markagudsnuk Reviews

Carnival of Souls (1962)

The most important American film to date

[10/10 · 5 November 2005]

This is probably the most important American-made film since "Citizen Kane". However I believe that the philosophic themes in "Carnival of Souls" make this film the more important of the two. Both Welles and Harvey utilized European techniques and styles and did use some experimentalism. Both films deal with death. "Kane" starts with death and reviews a man's life. "Carnival of Souls" starts with death but instead of reviewing the main characters life shows us the psychological struggle during and following the moment of death. Though we do not see Mary Henry's character revealed through her past experiences(like Kane)-we do see her character revealed through the way she deals with her new situation and journey of discovery. This is more difficult to do I believe. While Kane may seem slickly scripted-and the dialog is- a script is also a story and here is where "Carnival of Souls" truly breaks new ground. There have been screenplays dealing with the afterlife and the discovery of that fact by the story's characters prior to "Carnival of Souls". However no other movie had ever presented the the main character as invisible to the world-someone who cannot be seen or heard. The main character is brought out of this state by the sound of nature- a bird singing. This story idea was most recently employed (and employed well) in the film "The Sixth Sense". Although the use of the walking dead was not new in 1960( considering all the prior zombie films) this is the first time the walking dead idea has been used in a purely ghostly- haunting fashion. The zombies are imagined (or are they) in this film. They are more symbolic characters than horror types. Lastly this film deals with the subject of human alienation which is rarely dealt with in film. This film takes the alienation perspective to such an degree that is is impossible to think of a film that has ever created the mood, rationale, psychological atmosphere, and physical experiences of human alienation. I have seen interviews with the writer of "Carnival of Souls"-John Clifford. He states in his interviews that people are constantly asking how he came up with the ideas presented in this movie. He says he can't remember how he came up with these ideas.

I first saw this movie in 1969/1970 on late night TV. The scenes where Mary Henry goes into the changing booth at a department store and then hears the dinging bell of store operations and is then changed and enters another world is a cinematic moment that I was never able to forget. Although I did forget the name of the movie, twenty years later the film was released on video and I remember looking at the video box and thinking that this might be that movie where the woman walks out of the water after a car accident(it is the picture on the cover of the box). I began watching and could see this was the movie I had seen 20 years ago. I watched the entire movie and then began to study it. All aspects of this film are superb-all the actors, the camera operator, the musician, the lighting engineer, the sound engineers(the overdub is perfect for that section of the film-perhaps an accident),sound editors, film editors, the director and producer( Harvey was an industrial filmmaker of merit) and without question the screenwriter (John Clifford). The fact that the style and theme of the film was out of synch for times (early 1960's) only adds to it's worth. The idea was given to Harvey to make this film by the location itself (according to him) and he did his job well in arranging and choosing the proper writer and talents to carry out the project. The feel and mood and atmosphere are rarely seen in films today. The groundbreaking ideas of the film(devoid of socio-political comment) brings the main theme to an incredibly basic level which all persons can appreciate.

Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)

Manos as experimental film

[12 June 2005]

We search for entertainment when watching movies and videos.

Upon starting this DVD entitled "Manos:The Hands of Fate" I was immediately impressed by the sincere tackiness during the intro sequence. The inappropriate music, voice overdub and the poor color quality and graininess of the film do create an atmosphere.

Perhaps the most striking first impression is the illogical use of a grown woman's voice to overdub the little girl's voice. It cuts to the heart of the production values and most importantly post production technique. The use of the adult's voice for the little girl immediately tells us that the film will be asking a lot from the audience-perhaps too much. It is beyond reason that a editor would use this technique unless as an absolute last resort. The use of this voice for dubbing the little girl's lines is way beyond our expectations of even very problematic editing. It immediately tells us there are real problems with this film. It also tells us that we are going to see and hear something which we will not see very often on video.

For this reason we must continue to watch the movie. We must see how intense this technique will become. We must see what the next mistake is and how it will happen and what the film will ask us to accept next.

This is one of the keys to watching "Manos". We want to see the mistakes, the poor editing, amateur acting errors (the actors overall were good in this film-they only made the mistakes of beginning actors) the inappropriate music and improperly timed sound edits, the incredibly long pauses and illogical cut aways.

The use of a silent camera may have actually influenced the actors and directing on this movie. They may have began acting as if they were in a silent movie ( making gestures, over expression of the face was often used to communicate in silent films).

The actor John Reynolds gives a most inventive, quirky and yet sincere interpretation of the Igor type character. He is actually very good in several scenes-both comic and serious. The scene where he is deciding whether to allow the family into the "Master's" house is very intensely acted. The First Bride also gives a good performance. She is relaxed, comfortable and yet concentrated.

The filmmaker/lead actor Hal Warren gives the impression he's in a hurry to get film finished. The film ends with his image greeting the next group of visitors.

There is no question that Warren was out to get the job done-the movie made. He accomplished this but in the post production it seems stopped "putting a film together" and truly just did a rough assembly of scenes and sound track.

Unlike Herk Harvey (Carnival of Souls)who had tremendous experience in film-making, and Ed Wood Jr.(Plan 9 From Outer Space) who evidently had professionals working on his productions and post productions- Hal Warren had no funding for post nor experience.

He seems to have relied on rough, haphazard and truly mistaken editing and thus cinematic storytelling. For this reason we must watch. Because after awhile of watching this movie we begin see what is happening occasionally is that our perspectives and paradigms of what is expected in film are not only being broken and disregarded; they are being smashed apart. This is a common goal of the experimental film.

Although this is most assuredly not what Warren intended, he accidentally did create a film to watched and appreciated for its often illogical sights and sounds.