Black Black Breath

I’ve got two separate filmmaker obsessions going concurrently: Jean-Luc Godard and Mario Bava. Watched Bava's first feature, Black Sunday, on Friday (I started it earlier in the week and fell asleep, so watched it from the beginning with a friend). It's corny but has that great cheap but atmospheric feeling, with the ominous European countryside and trees and old tombs. Creative special effects, too. His shots linger a bit long here and there but over all it'ss a lot of fun, and star Barbara Steele justifies her cult status. Not exactly beautiful but really charismatic.

Tonight I watched another early Bava film, Black Sabbath. It should be noted these were the U.S. titles and the first film is really The Mask of Satan and Black Sabbath is something like The Three Faces of Fear, as it is a triptych of scary stories apparently very loosely based on stories by Tolstoy, Gogol and Chekhov. "The Telephone" is an early giallo, or "He Knows You’re Alone" type suspenser, with the twist that the guy she thinks is terrorizing her is really her spurned former lesbian lover, who decides to forgive her and come clean, but not before the real guy shows up to try to bump both of them off. The Wurdelac is the second story and features Boris Karloff, a peasant patriach turned vampire, and the wurdelac version wants nothing more than to suck the blood of their loved ones. Creepy scene with a little kid, probably all the better for not having to see his face. Hot American actress in this as well, with the kind of figure you don’t see any more in films. The third story is probably the weakest, involving some old woman who comes back to life just to get back the ring a nurse stole from her dead body.

I also finished watching Godard's seminal Breathless (A Bout de Souffle), which I liked a lot though not as much as Band of Outsiders. I do think there’s probably more to gain from Breathless after more viewings. It’s the closest to a thriller Godard would ever get, though it’s also film criticism in itself, and Godard mixes innovative, influential jump cuts with some very long shots, including a legendary bedroom scene nearly 25 minutes long (not a sex scene). Jean Seberg is absolutely stunning, just one of those timeless movie icons like Gene Tierney or Marilyn or Garbo. Unbelievably sad story of the rest of her life in the bonus features. Jean Paul Belmondo is very cool and natural, a born star but not really a cocky one. He’s sort of innocent even while he does some terrible things. As this is a Criterion dvd, the bonus features and booklet are terrific and illuminating. I also bought Alphaville, A Woman Is a Woman, and Pierrot le Fou, so I’ve got plenty of Godard to watch for a while. Plus the Bava set is 5 films.