Nice posters

http://silverferox.blogspot.co.uk/

This guy is a friend of ours...

Hi,

my name is Torbjørn Pedersen and I'm a master student studying the presentation and preservation of cinema at the University of Amsterdam. I have put together a short presentation on Italian formula cinema for a class on curating cinema, as well as a proposition of how to present these films to modern audiences. My idea is based around the concept of the terza visione and how these films' original viewing conditions have disappeared. I have put together a small program for a screening event based around the giallo and would like to eventually have similar programs for all the major filoni.

I was wondering if you could take some time to read through this proposition and leave a comment on the blog. Any film suggestion, critique or input in general is much appreciated. If you know anyone else that might be interested in the subject feel free to contact me or send the link to them.

http://2012.curatingthemovingimage.org/2012/03/20/screening-italian-popular-cinema/

Kind regards,
Torbjørn Pedersen

Japanese Argento posters

These are currently on ebay and are attracting a lot of interest; a little beyond my price range unfortunately.

Umberto

On the bus today I was reading the free newspaper Metro. There was a little piece in it about a one man group called Umberto, who were described as having a John Carpenter/Goblin vibe to them. From the track I heard just now, Temple Room, that's a pretty apt description. Good to see they also do FLAC downloads

http://umberto.bandcamp.com/

Argento Dracula - to 3D or not to 3D, that is the question

As you are probably aware, a 3D version of Dracula directed by Argento is due to come out soon The teaser footage that has been released predictably shows some "comin' at ya'" type images -- Dracula throws a sword at someone and it pins them to a door, following which there is a cut to the other side showing how far the blade has penetrated the wood, or instance.

Where I think the film will stand or fall as a 3D experience is in how well Argento manages to incorporate and integrate the more subtle kind layered images that have long been a staple of his 2D productions -- the endemic curtains and screens, the shattering glass, or the killer standing immediately behind his victim at the end of Tenebre. It would also be interesting/weird seeing some of those prominent mirror-based compositions in Deep Red and Suspiria with 3D except the flat mirror image...

Some random 4.30 AM Jesus Franco questions

What are your favourite and least favourite periods of Franco's films? And why? Do you find that there are individual films within them that you like and don't like / like less? Is it just an all-encompassing Francoverse where the more you watch, the more you see the connections, perhaps a bit like Frank Zappa's xenochrony and conceptual continuity in his music?

Framing in Argento -- fragment of a Deleuzean reading

Like Leone, Argento used 2.35:1 widescreen Techniscope until commercial considerations of television and video sales encouraged use of the 1.85 ratio on Inferno and Tenebre. While Argento's compositions perhaps do not draw attention to the shape of the 2.35:1 frame as often as Leone does, the effect on those occasions where he does so is thereby arguably heightened. In Leone's films the use of the all areas of the frame, the out of field/frame and quasi-split screen effects generally does not serve any obvious purpose beyond making the conventions of classical cinema evident. In contrast the likes of the widescreen composition in Deep Red when Marc, on the far left, and Carlo, on the far right, shout to one another across a space dominated by the central statuary, also have a pedagogical role. For in conjunction with Carlo's remarks on the distinction between what Marc thought he saw and what he actually saw this image draws attention to Marc's reading of the image of Carlo's mother in the bottom left of the frame as a face in the painting she was reflected into. This image also establishes a crystal-image circuit between the actual - Carlo's mother - and the virtual - Carlo's mother as mirrored into the painting that confuses Marc.