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I am the sword of the Lord, and Famine and Pestilence are my sisters
Outside of Patreon reviews, I am not posting a lot right now because the elbow sprains seem to have given me a temporary experience of RSI. Typing for any length of time (among other activities, but this is the one that's interfering with e-mail and online interaction) causes the inside of my forearms to ache in worrying ways and I don't want to turn it into a permanent condition.
Earlier tonight,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rushthatspeaks and I saw Wojciech Jerzy Has' Memoirs of a Sinner (Osobisty pamietnik grzesznika . . . przez niego samego spisany, 1986), adapted from James Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824). Rush had read the novel; I hadn't, but knew the conceit. Neither of us knew anything about Has as a filmmaker—I'd heard of The Saragossa Manuscript (1964) and that was it. Memoirs of a Sinner is simultaneously a great portrayal of mental illness and a great portrayal of demonic possession and a solid historical fiction, meaning the characters think in ways strange to me even before we factor in the Calvinism; it has a witches' sabbat and a terrific Devil and a genuinely unearthly Day of Judgment, a towering processional figure that I thought at first was a demon, but suspected was an angel by the end. At least here, Has' style reminds me more than anyone of Peter Greenaway, especially in the organization of figures into informative tableaux and the long lateral tracking shots, but also slightly of Ken Russell's The Devils (1971). For a movie with such a strong supernatural component, it refrains strikingly from visual effects. Weird things happen with time in the editing and space in the structure of the sets; the cinematography gets some compelling, uncanny effects out of the contrasts between natural and obviously artificial lighting. Watching it, I thought it had been made about a decade earlier than it was, but at least that explained where the partly electronic score came from. Would recommend to those members of my friendlist who want to watch the post-gallows confession of a plaintive, sociopathic resurrected corpse. You know who you are.
I really resent the Brattle Theatre showing Psycho (1960) for Mother's Day. I have never seen the movie and I want to see it for the first time on the big screen. I do not want to see it with the kind of audience who will come for the irony of it. I had that happen once with The Birds (1963), thank you very much, and it made me homicidal. Dammit, Brattle.
Earlier tonight,
rushthatspeaks and I saw Wojciech Jerzy Has' Memoirs of a Sinner (Osobisty pamietnik grzesznika . . . przez niego samego spisany, 1986), adapted from James Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824). Rush had read the novel; I hadn't, but knew the conceit. Neither of us knew anything about Has as a filmmaker—I'd heard of The Saragossa Manuscript (1964) and that was it. Memoirs of a Sinner is simultaneously a great portrayal of mental illness and a great portrayal of demonic possession and a solid historical fiction, meaning the characters think in ways strange to me even before we factor in the Calvinism; it has a witches' sabbat and a terrific Devil and a genuinely unearthly Day of Judgment, a towering processional figure that I thought at first was a demon, but suspected was an angel by the end. At least here, Has' style reminds me more than anyone of Peter Greenaway, especially in the organization of figures into informative tableaux and the long lateral tracking shots, but also slightly of Ken Russell's The Devils (1971). For a movie with such a strong supernatural component, it refrains strikingly from visual effects. Weird things happen with time in the editing and space in the structure of the sets; the cinematography gets some compelling, uncanny effects out of the contrasts between natural and obviously artificial lighting. Watching it, I thought it had been made about a decade earlier than it was, but at least that explained where the partly electronic score came from. Would recommend to those members of my friendlist who want to watch the post-gallows confession of a plaintive, sociopathic resurrected corpse. You know who you are.I really resent the Brattle Theatre showing Psycho (1960) for Mother's Day. I have never seen the movie and I want to see it for the first time on the big screen. I do not want to see it with the kind of audience who will come for the irony of it. I had that happen once with The Birds (1963), thank you very much, and it made me homicidal. Dammit, Brattle.
no subject
Thank you. I think at this point I mostly know what to do—after a day off, I have the supporting bandages back on my arms again—I'm just hoping the problem goes away when the sprains have healed. I'm glad yours is behaving itself, at least.
And the movie sounds damn cool.
It was great!