Witchfinder General
Feb. 1st, 2005 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloI spent an evening with the Witchfinder General. Ghastly things happen in an England of meadows and copses and vast East Anglian skies. A Cromwellian soldier gallops across pastureland, scattering sheep to a soundtrack of pastiche Vaughan Williams. As cheap, badly written movies go, it's a masterpiece.
This is the restored edition- and you can tell exactly what the censor cut for the first British release because the excised material has been grafted in from a degraded copy- so the action keeps going fuzzy at moments of high brutality. Censorship is stupid. Some of these cuts seem to have been made simply to flex authoritarian muscle and let the filmmakers know who's boss, because the stuff that's been taken out is no stronger than what's been left in. And in other places the effect of the cut is to heighten disgust and horror because the thing you picture in your head is always worse than anything that can be shown on screen.
Vincent Price gives what is arguably his finest performance ever. Michael Reeves, the director, told him not to wave his arms about so much. Price drew himself up and said, "Young man, I've made 84 movies. How many have you made?" And Reeves replied, "two good ones." Price, to his credit, fell about laughing.
This was Reeves'last film. He killed himself, probably by accident, with an overdose of sleeping tablets.
This is the restored edition- and you can tell exactly what the censor cut for the first British release because the excised material has been grafted in from a degraded copy- so the action keeps going fuzzy at moments of high brutality. Censorship is stupid. Some of these cuts seem to have been made simply to flex authoritarian muscle and let the filmmakers know who's boss, because the stuff that's been taken out is no stronger than what's been left in. And in other places the effect of the cut is to heighten disgust and horror because the thing you picture in your head is always worse than anything that can be shown on screen.
Vincent Price gives what is arguably his finest performance ever. Michael Reeves, the director, told him not to wave his arms about so much. Price drew himself up and said, "Young man, I've made 84 movies. How many have you made?" And Reeves replied, "two good ones." Price, to his credit, fell about laughing.
This was Reeves'last film. He killed himself, probably by accident, with an overdose of sleeping tablets.
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Date: 2005-02-01 05:46 am (UTC)I love Vincent Price. If this is his best performance, I need to find it.
The Wicker Man sounds odd and interesting, too.
I've been teetering on the edge of Netflicks, which is our dvd-by-mail service. Maybe it's time to look into it.
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Date: 2005-02-01 06:24 am (UTC)Michael Reeves got a very quiet, dead-eyed performance out of Price- not typical at all. The film is cheesy and brutal but transformed by its doomy, romantic feel for the English countryside. In the end it transcends genre.
The Wicker Man is about a Christian cop investigating suspicious happenings on a Hebridean island with a neo-pagan culture. Christopher Lee thinks it's his best film and he's probably right.
Oh, yeah- give Netflicks a whirl- you won't be sorry.
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Date: 2005-02-01 06:36 am (UTC)Unfortunately, they didn't have Witchmaster General! But I did find and reserve Wicker Man.
Do you have some foreign film recommendations? As soon as I send three back, I get three more, so I need to prepare a long list!
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Date: 2005-02-01 07:09 am (UTC)Recommendations? Where to begin?
I'm a Bergman nut, so I've got to start with him.
The Seventh Seal- the one where the knight plays chess with Death.
Winter Light- a priest and his mistress agonize over his loss of faith.
The Passion of Anna- a heavily disguised version of Christ's passion. I'm the only person alive who understands it.
Cries and Whispers- Three sisters in an old manor house. One of them is dying. Spooky and deeply moving- B at the very height of his powers.
Fanny and Alexander- A six-hour family saga. Christmas festivities, a creepy Bishop and lots of ghosts. What more could one possibly ask for?
I'm mad about Kurosawa too.
Ran- King Lear recast as a Samurai epic- incredibly beautiful.
Ikiru- sad old man rediscovers the meaning of life. The Japanese It's a Wonderful Life- only better.
And for a lovely romantic wallow.
Les Enfants du Paradis. Wartime French movie about the 19th century Parisian theatre. "c'est si simple, l'amour."
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Date: 2005-02-01 07:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-01 07:24 am (UTC)You left out the "a" as in a href=
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Date: 2005-02-01 07:35 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2005-02-01 07:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-01 07:43 am (UTC)I meant: be sure to end your code with a bracketed /a
(If I lay in the brackets, the /a will disappear on me!)
Here I am, cluttering up your posts again. But I mean well.
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Date: 2005-02-01 07:48 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2005-02-01 07:39 am (UTC)as: [first code][some TEXT]
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Date: 2005-02-01 07:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2005-02-01 07:48 am (UTC)Ikiru sounds intriguing but sad enough to make me want to open a vein...
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Date: 2005-02-01 07:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-01 07:57 am (UTC)But I hope it doesn't just make me sad.
And I ordered the cryptic Anna. Let's just see if you alone on the planet can understand it! Ha ha!
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Date: 2005-02-01 08:13 am (UTC)The Passion of Anna is (actually) misnamed. Misleadingly so. Bergman's original title is simply A Passion. This was changed by U.S. distributors who wanted to con the public into thinking it was getting a Swedish sex film. The passion isn't Anna's at all, but somebody else's.
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Date: 2005-02-01 08:05 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2005-02-01 08:50 am (UTC)I always remember Vincent Price in "Edward Scissorhands". It was his last performance...and the movie was sad enough anyway. I defy anyone to watch it and not cry.
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Date: 2005-02-01 09:04 am (UTC)The Day the Earth Stood Still--wasn't Patricia Neal in that, too? She is from Knoxville.
I ordered Crack in the World and When Worlds Collide.
I love all those women screaming, and the professors in the rooms with meters and typewriters.