A reponse to A Portrait of Jennie by the one, the only Pia Santaklaus

Hi Brett,

Allow me a few thoughts on tonight’s Cinemateque feature, PORTRAIT OF JENNIE (1948).

I really enjoyed this fabulous piece of Hollywood gothic fantasy.

To me, the story figured and probably came about, through a melding of archetypal ideas from some very classic dream literature; in particular Oscar Wilde’s ‘PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY’ and John Keats’ poems ‘LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI’ and ‘ODE ON A GRECIAN URN’.

The movie opens with lines from John Keats’ ODE ON A GRECIAN URN so we know the writer was probably a Keats fan:

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”

Keats’ ‘ODE’ may reveal further sources of inspiration for PORTRAIT OF JENNIE.
Consider the following lines:

“Thou still unravished bride of quietness, Thou foster child of silence and slow time”.

Furthermore, “She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!”

These lines may also have inspired Oscar Wilde’s ‘Picture of Dorian Gray’. Wilde definitely was a Keats fan!

The role of the artist in his loft may have obliquely transpired from the words: “O Attic shape! Fair attitude!”

The basic theme of a haunted male, falling obsessively in love with a mysterious, ethereal, wisp-like female vision and then loitering around particular spots where he hopes to see her again, is a theme repeated over and over throughout centuries of literature. Even Bob Dylan did it!

Consider Keats’ short masterpiece ‘LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI’ (The Beautiful Woman Without Thanks) in which a knight looking pale, ravaged and woeful, reveals that he has been in love with and abandoned by a beautiful lady. The poem remains haunting with a sense of mystery which continues to intrigue and puzzle readers.

"O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, alone and palely loitering?” The words "She took me" and "she wept and sigh'd" may explain his understanding of the situation.

The knight, ravaged by his visionary experience, seems deluded by his beloved or perhaps he is even deluding himself. Her impact on the knight is clear as he "nothing else saw all day long"...obssesion!

His refusal to let go of the joys of the shadowy imagination destroys his life in the real world. The visionary experience must only be fleeting for it is very difficult for humans to live in such a realm for too long, although dreamers choose to ignore such a warning.

The pair is incompatible by nature and by time. She becomes his muse and he rejects the real world for an ideal one which cannot exist in reality. Her presence both starves and nourishes him. In giving himself entirely to her (the dream), he could destroy his life in the real world. In this sense, the lady may in fact be a "femme fatale".

She seduced him with her beauty and promises of love and sensuality "roots of relish sweet and honey wild, and manna dew". Such destructiveness of love is another common theme in the folk tales. He continues to desire her, despite her abandoning him. Freud may have suggested that such a theme may be traced back to ‘abandonment issues’ in childhood…who knows?

In LA BELLE DAME, She takes him to her ‘elfin grotto’, whereas PORTRAIT OF JENNIE reverses that scenario; he takes her to his small studio.

Oscar Wilde’s novel (PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY) tells of a young attractive man named Dorian Gray, who becomes the subject of a painting by an Artist who is greatly inspired by Dorian's physical beauty and becomes totally infatuated with him, believing Dorian’s beauty might be the muse to inspire a fresh approach in his art.

Realising that one day his beauty will fade, Dorian wishes that the portrait painted of him would age rather than himself. Dorian's wish is fulfilled.

In PORTRAIT OF JENNIE, Jennie ages in an accelerated fashion through time and her portrait stays beautiful forever, for people visiting art galleries to admire for years to come. This is the inverse of Oscar Wilde’s theme.

Atheticism and beauty are strong themes running through The Picture of Dorian Gray, Ode On A Grecian Urn, La Belle Dame Sans Merci and A Portrait of Jennie.

It’s appropriate that an actress named Jennifer (Jennie) Jones was chosen to play the part of Jennie. Apparently David O. Selznick purchased the book as a vehicle for Jennifer Jones.

Once again, thank you Brett for the fine show you chose for us all tonight. It was fabulous.

Pia Santaklaus

Dark Side of the Wall

Complete Pink Floyd/Wizard Of Oz synch uncovered in Sydney: An all-new MIND-BLOWING revelation

By Pia Santaklaus.

I have been fascinated by the synchronization phenomenon sometimes known as Dark Side Of The Rainbow which I first saw at an early Cinemateque screening in Sydney. Though wonderful, it seemed flawed by the not-so-perfectly-appropriate use of ‘Piper At The Gates Of Dawn’ for synching during the second half.

By mid-November 2007, in my frustration that no one had managed to work out what Pink Floyd music to engage after the Dark Side Of The Moon plays out (leaving much of the Wizard Of Oz movie scoreless), I intuitively developed a theory regarding what music should follow the Dark Side Of The Moon.

I believe the synch is no mere coincidence, but a deliberate Pink Floyd project. It remains hard to prove that Pink Floyd intended to create an alternative soundtrack to 'The Wizard Of Oz' (1939), particularly as their Dark Side Of The Moon closes around 42 minutes while the Wizard Of Oz movie plays longer, leaving this 'unfinished' project neither definitive nor decisive.

Having faith that professionals like Pink Floyd were not types to leave a good project half-finished, I wondered if somewhere in Pink Floyd's post-DSOTM recordings there quietly remained their hidden supplementary soundtrack to Wizard Of Oz. I imagined Pink Floyd’s Oz project began in earnest with Dark Side Of The Moon, so earlier releases such as 'Piper’ could not have been intended for a Wizard Of Oz soundtrack as imagined by many enthusiasts.

I instinctively unravelled the elusive 'supplementary' Pink Floyd soundtrack and ‘missing' links within only 17 specific tracks from Pink Floyd's 1979 album The Wall. The 17 songs perfectly supplement The Dark Side of The Moon.

Not all the songs from THE WALL album are appropriate for the project. Only 17 songs appear to marry well with The Wizard Of Oz and those are in a scrambled order. One reason for this may be that Pink Floyd felt it would have been pushing their luck to release two ‘coincidental’ albums. The songs seem intentionally placed out of sequence as a diversionary tactic. This seems to be the reason it has taken this long to be un-riddled by fans, enthusiasts and serious students of the subject, as they seek answers in sequentially-ordered songs from complete albums. Meddlesome, cryptic antics may be used to obscure truth. Pink Floyd's appropriately titled albums Meddle (1971) and Obscured By Clouds (1972) point the way to DSOTM (1973).

Why might Pink Floyd wish to keep it obscure? I don’t know... However, from 1967, Pink Floyd often shared Abbey Road Studios with the Beatles, who had already cheekily begun the 'coincidental' 'Paul Is Dead' hoax, leaving clues on their album covers, lyrics and music. It may just be an eccentric, English rock-star thing to do; to plan and create something cryptic, curious and fun, then carefully spread rumours about its existence, all the while ensuring no one suspects your crowd of starting those rumours and finally denying association forevermore, labelling it a cosmic coincidence. Coincidentally, Alan Parsons was the studio engineer for both The Beatles' Abbey Road album and Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon album.

Pink Floyd's appreciation of film and their connection with film-scores is recognised; they associated with people in the film industry and created soundscapes for at least 3 films prior to Dark Side Of The Moon. [See: More (1969), Zabriskie Point (1970) and La Vallee (1972)]. It is rumoured Pink Floyd once turned down an offer from Kubrick to create the soundtrack for 2001 A Space Odyssey and that they later regretted their decision not to accept that job. Missing that opportunity, they may have been wishing they could score a famous, classic, or very successful movie. Pink Floyd probably found The Wizard Of Oz was a great muse to springboard fresh song ideas, judging that it might eventually be serendipitous for their fans to uncover. It seems The Wizard Of Oz worked for them as invigorating muse twice, resulting in arguably Pink Floyd's two most acclaimed albums.

Furthermore, what may have begun as Pink Floyd's Wizard Of Oz job (phase 2), grew during the creative process. Sprouting extra songs offered new potential for their own hit movie. Pink Floyd may have reconfigured the new material taking on an exciting life of its own. Instead of 'giving' the new songs to Wizard Of Oz, the THE WALL songs would be used more personally by Pink Floyd.

THE WALL hints it began life as a Wizard Of Oz project, with lines like "Your lips move, but I can't hear what you're saying" (Comfortably Numb) suggesting Pink Floyd were watching movies again, with the sound turned down (like silent movies)... The phrase "crazy over the rainbow" (heard in The Trial) further hints.

It may also be worth noting that 'the yellow brick road' and 'another brick in the wall' share the noun 'brick' and fittingly, Pink Floyd's own movie 'THE WALL' is set around 1939 with WWII looming, the same period The Wizard Of Oz was made.

THE METHOD:

Once Dark Side Of The Moon runs out of music around 42:26, seventeen specific songs from THE WALL album contribute to the completed DARK SIDE OF THE RAINBOW movie soundtrack.

Note: Four (4) tracks play for too long and will need to be faded out or cut short. (It is possible that during 'The Wall' sessions, Pink Floyd preferred to perform their good new songs to fuller, natural conclusions, knowing they could be faded out/shortened later if necessary. Fortunately, only 4 songs require such adjustment to perform the 'Wizard Of Oz' synch... The rest seem correct in length and execution!)

Note: The following times are close approximations only and not absolutes as music and film equipment vary, as do synching skills. The time denoted indicates the time position in the movie.

42:31. Empty Spaces (Disc 1, Track 8). An appropriate song title describing Tin Man's insides; he is hollow, with no heart and lots of emptiness. Listen for the eerie, metallic heartbeat sound!

44:28. Young Lust (Disc 1, Track 9). One girl (Dorothy) is accompanied by 2 grown men (Tinman, Scarecrow), walking along in an almost intoxicated-reckless fashion. The lyric cheekily suggests she is a ‘dirty’ girl. The song plays too long and for best results must be faded out by 46:08.

46:08. One Of My Turns (Disc 1, Track 10). This features some cute lip-synching that makes Dorothy sound like a dumb band groupie. Once again fade out by 47:01.

47:01. In The Flesh (Disc 1, Track 1). This piece introduces the cowardly lion (Lions are flesh-eaters); fade out by 51:21.

51:21. Comfortably Numb (Disc 2, Track 6). This track synchs very well with the corresponding scenes. The 'gang' runs through a red poppy field and become drugged. Opiates are derived from poppies and the opiated numbness of the heroes matches the song’s meaning. The lyric synchronizes perfectly when Dorothy awakes and rises from her poppy-induced narcosis. The track must fade out by 56:01.

56:01. Is There Anybody Out There? (Disc 2, Track 2). The four stand outside Emerald City gates where the guard awaits.

58:56. The Happiest Days Of Our Lives (Disc 1, Track 4). The four are inside Emerald City, indulging, dancing and preening. Rotary-helicopter sounds match the Tin Man getting a buffing from a spinning brush-wheel.

1:00:35. Another Brick In The Wall Part 2 (Disc 1, Track 5). The four feel they can belong here, blending into the system, like bricks in a wall or missing pieces in a puzzle.

1:04:36. Hey You! (Disc 2, Track 1). The four speak with the 'fantastic' great wizard asking him for assistance.

1:09:18. Don't Leave Me Now (Disc 1, Track 11). The gang find themselves in a haunted forest seemingly at the end of their road. They run from the flying monkeys.

1:13:35. Run Like Hell (Disc 2, Track 9). Toto escapes and runs like hell.

1:18:13. Stop (Disc 2, Track 11) followed in sequence by...

The Trial (Disc 2, Track 12). Uniformed soldiers block the path so the heroes disguise themselves as soldiers, marching to the musical beat. Climactically, while the lyric chants "Tear down the wall", the wicked witch melts away and is finally defeated.

1:24:19. Mother (Disc 1, Track 6). The wonderful wizard of Oz dishes out lovely, timely, sincere, motherly advice to the gang-of-four.

1:29:58. Another Brick In The Wall Part 1 (Disc 1, Track 3). The Wizard leaves in a balloon.

1:33:19. Goodbye Blue Sky (Disc 1, Track 7). Dorothy says goodbye to her new friends and leaves the colour-filled land with the blue sky. Soon she will be back in sepia land with her uncle and aunty.

1:36:25. Outside The Wall (Disc 2, Track 13). If 'The Wall' signifies the Land of Oz, then Dorothy finds herself outside ‘the wall’ of Oz and back on the farm....the movie credits roll.

I hope you can find an opportunity to experiment with this newfound synch.

All the Best...

Pia Santaklaus

06 February 2008.

Program Notes for Production Designer by Barrie Pattison

Above: Still from Invaders from Mars

By popular demand, Australia's leading film historian, Barrie Pattison, returns to the Chauvel Cinematheque for a special two part look at the work of William Cameron Menzies, the doyen of Hollywood production designers. In week one, Barrie will survey the work of Menzies in a multimedia lecture using excerpts from his films, while in week two, Barrie will introduce a screening of the classic Kings Row.

Lecture dates:
Sat. 23/2 @ 12:00 noon, repeats
Mon. 25/2 @ 6:30pm

Kings Row screens:
Sat. 1/3 @ 12:00 noon, repeats
Mon. 3/3 @ 6:30pm

Click on the images below to read Barrie's press release/program notes for the event. See you there.