodice was supposedly swapped with a fake one .
in region 1, this film is available both as a separate dvd and as part of the four - disc / five - film box set, glitterbox: derek jarman x 4 (the angelic conversation, caravaggio, wittgenstein, and blue, plus the posthumous glitterbug) — $ 74. 99 suggested retail .
now that we' ve brought caravaggio' s background out of the shadows, let' s shine a light on the film itself, beginning with its narrative structure .
it would be impossible to just pick one of the kids from william mckinley high school, as they all pretty much embodied outcasts. from stoner burnout desario (james franco) to wannabe drummer nick (jason segel) to the hopelessly nerdy bill haverchuck (martin starr), they were all, easily, the most lovable losers to ever grace tv’s high school halls .
at his news conference, mr. baghdadi stressed that his was a country where factional divisions were so sharp that if an audience objected to the politics of a film' s characters, it might reject the film outright. he wanted to make a film that any lebanese could watch and understand.'' little wars'' was well received at its screening, but it has not been shown in lebanon .
after a getaway, the unlikely group of six students theorized that if they found the' master alien' or
queen
leader and killed it, they could eliminate the threat and the further spread of the parasitic alien seeking human hosts, and everything would revert to normal. each student, suspicious of the others (in a scene paying direct homage to john carpenter' s blood - test scene in the thing (1982) ), snorted the drug (composed mostly of the contents of caffeinated no - doz pills) to prove their non - alien status. delilah was revealed to be one of the aliens, and in the confusion, marybeth concealed the fact that she hadn' t snorted the drug .
brian depalma' s erotic thriller was a prime example of a plot - twister, deliberately hinted at many times by various clues. except for the first half - hour (and the film' s short concluding segment), the film with themes of voyeurism and double - identity was almost entirely a dream of the title character' s nightmarish future .
for all the charges of
blasphemy
leveled against caravaggio, in using actual' poor people,' prostitutes and hustlers as models for biblical subjects, those were the very outcasts that jesus consorted with, and that both caravaggio and jarman could relate to intimately. although both jesus and caravaggio die in excruciating pain, attended by their faithful followers, the latter is no martyr, except perhaps in his obsession to unite art and life. but the film questions caravaggio' s chaotic vision of life, even as it exalts his artistic genius .
ballantine, 1981 - 1st. paperback. very good. with 8 full color photos from the film. based on the screenplay by hal barwood and matthew robbins. from the collection of sf author juanita coulson .
this search engine covers the entire website (glbt literature, film, and all other pages) — results will open in a new window. you can also use the site map .
tony peake, in his indispensable derek jarman: a biography (1999), expresses an interesting point of view that i don' t share, namely, that
for all its many fine and subtle qualities, caravaggio exudes a whiff of staleness, even flatness ,
that he attributes to jarman' s many years in pre - production, making him
somehow exhausted by the film before the camera started rolling .
peake reports that the film garnered only tepid critical praise, yet at the berlin international film festival, jarman won both the c. i. d. a. l. c. award and silver berlin bear; and at the istanbul international film festival, he won the special jury prize. the film was successful in international markets, and in the two decades since, it has grown not only in critical stature but popularity — and that will only increase now that it' s finally available on dvd .
in addition to these clear reproductions, jarman draws on other caravaggio works as inspiration for the film' s sets, costumes, and lighting. for example, many of peasants are dressed to resemble those in the milan version of
supper at emmaus
and
the tooth puller
. the press kit identifies two additional paintings in the film —
narcissus
and
david with the head of goliath
— but i didn' t detect them .
jarman underlies the film' s central action, of the love triangle, with a story that becomes increasingly noir - ish, as ever more shocking levels of treachery are revealed. oscar wilde' s often - quoted line, from
the ballad of reading gaol ,
applies as much to caravaggio' s fictionalized plot as to most of film noir :
each man kills the thing he loves .
jarman reinforces the noir connection both dramatically and visually — but as with his use of sacred motifs, it' s subtle, and only one more of the many strands that make up this film .
kovacs, k. s. ,
berlanga life size ,
in quarterly review of film studies (new york), spring 1983 .
hi my wife mentioned that she saw' the outcasts' back in the 80s and she really liked it, i had never heard of it before. a few years ago she asked me to look on ebay to see if anyone had a vhs tape of it, after not much look one did turn up eventually. the video was released by a company called' prestige international', not sure what date it came out as there is no date on the cover .
curiously, the film that might be most strongly expected to touch on issues of class difference does not address them directly at all. a lebanese film, maroun baghdadi' s'' little wars,'' deliberately avoids designating its characters' religious preferences or any other information that might align them with specific factions .
in jarman' s film, here are the caravaggio paintings shown and / or recreated as tableaux, in the order they appear. titles link to online reproductions and commentary, each opening in a new window :
... muir covers everything from film to television to books to retro toys with no - holds - barred affection ...
(
inspirational commentary. i had never considered bladerunner and jc' s the thing having common elements, but it is so obvious when one points it out. i too saw the thing in 1982 when i was 40 something. i had been a long time fan of the original' 50s thing, but considered the new movie a different movie and not a remake. i still like both. both hold up to repetitive viewing for me. what i remember of that 1st viewing was that it really scared me. that night i waited in bed for my spouse to change. it was great! thanks for the memories ...
explore the existential angst of what it means to be human. protagonists in each film combat creatures that mimic or imitate the human shape, but are indistinctly inhuman. in both films, the impostor is also an infiltrator... virtually unrecognizable - -
the financial saga has as many twists and turns as the film' s labyrinthine plot. when jarman shows the dead caravaggio with gold coins over his eyes, it' s as much an ironic jab at economic / political realities as the folk tradition of making sure the dead have the proper fare to enter the land of the dead. but in the opening shot, before the coins appear, jarman emblematically lays out caravaggio' s contradictions in a stunning close - up: one of the dead artist' s eyes is wide open, but the other is shut .
[ note: in the film' s original ending, crazed and unstable alex committed suicide to frame former lover dan, making it look like he had murdered her. after preview audiences objected, the ending was changed. ]
tim burton’s macabre and quirky visual style is recognizable to nearly anyone. his early films beetlejuice (1988), edward scissorhands (1990), and the nightmare before christmas (1993) have become favorites among adults and children, leading to the branding of his films as dark, fantastical stories featuring surreal, horror, and gothic mise - en - scene; characters as outcasts, freaks, and villains; and themes of isolation, life, death, perseverance, and love. however, before burton became a household name or even made his first feature film, he worked for walt disney productions and made vincent .
the final segment of the film consisted of a 17 - minute long dramatic retelling of how a young, sexy croatian actress oja kodar (herself, welles' real - life girlfriend at the time of shooting), first seen in the film in a segment on girl - watching, enticed famed artist pablo picasso in the village of toussaint by walking by his place during one summer in provocative beach - dress, and was soon invited in to be his mistress in exchange for ownership of the 22 nude paintings he made of her .
( mcfarland; 2000), but for context and history, i wanted to provide at least a handful of quotes here and now, so you might accurately glean a sense of the absolute vitriol spewed at the film and its helmsman .
there' s an even deeper mythic level, as in other jarman films like the angelic conversation: primal ritual, in which a protagonist achieves incremental understanding through a long process of doubt and suffering. this ancient form underlies the narrative, giving the film a subliminal resonance .
the film' s tagline made reference to the six main teen characters, archetypal members of the student body (a misfit rebel, a geek, an outcast, a cheerleader, a jock, and a girl - next - door, etc .) who were introduced during the character credits, that would investigate the weird happenings at their high school among the
faculty
members :
i saw this fabulous film when channel 4 broadcast it back in the early 1980s. it was never released on vhs or dvd. a harrowing look at the famine years, loss and cruelty, with a strong undercurrent of the supernatural running throughout. good luck in your search .
rather than the anachromisms, what most people first hear about this film is jarman' s breathtaking recreations of a dozen and a half of caravaggio' s paintings. (if you want to follow along, there' s a full list of the pictures below — but you certainly don' t need to, in order to enjoy jarman' s picture .) these reproductions are more than gimmicks; they point to the essence of the film, and of jarman' s enormous achievements .
in'' moonlighting,'' the emphasis is on class rather than racial differences, as an educated foreman wields power over three ignorant laborers, yet is himself treated as a polish outsider in england. even in tim hunter' s'' tex,'' the class relations among oklahoma teen - agers are explored. in karoly makk' s'' another way,'' the two lesbian characters are treated as sexual and political outcasts. in mr. losey' s'' the trout,'' a french country girl enters the world of international high finance and proceeds to disrupt the sexual, racial and economic lines of power .
author: gina marie ezzone is a senior at denison university where she studies cinema and queer studies. she is the president of the denison film society where she works as a programmer and projectionist. this summer she is the programs assistant intern at facets. check out her work on vimeo .
the key line in the film comes when caravaggio, after ranuccio has stabbed him in a fight, tells his faithful mute servant jerusaleme :
all art is against lived experience. how can you compare flesh and blood with oil, ground pigment ?
so far, this year' s record for most walkouts is held jointly by'' veronika voss,'' the film of mr. fassbinder that was the openingnight selection, and miklos jancso' s'' the tyrant' s heart.'' it is hard to see a sure leader here because the circumstances differ .
why are american plays, movies, and tv shows so inept at weaving together the strands of the political and the personal? maybe it' s because—to borrow the title of an incisive e. j. dionne book—americans hate politics. or maybe it' s because we prefer—and have always preferred, at least since the days of fenimore cooper—our sagas to focus on loners, mavericks, outcasts, people standing up to
the system .
but as that late counterweight to libertarianism, arthur miller, endlessly reminded us, we are social creatures—interdependent and responsible in even our smallest actions for the welfare of all. too bad that' s a pinko heresy in a land of vigilantes and winners who take all .
the britmovie site needs funds to keep going and to pay the hosting fees .
visually and dramatically intense reimagining of the life of the great sixteenth century artist .
ultimately, jarman knows that we will make of his film what we will, confronted — like so many artists in so many media — with the dilemma of how to reconcile, or not, art and lived experience .
there is a portrait gallery of familiar faces in the lobby of alice tully hall, where the 20th new york film festival is midway through its three - week schedule. as it honors a variety of contributors to past festivals, the photographic exhibition also reminds audiences that this year, most of the festival' s favorite luminaries are conspicuously absent .
jerusaleme' s importance to the film was even greater in early drafts, when jarman used him as the focal character, filtering caravaggio' s life through his eyes. in fact, many of caravaggio' s voice - over monologues were originally written for him .
she was thrown off the multi - story balcony of her room into the hotel' s inner courtyard by vengeful, double - crossed partner racine (edouard montoute), but miraculously survived the fall. lily' s parents brought her to her apartment to recover, where laure noticed her resemblance to lily in photographs framed on the wall. while watching tv, a commentator provided a major key to the remainder of the film :
writer / director / actor orson welles' last feature film was this non - linear, documentary - essay (and magic trick at its end) about fakery, art forgery, authorship and authenticity, charlatanism, the value of experts, magicians, and the art world .
' magic' is the word some critics applied to it at the time, in' over the moon' fashion, but the word has some meaning here .
( derek malcolm, the guardian )
and that’s just the tip of the bloody iceberg, to adopt an appropriate metaphor .
great analysis and i really can' t add much to your spot - on observations except to say that i think this is carpenter' s masterpiece, even moreso than halloween which is a great film as well, but i think that carpenter really hit it out of the park with this one for all the reasons you stated in your post. i' m glad you pointed out rob bottin' s staggeringly incredible work on this film. it' s a shame that most of the studio films go the cgi route and it seems like he doesn' t work much anymore as a result. i wish some indie horror filmmakers would hook up with him. his work has a tangible texture and realism that still outclasses the cgi work out there. have you read the comic book spin - offs? the first two - issue mini - series is quite good even though they get a few of the rules from the film wrong and carpenter has said that if he ever did a sequel he' s use them as a basis. i also thought that the video game sequel was very well done. they really captured the claustrophobia and paranoia of the film as well the mood and atmosphere to a t. at any rate, as someone who is a huge carpenter fan i really dug your post. great stuff .
award - winning author of 27 books including horror films faq (2013), horror films of the 1990s (2011), horror films of the 1980s (2007), tv year (2007), the rock and roll film encyclopedia (2007), mercy in her eyes: the films of mira nair (2006), , best in show: the films of christopher guest and company (2004), the unseen force: the films of sam raimi (2004), an askew view: the films of kevin smith (2002), the encyclopedia of superheroes on film & television (2004), exploring space: 1999 (1997), an analytical guide to tv' s battlestar galactica (1998), terror television (2001), space: 1999 - the forsaken (2003) and horror films of the 1970s (2002) .
el verdugo is a farce or domestic comedy filled with macabre touches and scenes of black humor in which the taboos associated with death are transgressed. even the actual mode of execution is the subject of morbid jokes as the executioner, who garrots his victims, measures the neck size of his future son - in - law. the film is punctuated with these bits of gallows humor as well as with comic reversals that take the audience by surprise. a particularly fine example occurs at the end of the movie when the young executioner is carried kicking and screaming like the victim into the prison where he will perform his first execution. el verdugo shows that the biting black humor that we have come to associate with buñuel is, in more general terms, a spanish characteristic .
just a convenient place to group together all the films i’ve seen of the creepy persuasion .
cult tv flashback # 77: v: the series :
the rescue ...
the thing serves as the first movement in john carpenter’s self - named “apocalypse trilogy” (followed by 1987’s prince of darkness and 1994’s in the mouth of madness), and most genre fans are familiar with the general outline of the story, either from the remarkable campbell literary work, or the 1950s howard hawks version, the thing from another world (1951) .
ny: ballantine, 1986. first edition; first printing. paperback. isbn: 0345308891. illustrated by sweet, darrell k. . 243 pages; very good plus condition. this is a paperback - not a hardcover! faint front hinge crease. no spine creases. just a bit of shelf rub to cover edges. book store stamp on inside front cover. solid, clean. with primitive weapons an army of mutants and outcasts struggles to keep freedom alive... . very good + .
while jerusaleme remains silent throughout, the film is anything but. jarman brilliantly uses sound to enlarge the world of caravaggio and bring it to life, even as it provides a shrewd way of keeping the budget in check. to take one example, the small room at porto ercole where caravaggio lies dying is a minimal, but beautifully evocative, set. yet when jarman dubs in the sound of the nearby ocean (that he recorded on location at the actual village in italy), it expands the emotional reach of the physical space. instead of minimalist set at a former - warehouse sound stage, we can hear — and almost smell — the tyrrhenian sea .
the most important aspect of the film to realize was the continuing presence of an evil spirit or fallen angel named azazel. this cursed angel roamed the earth, without form, and could possess susceptible people' s souls by switching bodies after contact. azazel was an ancient diabolical presence and force that was almost impossible to track - it was eternally condemned to transmigrate from one soul to another .
caravaggio' s delirious (re) vision of his life, as he is about to leave it, recalls nikos kazantzakis' s well - known 1951 novel (and martin scorsese' s 1988 film version), the last temptation of christ, although jarman employs no twist ending. more subtly, caravaggio' s doubts and fears that pervade the entire film — in voice over he whispers ,
thought without image. lost in the pigment. trapped in the formless umber wastes .
— recall jesus' s anxiety in gethsemane, before his arrest and execution, as described in the gospel of mathew, beginning at 26: 36 .
fontana, london, 1981. reprint, softcover. very good condition. 9780006164326 this is the british paperback edition of this novelization of the 1981 film, based on the screenplay written by hal barwood and matthew robbins. printed in australia. the book has the previous owner' s name at the top of the first page. first softcover edition. size: 12mo (standard paperback). 218 pages. a very clean secondhand copy, with no damage apart from age toning of the page edges. please refer to accompanying picture (s). quantity available: 1 .
the opposite of scipione, in every way, is a pivotal character who nonetheless is often overshadowed: caravaggio' s mute assistant jerusaleme (perhaps the finest performance by actor spencer leigh). the artist bought him as a child from a hopelessly poor grandmother, who can only look to the heavens for solace, saying (in one of the film' s most poignant lines )
the stars are the diamonds of the poor .
caravaggio raises the boy —
i taught you the colors, and how to grind them... . the art of priming and glazing with soft squirrel brushes .
— but, even as a strikingly handsome adult, he remains just
a companion in my loneliness .
six hours, you think—wow, that sounds endless. but the best of youth doesn' t have a boring millisecond. it isn' t an art film, with longueurs; it' s a mini - series with the sweep of a classic novel, with tons of plot. not that giordana (or the screenwriters, sandro petraglia and stefano rulli) skim the surface. the scenes are short but penetrating; the tiniest exchanges can explode into epiphanies; and the five - year leaps are amazingly fluid. there is a kind of forthright lyricism in the way giordana handles the landscape and the characters' yearning for connection, meaning, and the high spirits of their youth. it' s that yearning that holds the episodic narrative together—along with a recurring, plangent musical motif that all but makes the screen shiver .
... demonstrating once again the difference between mere reaction to a genre film and actual criticism that brings out things in it we haven' t seen ourselves... .
( patrick murtha' s diary, 2 / 28 / 10 )
when you consider the basic narrative elements of noir fiction and film — they are all masterfully present, for example, in james m. cain 1936 novel and billy wilder' s 1944 picture, double indemnity — you' ll see that they synch up with jarman' s film: a cynical protagonist who' s also the self - deludingly omniscient narrator, a labyrinthine plot with escalating twists, frequent flashbacks (that make time as unstable as space — as does chiaroscuro), and an underlying sense of fatalism .
, there is a true story about a flasher who was bound in sailcloth and dumped in lake by the brothers of the girl he flashed at, and he grew into scarf michael. i don' t think he played a fiddle though .
there are scarf michael terrier dogs that one could believe have taken their name from lore but of the breed wynne - simmons confesses no knowledge .
there was a folk group that briefly took the name from the film ,
adds the director .
this mystical sports film from director phil alden robinson was about an iowa farmer named ray kinsella (kevin costner) who felt instructed by various voices to build a baseball field on his farmland in iowa. from the strange and compelling' voices,' he heard :
over the course of the film' s 40 years, italy is depicted as a beautiful but intractably corrupt place, yet the characters continue to work toward changing it. one of the brothers' pals, carlo (fabrizio gifuni), marries into the family and becomes a banker—but one who works toward an economic system that is transparent instead of cloaked. at the other end of the political spectrum, nicola has a daughter with a beautiful woman named giulia (sonia bergamasco), who drifts into communism, then maoism, and finally goes underground with the violent red brigade. she' s working to change the system from without— way, way without .
looking at the structure in broad strokes, it begins with caravaggio as a sassy youth (played by dexter fletcher), who charges for everything he sells, whether it' s his paintings, his body or, for the powerful but soft - spoken patron cardinal del monte, both. the majority of the film centers — in basically linear fashion — on the painter' s tempestuous relationship with the ruggedly sensual and amoral ranuccio and his ambitious girlfriend lena (who skyrockets from streetwalker to regal kept woman) .
the two enjoyed a game of catch between father and son one more time as the sun set .
el verdugo was the eighth feature film written and directed by luis garcía berlanga in collaboration with his longtime associate, rafael azcona. the story pivots upon the fate of a pleasant, if somewhat timid, young undertaker whose dream is to go to germany and become a mechanic. this dream is thwarted when he happens to meet the executioner in a prison where both of them are plying their trade. in spite of the aversion that the young man (and everyone else) feels for the executioner, he not only ends up marrying the executioner' s daughter, but even takes over his father - in - law' s business .
while jarman cast nigel terry for his talent — and he gives a career - making performance in the title role — he also bears an uncanny resemblance to the historical caravaggio, as he painted himself in several works and as depicted in ottavio leoni' s 1621 painting, the only documented portrait by another artist. this boded well for the entire production, that on september 2, 1985 at long, long last began to film .
at only 24 years old, burton apprenticed for walt disney productions working on storyboards, animations, and concept art. his dark, abstract style clashed with disney’s established aesthetic. fortunately, disney’s head of creative development recognized burton’s strong, unique talents and gave him $ 60, 000 to produce his own film. with the money and two months of production, burton wrote, directed, and designed vincent. upon completion, the film received limited distribution and was rumored to have never existed until it was added as a special feature to the nightmare before christmas in 2008 and added to cinema 16’s american short films .
the film opened with leading members of the faculty of herrington high school in ohio being taken over by murderous aliens. the first to be possessed was menacing hornets football coach joe willis (robert patrick), and then drama teacher mrs. karen olson (piper laurie) who used a pair of scissors to murder and also infect briskly efficient principal miss valerie drake (bebe neuwirth) .
was the recipient of many in a no less formidable age of quality and innovation. at the brussels fantasy festival it picked up both best film and critics' prizes, at san remo it added prizes for best first feature and best actress for mary ryan to the cabinets, while in geneva it garnered the' prix du publique'. at fantasporto 1984 it took both' premio especial' (special prize) and the juri da critica (jury prize) for ireland, in a year when films in competition from the british isles stood at
jarman was a genius at getting maximum emotional, and thematic, effect from the fewest possible elements. he worked closely with art director michael buchanan, costume designer sandy powell, cinematographer gabriel beristain, and his longtime friend christopher hobbs as the production designer and head of the four - person art department. hobbs also painted the caravaggio canvases seen in the film, although the budget allowed him to create only a few fully realized reproductions, such as
the lute player .
as jarman intended, most of the canvases accurately reflect caravaggio' s so - called
underpaintings ,
rough sketches that he later painted over to create his finished pictures .
shot in stark black and white, the film’s stop - motion animation is surreal and exaggerated as characters have big round eyes, tiny arms, and abstract faces. slanted walls, abstract shadows, and stylized sets establish malloy’s inner world filled with horror and isolation. barely over six minutes in length, burton’s vincent reveals the inner imagination of a child and relishes in the beauty of horror .
myles the matchmaker is involved because the younger of maura' s two sisters janey (bairbre ni chaoimh) is pregnant and the father is eamonn farrell (martin o' flathearta), son of conor (tom jordan), and the respective family patriarchs have famously not met one another on anything remotely approaching favourable terms for quite some time. the day of celebrations arrives and musicians in masks made of oat - straw appear and play, but it is not their tune that stops the proceedings momentarily. sailing in on the merriment is a quick and haunting fiddle from outside, the player scarf michael (mark lally), a magical figure tainted by talk of evil association. as the hearth fire tale at the beginning of the film spins it :
he' s the one plays a fiddle with a bow made of dead men' s hair .
that search for the modern in the historical — through anachronism — is perhaps the boldest aspect of jarman' s visual strategy. yet as noted above, it' s also precisely what caravaggio did with his biblical subjects: there were no 1600 - style doublets or feathered caps at the martyrdom of matthew (if, indeed, he even died that way: the bible and history are both mute). he also employs anachronistic sounds — like offscreen cars honking, a train whistle, a phone ringing — to expand further the limits of the film. as in so much of jarman, there' s more here than meets the ear or eye .
in light of this, it is good to be able to report that at least one of the festival' s key figures, werner herzog ('' fitzcarraldo''), is still going strong, and that he appears to be a film maker of persistent, enduring imagination .
in caravaggio, jarman brings together life and art in a manner that' s both comical (who hasn' t gotten bored trying to hold a pose) but revealing. thematically, this reintroduces both the body and the notion of time into paintings that are otherwise, by their nature, frozen. jarman reveals not only the messiness of life behind the pictures — from folly to violence — but, through this film, how they come together. is this the achievement of what haunted his fictional caravaggio: the joining together of flesh and blood, with canvas and paint ?
the narrative' s flip side — or is it? , jarman might ask — to the religious layer is, unexpectedly, film noir. admittedly, this is an unorthodox take on caravaggio, but know that jarman discussed noir directly with cinematographer gabriel beristain (as recounted in the latter' s video interview on the dvd), suggesting that caravaggio' s chiaroscuro helped invent noir style, with its (melo) dramatic, selective lighting and shadowy backgrounds. a classic example of the style can be seen in jacques tourneur' s noir landmark, out of the past (1947). in one shot, that bears a rough compositional similarity to
the martyrdom of saint matthew ,
two benighted characters sit huddled in a car, surrounded by pitch blackness — an impossibly blinding shaft of light (from the dashboard !) illuminates just their faces: it doesn' t get more chiaroscuro, or film noir, than that .
as caravaggio' s noir plot elements become unmistakable — during the scene in which jarman recreates
death of the virgin
— he uses, for the first time, a staple of noir lighting, the slatted pattern cast by venetian blinds (previously, jarman and his designers had gone to great pains to use only authentic period oil skin - covered windows). and this film' s end credits are an homage to perhaps the greatest noir, robert aldrich' s kiss me deadly (1955), whose world is so horrifically out of balance that even the credits run backwards .
grafton books, 1988. (film / tv tie - in). paperback. isbn: 9780586203781. [ paperback ] (edges
tanned
& spine wear) (good reading copy only) (hume cronyn, jessica tandy). good .
but jarman goes even further — psychologically and thematically — in one of his film' s most ambiguous moments. during caravaggio' s obsessive painting of ranuccio, now as the youthful
john the baptist
, he enters his darkened studio to see a muscular body, draped in the the baptist' s red cloak; but when the model rises, it' s not ranuccio — it' s jerusaleme holding the suggestive cane. this moment not only doubles — or taking caravaggio' s original into account, triples — the intertwining of life and art, it becomes a pivotal moment in the master / servant relationship. jerusaleme, at last, all but throws himself at the painter — only to be gently rebuffed. caravaggio will continue his self - frustrating quest to find
pure spirit in matter
to the end .
mr. skolimowski' s'' moonlighting'' is a tight, tense, narrow film, one that is brilliantly confined. just as'' deep end'' took place mostly at a london bath house,'' moonlighting'' is limited almost entirely to a town house and a few shops nearby. its characters, four polish workers, have come furtively to london to renovate the building, hired by a polish boss who hopes to emigrate some day. only one of them, the foreman (jeremy irons), speaks english. and it is his harrowing experience, as an absolute alien in a dangerous, unpredictable environment, on which the film concentrates. he is someone on whom the roof, quite literally, falls in .
you know, in my world, casey, there were limitless oceans as far as the eye could see. a beautiful home until it started to dry up. so i escaped, came here, and met you. all of you. all of you were different from the others. you were lost and lonely, just like me. and i thought that maybe, i could give you a taste of my world: a world without anger, without fear, without attitude. where the underachiever goes home at night to parents who care. the jock can be smart, the ugly duckling beautiful, and the class wuss doesn' t have to live in terror. and the new girl - - well, the new girl, she can just fit right in with people who are just like her. you see, casey, even marybeth' s feelings can be hurt by a bunch of pathetic, lost, little outcasts who truly believe that their disaffected lonely life is the only way they can survive. i can make you a part of something so special, casey, so perfect, so fearless. don' t you want that, casey ?
- - seeing those particular films back - to - back, one after the other, on the big screen .
have emerged as two of the most beloved (and forward - looking…) films of the age of reagan. they' ve defined the direction of their respective genres too .
'' the tyrant' s heart,'' on the other hand, caused many walkouts, even among the press audience, a notoriously patient crowd. festival press audiences will sit through almost anything without complaint, and it' s not uncommon to hear rousing applause at the end of a film that deserves none. but'' the tyrant' s heart,'' mr. jancso' s hungarian rennaissance fantasy replete with masks, wind machines, conveyor belts and mime, was more - or less - than even these viewers could bear .
eric rohmer and paul mazursky both have new films, but neither is a festival selection. bernardo bertolucci has been missing since'' luna,'' and robert altman is another once - frequent contributor who hasn' t had a festival film in a while .
we come full circle at the end, with a revealing flashback to caravaggio as a boy (in an angel costume), together with his beloved pasqualone, that suggests that he may have found his artistic calling through a fascination with jesus' s passion. jarman then brilliantly cuts through the next two decades of the artist' s life to show his monumental version of
the deposition of christ
— in which he' s paints himself as jesus. as that scene suggests, the film draws parallels, some obvious and some subtle, between the painter and jesus — although jarman directly recreates only that one of caravaggio' s several paintings with jesus. with
doubting thomas ,
mentioned above, jarman only suggests jesus by the costume and composition; but you' ll notice that caravaggio' s knife wound is in the same spot, on his ribs, as in the painting — like the one jesus on the cross received from a guard' s spear (as depicted in countless paintings over the centuries, including many that show the blood pouring into the holy grail) .
the scene climaxes when caravaggio makes ranuccio take a coin from his lips, then they kiss. ranuccio has been hoarding his day' s wages entirely inside his bulging mouth. (jarman later parallels this scene with one in which ranuccio and lena, lying in a hammock at a 180 degree angle to each other, cascade each other with the florins he' s earned — but lena herself will soon be in the money; and note that this' head to toe' configuration parallels jerusaleme' s position on the floor in relation to the dying caravaggio, whom he' s watching over: the more closely you look at this film, the more there is to see. )
[ beware of spoilers ] to put the matter bluntly, the triangle (2016) may just be the picnic at hanging rock (1975) of found - footag ...
as for the most enthusiastic audience reaction thus far, it has either been the wildly enthusiastic response to'' say amen, somebody,'' george t. nierenberg' s documentary about gospel music, or the cheers that greeted the press screening of'' koyaanisqatsi,'' godfrey reggio' s psychedelic compilation of images, with a philip glass score. why? well, because mr. reggio' s film is genuinely effective, and because it' s a good deal less pretentious than any description would make it sound.'' koyaanisqatsi'' did have an unfair advantage over other festival films, though: it was screened in radio city music hall, a place that is certain to put any film audience in a better - than - average frame of mind .
at 3: 33 pm (all clocks remain fixed at 3: 33 pm during the next segment of the film) while she took a soothing soak in an overflowing bathtub, she fell asleep - - and the dream commenced. laure was awakened when a distraught lily returned and committed suicide with a gun, near a flooding aquarium (hint !). to
start a new life
and escape pursuit, laure appropriated lily' s identity and flew to the us - conveniently meeting businessman mr. watts (peter coyote) on the plane and subsequently marrying him .
the workers are in london when martial law is suddenly instituted in poland, but the political crisis is only a part of their nightmare. mr. skolimowski makes everything sinister; the news bulletins about poland, the suspenseful score, even the sight of a cat crossing the street. these details are rigidly controlled by mr. skolimowski, and they are manipulated masterly .
in the satisfying epilogue, marge and her loving husband norm (john carroll lynch) were watching tv in bed. she congratulated him on being the winner of the usps oil painting competition (of a mallard duck) for the 3 - cent stamp, a necessity when the postal rate was to be increased .
the foreign chopper pilot and his cohort seem to be relentlessly (and madly ...) pursuing a dog, a malamute. the pilot attempts to kill the canine, but in the ensuing scuffle the helicopter is destroyed and an armed norwegian is shot dead by outpost 31’s macho commander, garry (moffat).
the outcasts , written and directed by robert wynne-simmons and starring mary ryan and mick lally , is an irish film completed in 1982 and broadcast in 1984 as part of uk 's channel 4 film on four series . it was the first irish feature film in 50 years , and as such started the revival of the irish film industry . 
the outcasts, written and directed by robert wynne-simmons and starring mary ryan and mick lally, is an irish film completed in 1982 and broadcast in 1984 as part of uk's channel 4 film on four series. it was the first irish feature film in 50 years, and as such started the revival of the irish film industry.
the outcasts, written and directed by robert wynne-simmons and starring mary ryan and mick lally, is an irish film completed in 1982 and broadcast in 1984 as part of uk's channel 4 film on four series. it was the first irish feature film in 50 years, and as such started the revival of the irish film industry.