Monday, 30 June 2008

The Other Italian Cinema: Man without a Memory

For one night only, catch an ultra rare screening of a beautiful 35mm print of Duccio Tessari's 1975 giallo thriller, Man without a Memory (L’Uomo Senza Memoriaaka Puzzle.
 

This superior example of the giallo thriller features a labyrinthine plot about an amnesiac on the run. Cast includes Senta Berger, Umberto Orsini and Anita Strindberg. Music by Gianni Ferrio.
“A great example of the genre.” imdb.com
Man without a Memory screens Monday the 5th of July at 6:30 sharp.


The Other Italian Cinema: Ask Me If I'm Happy

Following up Barrie Pattison's lecture on the history of Italian Popular Cinema, this week sees the start of a special three week season of rarely screened Italian films.
The series kicks off this Saturday the 5th of July at 12 noon with Ask Me If I'm Happy (Chiedimi Se Sono Felice) directed by Aldo Giacomo & Giovanni Massimo Venier. This new 35mm print is in Italian with English subtitles. There is one screening only.
Synopsis: Aspiring actors (Giovanni Storti, Giacomo Poretti) travel to Sicily after hearing their good friend (Aldo Baglio) is near death. Along the way they plan staging ‘Cyrano’ with Giovanni using his own nose and Giacomo calling on his training as a mime. The plot developments would keep Pirandello happy. A unique line in comedy that will startle those unfamiliar with The Three Men, Italy's heirs to the Marx brothers.
“100 minutes of good film” imdb.com

Tuesday, 24 June 2008

Blood & Sandals: The Other Italian Cinema - this week at Cinematheque

Barrie Pattison returns to the Chauvel this week with another multimedia lecture - this time on the history of popular Italian cinema. Learn about the forgotten stars of the Italian cinema and the genres they made famous; the peplum, the giallo, the spaghetti western and more.

Below is a selection of stills and poster art from the Other Italian cinema.










A Response to Wonder Bar by Pia Santaklaus


Hi Brett,

 

I found today’s Chauvel Cinemateque movie WONDER BAR (1934) very interesting. A mish-mash of ad-hoc ideas pulled together perhaps as a vehicle to showcase the Busby Berkeley other-worldly dream sequence near the movie’s close which in itself is virtually a smaller film within the film and extremely ‘fantastical’ in scope.

 

As such, I will discuss this brash ‘bit’ which featured Al Jolson singing ‘Going to heaven on a mule’. This imaginative and boldly-realised second number by Berkely in WONDER BAR, "Going to Heaven on a Mule" renders an African-American heaven which might be seen as racial stereotyping. Al Jolson is in his blackface routine, perhaps using his black persona to cryptically and comfortably represent downtrodden Jews (as Shirley Clarke much later successfully used blacks to represent downtrodden females in her own underrated 1963 masterpiece THE COOL WORLD).

 

Al Jolson portrays a poor, dying field worker in overalls and worn work shirt, (looking like the future scarecrow in the 1939 Wizard Of Oz film). Jolson departs his old shack for the modern art deco heavenly after-world where the concentration of wealth and abundance makes him happy. Most of the singing and dancing takes place in this art deco heaven where gay angels give Jolson wings and Bill Bojangles Robinson tap-dances in tights. Al Jolson is accompanied by his beloved mule.


There’s an old religious belief that the streets of heaven are paved with gold (See Revelations 21:21 and Isaiah 54: 11-1), furthermore, in the apocryphal book of Tobit 13:16-17, “the gates of Jerusalem will be built with sapphire and emerald and all walls with precious stones. The towers of Jerusalemwill be built with gold...” It goes on to say that the streets of Jerusalem will be paved with ruby and stones of Ophir. (Ophir is believed to be an unknown location of solid gold).

 

Besides the segregated heaven that holds only African-Americans, other potential controversial references include pork chops growing on trees, gambling (rolling dice) and even the reading of a Hebrew newspaper; perhaps implying that in ‘heaven’ (The New Jerusalem?), the downtrodden of Earth will be rewarded and able to do whatever they want; Anyone can even eat pork, gamble, etc. and it wouldn’t be sinful (The Book of Revelations states that New Jerusalem will be free of sin).

 

It’s interesting that Jolson rides a mule into heaven. Mules remain a most complex animal symbol, laden with a variety of roles. The mule (or donkey) was traditionally the symbolic beast of jesters and fools; seen in other light, the mule is hero, victim, star, defender of the ignorant to the right of knowledge, or even sexual entertainer for obvious pornographic reasons. At other times, the mule is considered completely stupid ‘the dumbest beast of all’. In WONDER BAR, the mule possibly symbolizes Christ’s humility. As Christ’s ancestor Solomon had also ridden a mule into Jerusalem (See 1 Kings 1:33), Christ too rode a mule into Jerusalem to show that he was King of the future (Jerusalem symbolizing the future).

 

Jews consider Jerusalem the holiest city and Christians place great significance on Jerusalem as well, believing it to be the site of The Crucifixion and that before the return of the ‘son of man’ (second coming) a New Jerusalem will be built. The origins of New Jerusalem began with the destruction of Solomon’s Temple and the capture of the Babylonians when Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon burnt Jerusalem in 586 BC. Ancient Jews hoped to restore Jerusalemwhen Ezekiel prophesied its restoration. In the Bible, New Jerusalem is a city of God. It is a literal, physical city that is mystically and divinely reconstructed like the original Jerusalem. Concepts of a paradise (heavenly) garden within a walled enclosure, with abundance of delight and water echo in New Jerusalem.

 

In the Book of Revelations, New Jerusalem is an earthly location where believers will live forever with God. Many Christians view New Jerusalem as a current reality and as such, a concept of heaven. New Jerusalem is “pure gold, like clear glass”, brilliant like very costly stone and the streets are paved with gold. (Gold is a symbol of eternity as it defies the effects of aging).


It is said there are 12 gates in the heavenly wall and an angel at each gate.


I suspect that the movie version of THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) borrowed a lot from Busby Berkeley’s visual concepts in THE WONDER BAR (1934). The ‘Wonderful Wizard Of Oz’ himself lives in an art-deco jewel-city (Emerald City) where the streets are paved with gold (The yellow brick road). At the gates of the city we find a guard peeping through a little opening-closing window. In WIZARD OF OZ Dorothy predicts Oz is ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ as Al Jolson predicts in WONDER BAR that he will ride to the end of the rainbow and get to heaven on a mule. Sure enough we see blackface-Jolson progressing towards heaven, riding his beloved mule across a span of bridge-in-the-sky shaped like an arch/bow.

 

Many myths and legends exist about rainbows leading to God. In Japan a rainbow is sometimes thought of as a ‘floating Bridge of Heaven’. Pet lovers believe that there is a bridge connecting Earth and Heaven called ‘The Rainbow Bridge’. When a particularly beloved pet dies, it goes there, ‘just this side of heaven”, where there is a lush, green, happy spot with food, water, sunshine and comforts always available. Once there, old, frail beasts feel young and playful again; The only sadness is that they miss their beloved human owner (on Earth) who is not there yet, although in time the pet will again see its master coming and excitedly they meet and embrace. The human and the loving, trusting pet finish crossin the Rainbow Bridge together, never to part again.

 

The interpretation potential of the whole Going to heaven on a mule’ sequence is staggering. Berkeley was an excessive wizard of odd.


Perhaps some other time, some other place, there will be opportunity for further contemplations. At this point we should avoid Rainbow Bridge as I hear it is currently teeming with ‘lions and tigers and bears’

 

Oh my!

 

Pia Santaklaus

Tuesday, 17 June 2008

Pre-Code Hollywood: Wonder Bar














This week at the Chauvel Cinematheque catch the outrageous Warner Brothers musical Wonder Bar starring Dick Powell, Al Jolson and Dolores Del Rio. The film was choreographed by Busby Berkeley and directed by Lloyd Bacon in 1934. The show-stopper is a black-face Jolson singing, Goin' to Heaven on a Mule.

Here's a link to an interesting article by David Boxwell on the Senses of Cinema website.

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/02/22/wonder.html

And here's the trailer. Check it out.

Monday, 16 June 2008

Odessa Stomp Reviews are In

Many thanks to all the musicians who gave up their time to do the show and the punters who came along.

The line-ups were:

Saturday - Quaoub - Kenny Davis Jr - Toy Death
Monday - The Mumps - Quaoub - Toy Death 

I received the following responses to Saturday's show. This one from Adrian: 

I just wanted to say thanks for what was another great show today. I thought Quab complimented the film excellently, and having seem him before at the Chauvel (I can't remember exactly what it was for, but it was also as an accompaniment to a silent film), I have to say that he was much better this time. I quite liked the second performer, though it wasn't until the steps sequence where I thought he really complemented the film well. His style reminded me a lot of Keith Jarrett's Koln Concert. And I was totally unaware that Toy Death were going to be playing today, but I  have been meaning to check them out for over a year now, so it was a really pleasant surprise -- and what a surprise it was (I thought they were excellent). I actually heard about them through a description of a CD I bought last year, which was Suspended Animation by a group called Fantomas (which features Mike Patton of Faith No More, Mr Bungle etc. on vocals, Dave Lombardo from Slayer on drums, the guitarist from The Melvins etc.), and is an amazing kind of a mash-up of heavy metal/noise. The description of the CD (from Red Eye Records) was that it sounded like Toy Death getting raped by Bugs Bunny (if you're ever interested in listening to the CD, if you haven't already done so, I can burn a copy of it). So yeah, it was really great seeing them and I thought overall the show was wonderful.

-Adrian

And from the indefatigable Pia Santaklaus:

Thanks for yet another splendid Cinematheque curatorship. Today’s BATTLESHIP POTEMPKIN feature was very well done. It is the most absorbing presentation of this classic movie I have yet experienced.
 
Tell me that today’s screening, on the anniversary of the Potemkin uprising (14 June 1905), was not a coincidence. Fantastic...
 
The clever use of 3 completely individual musical presenters in 3 separate stages (approx 25 minutes each) was a stroke of brilliance. It moved the movie along, colouring it (so to speak) with a variance of flavours.
 
The opening soundtrack provider (Quaoub) did a beautiful job. His guitar and voice lent a melancholy and emotive revolutionary minimalism.  I couldn’t help but hear shades of Leonard Cohen, hints of Neil Young and sweeps of Nick Cave in his voice. Quaoub’s vocal timbre also made me imagine that if Harrison Ford (or Han Solo) were to time travel into an alternate universe with a guitar on his back, forward into 1968, that that's what he’d sound like. (Ha) Quaoub's guitar playing could put one into a mild trance. Good stuff.
 
The second musician (Kenny Davis Jr) deserves great praise for his appropriate, dreamy, perfectly invisible piano playing. It sounded improvised and absolutely perfect. Of the 3 musical acts, this one had the anachronistic subtlety needed to let the movie reveal itself. A masterful, masterful effort...
 
The third musical performance (Death to Toys?) was hilarious and seriously brilliant. So screamingly out of context and yet so completely right! Using gadgets, ‘toys’, light-sabers and magic midi machines, they created an abstract sound that accelerated the entire mood of the picture and set the blood pulsing. It was exactly what the movie needed at that stage. Clever! Great!        
 
I loved this movie. It seems so modern with the very fast editing of shots and angles.

The movie shone today. I noticed the good use of metaphor. My favourite being the ever-growing stairways showing the ever-growing revolutionary consciousness...Tiny ladders and hatches on the ship lead to long, narrow sandstone stairways on the land, lead further to enormous, wide overrun grand stairs of population.
 
My best to you and all those great musicians.

Friday, 6 June 2008

Flyer for Odessa Stomp

Live music returns to the Chauvel Cinematheque next Saturday the 14th of June at 12 noon and Monday the 16th of June at 6:30pm with the Odessa Stomp. Click to enlarge the flyer below.

Please note: Lappalie have cancelled. A replacement is TBA soon. 


Thursday, 5 June 2008

Transcript of Introduction to Shangri-La

Hi everyone. Welcome to the Chauvel Cinematheque for the second part in a two-part program entitled Grindhouse Docos. On Saturday we saw Robert Ardrey's The Animal Within and tonight we will be having a look at Kevin Duffy's 1977 film Shangri-La.

I received a good response to the short series of grindhouse films I screened on the last program to coincide with the Chauvel's release of the Tarantino/ Rodriguez film, so when the time came to work on the current program, I thought it would be good to show some of the different types of films that played on the grindhouse circuit. I had these two films sitting around at home, so I blew the dust off them and gave them a run.

The tradition of the grindhouse documentary stretches back to the exploitation film of the 1920s and early sound period. The development of the Hays Code in the early 1930s saw the emergence of a sort of shadow exhibition industry, one that was not party to the moral imperatives of the code. Films like Damaged Lives, Test Tube Babies, Marihuana and many others used the pretext of documentary to avoid censorship and legitimate their production and exhibition as "educational". 

Within the exploitation field, several types of films emerged: the sex hygiene film, the exotic film, the atrocity film, the burlesque film, the nudist film, the drug film, and the vice film. Taken as a whole, they represent a kind of checklist of prohibitions found in the Hays code. The films were produced, distributed and exhibited outside of the Hollywood studio system. As Eric Schaeffer notes in his excellent book "Bold, Daring, Shocking True!": A History of Exploitation Films, 1919-1959, they were, "centered on some form of forbidden spectacle that served as their organizing sensibility."

As the code's influence waned in the 1950s, two new developments in "educational" exploitation films emerged. Beginning with Mondo Cane, a smash hit in 1963, the marriage of the atrocity film (like Mau Mau above) and the exotic film gave birth to the mondo film. Their mixture of real and fake footage was overlaid with an omnipresent and often highly judgemental and misleading narration that provided the educational context. Although Cane was a surprise hit and was even nominated for an Academy Award, the mondo movie soon became a staple of grindhouse programming for the next twenty years.  

A parallel development in the exploitation film industry was the emergence of the pornographic sex education film. Sex education films of the mid-late 1960s, or "white-coaters" as they were called in the trade, due to the costumes worn by their ubiquitous "doctor" narrators, were the bridge between the soft-core films of the early 1960s and the hard-core films of the 1970s. Their educational pretense permitted shots of actual sex. It took only a few years before actual sex was permitted in narrative films, but the educational motif has survived as a kind of cinematic equivalent of the human appendix, an evolutionary relic of the past. Which brings me (finally) to Shangri-La.

Produced and directed by the relatively unknown sexploitation producer Kevin Duffy in 1977, although to me it looks earlier than that, Shangri-La is one of the rarest of all the mondo movies. It is not listed on the imdb and if you google it, you get nothing. Under the old classifications of exploitation the film would be labelled an exotic, dealing as it does with the hippie invasion of Goa in India, but like many mondo movies, it also shades into the drug film, the atrocity film, and in a brief shot of the birth of a baby, it even reminds one of the sex hygiene film, of which the birth-of-a-baby film was a small but very successful sub-genre. 

It's ironic that this film has probably more educational value today than it did upon its release as it is perhaps the earliest extant documentary footage of the hippie scene in Goa, which was the birthplace of rave culture. It is one of the more thoughtful examples of the mondo genre, but it does periodically come to a halt to foreground such dubious spectacles as nude yoga, acid flashbacks and skinny-dipping. There is something about Shangri-La that I find very appealing.  There are some really well-cut montages, an excellent sitar score, and some priceless footage of young people freaking out on drugs. But mostly it is that cosy nostalgic feeling I get from the narration, a nostalgia for a kind of transparency.

If you're expecting to see a lost classic of the cinema, you'll be sorely disappointed with this film, but movie buffdom does not live on the classics alone. One of the most interesting things about movie buffdom is how much it embraces and celebrates the bad as well, if not moreso, than the good. To love movies is to love bad movies, because bad movies are the norm. 

The Other Italian Cinema

The Other Italian Cinema, a multimedia lecture by Australia's leading film historian, Barrie Pattsion, presented by the Chauvel Cinematheque on Sat. the 26th of June at 12 noon and Mon. the 28th of June at 6:30pm. The lecture will kick off a small season of rare screenings of popular Italian cinema.

Here’s a one of a kind chance to confront movies of a kind that usually slip under the critical radar.

Though it was the first country to industrialise and once rated as the world’s number three movie market (titles like
Open City, La Dolce Vita and Last Tango in Paris figure prominently in pocket histories) Italy’s films are often less accessible than those of it’s European neighbours. Whole decades represent a black hole in film history. Many of it’s famous stars are unknown outside its borders - Adriano Celantano, Assia Norris, Leonardo Pieraccioni anyone?

The historical dramas, gladiator movies, or
pepla (the name of the Imperial Roman tunic) show up about the time movies start to move. They impacted on the Hollywood beginnings of film makers Griffith and De Mille, with the famous Cabiria. Half a century later, Steve Reeves would bring this material to the world. We ended up with strip cartoon entertainments having a fundamental connection to Dante and Homer. The Chauvel Cinematheque programs contains a multi screen history of pepla, running from WW1 to the Drive-Ins. With this come glimpses of other Italian cycles - the celebrity zanies, mother love weepies, white telephone comedies, regional dramas, carabiniere action, giallo thrillers, pop musicals and spaghetti cowboys.

This is a Fellini free day. These are not the famous titles that mesmerized the world’s critics, leaving them forever searching for a new replica of
Bicycle Thieves. The films cited here are stranger and often richer. There’s a chance to see slasher king Mario Bava at work on an art movie and high priest of neo-realism, Vittorio De Sica, doing dumb comedy.

Battle-scarred from his time in the flea pits, film museums and Drive-Ins of the world, career movie goer Barrie Pattison presents an alternative history of Italian film at the Chauvel Cinematheque in Paddington Town Hall, Oxford Street, Saturday June 28 at noon and Monday June 30 at 6:30.

Tuesday, 3 June 2008

A Response to The Saga of Anatahan by Pia Santaklaus

I feel compelled to write a few words on tonight’s Cinematheque feature

THE SAGA OF ANATAHAN (1953):

I believe this is a very personal movie for film director Josef von Sternberg (1894-1969).

Made in his later years, when it is not uncommon for males to develop deep spiritual searches, and follow personal spiritual journeys, this movie finds him ‘hogging’ most of the credits, and totally taking over the creative control in order to avoid compromising his vision. Sternberg wrote, directed and photographed the film and though it wasn’t a huge success, it was probably exactly the movie he wanted to make for himself.

Sternberg had directed JET PILOT (1957) in 1950 and so ANATAHAN was his final film, made at the age of 59. I believe this personal project was his private religious work; Von Sternberg even providing the voiceover, using his own ‘stern’ voice-of-God narration.

He seems to be a pulling together many influences, particularly ecclesiastic, as religious references and biblical terms are frequently mentioned by the narrator.

I don’t know if anyone else has ever found religious parallels in this movie, but I spotted a stack of them...here goes:

Twelve (12) male Japanese sailors marooned on the remote island.

12 was the number of Christ’s disciples.

Until the Sailors (Sin?) arrived, the jungle (Garden of Eden) was a place for only one man and one woman (Adam and Eve), except that the male ‘Adam’ in the movie had an earlier wife; this might be to represent the Apocryphal texts which claim Adam was earlier married to Lilith.

The Japanese woman (Eve) is tempted to sin. The Sailors represent ‘forbidden fruit’. She succumbs to sin.

Interestingly, I see the actress (Akemi Negishi) playing at least 4 roles in this movie...

She is the ‘last woman on earth’ (book of Revelations), she is also ‘Eve’, the ‘first woman on Earth’ (Book of Genesis), she is also ‘fallen woman’, (sinning and sinned against) and incredibly, she is also Jesus Christ.

This becomes more obvious when we see how childishly her 12 followers bicker and fight for her attentions, worshipping her divinity. One can imagine Christ’s disciples vying for his love and attention.

The movie opens and closes with the symbols of Christ, the FISH and the CROSS, not forgetting Christ made his disciples ‘fishers of men’ and being later crucified.

The first scenes focus on fish in a pool of trembling water (holy water?) and the last scene shows Keiko (Christ) standing at the airport gates (gates of heaven?) wearing a robe completely covered with dozens of crosses.

This closing scene depicting Keiko ‘Christ’ waiting like the good shepherd for her ‘flock’ to return, and sure enough, one by one the sailors (lost sheep) are found. We might see them as soul survivors!

Like Christ who had left his disciples to return to heaven, Keiko too had left her men.

More biblical images follow in this exotic locale.

‘Adam and Eve’s’ hut, high in a tree was referred to as the ‘Hill Of Fools’. This could be an allusion to the biblical ‘Tower of Babel’ where so much misunderstanding took place.

At one stage ‘love-letters’ (emotional sustenance) literally fall from the sky like a divine supply of ‘manna’ miraculously falling from heaven. (Manna was the Hebrew food of the Old Testament).

We have the archetype of fratricide (brother killing brother) from the Genesis story of Cain and Abel (sons of Adam and Eve) as the once close sailors murder one another.

We have the faithful and impatient masses waiting for the great coming of the Lord shown in the sailors who refuse to believe that WWII has ended. They wait impatiently and ignorantly for the good news.

After 'Eve' sins, we see ‘The Fall Of Man’ illustrated beautifully with corresponding scenes of ‘The Fall Of Japan’. We witness thousands of humans being moved around and manipulated, and then clearly see a row of male farmers toiling the earth which corresponds well with God’s punishment to Adam that he should labor and toil on the cursed earth (see Genesis 3:17)

Corruption, power-struggles and violence of the fallen, phallus-driven, patriarchal world is represented by the guns.

The female nudity in the film was daring for the times, but I guess she is Eve and you don’t get much more naked than Adam & Eve.

The question might be asked, ‘Why did Sternberg use Japanese actors for his movie?’ Perhaps it’s because Japan was one of the few allies of Nazi Germany, thus seen as being ‘In league with the Devil’ so to speak.

It seems William Golding’s allegorical work LORD OF THE FLIES (published 1954) which portrays man-made culture and its disastrous failure, features an all-male cast stuck on a deserted island as well. I wonder if it may have been inspired by ANATAHAN. Interestingly, the title LORD OF THE FLIES is believed to be a reference to the Hebrew name BEELZEBUB which translates to ‘god of the fly’, ‘host of the fly’, ‘Lord of Flies’ and ‘Satan’.

ANATAHAN employs insect metaphors as well, although not in the form of ‘flies’, but rather ‘bees’…eg: Queen Bee, Drones etc.

Perhaps Sternberg simply had a ‘fetish’ for Asians. Who’s to know? Interestingly, Sternberg’s autobiography was called FUN IN A CHINESE LAUNDRY, perhaps adding a shred of proof of his predilection for Asian culture. Certainly there was a vogue at the time, even in America, for exotic Polynesian and Tiki art. Vladimir Tretchikoff’s kitsch and commercial, ultra-successful painting ‘Chinese Girl’ (with green-blue skin) became one of the most successful art prints ever.

Perhaps Sternberg was a Tretchikoff fan and heard his story (see below). Certainly Sternberg cast a leading actress with the same features as the famous painting.

Tretchikoff was inspired by Malaysian, Chinese and African themes.

In 1940, Tretchikoff worked as a war propaganda artist. In 1941, he was on board a ship evacuating ministry personnel to South Africa and the ship was bombed by the Japanese. The 42 survivors rowed to Sumatra, which they found was already occupied by Japanese, so then they rowed to Java, which took 19 days, only to find that it too was occupied. Tretchikoff spent the rest of the war in a Japanese prison camp (where he spent months in solitary confinement for protesting that as a Russian citizen he shouldn’t be imprisoned).

Tretchikoff became famous in South Africa thanks to a book that collected his portraits of Oriental women and flowers. His fame spread to the United States. He enjoyed enormous success when millions of Americans saw his paintings. His famous ‘CHINESE GIRL’ (1950) painting featured an Eastern model. It is one of the best selling prints of all time. He painted other popular paintings of Orientals, including MISS WONG and BALINESE GIRL.

Back to Joseph Von Sternberg’s movie with its shades of Orwellian totalitarian horror.

ANATAHAN looks like it may have been a precursor to the popular reality TV show SURVIVOR (created 1992), where tough competition in the jungles forces progressive elimination of tribal members until only a ‘sole survivor’ remains.

Robinson Crusoe (1719) about a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island and Swiss Family Robinson (1812) about a close family stranded on an island, may have been precursors to ANATAHAN.

Anywaves, I really enjoyed the movie. Thanx Brett. Yet another great choice by you.

Cheers,

Pia Santaklaus

PS: We never got to learn the actual names of the man and woman (‘Adam & Eve’). Perhaps if we rearrange the letters of ANATAHAN we get ATHA & ANNA.

Although ‘ANA THANA’ means ‘graceful gratitude’,

And I believe it also might be an abreviation for ‘between death’ in old Greek – HA HA!

Transcript of Introduction to Saga of Anatahan


Hi everyone,

Thanks for coming to the Chauvel tonight for this screening of Joseph Von Sternberg's 1953 film, The Saga of Anatahan. Unfortunately, tonight's short film, La Folie du Docteur Tube did not arrive in time for screening, but I will include it in a future program, perhaps looking at the films of Abel Gance. The Saga of Anatahan was suggested by one of the members and I am always interested in your suggestions. So if there is something you want to see, please let me know.

The Saga of Anatahan first screened in Sydney as part of the Sydney Film Festival in the mid 1950s. Von Sternberg brought his own personal print of the film to Sydney, at that time the only print in existence, and was the first international guest of the festival. At that time, the festival had a board where viewers could rate the films screened, and my colleague Barrie Pattison, attending the festival as a youngster, rated the film 1 out of 10. Apparently, Von Sternberg wasn't very happy about this and gave him a stern look every time he saw Barrie in the foyer.

I hadn't seen this film prior to Saturday's screening, but thought it might be good to show as I had recently been revisiting the films Von Sternberg made with Marlene Dietrich. After watching it Saturday, I can't say it's a classic, or even a very good film, but there is much to redeem it. More on that in a moment.

Von Sternberg made the film at the end of a long and distinguished career at a time when he couldn't get a film up in Hollywood. He was invited by a Japanese studio to make the film there on a low budget and with a Japanese cast and crew. Taking the principle of the auteur theory to an almost absurd extreme, Von Sternberg chose the subject, wrote and delivered the almost non-stop narration, decorated, photographed, directed, and even distributed the movie, giving Anatahan the feel of a deeply personal home movie. In some ways, the film predates the camp, highly aestheticized home movie and absolute auteurism of the American underground film movement of thew 1960s - say films like Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures and the films of Kenneth Anger.

The story on which the film was based, concerning a group of Japanese troops who become isolated on the volcanic island of Anatahan and refuse to believe the war is over, has an almost mythical quality, symbolising both the Japanese fighting spirit and their stubborn isolationism. Watching the film on Saturday I wondered what attracted Von Sternberg to this particular story. I hazard to say he identified with this fighting spirit of the Japanese as he found himself professionally in much the same position as his isolated subjects.

Although the film is not great, it retains some substantial curiosity value, not least for its dazzling lighting effects and production design. What Sternberg was able to do with a few lights, a few painted scenic backdrops, and a few bits of string and vines attests to his enormous visual talent.

Von Sternberg's films are nowadays regarded as camp and a queer reading of the film is perhaps the most illuminating. In troilism narratives, where men compete for the affections of the same woman, the woman, the supposed "object" of male desire, is a kind of cipher, and the real purpose of these narratives is the exploration of male sexual desire. Von Sternberg was very resistant to any camp readings of his films and was known to get very testy whenever his masculinity was questioned, pointing to his long relationship with Marlene Dietrich as a testament to his heterosexual masculinity, but both Kenneth Anger and Klaus Kinski have outed Dietrich in print as a lesbian, introducing the possibility that their relationship was a lavendar marriage. Like Von Sternberg's films with Dietrich, there is a raunchy and daring element to The Saga of Anatahan. If you don't believe me, look out for scene with the octopus.

Enjoy the movie.

POST-SCRIPT: See Pia Santaklaus' response for another possible reading of the film.