{film} – Page 303 – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 17

Aladdin Sane (1973). Cover photo by Brian Duffy who died this week.

• Among the obituaries this week: artist Louise Bourgeois; poet and partner of Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky; film director Joseph Strick, a man who dared to film James Joyce’s Ulysses; photographer Brian Duffy.

• The dustbin of art history: “Why is so much contemporary art awful? We’re living through the death throes of the modernist project—and this isn’t the first time that greatness has collapsed into decadence.” Admirable sentiments but galleries and dealers have far too much invested in the corrupt edifice to let it collapse any time soon.

• Edinburgh film festival to screen ‘lost and forgotten’ British movies including the director’s cut of Jerry Cornelius film The Final Programme.

Delectable Bawdville burlesque boy Chris “Go-Go” Harder. Via EVB who have more pics.

• Homobody by Rio Safari, “a scrappy diy zine about queerness”. Obliquely related: Lizzy the Lezzie, animations at the Sundance Channel.

• Richard Norris aka Time and Space Machine puts together a psychedelic mixtape for FACT. Fab stuff.

• Diamanda Galás has a message for critics: “Stick to reviewing plant life and leave the Witches alone.”

• Brion Gysin: Dream Machine will be the first US survey of Gysin’s work in NYC next month.

• Geeta Dayal’s study of Another Green World by Brian Eno reviewed at Ballardian.

• For type-heads: font anatomy wallpaper by Sigurdur Armannsson.

• If it was my home: visualising the BP oil disaster.

• Antony Gormley’s Breathing Room III.

• The Paris Review has a new blog.

• Bizarre juxtaposition of the week: John Martyn’s sublime Small Hours with, er… The Clangers.

House of Harrington

Curtis Harrington.

House of Harrington is a short documentary from 2008 about the late filmmaker Curtis Harrington which has just been posted to YouTube by its makers, and by a curious coincidence this appearance occurs in the week of Dennis Hopper’s death. Harrington gave Hopper the lead in his debut feature Night Tide (1961) at a time when the actor was ostracised in Hollywood after a falling out with director Henry Hathaway. Hopper’s diligent performance in Harrington’s film, a low budget horror, is a long way from the histrionics one usually finds in works of this sort and is a good reason to seek it out.

Marjorie Cameron in The Wormwood Star.

Also in Night Tide in a wordless role is the enigmatic occult artist Marjorie Cameron who drifts around looking spooky and mysterious. Cameron had earlier appeared with Harrington in Kenneth Anger’s Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954), he as Cesaré the Somnambulist from Caligari, she as Aleister Crowley’s Scarlet Woman. That encounter led to Harrington making her the subject of one of his experimental shorts, The Wormwood Star in 1956. I’ve wanted to see this film for years, if only to sate a persistent curiosity, and House of Harrington contains a few tantalising glimpses. With luck it may turn up on YouTube (or even DVD) in the future.

Lastly, Automat Pictures, the makers of House of Harrington, also have a lengthy filmed lecture in their channel, Queer for Fear, which “explores gay and lesbian subtext in the horror film, and examines the intertwining of queer history and monster movies.”

• House of Harrington: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Curtis Harrington, 1926–2007
• The art of Cameron, 1922–1995
• Kenneth Anger on DVD…finally

Weekend links 16

Sumer Is Icumen In but you wouldn’t have known it today, it being cold and wet, O my brothers. The picture above is the work of David Owen whose Ink Corporation does a splendid job of updating the iconography of the folk music world. Via Electric Eden.

• Biting the hand that feeds: designer Jonathan Barnbrook’s contribution to the Biennale of Sydney takes a dig at the whole enterprise. The art market is impervious to criticism (or shame) but the gesture is an amusing one.

• Emanuel Schongut’s book covers of the 1960s and 1970s on the artist’s own Flickr pages. Via A Journey Round My Skull.

• Owen Freeman on illustrating William Burroughs. Related: Reality Studio interviews Victor Bockris.

• RIP Jack Birkett, Derek Jarman’s Caliban and the Pope in Caravaggio. And RIP Dennis Hopper, actor, director and photographer.

“Sea Nettle” (1873), a costume design by the Mistick Krewe of Comus. From this BibliOdyssey posting of New Orleans Mardi Gras designs.

• Chris Summerfield’s surfer boys at Lulu.

• Homotography also has a Tumblr page.

• The Ghost Box Study Series Singles.

• More 3D projection on buildings.

• John Foxx interviewed at FACT.

Song of the week: Ineffect (1989) by Material.

Monsieur Fantômas by Ernst Moerman

Jean Michel as Fantômas.

Ernst Moerman’s Belgian short from 1937 is available for viewing at Ubuweb and is described on its title card as “Un film Surrealiste”. One might equally describe it as “un film amateur” since it’s very much in the home movie mould as was much of the independent cinema of this time. The direction may be perfunctory but the photography is surprisingly good in places. The action, such as it is, concerns an avatar of the Surrealists’ favourite anti-hero, Fantômas, in a series of farcical scenes many of which are filmed on a beach with a few spare props. The most notable moment for me is one which none of the online documentation mentions, a brief appearance by a youthful René Magritte who pretends to be painting Le Viol. Magritte was a great Fantômas enthusiast so his presence here isn’t too surprising.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Dark Ledger
• Judex, from Feuillade to Franju
• Fantômas

Bob Peak revisited

left: Mame (1974); right: Excalibur (1981).

Matthew Peak, son of film poster artist Bob Peak, left on a comment this week on an earlier post I made about his father’s art with news of the relaunch of the Peak site. I’m looking forward to seeing what gets posted there especially since the additions to date are such good quality. Peak was a tremendously powerful and dramatic artist whose posters are often a lot more engaging than the films they were intended to promote. He was also exceptionally versatile, as the two examples above demonstrate (via IMP Awards), being equally adept at hard-edged graphics as he was with nebulous airbrush paintings. As with the similarly versatile Richard Amsel, the more time passes, the more these posters seem evidence of an artistry and individuality which has vanished from the world of film design.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Aquirax Uno
• Alice in Acidland
• Salomé posters
• Polish posters: Freedom on the Fence
• Kaleidoscope: the switched-on thriller
• The Robing of The Birds
• Franciszek Starowieyski, 1930–2009
• Dallamano’s Dorian Gray
• Czech film posters
• The poster art of Richard Amsel
• Bollywood posters
• Lussuria, Invidia, Superbia
• The poster art of Bob Peak
• A premonition of Premonition
• Metropolis posters
• Film noir posters