Queen of Titicut by Pia Santaklaus

This week’s Cinematheque experience started off very lightly with 3 SCOPITONE music clips, becoming progressively weirder and darker with the next two pieces QUEEN OF APOLLO (1970) and TITICUT FOLLIES (1967). Overall, a most thought-provoking session!

The three SCOPITONE clips were so cringe-worthy they were brilliant. Tasteless, badly acted, inappropriate; they put a very uncomfortable smile on my face. Completely fascinating! Perhaps the cheesiest choice was the clip for the song ‘Strangers In the Night’ in which a young couple rendezvous and flirt beneath a wide open, bright, sun-shiny sky somewhere in Europe…not a hint of “night” anywhere. I can’t wait for more Scopitones!

Next up, QUEEN OF APOLLO (1970); a short film directed by Richard Leacock. For those who find wedding videos boring and offensive, this film carries a similar aura as it opens with a young lady in preparation for an ‘important’ event. Look carefully and this seemingly innocuous piece may reveal a deeper, more idiosyncratic underscore, perhaps even pagan ritual, metaphor and symbolism.

Unless you move past the preening, brushing, grooming, fussing and self-involved ugliness, you may miss any deeper meaning strewn within. We assume the girl being prepared for the symbolic ‘royal event’ is the ‘Queen Of Apollo’. A young boy is trained to hand her a sceptre and she pats his head. Sceptres of course are ceremonial wands used as royal emblems of monarch authority.

Later, at the actual ceremony inside a hall, the ‘Queen Of Apollo’ promenades around her faithful, waving her gloved hand for them; in a corner stands a large fake tree trunk with a constructed door and door-sign above with ‘MR SANDERS’ written in child-like, (Winnie The Pooh style) scribble; the significance elusive. ‘Sanders’ is an old word for ‘sandalwood’, and also means ‘son of Alexander’, but this doesn’t help us much.

In the background, a scrappy house band plays a sloppy rendition of the 1961 Shirelles hit Baby It’s You (also recorded by The Beatles in 1963). This Burt Bacharach, Luther Dixon and Mack Davis song includes the line “You should hear what they say about you –cheat!” Meanwhile an amassed youthful (?) mob bounce up and down in their bright satin outfits like some psychedelic KKK gathering hidden beneath their conical hats, masks and long shiny robes. Something about the demeanour of the rabbles suggests white supremacists…the young ‘Queen’s’ mother’s own hairstyle looks seriously modelled after Queen Elizabeth’s pompadour.

This doco was filmed in USA (New Orleans, Louisiana) locales that might hint a connection with some KKK, Freemasons or other organization. The Ku Klux Klan was a secret organization originally created in 1865 by 6 Confederate veterans from Tennessee. They derived the name by joining the Greek word for ‘circle’ (kyklos or κυ-κλος) and ‘clan’. The KKK used violence and intimidation to stop blacks voting and to suppress Republican votes. Before the Presidential election of November 1868, over 2,000 people were harmed or killed in Louisiana. After reading pro-Democrat Thomas Dixon’s (1864-1946) Ku Klux Klan trilogy of books ‘The Leopard’s Spots’(1902), ‘The Clansman’ (1905) and ‘The Traitor’ (1907), renowned film pioneer D.W. Griffith glorified the original Klan in his film ‘THE BIRTH OF A NATION’ (1915). Like Dixon, he used iconography inspired by old Scotland and the Historical Romances of Sir Walter Scott’s works. As an example, the international flag of the ‘Scottish Rite of Freemasonry’ is also the flag of the United Nations depicting the world nations surrounded by the laurel of Apollo circling (κυ-κλος) the world. Present-day Ku Klux Klan is no longer a single organization, but many smaller, independent groups across America, which makes it harder for researchers to infiltrate.

Still, QUEEN OF APOLLO may simply be chronicling an exemplary, elegant and chaste exclusive event; perhaps a debutante’s big day; perhaps the ‘APOLLO’ in the film title has to do with something as trivial as the name of the reception lounge, possibly called something like ‘Apollo Theatre’ or ‘Apollo Lounge’… somehow this seems doubtful!

I imagine more likely the ‘APOLLO’ in the film title has to do with the then topical ‘Apollo Space Program’. NASA conducted the Apollo space flights between 1961 and 1975 aiming at human moon landing missions. For those who believe it was accomplished, the greatest moment was on 20th July 1969. It is thought that around one fifth of the world population watched the live transmission of the first Apollo moon landing. The lunar landings of the Apollo program are still seen by some as humanity’s greatest achievement.

The Apollo program was named after Apollo, the Greek god of light. Before the Apollo program, America had the Mercury program (another god) to compete with the Soviets (who were the first to fly man to space -12 April 1961). NASA made space travel believable though others suspect that every Apollo mission was a carefully orchestrated and rehearsed Top Secret mock-up. Some see occult metaphors and symbolism in the Apollo missions. Eg: The Numerological ‘staged’ explosion (death-sacrifice) of ‘Apollo 13’ at 13:13 hrs on 13 April 1970; (13 is seen as the symbolic number of death and rebirth/reincarnation). This event and the filming of QUEEN OF APOLLO happened very close together…

NASA-Masonic conspiracies continue to exist; as reward for “pulling off” the Apollo space mission, C. Fred Kleinknecht (said to have headed the Apollo space project) was later made Sovereign Grand Commander of the Council of the 33rd Degree of the Ancient Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in Washington DC. Others say it wasn’t C. Fred Kleinknecht, but rather his brother Kenneth S. Kleinknecht (also a 33 degree S.R. Mason) who worked at NASA. Note: The most active and exceptional serving Masons receive the prestigious and Honorary 33rd Degree. It is said, the ‘Scottish Rite’ is part of the Masonic family degree system. There are apparently few of the first 3 degrees, then, those who apply and pay for them are conferred with the 4 to 32 degrees, and the 33rd degree is for exceptional service to Freemasonry. Very few receive this recognition which might be seen as somehow ‘elite’.

It is believed that all of the early astronauts were Freemasons. By showing the people of Earth that we can leave our planet and travel to space, it infers that other beings might also travel to Earth. Alien conspiracies still flourish.

For many in awe of astral bodies, the worship of the Sun, Moon and Stars continues. We still call many planets after the old Gods, Eg: Venus, Mars, Neptune, Mercury and Jupiter… Humanity has always noticed patterns in the movement of the Sun, Moon and Stars. The ancient Greeks explained the Sun’s daily journey as the work of Apollo riding a fiery chariot across the heavens. The ancient Egyptians explained the waning of the Moon as a monthly re-enactment of the dismemberment of the god Osiris. When humanity discovered the Earth revolved around the Sun, it destroyed our arrogant notion that the universe centred round man. This painful truth revealed our relative insignificance while affirming The Sun as the most brilliant object in our Solar System (and so Apollo shares in that importance). The Moon which seems to magically affect natural life on Earth as it reflects the light of the Sun (Apollo) is also important…perhaps seen as the Goddess, or Queen, (Queen of Apollo?), her gravitational pull influences the tides and the cycles of life, perhaps even our emotional cycle.

Alternatively, in other mythology, Apollo did have a Queen at one stage…Apollo’s famous affair was with his lover Queen Hecuba. When she had a son (Troilus) to Apollo, an oracle foretold that Troy would not be defeated if Troilus reached age 25, so Troilus was killed by Achilles during the Trojan War. Hecuba (Queen of Apollo?) later went insane when 2 of her other children (Poydorus and Polyxena) died.

If the word ‘Sun’ is substituted for the word ‘Apollo’, the title QUEEN OF SUN (or ‘Sun Queen’) might come into play. Perhaps some connection to ‘Nefertiti’ is in order. She was known as Egypt’s ‘Sun Queen’. Her name means “a beautiful woman has come”. It is believed she was from wealthy, privileged, elite Egyptian royalty. Nefertiti was the wife of pharaoh Amenhotep (perhaps the earliest monotheist). It is thought she helped her husband systematically erase the worship of the supreme Egyptian god AMEN, replacing AMEN with ATEN.

Anyway, some occultists see Apollo as ‘Lucifer’, linked to Mars and the coming of the Antichrist.

One cannot be sure who is on the right track…I still wonder about many possible connections between events, mythologies and this strange 12 minute doco QUEEN OF APOLLO.

The next piece was TITICUT FOLLIES (1967); shot in 1966, this is a harrowing documentary film that reveals a hideous male-dominated world of crime and punishment inside a mental institution. If ever you need proof that humanity is a mess, here it is! It’s enough to make you question how the universe got it so wrong. This film could easily be reclassified as ‘HORROR’. Filled with ugliness in many guises; patients, wardens, doctors, buildings, behaviour…ugly, ugly and so ugly! ‘Moe’, the guy running the show, comes off like a spotlight-starved, show-tune-obsessed dictator; a most forceful, unattractive presence.
If the oppressed patients are flawed, this film reveals serious counter-flaws in the staff as well, who, in turn show most questionable traits. Unhygienic, sick, rude, brutal… perhaps most questionable are the psychiatrists and doctors condemning the poor lost souls…At one point we see the tragic force-feeding of a soon-to-be-dead patient.

Filmed in black and white by Frederick Wiseman at an institution in Massachusetts, the inmates and patients are seen to be deprived of comfort, privacy and freedom. Left naked in stark individual cells, they are violated, bullied, ridiculed and shown no dignity.

I recall the artwork of the masters Goya and Bosch who once captured the horror of the ugly human soul pushing outward from the flesh. Many faces seen in Titicut Follies affirm the old masters’ gruesome visions with their foul presence…Paradise truly is lost and freedom is but a dream.
I’m not pointing the finger at any one particular group, though I’m struck by the emotionally challenged, empathy-lacking staff and wardens who have probably been dealing with inmates on a daily basis and are most likely worn down and numb to empathy… all that’s left is an inhuman process of pain. Even in front of the camera they torture the prisoners; one could only imagine what horror they’d inflict off camera.
This film shows the sad leading the sad (though we could also substitute ‘sick’, ‘blind’, ‘mad’ and ‘poor’ for sad). Indeed, this is one of the saddest film experiences ever.

Thanks for such a difficult and thought-provoking Cinemateque experience Brett.

PS: Afterwards, I had a look on the internet and found QUEEN OF APOLLO is included on a long list of PENNEBAKER-HEGEDUS films. I believe Leacock collaborated with D.A.Pennebaker, whereas D.A Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus formed a documentary filmmaking team in the mid 70s where she would co-direct with Pennebaker. Like Richard Leacock (QUEEN OF APOLLO), who’s cinematic style creates a sense of actually ‘being there’, they too have been responsible for many respected and candid pieces. Using unobtrusive handheld cameras, they leave the film subject to determine the result. The Pennebaker-Hegedus team received the D.W.Griffith Award for their documentary THE WAR ROOM (1994).
In 1960, Leacock helped invent sync for cameras and sound recorders which helped sprout the new style of filmmaking taken up by many including D.A.Pennebaker.
Leacock (Born in London 18 July 1921) had spent years as a combat photographer in Burma and China; he also spent over a year as cameraman on Robert Flaherty’s ‘Louisiana Story’ (1948). Later Leacock also worked on Robert Drew’s film PRIMARY (1960), which is an intimate look at the JFK – Hubert Humphrey primary election. Leacock co-shot it and D.A.Pennebaker edited it. When Robert Drew went to work for ABC-TV, Leacock-Pennebaker was born, producing many films including DON’T LOOK BACK (1965).