_____V_____
10-31-2008, 11:04 PM
I read a similar article at another website and thought, it would be a swell idea to get nostalgic and relive the moments of our past which shaped the world, and our favorite genre, into what it is today.
Over the next few weeks, similar journeys to the past will bring back vivid visuals and sights from our memories which we remember very fondly. But now, let's hit the golden "Rewind" button and pass through a revolutionary decade - the 60s.
(All credit goes to the original author who wrote the initial descriptions. I put forth my choice of movies only. The Blurbs have been taken from the Stickied Top 100s and related threads.)
The Swingin' Sixties.
Free love. Psychedelia. Civil rights. Flower Power. Counterculture. Hunter S Thompson. The Beatles and the British Invasion. The Martin Luther King assassination. The sexual revolution. Woodstock. Vietnam and the Anti-War movement. The Doors. The JFK assassination. Muhammad Ali. Walking on the moon. The Ford Mustang. The BASIC programming language. The Malcolm X assassination. Andy Warhol's cans of soup. Jimi Hendrix. Motown Records. Richard Nixon, President. Spider-Man. Marshall McLuhan. Jacques Derrida. Charles Manson. Che Guevara rocks the revolution. LSD. Frank Zappa.
What. A. Decade.
'If you remember anything about the sixties, you weren't really there,' memorably said Jefferson Airplane guitarman Paul Kantner -- and while most of us might not have been there, we're still reeling from the impact. The cultural significance of the 1960s beats any other twentieth century decade hollow.
Film was massively impacted by counterculture. Sex, violence and anarchy took over cinema, breaking boundaries with every step. Europe saw La Nouvelle Vague, the French New Wave movement -- and the Italian filmmakers hit absolute peak.
The new cameras were cheaper, lighter, and just crying out for experimentation -- thus kicked off the avant-garde movement. There was a movement every which way you looked, and as Hollywood's 'studio system' ripped apart at the seams, we saw the birth of younger, fierier 'New Hollywood.'
It's a really tough decade to boil down into a ten-movie list, but here, strictly in chronological order, are 10 Horror films of my choice that literally rocked the world.
1 - Eyes Without A Face aka Les Yeux Sans Visage (1960)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51HBHJJ9JXL._SL500_AA280_.jpg
Released in 1960 to harsh critical review, Les Yeux sans Visage in time would raise the bar for horror to come. Hauntingly lyrical and atmospheric, this film tells the tale of a brilliant surgeon gone mad with grief over the disfigurement/destruction of his daughter's face, resorting to horrifying extremes to make her pretty again. It's a film that is beautiful and serene throughout, punctuated with harsh violence and dazzling imagery.
After bouncing perfectly between these two extremes for 80+ minutes, it finishes with a poetically powerful climax, securing its spot among the most original, aesthetic, and shocking horror films of all time.
2 - Peeping Tom (1960)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51CSX15YPJL._SL500_AA280_.jpg
Voyeurism. We all do it. Movies in general are nothing if not voyeuristic. We are allowed to sit back anonymously and watch all manner of spectacle that we might otherwise never see. But in 1959, Michael Beohm’s portrayal of painfully shy newspaper photographer, Mark Lewis, took the concept a step further…and a step too far according to the critics and censors of the day. Lewis likes pornography… and he likes to kill beautiful women. Okay, we’ve seen that before. And he likes to film them as he kills them. Now’s it’s getting a little kinky. What’s more, he likes his victims to see themselves being killed – thanks to a mirror attached to the front of his movie camera. Forcing a victim to be a voyeur to her own death was a concept too deviant, too depraved for the audiences of the day. The film was savaged by the critics. Director Michael Powell’s career was ruined. Actor Carl Boehm’s career suffered similarly.
Twenty years after its release, Martin Scorsese hailed the film as a lost masterpiece after his editor (and Powell’s widow) Thelma Schoonmacher screened a print of the film for him. Bathed in the sleezy, lurid glow of primary colors and populated by prostitutes, smut peddlers and an angel-faced murderer; Peeping Tom is still a pretty powerful and provocative film.
3 - Psycho (1960)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41%2Blno-4ZfL._AA280_.jpg
Alfred Hitchcock's darkest and scariest movie works on so many levels because it so sucessfully blends so many genres so intricately. In fact, the film could technically be uniquely categorized as a romantic-noir-slasher-con-drama-twist-detective flick. Mostly, though, what makes it so damn effective is its characters; after all, in order for a horror film to work, it needs believable characters. Hitchcock lets us get to know his beings so well that by the end of the film it feels like we've been through a hurricane.
Psycho was the birth of the slasher film, and is certainly one of the most shocking, but it is something much finer than that. It is what links the horror genre to class, and what stepped the industry's bar up so high. It is truly a legend and a revolution in film-making.
4 - Black Sunday aka La Maschera Del Demonio (1960)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51qFWv8cMyL._SL500_AA280_.jpg
Black Sunday is a masterpiece amongst masterpieces from one of the greatest directors of all time: Mario Bava. I really don't know what it is about Bava that I love so much. Is it his use of color? Is it his willingness to push the boundaries of all sorts of taboos? Is it his imaginative set designs, or his use of atmosphere in general? It's all these things... and so much more. There is no better example of all the subtle brilliance that made Bava a legend in Black Sunday, supposedly Tim Burton's favorite horror film of all time. and I whole-heartedly agree with Burton.
The movie starts out with a good, old fashioned, witch burning. But this is no ordinary, every day, witch burning! They put the Mask of Satan on this particular witch (played by the gorgeous scream queen, Barbara Steele, in a dual role no less!), who seems to be part vampire-part witch, to hold all of her powers in. And if the Mask should come off? Look out, good guys!!
In Steele's other role, she plays a girl who is, naturally, a descendant of the witch, who wishes to possess her body with the help of her sidekick after being brought back to life.
The plot is great, but the film is more than just the plot. It's been rated in many lists as one of the top 5 horror films ever made and it's due almost solely to the haunting atmosphere and amazingly rich set design. Why do we watch foreign movies, and foreign horror in particular? Because directors like Bava have no interest in pandering to Hollywood spoon-fed audiences, and this results in some of the most adventurous and creative film-making in cinema history.
5 - Carnival of Souls (1962)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51d41LsWVfL._SL500_AA280_.jpg
A young woman, Mary, is in a car crash at the beginning of this film. She appears to be the only survivor, and she is now haunted by an apparition of a mysterious evil looking man. After the crash she tries to go on with her life, but she has trouble relating to people. She lands a job as a church organist but loses the job after the minister witnesses her orgiastic bout of almost demonic music. Throughout the film she's drawn to a deserted amusement park where she sees ghoulish figures. She loses her grip on reality more and more, as she sees these figures with increasing regularity. Finally, visiting the deserted pavilion once more, she joins the world of the apparitions and we learn an astonishing secret...which is one of the biggest twists in this cult classic.
(Contd.)
Over the next few weeks, similar journeys to the past will bring back vivid visuals and sights from our memories which we remember very fondly. But now, let's hit the golden "Rewind" button and pass through a revolutionary decade - the 60s.
(All credit goes to the original author who wrote the initial descriptions. I put forth my choice of movies only. The Blurbs have been taken from the Stickied Top 100s and related threads.)
The Swingin' Sixties.
Free love. Psychedelia. Civil rights. Flower Power. Counterculture. Hunter S Thompson. The Beatles and the British Invasion. The Martin Luther King assassination. The sexual revolution. Woodstock. Vietnam and the Anti-War movement. The Doors. The JFK assassination. Muhammad Ali. Walking on the moon. The Ford Mustang. The BASIC programming language. The Malcolm X assassination. Andy Warhol's cans of soup. Jimi Hendrix. Motown Records. Richard Nixon, President. Spider-Man. Marshall McLuhan. Jacques Derrida. Charles Manson. Che Guevara rocks the revolution. LSD. Frank Zappa.
What. A. Decade.
'If you remember anything about the sixties, you weren't really there,' memorably said Jefferson Airplane guitarman Paul Kantner -- and while most of us might not have been there, we're still reeling from the impact. The cultural significance of the 1960s beats any other twentieth century decade hollow.
Film was massively impacted by counterculture. Sex, violence and anarchy took over cinema, breaking boundaries with every step. Europe saw La Nouvelle Vague, the French New Wave movement -- and the Italian filmmakers hit absolute peak.
The new cameras were cheaper, lighter, and just crying out for experimentation -- thus kicked off the avant-garde movement. There was a movement every which way you looked, and as Hollywood's 'studio system' ripped apart at the seams, we saw the birth of younger, fierier 'New Hollywood.'
It's a really tough decade to boil down into a ten-movie list, but here, strictly in chronological order, are 10 Horror films of my choice that literally rocked the world.
1 - Eyes Without A Face aka Les Yeux Sans Visage (1960)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51HBHJJ9JXL._SL500_AA280_.jpg
Released in 1960 to harsh critical review, Les Yeux sans Visage in time would raise the bar for horror to come. Hauntingly lyrical and atmospheric, this film tells the tale of a brilliant surgeon gone mad with grief over the disfigurement/destruction of his daughter's face, resorting to horrifying extremes to make her pretty again. It's a film that is beautiful and serene throughout, punctuated with harsh violence and dazzling imagery.
After bouncing perfectly between these two extremes for 80+ minutes, it finishes with a poetically powerful climax, securing its spot among the most original, aesthetic, and shocking horror films of all time.
2 - Peeping Tom (1960)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51CSX15YPJL._SL500_AA280_.jpg
Voyeurism. We all do it. Movies in general are nothing if not voyeuristic. We are allowed to sit back anonymously and watch all manner of spectacle that we might otherwise never see. But in 1959, Michael Beohm’s portrayal of painfully shy newspaper photographer, Mark Lewis, took the concept a step further…and a step too far according to the critics and censors of the day. Lewis likes pornography… and he likes to kill beautiful women. Okay, we’ve seen that before. And he likes to film them as he kills them. Now’s it’s getting a little kinky. What’s more, he likes his victims to see themselves being killed – thanks to a mirror attached to the front of his movie camera. Forcing a victim to be a voyeur to her own death was a concept too deviant, too depraved for the audiences of the day. The film was savaged by the critics. Director Michael Powell’s career was ruined. Actor Carl Boehm’s career suffered similarly.
Twenty years after its release, Martin Scorsese hailed the film as a lost masterpiece after his editor (and Powell’s widow) Thelma Schoonmacher screened a print of the film for him. Bathed in the sleezy, lurid glow of primary colors and populated by prostitutes, smut peddlers and an angel-faced murderer; Peeping Tom is still a pretty powerful and provocative film.
3 - Psycho (1960)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41%2Blno-4ZfL._AA280_.jpg
Alfred Hitchcock's darkest and scariest movie works on so many levels because it so sucessfully blends so many genres so intricately. In fact, the film could technically be uniquely categorized as a romantic-noir-slasher-con-drama-twist-detective flick. Mostly, though, what makes it so damn effective is its characters; after all, in order for a horror film to work, it needs believable characters. Hitchcock lets us get to know his beings so well that by the end of the film it feels like we've been through a hurricane.
Psycho was the birth of the slasher film, and is certainly one of the most shocking, but it is something much finer than that. It is what links the horror genre to class, and what stepped the industry's bar up so high. It is truly a legend and a revolution in film-making.
4 - Black Sunday aka La Maschera Del Demonio (1960)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51qFWv8cMyL._SL500_AA280_.jpg
Black Sunday is a masterpiece amongst masterpieces from one of the greatest directors of all time: Mario Bava. I really don't know what it is about Bava that I love so much. Is it his use of color? Is it his willingness to push the boundaries of all sorts of taboos? Is it his imaginative set designs, or his use of atmosphere in general? It's all these things... and so much more. There is no better example of all the subtle brilliance that made Bava a legend in Black Sunday, supposedly Tim Burton's favorite horror film of all time. and I whole-heartedly agree with Burton.
The movie starts out with a good, old fashioned, witch burning. But this is no ordinary, every day, witch burning! They put the Mask of Satan on this particular witch (played by the gorgeous scream queen, Barbara Steele, in a dual role no less!), who seems to be part vampire-part witch, to hold all of her powers in. And if the Mask should come off? Look out, good guys!!
In Steele's other role, she plays a girl who is, naturally, a descendant of the witch, who wishes to possess her body with the help of her sidekick after being brought back to life.
The plot is great, but the film is more than just the plot. It's been rated in many lists as one of the top 5 horror films ever made and it's due almost solely to the haunting atmosphere and amazingly rich set design. Why do we watch foreign movies, and foreign horror in particular? Because directors like Bava have no interest in pandering to Hollywood spoon-fed audiences, and this results in some of the most adventurous and creative film-making in cinema history.
5 - Carnival of Souls (1962)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51d41LsWVfL._SL500_AA280_.jpg
A young woman, Mary, is in a car crash at the beginning of this film. She appears to be the only survivor, and she is now haunted by an apparition of a mysterious evil looking man. After the crash she tries to go on with her life, but she has trouble relating to people. She lands a job as a church organist but loses the job after the minister witnesses her orgiastic bout of almost demonic music. Throughout the film she's drawn to a deserted amusement park where she sees ghoulish figures. She loses her grip on reality more and more, as she sees these figures with increasing regularity. Finally, visiting the deserted pavilion once more, she joins the world of the apparitions and we learn an astonishing secret...which is one of the biggest twists in this cult classic.
(Contd.)