Paul Newman, 1925–2008

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Paul Newman often said that his best films began with the letter H, among them The Hustler (1961) and Hud (1963). Two of the H films were directed by Martin Ritt, including my favourite, Hombre (1967), a tough and unsentimental western based on a novel by the tough and unsentimental Elmore Leonard. Hombre is one of the few decent American westerns of the Sixties, with a great script and a first class cast. Newman plays John Russell, a white man raised by Apaches who has to save a group of stagecoach passengers from Richard Boone’s murderous bandits. His performance is a study in emotionless determination, the polar opposite of his far more popular roles as Butch Cassidy and Cool Hand Luke. One of many memorable lines of dialogue comes when Diane Cilento’s character asks Russell why they should trust him to lead them to safety. “’Cause I can cut it, lady,” he says. Paul Newman could always cut it.

Lovecraft in Los Angeles

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Frank H Woodward’s excellent documentary about the life and work of HP Lovecraft receives a screening in Los Angeles at Shriekfest 2008 on October 4th. As mentioned earlier, this is easily the best film to date about HPL and features several illustrations of mine.

Wyrd is proud to announce the
L.A. Premiere of the documentary
Lovecraft: Fear Of The Unknown

Presented by Shriekfest 2008

DATE:  Saturday, October 4th, 2008
TIME:  1:45 PM
PLACE:  Raleigh Studios, The Chaplin Theater
5300 Melrose Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90038

Producer William Janczewski will be in attendance!

Admission is $8. To purchase tickets, you can visit the Shriekfest 2008 site.

H.P. Lovecraft was the forefather of modern horror having created the Cthulhu mythos. LOVECRAFT is a chronicle of the life, work and mind behind these weird tales.

• narrated by Robin Atkin Downes
• music by Mars of Dead House Music
• associate producer Andrew Migliore
• produced by William Janczewski, James B. Myers & Frank H. Woodward
• written & directed by Frank H. Woodward

Previously on { feuilleton }
New things for July
The monstrous tome
New things for October

The art of Pierre Clayette, 1930–2005

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The Library of Babel (no date).

Another French artist who specialised in fantastic architecture, Pierre Clayette’s work came to my attention via the picture above which illustrates a Borges story. This leads me to wonder once again what it is about French and Belgian artists which attracts them more than others to this type of imagery.

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Whatever the reason, there isn’t a great deal of Clayette’s work online and biographical details are few. This page (the source of the untitled picture above) reveals that he worked as an illustrator for Planète magazine, the journal of “fantastic realism” founded by Jacques Bergier and Louis Pauwels in the early Sixties. Some readers may know that pair as the authors of a { feuilleton } cult volume, The Morning of the Magicians (1960), whose vertiginous blend of speculative and weird fiction, occultism and futurology Planète was intended to continue.

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Clayette also worked as a theatre designer and book illustrator. Le Chateau (above) is an illustration from Songes de Pierres, a 1984 portfolio depicting scenes from Pierres by Roger Caillois. That writer has his own significant Borges connection, being responsible for introducing Borges’ work to France via his editorship of the UNESCO journal, Diogenes. (Pauwels and Bergier later published Borges in Planète.)

Finally, there’s a less extravagant Flickr collection of some Clayette covers for Penguin Shakespeare editions. All of which only scratches the surface of what was evidently a prolific career; I’ll look forward to more examples of his work coming to light.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
The fantastic art archive
The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
The art of Michiko Hoshino
The art of Erik Desmazières
The art of Gérard Trignac
The Absolute Elsewhere

Ronald Searle book covers

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Lilliput issue no. 150, December 1949.

A nice selection of Ronald Searle book covers and illustrations turns up at Caustic Cover Critic. The Lilliput cover above isn’t among them, I just happened to have it lying around as a result of putting together a new edition of Maurice Richardson’s The Exploits of Engelbrecht earlier this year. That volume is still in a holding pattern at Savoy Books but plans are afoot to see it published in the next few months. Searle produced a number of illustrations for the Engelbrecht stories, of course, although not for this particular issue.

Lilliput #150 featured Richardson’s story Engelbrecht and the Mechanical Brain as well as a St Trinian’s Christmas story by Searle and Arthur Marshall, hence the cover. It’s good to see some of the original covers for the Molesworth books on the CCC page. Geoffrey Willans’ Nigel Molesworth was the delinquent male equivalent of the St Trinian’s schoolgirls and I read all the books when they were reprinted in the early Seventies.

Via Coudal.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
The book covers archive
The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
Engelbrecht again
Mervyn Peake in Lilliput