Category: {books}
Books
Paul Newman, 1925–2008
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
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 UnknownPresented by Shriekfest 2008
DATE: Saturday, October 4th, 2008
TIME: 1:45 PM
PLACE: Raleigh Studios, The Chaplin Theater
5300 Melrose Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90038Producer 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
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.
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.
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
50 greatest villains in literature
50 greatest villains in literature
| Lord Horror doesn’t make the Telegraph‘s list but Cthulhu does.