Mario Bava
- Michael
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 12:09 pm
"Sophia witnesses the murder and runs from the room, screaming. (In a scene all too reminiscent of Argento's Suspiria, she runs from room to room, the walls illuminated by brilliant color.)"
Quoted from the wonderful but spoiler-rich review with screen caps: http://www.terrortrap.com/italianterror ... dthedevil/
Quoted from the wonderful but spoiler-rich review with screen caps: http://www.terrortrap.com/italianterror ... dthedevil/
- Lino
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:18 am
- Location: Sitting End
- Contact:
- Michael
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 12:09 pm
- Lino
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:18 am
- Location: Sitting End
- Contact:
- Lino
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:18 am
- Location: Sitting End
- Contact:
- Lino
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:18 am
- Location: Sitting End
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Confirmation of the AB Bava titles here:
http://www.anchorbay.co.uk/forum/showth ... post142998
No dates yet for any of them.
http://www.anchorbay.co.uk/forum/showth ... post142998
No dates yet for any of them.
- maxbelmont
- Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:35 pm
I would recommend this Bava film. I think this is Bava's most underrated film.
- Fletch F. Fletch
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:54 pm
- Location: Provo, Utah
That link you gave seems to go to a film directed by Sergio Martino not Bava.maxbelmont wrote:I would recommend this Bava film. I think this is Bava's most underrated film.
- Lino
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:18 am
- Location: Sitting End
- Contact:
Watched Lisa and the Devil last night and while my reaction to it was not as enthusiastic as Michael's, I still enjoyed it thoroughly. And I can understand why this is a film that rewards multiple viewings because by remembering what I had seen up to the point where everything miraculously comes together at the end, its internal logic began to make all the sense in the world to me. Thankfully.
But even if it didn't, I was enraptured by the whole film throughout. It's very rare when you have a film that deals with a narrative structure based on stream-of-consciousness and gets away with it. It's like seeing a mysterious dream unfold before you and this particular one must have opened a few doors of perception in my mind because last night I had some very weird dreams indeed!
I also particularly loved the way Elke Sommer and Silva Koscina (the main actresses) seemed to resemble each other so much. Not to mention the handsome young man that played Alida Valli's son in the film -- he looked amazingly the part! These details really helped the movie achieve a special kind of feel and give it that extra dose of magic. One to watch again and again, definitely.
But even if it didn't, I was enraptured by the whole film throughout. It's very rare when you have a film that deals with a narrative structure based on stream-of-consciousness and gets away with it. It's like seeing a mysterious dream unfold before you and this particular one must have opened a few doors of perception in my mind because last night I had some very weird dreams indeed!
I also particularly loved the way Elke Sommer and Silva Koscina (the main actresses) seemed to resemble each other so much. Not to mention the handsome young man that played Alida Valli's son in the film -- he looked amazingly the part! These details really helped the movie achieve a special kind of feel and give it that extra dose of magic. One to watch again and again, definitely.
- Michael
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 12:09 pm
Matt wrote:
Check out the website for Tim Lucas' new book on Bava.
Coming from you, it's quite bold. Since becoming a member of this forum more than 5 years ago, until just now I don't recall you calling a film "masterpiece" like I tend to do every other film I watch. I don't mean to ask you to roll up your sleeves and pen down an essay on what makes KBK a masterpiece. What is it about KBK that stands out for you? I'm anxious to learn more about it before I reevualate KBK when the new DVD comes out shortly. I simply refuse to revisit the ugly VCI DVD that I currently own.Kill, Baby... Kill!, is (and I never say this about any film) a masterpiece, and perhaps you can rent the Dark Sky edition someday to hear the commentary
Check out the website for Tim Lucas' new book on Bava.
Last edited by Michael on Fri Mar 02, 2007 11:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
- Matt
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm
It's been a while since I've seen it actually, and the last couple of times were with the dreadful VCI disc. But I like it because Bava creates such a bewitching, self-contained world. The scene with the guy chasing the girl through the rooms of the house (those who have seen it know what I mean) is one of the greatest, most mind-blowing scenes in cinema. And there are so many memorable images that just ooze "gothic." Obviously, I'm just rambling, but the film just has an effect that's difficult to verbalize.
- Lino
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:18 am
- Location: Sitting End
- Contact:
The thing that really makes Bava an interesting director for me is not his amazing cinematography or art direction (though great they are). It's rather his gift for an acute sense of the "uncanny".
If I run Black Sunday or Lisa and the Devil through my mind, the one aspect that really sticks and refuses to let go is his use of the actors' faces and, in this respect, he is the equal to Robert Bresson in the sense that certain faces and bodies are carefully chosen for a particular role, much more so than on any other genre movies you can think of.
Barbara Steele in Black Sunday (a striking face if ever there was one) plays more than one role in that movie and the immediate result is one of confusion on the part of the viewer -- who is that girl and why is she the spitting image of both the dead witch and the woman in the painting -- which is also a clever and very effective way to give depth and plot to the story.
Then we have Sylva Koscina and Elke Sommer in Lisa and the Devil, two strikingly similar women, a fact that is enhanced in the car scene when both are somewhat "inspected" by the driver in the rearview mirror (speaking of which, mirrors are also and often used by Bava to great effect on his movies both as a visual metaphor and narrative device). It is my opinion that Bava used this particular filmic trademark most successfully in Lisa and The Devil . It's like a mind game, where free association runs supreme and nothing can be taken for granted because we are no longer in the realm of logic. Dream logic is the key to understand it and may I be so daring to point out just how Jungian his cinematic nightmares could be? Playing with archetypes and the collective unconscious never seemed so beautiful to look at, you might also say.
On a side note, unlike Matt, I find myself an ardent admirer of his later work. I explain: Bava was not a static director in the sense that he did not stick to a formulaic kind of cinema all throughout his career. He clearly has a big evolution arc from his earlier gothic nightmares to his late-career slashers. I think this is extremely gratifying from the point of view of his fans and followers. It simply shows that he was not afraid to experiment with form and content and clearly relished the changes that came with the times and with cinema's technical developments. In fact, I am a firm believer that he dared to do what Hitchcok was denied with his aborted Kaleidoscope project: to move on and evolve as an artist.
If I run Black Sunday or Lisa and the Devil through my mind, the one aspect that really sticks and refuses to let go is his use of the actors' faces and, in this respect, he is the equal to Robert Bresson in the sense that certain faces and bodies are carefully chosen for a particular role, much more so than on any other genre movies you can think of.
Barbara Steele in Black Sunday (a striking face if ever there was one) plays more than one role in that movie and the immediate result is one of confusion on the part of the viewer -- who is that girl and why is she the spitting image of both the dead witch and the woman in the painting -- which is also a clever and very effective way to give depth and plot to the story.
Then we have Sylva Koscina and Elke Sommer in Lisa and the Devil, two strikingly similar women, a fact that is enhanced in the car scene when both are somewhat "inspected" by the driver in the rearview mirror (speaking of which, mirrors are also and often used by Bava to great effect on his movies both as a visual metaphor and narrative device). It is my opinion that Bava used this particular filmic trademark most successfully in Lisa and The Devil . It's like a mind game, where free association runs supreme and nothing can be taken for granted because we are no longer in the realm of logic. Dream logic is the key to understand it and may I be so daring to point out just how Jungian his cinematic nightmares could be? Playing with archetypes and the collective unconscious never seemed so beautiful to look at, you might also say.
On a side note, unlike Matt, I find myself an ardent admirer of his later work. I explain: Bava was not a static director in the sense that he did not stick to a formulaic kind of cinema all throughout his career. He clearly has a big evolution arc from his earlier gothic nightmares to his late-career slashers. I think this is extremely gratifying from the point of view of his fans and followers. It simply shows that he was not afraid to experiment with form and content and clearly relished the changes that came with the times and with cinema's technical developments. In fact, I am a firm believer that he dared to do what Hitchcok was denied with his aborted Kaleidoscope project: to move on and evolve as an artist.
- Matt
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm
Now, I never said I didn't like his late work. I just don't like Rabid Dogs (though I suspect I'll give it another shot with the new DVD as I haven't seen it in several years). His last film, Shock, however, I find to be among his most effective and frightening (even though in terms of narrative coherence, it's a mess).Lino wrote:On a side note, unlike Matt, I find myself an ardent admirer of his later work.
- Fletch F. Fletch
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:54 pm
- Location: Provo, Utah
Tim Lucas argues as much (Kill Baby Kill's influence on FWWM) in a review he did of Lynch's film a few years back in the pages of Video Watchdog and also on Twin Peaks with the image of Agent Cooper being chased by his own doppelganger as being one of the more direct "borrowings." I'll see if I can dig up the review...Michael wrote:Anyone get the sense that for Fire Walk With Me David Lynch "borrowed" quite a bit from the best of Italian horror - Kill Baby Kill and Suspiria?
- Fletch F. Fletch
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:54 pm
- Location: Provo, Utah
I have to admit that I took the initial plunge way back when and am still awaiting its release. From the sounds of it and the samples he has put up on his site it looks pretty freakin' amazing and in-depth. We shall see.Michael wrote:Oh please do. Thanks.I'll see if I can dig up the review...
Is anyone going to buy Tim Lucas' new Bava book for $130?
- Fletch F. Fletch
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:54 pm
- Location: Provo, Utah
Well, it turns out that the review of FWWM is quite lengthy but here are the relevant passages where Lucas compares Lynch to Bava...Michael wrote:Oh please do. Thanks.I'll see if I can dig up the review...
andLaura's dream of walking into Mrs. Tremond's picture, passing through the door and a series of other doors beyond, is the surreal highlight of FIRE WALK WITH ME. It appears in the film much as scripted, but it warrants comment nevertheless. Here, as in the terrifying final episode of the series, Lynch shows a certain indebtedness to the Villa Graps dementia sequence in Mario Bava's KILL BABY KILL; in both sequences, the physical resemblance between real objects and their painted representations ping-pong a captive between the actual and the hallucinated, between the realms of art and reality. (Bava's film was also quoted in the Black Lodge labyrinth, sequences of TWIN PEAKS' final episode)
Meanwhile, in the Red Room, Laura is shown sitting in a chair. To quote the final line in the script, "As the end credits appear...We move back to see that Laura is sitting in Cooper's lap in the same chair."
Curiously, this postscript recalls another Mario Bava film--BLACK SABBATH--which includes a Chekov sketch in which a nurse (Jacqueline Pierreux) steals a ring from the finger of a dead woman and is ultimately frightened to death by what might be a retribution from beyond, or merely her own guilt-induced hallucinations. The story ends with the theft of the ring from her dead finger. It would be fascinating to see what Lynch did with this diagram of the cyclical nature of Evil.