settima

@settima@zirk.us

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974)

Aug

18

1973

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

Cast and crew in the back of their motorhome. From LtR: Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Allen Danziger, Teri McMinn, Tobe Hooper, Dottie Pearl, and William Vail (via). DP: Daniel Pearl.

“Travel in the country, long-range plans, and upsetting persons around you, could make this a disturbing and unpredictable day. The events in the world are not doing much either to cheer one up.”

your August 18 horoscope

Procès de Jeanne d'Arc [The Trial of Joan of Arc] (Robert Bresson, 1962)

Aug

17

forgiveness

Procès de Jeanne d'Arc (1962)

Jeanne (Florence Delay) bound to the stake. DP: Léonce-Henri Burel.

Holi: someone is forgiven (forgiveness being an important aspect of Holi)*

“Pray for me. I forgive the evil done me.”

– Jeanne d'Arc

Jeanne trusts her delusions to forgive the people who brought her to justice.

 

Le camion [The Lorry] (Marguerite Duras, 1977)

Aug

16

indigo

Le camion (1977)

His Saviem, possibly an SM170. DP: Bruno Nuytten.

Indigo: a building or structure*

Him: It’s a film? Her: It would have been a film.

A truck, both the narrative structure and his (Depardieu's character) material representation. She – the director – and he – the lead actor – do a read-though while discussing her script. A communist truck driver picks up a female hitchhiker. They discuss the landscape, the cosmos, pointlessness, communism of course. All the while, the indigo truck plods on.

 

Al filo del hacha [Edge of the Axe] (José Ramón Larraz, 1988)

Aug

16

1978

spoiler warning: click to toggle image Al filo del hacha (1988)
spoiler warning: click to read

A computer screen with the admission date of Lillian Nebbs (Christina Marie Lane) in the psychiatric ward on August 16, 1978. Diagnosis: Psycho Amnesia [sic]. There are small pop magazine stickers on the display's bezel. DP: Tote Trenas.

Top of the Heap (Christopher St. John, 1972)

Aug

16

10 A.M.

Top of the Heap (1972)

An invitation via telegram dated August 10 for astronaut George Lattimer to Waltersville Alabama on August 16 at 10 A.M.. DP: Richard A. Kelley.

Trois couleurs: Bleu [Three Colors: Blue] (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1993)

Aug

15

cerulean

Trois couleurs: Bleu (1993)

Julie (Juliette Binoche) in a blue wallpapered room, observes blue beads suspended in front of a window with a cerulean sky and ocean behind it. Throughout the story, her clothing changes from white, to black, to the darkest charcoal blue, to Prussian blue. DP: Slawomir Idziak.

Cerulean, or blue: in food or fashion*

“I'm just fine. I have everything here. I have the TV. You can see the whole world”

– the mother

How could I not pick at least one instalment of Kieślowski's Trois couleurs trilogy. Here's blue, the liberté of the tricolor. Blue occurs as the sky to fall through, the room without life, and the cloth that binds.

 

Fuoco! [Fire!] (Gian Vittorio Baldi, 1968)

Aug

15

Ferragosto

Fuoco! (1968)

The statue of the Virgin with a bullet hole right through her eye. DP: Ugo Piccone.

Someone opens fire on August 15, the day of Ferragosto and the Virgin's Assumption

 

Le 15/8 (Chantal Akerman + Samy Szlingerbaum, 1975)

Aug

15

Le 15/8 (1975)

Chris Myllykoski. DPs: Chantal Akerman & Samy Szlingerbaum.

The Beast with Five Fingers (Robert Florey, 1946)

Aug

15

The Beast with Five Fingers (1946)

Hilary Cummins (Peter Lorre). DP: Wesley Anderson.

“Eight bones has the carpus, five the metacarpus, fourteen the phlanges, all in all, all in all, twenty-seven all in all. Abracadabra.”

– Donald Arlington

Lola Montès (Max Ophüls, 1955)

Aug

14

Bavaria

Lola Montès (1955)

The crowned royal mistress on display in glorious Eastmancolor (via). DP: Christian Matras.

Celebrating Oktoberfest [in September/October] and the Bavarian royals [rip]: a royal character or family*

“The painter takes his time. He doesn't like her dress. He doesn't like her gloves. One day he asks her if she dares pose for him – all in pink. She dares! And the king, enraptured by her pose, offers her a palace!”

– circus master

Maria Dolores Porriz y Montez, Countess von Landsfeld, Lola Montès for short, now a circus attraction, once the mistress to Ludwig I, King of Bavaria. While her fellow circus performers play Lola's former lovers, the ringmaster tells her story.