Theater of Blood

Theater of Blood (1989) is unfortunately unlisted throughout the internet.  The director is no where to be found and while we watched it during the same time as the Student Academy Awards, it was hard to find any credit for it in the long list of winners.  I guess it was possibly nominated in the late 80’s.

Either way, this film is super special to me (and the class) because the majority of it takes place on Arcadia’s (which was then known as Beaver College) campus! And more importantly, Murphy Hall, which is where our class takes place and where I personally spend a lot of my time.  Murphy Hall has definitely become my favourite building on campus too so I really enjoyed that part of campus being the main setting for this film.  I wasn’t completely impressed by this film, I thought it was a little difficult to follow.  But, I will say it was pretty unique in it’s entirety and I really liked the whole story of the relationship between the actor and director/writer and how the actor eventually turns on the script and attacks the director.  I thought the music was a really good choice and helpful with the film’s plot.  It was definitely creepy.  I also liked the fact that it was a thriller and kept me on my toes for most of it, I really was wondering what would happen next as the director went through this constant struggle within his story.

Daybreak Express

By D.A. Pennebaker

I thought this was a really nice change to what we’ve been seeing lately in class. It was just different in the sense that it was more about the images themselves and the soundtrack as opposed to having to follow a story line along with those components. It was essentially a music video, or at least that’s how it felt. And after doing some research on Pennebaker, I’ve come to find that he’s done a lot of work with musicians. A lot of his films are musically-orientated. But, this one was just free and images that were filmed really well and put together really well. I am planning on watching some more of his films, especially the documentary of Bob Dylan’s tour in 1967.

Strange Films

Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) by Maya Deren

Maya Deren was an American avant-garde filmmaker and film theorist of the 1940s and 1950s.  Meshes of the Afternoon was her first and best-known film. The music for the film was composed by her third husband, Teiji Ito.

This movie was weird, to say the least. There were a lot of things running through my mind after the first 5 minutes and it would make sense of that was the director’s intention. I was confused for most of it and it was pretty easy to remove myself emotionally because I was lost. But, I don’t have to understand a movie for it to be something great. It is a piece of art in the sense that it doesn’t need to be understood and a lot of the images were artistic and avant-garde. I wasn’t a fan of this movie, to be honest. The soundtrack may have been the deciding factor for me, however, I think I can understand why it helps the film because it can be considered as a horror film. There was just this screeching sound that was almost unbearable to listen to. Maybe the volume of the film was too high, I’m not sure but it really distracted me from the actual movie.

O Dreamland (1953) by Lindsay Anderson

Lindsay Anderson is a British film director, theatre and documentary director, film critic and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and the British New Wave.

The British New Wave is the name given to a trend in filmmaking among directors in Britain in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

The main thing that I liked about this film was the idea of observing society and I think the director chose a perfect place to really get the true sense of a culture. Dialogue didn’t feel necessary but it really gave me a creepy feeling because of the sounds that were going on throughout the film. The constant laughing really freaked me out. But, it really accentuated the purpose of the film. I found a quote by Gavin Lambert, who was also apart of the Free Cinema movement and he describes the film extremely well, in my opinion.

“Everything is ugly… It is almost too much. The nightmare is redeemed by the point of view, which, for all the unsparing candid camerawork and the harsh, inelegant photography, is emphatically humane. Pity, sadness, even poetry is infused into this drearily tawdry, aimlessly hungry world.” (http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001461.php)