The Man in Black is Dead! Long Live the Man in Black!

In the early morning hours of Friday September the 12th, Johnny Cash died at the age of 71. We all knew it was coming, especially after the loss of his wife, June Carter Cash, in May. Nevertheless, it's a sad, sad day for music lovers everywhere. The Man in Black was a true American icon and his legacy of song, stories, and soul, will live on. Here's to you, Johnny!

I thought I’d take a moment to spotlight some of my friends’ cool personal web pages.

You can check out my wife Lynda E. Rucker’s page at: http://www.sff.net/people/lyndaerucker.
She is a fellow writer and my dearest partner in crime.

My friend Dave, who is also a fantastic writer, has a great page of reviews and more at: http://snurri.blogspot.com/

Ever wonder where Satan likes to spend his free time on the web? Hang out at our good friend Scott’s page to find out: http://lackoftalent.net:8080/satan/

And last but not least, there’s Greg’s insanely wonderful page: http://www.livejournal.com/users/celibot/
He’s a good guy, regardless of his fondness for There Might Be Giants and his lack of appreciation for Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Something to do with Leone

I just got back from watching the third and best of Sergio Leone’s famed “Dollars” trilogy, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, which is playing in town at my favorite local theater, Cinema 21. Although it’s always been one of my favorite Leone films, seeing it in the theater made all the difference. I’ll have to watch Once Upon a Time in the West again to properly judge which one is my favorite, but for the moment, this one wins out. Unless you have a nice big television set (which I don’t), it’s imperative to see this film on the big screen to fully appreciate Tonino Delli Colli’s incredible cinematography. The larger-than-life compositions really add to the drama unfolding on screen, as well as bringing out some of the actors’ subtle nuances, e.g. ironic facial expressions. And, of course, when you talk about The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, you have to mention the unforgettable music of Ennio Morricone, a man who added so much to Leone’s films, be it irony, slapstick, beauty, or an epic grandeur (sometimes all at once) that is hard to match even to this day. Morricone’s complete score for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is available as an import compact disc from GDM Music. Also, if you’re interested in knowing more about Sergio Leone, I highly recommend Sir Christopher Frayling’s 2000 biography entitled, Sergio Leone: Something To Do With Death. A great read. Frayling is also the author of another fantastic book, dealing with the oddball Spaghetti Western genre in general. Definitely worth checking out as well.

Darkness Has No Need: Irreversible (2002)

Writer Stephen King once stated that he believed director Stanley Kubrick wanted to hurt viewers with his film adaptation of The Shining (1980). King was wrong. Kubrick simply wanted to make an effective piece of horror cinema. Director Gaspar Noe, on the other hand, does want to hurt you. Bad. He also wants to incite a riot within your head, and make you think about the representations of violence perpetrated across the screen. In his first feature film, I Stand Alone (1998), Noe examined the life of a jingoistic, racist French butcher (played by Philippe Nahon) who stalked the streets of Paris looking for his soul and that of his country’s. Being that the butcher was a certifiable lunatic, the search didn’t come easy and the fate awaiting him was a dark one indeed. The film’s seemingly nihilistic flourishes and thematic concerns revolted some viewers; others felt that Noe was merely a talented poseur more inclined toward empty shock tactics than real in-depth character analysis. I found the film unforgettable and a bold, ugly character study that examined, perhaps too well, that of the racist paranoid psychopath. For those of you who hated I Stand Alone, I would suggest staying clear of Noe’s next feature, Irreversible.

Ostensibly, the film is a simple (albeit a horrendously savage) revenge tale. But underneath the façade of stylistic shock and awe is a darkly poignant character study of a relationship spiraling off into the black abyss. Told in reverse fashion, the film propels the viewer into a sickly claustrophobic noir universe where two men, Marcus (Vincent Cassel) and Pierre (Albert Dupontel), are being led out of a sleazy gay sex club where a horrendous killing has taken place -- the victim, the alleged rapist of Marcus’ girlfriend Alex (Monica Bellucci). Noe then takes us into the bowels of the club (named the Rectum) where we experience the atrocious killing, and then the events leading up to the death, including the catalyst for the revenge: the rape of Alex by a gay pimp called Le Tenia (Jo Prestia). The first half of the film is honestly some of the most excruciating, uncomfortable cinema I’ve ever witnessed, and this is coming from someone who has sat through Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust numerous times and Jorg Buttgereit’s blackly-comedic transgressive horror films. Like I already said, Gaspar Noe wants to hurt you bad. The pain of the rape is even more powerful when we consider what occurs before it –- the hours of mundane bliss that Marcus and Alex spend with one another. Their conversations, laughter, and intimacies carry an added weight to them that would’ve gone unnoticed or ignored if the film had been presented in a traditional linear manner. As it is, these moments of domestic banality carry with them an emotional context that removes the film from simple exploitation. In fact, although the film’s characters are all arguably doomed to fates of oblivion (hence the title), Noe does not expunge morality from his nihilistic representations. If anything, Irreversible is one of the most savagely moralistic films in recent memory.

Although I highly recommend the film, the recommendation comes with strong reservations. The almost unwatchable power of the film’s two most infamous scenes (the death of the man within the nightclub by having his head and face smashed in with a fire-extinguisher, and the rape of Alex by Le Tenia in a deserted Metro pedestrian tunnel, a scene that lasts an excruciating nine minutes) cannot be overstated enough. But the performances (most of them improvised) by the three leads are exceptional, and Noe’s bravura, disorienting camera movements, which are integral to the first part of the film as the camera tries to replicate the drunken-drug-fueled rage of Marcus and Pierre (undercut with a disturbing electronic throb courtesy of Thomas Bangalter), is nothing short of magnificent. For technique alone, Noe is undoubtedly one of the finest stylists working in film today. But thankfully, the film is not style without substance. You may not like what Noe is trying to say, but there is a method to his madness. It may not be the most original or uplifting outcome, but it is unforgettable. Sadly, some denizens of Nightmare Town are sentenced to wandering its streets forever.

It should also be noted that the film plays like a volume-eleven tribute/rebuttal to Stanley Kubrick’s final film, Eyes Wide Shut (1999). But where Kubrick’s film allowed his married couple a chance out of their tribulations with an invitation for redemption through fucking, Noe offers his couple something far more fucked-up and psychologically impenetrable. Also, tying-in with the Kubrick homage, Noe has placed a poster of the “Starchild” from 2001: A Space Odyssey above Marcus and Alex’s bed. The film also ends/begins with a strobe-light effect that subliminally flashes an image of the Milky Way –- a cosmic umbilical cord connecting Noe to his “Starchild” cinematic predecessor. Perhaps an optimistic coda after all.

Irreversible is on DVD from Lion’s Gate Home Video.

THE BURGLAR by David Goodis

At three in the morning it was dead around here and the windows of the mansion were black, the mansion dark purple and solemn against the moonlit velvet green of gently sloping lawn. The dark purple was a target and the missile was Nathaniel Harbin who sat behind the wheel of a car parked on the wide clean street going north from the mansion. He had an unlit cigarette in his mouth and in his lap there was a sheet of paper containing a diagram of burglary. The plan gave the route aiming at the mansion, moving inside and across the wide library to the wall sage where there were emeralds.

So begins this twisted tale of obsessive love and crime. David Goodis, along with fellow noir writer Cornell Woolrich, was the leading purveyor of hardboiled angst and paranoia. His novels have an uncanny power to them, as they brutally dissect the malaise festering beneath the surface of our lives. Goodis worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter during the 1940s, but he’s best remembered for his novels, most notably Dark Passage (which was adapted for the screen in 1947 starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall), Nightfall (also adapted to the screen by director Jacques Tourneur), Shoot the Piano Player a.k.a. Down There (which famed French director Francois Truffaut made into a classic film), and Black Friday among many others. In The Burglar, Goodis introduces us to career criminal Nat Harbin. Harbin is a mastermind at putting together big pay-off burglaries. Unfortunately, Harbin is also a major-league softy when it comes to women. And in true noir style, women are the one thing that always get him into deep trouble.

The Burglar is a black cocktail served ice cold. The twisted relationships between Harbin and his gang of thieves (the dumb-witted Dohmer, the weaselly Baylock, and the dumbly innocent yet alluring Gladden) are all expertly sketched out, as is Harbin’s deliriously sex-driven dalliance with the mysterious Della, a woman oozing with toxic love. This poisonous slice of unease is sadly out of print, but it’s well worth tracking down among the used bookstores.

EAGLE IN THE SNOW by Wallace Breem

My summer reading for fiction has been geared toward pure entertainment. Maybe it’s me, but I just don’t feel like reading Dostoyevsky or Gogol when the sun is shining (I save them for the colder, drearier months). Although I did slip some Graham Greene and Flannery O’Connor into the mix, my novel intake has been strictly escapist.

One of my favorite novels this summer has been Wallace Breem’s historical epic, Eagle in the Snow. Originally published in 1970, the novel has been republished in hardcover by Rugged Land press, and has been given a short introduction by Steven Pressfield, writer of the equally excellent historical novel, Gates of Fire, which dealt with the famed 300 Spartans and their heroic defeat at Thermopylae against the mighty Persians. Breem’s story is set during the waning years of the Roman Empire, and focuses on the valiant effort of General Paulinus Maximus to keep the barbarian hoards from spreading into the Rhine from the east. The action is swift and violent, the characters finely detailed and believable. And as with Pressfield’s novel, Breem understands that even the most fascinating historical aside will mean absolutely nothing if it isn’t grounded in character and emotional incident. A great page-turning read if there ever was one.