"Aaaaahhhhhh!"

The “Queen of Scream” is a fitting moniker for Fay Wray, founded through previous roles in B-grade horror films such as “Dr. X” (1932) and solidified in her portrayal of Ann Darrow in “King Kong” (1933). In re-reading my notes to address this blog I am amused to find I’ve written “All it is, is screaming. Forever.” The film, particularly the last half, is saturated by the sound of feminine screams of terror. Initially, as with a child’s cry, this sound evokes a visceral and instinctive empathetic response, however, it quickly becomes tiresome.

I laughed at the time, thinking of the transcript shared between Kong’s roars and Ann’s screams. This central relationship, unarticulated yet intensely emotional, finds impetus in base human emotions. Kong, the terrifying monster, loves Ann. He loves her with the same dangerous, careless love of a child clutching in its hands a Barbie doll. These images are not hard to reconcile in one’s mind. Kong's desire manifests in possessiveness; Ann's picturesque terror, in submission. I intend this image to remain firmly in your mind, in considering the allure of terror to an audience and in the extrapolation of this dynamic to explore the heavily masculinised geography of this film.


The narrative contains three distinct spaces, each fraught with different dangers for women, particularly beautiful women. The ship presents the least threat, simply the promise of its destination. The foreign island is overtly threatening – consider the ominous “Skull Mountain” – in which women are bartered and sacrificed to the mighty Kong. The danger of the unknown plays little role in the audience's experience; well-aware of what lurks on Skull Mountain they are waiting for the gratification deriving from the appearance of the monster they paid for when purchasing their ticket.

In my reading of the spaces of this film, it is the city which poses the greatest threat – it spawns Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong). Denham is a man of the city, manipulative, self-interested and predator to the vulnerable. The introduction to Ann’s character highlights this, her naivety made clear by the demure concealing of her face in shadow, before a typical Hollywood-glamour reveal into the light. Denham ‘saves’ her from the fruit vendor and she falls gratefully into his arms, a precursor to her later position in the clutches of another, literal, monster.

It is important to digress here to the heavy-handed thematic use of the Beauty and the Beast tale. The ‘Old Arabian Proverb’ frames the male-female relationships in terms of this well-known dynamic. A Westernised Beauty and the Beast tale witnesses the reformation of the Beast and the winning of Beauty’s love, analogous to the suggested future harmony of Jack (Bruce Cabot) and Ann at the close of the film.

The clearly demarcated Beast, Kong, suffers the predicted downfall subsequent and inevitable to love for Beauty, unable to reform as the racialised ‘Other’ in the cityscape, his defeat comes at the hands of modern society, manifest in the technology of airplanes.


To return to Denham, who has no love for Beauty and suffers no pain at her hand, I argue is the most beastly of all; with a callous disregard for Ann’s welfare and self-interest as paramount over the dignity of another living creature. The excitement of the unknown, coupled with a financial incentive, drives Denham to propel the plot forward to mayhem, destruction and death.

“King Kong” represents monumental progress for modern cinema in terms of special effects, such as layering of sound effects and score, use of miniatures and back-projection, to create a fairly believable landscape populated with horrific creatures. This achievement alone does not explain why there have been so many subsequent Kong-related films, a small selection includes -

Son of Kong (1933)

Konga (1961)

King Kong Vs. Godzilla (1962)

King Kong Escapes (1967)

King of Kong Island (1968)

King Kong (1976)

Queen Kong (1976)

King Kong Lives (1986)

The Mighty Kong (1998)

King Kong (2005)


This anatomically-incompatible love, a relationship based upon monstrous, male possessiveness and feminine submission, is repeated over and over again for the viewing pleasure of “the public, bless them.” I ask of you, what is it in human beings that so desires to see an oversized gorilla, inherently a manifestation of the savage in man, carrying about a scantily-clad, terrified woman?

Vertov's Cinematic Hybrid.

Dziga Vertov and his wife founded the Kinoks (cine-eyes) in 1920’s Soviet Russia, emphasising the importance of 'life caught unaware' and working towards a film industry of nought but documentary*. 

“Man with a Movie Camera” (1929) is seminal to this movement, exploring ‘the language of film’ involving “Experimentation in the cinematic transmission of visual phenomena” without intertitles, script, actors or sets as posited (ironically through the use of intertitles) at the commencement of the film. National, non-narrative documentary was viewed as the solution to the corrupting influence of drama imported internationally. 

In terms of this unit’s progression, this film is an interesting exploration of the collective – individual dichotomy. W. Ruttman’s “Berlin: Symphony of a Great City” (1927) presents an intense focus on the collective, the teeming mass of the city. “Man with a Movie Camera”, a mere two years following, does not contain this near-total exclusion of the individual, nor the pejorative idea of collectivism as propagated by Rand and Vidor in various expressions of “The Fountainhead”, instead presenting a transition and/or hybridised idea. 

The recurring female figure, at first supine then dressing, is one body that represents this interest in the private sphere and individual. The camera moves through the window into the bedroom, to her hands and face as she reclines, then again her hands as she clasps her under-garments. Such a degree of intimacy was unexpected in a film so similar to Ruttman’s Berlin, structurally and stylistically, in the suggestion of a city symphony (except a ‘city’ spread across Moscow, Odessa, Kiev and elsewhere, as such acting more of a panorama of Soviet cities). 

Vertov’s interest in ‘life caught unaware’ is here at odds, in the necessarily staged nature of such behaviours. Similarly, the endearing animated sequence involving a camera and tripod taking on a life of their own, such a style of animation dictating lengthy preparation, furthers this ideological ambivalence between ‘experiment’ and ‘documentary’. 

This animation is one example of the vast range of cinematic techniques employed, including fast/slow motion, Dutch angles, backward footage and split screens. These techniques take “Man with a Movie Camera” beyond the city symphony, for although it roughly follows the structural shape of the progression through a day to the extent of chapter titling (i.e. “Work Day Begins”, “Open for Business”) it adds layers beyond what the human eye can perceive. This self-awareness of medium is indicated through the blatant welcome of animated theatre chairs, opening in preparation, and ostensibly desire, of audience.

The recurring image of the eye superimposed upon the camera’s lens unambiguously directs attention to the visual element; the camera as a vessel through which to record and film as the medium through which to manipulate, yet this is not to the exclusion of the auditory sense. Vertov extended his conception of the Camera-Eye to the Radio-Ear in the mid-1920’s, “Man with the Movie Camera” explores the transition from the Cinema-Eye to the Radio-Eye, incorporating ideas about sound cinema into the technologically advancing film industry. The recurrence of the radio speaker, with Vertov’s own left ear superimposed on the cone of the loudspeaker, is indicative of this notion.

“Man with a Movie Camera” purports to be documentary and experiment, communal and individual, visual and auditory – this fascinating panoramic view of Soviet life and industry is a guise for a self-reflexive exploration of film; film as developing, evolving and in transition.  


*Pardon the pompous phrase. 

"I don't like being kept in the dark"

“I don’t like being kept in the dark,” Mabel (Gilda Gray) petulantly remarks to her desired lover and boss, Valentine (Jameson Thomas) - a wilful misuse of this quotation will illuminate (mind the pun) various key elements of Dupont’s silent film “Piccadilly” (1929).

 

Literally, this quotation symbolises the concept of spectacle. Mabel strongly desires to be watched, she objectifies herself through the use of decadent 1920’s stylised costume and a performative nature in both her work as a dancer in the Piccadilly club and her melodramatic behaviour within private spheres. Mabel’s dance in the early part of the film intersected with long panning shots of the audience observing her creates a hyper-awareness of her desire to be, and pleasure in being, watched. This validating audience is usurped from her by Shosho (Anna May Wong), her declining status is coupled with a perception of her theatrical costumes as increasingly ridiculous.

Shosho’s fluidity and mystifying combination of innocence and manipulative countenance ensures that she steals the spotlight from Mabel, within both the plot and cultural realm of the film; as Cynthia Liu truly remarks “Anna May Wong casts a shadow that extends to the present day” (“When Dragon Ladies Die, Do They Come Back as Butterflies? Re-imagining Anna May Wong”), a shadow that blocks out Gilda Gray. 


“Piccadilly” features a recurring shot, a high-angled view of the dance floor, audience, stairs and band which appeared to me as a gaping mouth (similar to, but more symmetrical than the image to the right). This frame reminded me quite strongly of a striking triptych depicting hell as a chasm in the earth - watched, revered and feared by numerous spectators that ring the edges, however I cannot recall the name nor artist, thus cannot demonstrate properly this allusion. However, it was with this image in mind that the rest of the film was framed, rather melodramatically. The conception of the Piccadilly club as a flashing neon locus of spectacle takes on a sinister tone, as we watch expecting the inevitable demise of one or more characters.

This tone of underlying malevolence is supported by Dupont’s training in German expressionist film, the stylistic use of shadow, unusual angles and lingering shots never allows the audience to relax into the lethargically-paced film. A minor side note on the destabilising nature of the film, the titles feature swirls of shade, reminiscent of Dupont’s kaleidoscopic use of light. 


Another manifestation of being ‘kept in the dark’ is the precarious balance between hiding and displaying inter-racial couplings. Emblematic of jarring framing, an interior shot of the Limehouse club is presented to us through the spinning blades of a fan. This jazz-club scene features the ejection of a white woman for dancing with a black man, when coupled with the unsubtle allusions to the relationship between Shosho and Valentine, "Piccadilly" features a remarkably candid portrayal of both inter-racial relationships as extant and as the cause of societal tension. Unsurprisingly, however, censors removed an onscreen kiss between Shosho and Valentine and Shosho’s violent downfall resulting from the crossing of these acceptable boundaries was to be expected, altogether an unexceptional plot.

Film is often conceived as an inclusive medium, opening the door to allow new experience and understanding of events far removed from the audience’s scope, however “Piccadilly” keeps the audience in the proverbial dark. The structural exclusion of silent film is enhanced through long periods without dialogue, forcing the individual to guess and assume from the magnificent over-acting. The broken temporality, deriving from observing soundless speech before removal from the scene to read dialogue, reinforces our position as the observer. One cannot help but imagine the actors, frozen in a dark room while the audience reads dialogue removed totally from their acting process, waiting for the return of the audience, the validating spotlight.

"Glory, glory forever"

“Le sang d'un poète” (The Blood of a Poet - 1930) is the first instalment in Jean Cocteau’s partially autobiographical Orphic trilogy, which through uniting disparate artistic forms explores the creative process.

“The Blood of a Poet” deals less directly with the Orpheus myth than the following two films of the trilogy. There is a loose association between the artist/poet (Enrique Rivero) and Orpheus, their shared extra-human perceptive ability, both a gift and a burden allowing the artist figure to move back and forth between spheres that strongly connote death, Hades in the Orpheus mythology and here the Other/mirror-world. Cocteau, self-identifying as a poet, is ruminating on the artist’s sacrifice for art and the desire for glory; the artist's suicide attempt is in the endeavour for "eternal glory", a concept repeated but never achieved as both artists and artworks are consistently and repeatedly fractured and destroyed. 



The protagonist, if he can be conceived as such in a largely non-narrative film, travels into the other-world at the command of a statue (Elizabeth Lee Miller) that he himself gave life to. Greene (“Deadly Statues: Eros in the Films of Jean Cocteau,” 1988) argues that these most autobiographic films follow the artist as subservient to a powerful and cold woman in a display of masochism, alluding to Rossetti’s 'Venus Verticordia' (pictured left) as indicative of this woman-figure, manifested in various forms in “The Blood of a Poet”, threatening and beautiful. Although sexual overtones run strongly through this film, I find it limiting to see the artist’s service to his art, manifest in the statue-woman, as purely masochistic. 

Most interesting in the artist's destruction of the statue is that the first swing of the mallet takes her face off cleanly, as a mask, before destroying the rest of her body. The camera lingers on his stationary legs and torso contrasted to the dismembered, fractured stone body segments. This film has a preoccupation with the incomplete human body, whether it be the spinning wire mask frames or the recurring instance of statues missing limbs, Cocteau may be arguing for the beauty of the incomplete. Surrealist cinema upsets the human drive to enforce order upon chaos; this film is as the concept of constellations in the sky, trying very hard to see a narrative pattern that simply doesn’t exist. 

When the marble dust has settled and the artist has closed his eyes, the illusion of the artist as transformed into the very thing he destroyed is complete - “By breaking statues one risks turning into one oneself. Again glory, glory forever.” Film, as a moving medium, is uncomfortable when in stasis. Extended shots of stationary objects disquiets. Although the transition immediately following the artist’s transformation into the third part commences with energy and childhood vibrancy, the violent death of a child again stills the frame.

If what Wikipedia tells me is true, the original audience applauding the suicide of the poet in this third section consisted of the financial backer of the film, the wealthy socialite Vicomte de Noailles, along with his wife and friends. Upon discovering what it was they applauded, Noailles forced Cocteau to change the scene, who replaced Noailles with Barbette, the famous female impersonator. The film suffered delayed release due to fears of presenting immoral messages as supported by Barbette's role.  

The content is impossible to categorise or analyse, but commentary on the suffering of the poet and allusions to the Orpheus myth are discernible. Cocteau’s use of imaginative effects and striking visual elements, from the juxtaposition of the dead child to the socialite card game and the manipulation of camera to create a world removed from the laws of physics, “The Blood of a Poet” signifies many of the traits I expect from surrealist cinema - an unusual, unsatisfying but entertaining experience.

Welcome

mod·ern·ism (mŏd'ər-nĭz'əm)

n.

A peculiarity of usage or style that is characteristic of modern times.

Indeed.

           Regards, Sophie.