437 Vampyr

Discuss releases by Criterion and the films on them. Threads may contain spoilers!
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
HerrSchreck
Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am

#126 Post by HerrSchreck » Wed Jul 16, 2008 4:03 pm

You're a sick man, Tav.

(My comment ties to my running narrative in the Satantango thread re me in Kims looking for Vamp all week, each day walking out w something else until it finally arrived today.)

User avatar
HerrSchreck
Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am

#127 Post by HerrSchreck » Wed Jul 16, 2008 7:40 pm

The transfer is a knockout, and so is the soundtrack. It's literally like seeing the film all over again. The skull that many people missed (which is also reprinted on the inside sleeve of the digipak) is mounted up on the wall near the door that Gray goes thru to enter the room at just after 16 minutes, the room he enters just after exiting the previous room filled with skulls and tiny skeletons & mummies, books, etc. Then a little later when the old man lets Gray out of the chateau after telling him "No dogs and no children here!"-- and then opens the door to let the old female vamp in from the side door (it just occurred to me for the first time how much she resembles the witch-- Herlof's Marte-- in Ordet.. sort of a sinister, malevolent version of Herlofs Marte), there's a cut back to this skull in c/u, and the eyes light up from inside.

This is such a wonderful re-experience of the film, one of the best I've ever had in all my experience with home video. CC have not overdone the digital processing of the film.. it looks very filmlike, the transfer expresses the condition of the film reels/photochemical restoration in 99.

So many more things become visible, even beyond the opening up of the framing to full 1.20... watch at exactly 16.00 in the film, the reflection caught in the shuttered window... you see the operator turning the wheel to pan the camera. So many more details are heard in Zellers absolutely sublime score (it's truly one of my favorite scores in all cinema).

I was feeling very (indulgent exhale, buffs nails on lapel, studies them luxuriously in the light) happy with myself reading the booklet... dismissing the style and practice of german expressionism and it's practitioners, Kim Newman says the film Vampyr most resembles (among other French titles, but the following is first on his list of primary influences) is Epstein's Fall of the House of Usher. I am no longer a lone voice viz this assertion.

Yea Kim! You go boy!

User avatar
Gregor Samsa
Joined: Sun Aug 06, 2006 4:41 am

#128 Post by Gregor Samsa » Mon Jul 21, 2008 5:11 am

This arrived today---very nice package. I haven't had time to watch the actual movie yet, but its worth noting that the screenplay is a new combination between an earlier English translation (Oliver Stallybrass) and restored sections from the final French draft, indicated in itallics. Very cool. 8-)

User avatar
dadaistnun
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 8:31 am

#129 Post by dadaistnun » Tue Jul 22, 2008 8:16 am


User avatar
Michael
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 12:09 pm

#130 Post by Michael » Tue Jul 22, 2008 9:41 am

I remain utterly destroyed by Vampyr since last night. My god. Even after having seen the Image disc three times before, it was really like watching the film for the first time. So enthereally beautiful. A dreamy, icy sigh of death, loss and longing.

User avatar
reaky
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 8:53 am
Location: Cambridge, England

#131 Post by reaky » Tue Jul 22, 2008 5:12 pm

Anybody in a position to compare the transfer with the MK2 (aspect ratio aside)?

User avatar
HerrSchreck
Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am

#132 Post by HerrSchreck » Tue Jul 22, 2008 5:19 pm

Why even be interested in the MK2?

User avatar
HerrSchreck
Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am

#133 Post by HerrSchreck » Tue Jul 22, 2008 5:31 pm

The lesbo subtext in LeFanu's Camilla is apparently quite unabashed and pronounced... though I havent read the story yet (inlcuded in the CC package).

User avatar
colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

#134 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Jul 22, 2008 6:47 pm

The LeFanu story was also used as a loose ur-text for the Hammer lesbian vampire cycle (or Karstein trilogy) of The Vampire Lovers, Lust For A Vampire and Twins Of Evil. Also Roger Vadim's Blood And Roses. Lots of links here.

Also, something that might particularly interest Lino, here is the Kate Bush take on Carmilla!

User avatar
Tribe
The Bastard Spawn of Hank Williams
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 7:59 pm
Location: Toledo, Ohio
Contact:

#135 Post by Tribe » Tue Jul 22, 2008 7:06 pm

davidhare wrote: there is always of course the apocryphal or otherwise story of Dreyer becoming obsessed if not actually in love with DP Rudy Mate and suffering an emotional breakdown after the shooting.
Can you elaborate on this, David?

User avatar
reaky
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 8:53 am
Location: Cambridge, England

#136 Post by reaky » Wed Jul 23, 2008 2:44 am

HerrSchreck wrote:Why even be interested in the MK2?
Pity the unfortunate man who already owns it and is wondering whether he can stretch to a double-dip.

I was impressed by the MK2 image quality and honestly, if the pillar-boxing issue is the only difference, I can't justify repurchasing. The screengrabs of the Criterion look fairly similar in sharpness and clarity.

User avatar
Lino
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:18 am
Location: Sitting End
Contact:

#137 Post by Lino » Thu Jul 24, 2008 4:27 pm

colinr0380 wrote:Also, something that might particularly interest Lino, here is the Kate Bush take on Carmilla!
I cannot seem able to open it. What is it?

User avatar
Kinsayder
Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2005 6:22 pm
Location: UK

#138 Post by Kinsayder » Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:06 pm

Lino wrote:
colinr0380 wrote:Also, something that might particularly interest Lino, here is the Kate Bush take on Carmilla!
I cannot seem able to open it. What is it?
It sounds like a cat in heat. Or possibly a small pig being tortured.

User avatar
colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

#139 Post by colinr0380 » Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:18 pm

Kinsayder wrote:
Lino wrote:
colinr0380 wrote:Also, something that might particularly interest Lino, here is the Kate Bush take on Carmilla!
I cannot seem able to open it. What is it?
It sounds like a cat in heat. Or possibly a small pig being tortured.
Ouch! It is Surrender Into The Roses, lyrics here.

User avatar
Lino
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:18 am
Location: Sitting End
Contact:

#140 Post by Lino » Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:44 pm

Interesting. I've had that song for ages now (along with all the others little Cathy wrote, played and sang when she was still a teenager screaming her lungs out in the attic of her parent's house - further proof that she was a natural talent and a prodigious songwriter of the first order) and never noticed the connection. Hmm. As soon as I get home, I think I'll have a listen to them all over again. Particular fan of Where Are the Lionhearts. Exquisite melody.

User avatar
HerrSchreck
Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am

#141 Post by HerrSchreck » Thu Jul 24, 2008 6:00 pm

Casper Tyberg's brilliant visual essay also-- in addition to Kim Newman's assignation of Epstein's Usher as the primary influence-- singles out Chute de la Maison Usher as a singular inspiration on the style of-- and method of making (independent filmmaker fulfilling his vision outside of the realm of the big studio system) Vampyr. Aside from the similarity in the foggy, twilit, melancholic & half-awake impressionist visual style shared by both films, he points out how both films concern the arrival of travellers to dilapidated, crumbling mansions in the French countryside... how the owners of the chateaus live in a shadowy twilight world of gloom and decay with nearly mute servants attending sadly to them as they wait for what they believe to be impending death or doom with family members who seem to be sleepwalking.. how the surrounding countryside is full of fog and mist and swamp, and how the Traveller becomes entwined in the occupant's brush with the forces of shadow and death.

He also points out a motif apparently picked up from Murnau's Nosferatu, namely, the use of some garden variety of one or another Book of Vampires, whose pages are photographed directly from the point of view of the reader-- and that it is thru this device (as opposed to an explanation put in the mouth of a van Helsing like character) that the character of the vampire is exposited.

I've still not yet gone through the Rayns' commentary while fully lucid (I started it one evening while half-awake) so I can't comment one way or another. I've heard my share of Rayns' commentaries-- but is it me or does the man increasingly seem to be fancying himself quite the Aristocratic Scholar? His tones and verbal flourishes seem to be getting more and more high-winded, and sounds increasingly like he's reading at Court or something?

Via Salvatore
Joined: Wed May 28, 2008 6:16 pm

#142 Post by Via Salvatore » Thu Jul 24, 2008 6:32 pm

Epstein's Usher: where can I get it? None of online stores carries it.

User avatar
HerrSchreck
Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am

#143 Post by HerrSchreck » Thu Jul 24, 2008 7:12 pm

Barnes & Noble.

some Amazon listings

movies unlimited.

Seems too cheap to believe but check here.

Otherwise it does seem to be going on backorder, or maybe oop. Should be a warning to those who still havent grabbed this amazing film, which ties w Sunrise & Menilmontant & Passion of Joan of Arc for me as the best film ever made. Hunt it up in stores or online, if you're a fan of silents or cinema-fantastique, or gothic imagery, or just plain pure cinema. It's a masterpiece of the highest order!

Zobalob
Joined: Thu Jul 03, 2008 9:34 pm
Location: Scotland

#144 Post by Zobalob » Thu Jul 24, 2008 10:10 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:..... if you're a fan of silents or cinema-fantastique, or gothic imagery, or just plain pure cinema. It's a masterpiece of the highest order!
+1
Great, great film, Bunuel also had a small input, he was initially involved as co-director but dropped out I believe.

User avatar
dadaistnun
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 8:31 am

#145 Post by dadaistnun » Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:46 am

I've seen this film many times, including a screening at the Eastman House of a (French? I can't recall exactly) print for which a reel-to-reel tape machine playing a recording of James Card reading an English translation of the vampire book text was synced up; and one of the then-current curators (I'm blanking on his name, but it wasn't Paolo Cherci Usai) sat in the back part of the balcony translating the (I believe Danish) subtitles over a mirocphone. An odd, almost multimedia experience, to be sure. I put the dvd on last night and just sat there in a state of awe at how good it looks (and sounds; Schreck's right, that Zeller score is a knockout). Full of filmy grainy goodness.

re: the Epstein: it's youtube quality of course, but the whole enchilada is on there. It's also still available directly from All Day.

User avatar
HerrSchreck
Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am

#146 Post by HerrSchreck » Fri Jul 25, 2008 10:18 am

Zobalob wrote:
HerrSchreck wrote:..... if you're a fan of silents or cinema-fantastique, or gothic imagery, or just plain pure cinema. It's a masterpiece of the highest order!
Great, great film, Bunuel also had a small input, he was initially involved as co-director but dropped out I believe.
Yea he dropped out owing to artistic differences with Epstein, who-- Bunuel thought-- was making a film that would turn out into one giant laughable flop lacking all sense and coherence. He walked away from it declaring he wanted no part or credential on the end product.

He went to see it when completed and-- to his credit-- admitted he was completely wrong and Epstein was absolutely right.. and that he couldn't see what Epstein was seeing when looking through the camera and seeing the picture as a coherent whole in his head prior to it's completion. The film went on to be extremely successful for Epstein, and in fact was the only film of his that made it to America, and in fact was a success there too. Not one of Bunuel's proudest moments to be sure, as this was probably Epstein's most successful film!

User avatar
Michael
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 12:09 pm

#147 Post by Michael » Fri Jul 25, 2008 10:45 am

There is no film like Vampyr or Usher but they do make the perfect double bill. They are "mansions" of gothic gloom, most uniquely realized via impressionism.
davidhare wrote:Michael PMed me and wanted to raise the gay textual moments from the movie. I think there is pretty uncontroversial sense that the dynamic between Sylvia and Sybille Schmidt has a Sapphic dimension (and that theme is fully realized of course in Lambert Hillyer's wonderful Dracula's Daughter, post code in 36!)

As for Allen Gray I perceive him as a kind of generic neurasthenic out of Huysman or Baudelaire whose interest in the "other side" is a symptom of general perversity. I don't think I can take that much further, if only for the question fo how much he represents Dreyer's own persona in the film, but there is always of course the apocryphal or otherwise story of Dreyer becoming obsessed if not actually in love with DP Rudy Mate and suffering an emotional breakdown after the shooting.
Very interesting. I first saw Vampyr long before I knew anything about Dreyer, who he was, etc. and that was ages ago. My impression of Allen Gray has always been this: a gay man. It's just the way he carries himself, the vibe he keeps giving me. He's by myself in an inn and instinctively explores the "other side". (Or maybe it's just my lust. He's a very beautiful man.) More than anything, Vampyr is the "landscape of a haunted soul". But then I learned that Dreyer made a sublime gay film named Michael. And then Joan of Arc, in that film Joan always comes off as a lesbo to me. I have not seen the latter in a very long time but I remember being struck by one (or more) scene that made me question Joan's sexuality.

Elmyr
Joined: Wed May 14, 2008 7:30 pm

#148 Post by Elmyr » Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:22 pm

Not to be stalking you from site to site David, but I was very surprised at how dismissive and hostile the reaction was at Kehr's blog. Of course it didn't matter to the opposition whether Dreyer or any other director was gay or straight. "Only the film matters!" "Lets stay away from these kind of sordid details!" I like how things suddenly become "sordid" only when a director may be gay. Dreyer's films are the most important part of all this, but to act like his personal life has no bearing on what are clearly deeply felt films strikes me as hopelessly naive.

User avatar
ellipsis7
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 1:56 pm
Location: Dublin

#149 Post by ellipsis7 » Sat Jul 26, 2008 3:19 am

Interestingly hereabouts the 30 year conflict of The Troubles in Northern Ireland between 'prods' and 'tagues', bombing, shooting each other etc., has been replaced in Peace Process Ireland by a new divide in the province between moral liberalism and conservatism... Attitudes to abortion and gay rights to the fore of the debate...

This came to a head in the last couple of weeks with the remarks of Iris Robinson, wife of Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson, and a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly in her own right, describing 'homosexuality as vile' and saying that the government 'must uphold God's law' then digging an even larger hole trying to explain herself...
“What I clearly intended to say was that child abuse was worse than homosexuality and sodomy,” said Robinson apparently oblivious to the fact that to equate homosexuality in any way to paedophilia was just as inappropriate and insulting.
She also reportedly claimed to know 'a psychiatrist who could turn gay people straight'!...

Responding to this Old Testament evoking of hellfire and abomination, Sinn Fein/IRA (in peace mode) publicly and prominently aligned itself with Gay rights groups...

Strange but true!... You have to laugh... At least they're not using guns...
Last edited by ellipsis7 on Sat Jul 26, 2008 8:00 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Tootletron
Joined: Thu Feb 28, 2008 10:01 pm

#150 Post by Tootletron » Sat Jul 26, 2008 3:46 am

Was anyone else mildly disappointed in the commentary? Maybe it's because I have so many questions about the movie (most will probably remain unanswered) that I got tired of hearing how "disconcerting" every other image and describing very obviously what the camera is doing.

Post Reply