– Here he is! – There he goes! – That's the president of the whole country. – Ohh!Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978)
Oct
7
1916
The Amarillo Dispatch reports on President Wilson's October 7 visit to the town of Panhandle. DP: Néstor Almendros.
– Here he is! – There he goes! – That's the president of the whole country. – Ohh!Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978)
Oct
7
1916
The Amarillo Dispatch reports on President Wilson's October 7 visit to the town of Panhandle. DP: Néstor Almendros.
“Blood of Christ. Demon. A curse upon this man. A curse that he will never forget me. Blood of my body. Until the grave. A curse that he will never forget me.” Il demonio [The Demon] (Brunello Rondi, 1963)
Oct
6
exorcism
While several men hold her down, Purif (Daliah Lavi) sticks out her tongue to the crucifix held up to her. DP: Carlo Bellero.
[A favourite] exorcism film*
– Purificazione
When a rejected young woman puts a curse on her heart's desire, the locals see nothing less than witchcraft. It is decided that Purif must be possessed, and exorcised.
* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for October is horror-themed as opposed to date-based, and is all about favourites. Expect non-horror and films I believe to be relevant instead.
“Thank you for your card and your ice-cream, I love you very much!”Grey Gardens (Albert + David Maysles, Ellen Hovde + Muffie Meyer, 1975)
Oct
5
1973
Washed out felt-tip penned well-wishes read: OCTOBER 5th – 1973 “GREY GARDENS” AT 78 IT IS TRUE – YOU CAN LIVE TO BE 80 TOO. DPs: Albert & David Maysles.
– Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale, saying goodbye to her birthday party guests
Spectres of the Spectrum (Craig Baldwin, 1999)
Oct
4
A scene from the TV series Science in Action (1950—1966) showing Chuck Yeager, the first man to break the sound barrier. DP: Bill Daniel.
“I'm gonna be happy for a change.”The Sniper (Edward Dmytryk, 1952)
Oct
4
Man's hands, one bandaged, holding a rifle. DP: Burnett Guffey.
– Edward Miller
“Again he shook his head. The world's gone mad, he thought. The dead walk about and I think nothing of it. The return of corpses has become trivial in import. How quickly one accepts the incredible if only one sees it enough!” Soy leyenda (Mario Gómez Martín, 1967)
Oct
3
zombies
Robert Neville (Moisés Menéndez) looking out over an empty rooftop. DP: Jesús Ocaña.
(A favourite) zombie movie*
Now, settima. Of all the zombie movies in the world you had to pick a vampire story? Why yes. Yes I did.
– Richard Matheson, I Am Legend (1954)
Just like my actual favourite zombie film, that one from 1968, Soy leyenda is based on Richard Matheson's post-apocalyptic horror novel I Am Legend (1954). The story describes a world where the living have become undead vampire-like creatures. A lone man tries to rationalise that new world through reason and science, and legend.
In the man's mind, the undead become the familiar, the vampire. In our mind, watching this, we believe to see the foreshadowing of the popculture zombie. The abandoned well-known landscapes, the ceaseless repetition of what the old life had instilled, the normalcy of the grotesque. Oh how familiar they have become.
* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for October is horror-themed as opposed to date-based, and is all about favourites. Expect non-horror and films I believe to be relevant instead.
Le boucher [The Butcher] (Claude Chabrol, 1970)
Oct
3
Popaul (Jean Yanne) and Hélène (Stéphane Audran) in the former's butcher shop. DP: Jean Rabier.
“There are no ghosts in daylight. You'll get used to our nights at Diodati. A little indulgence to heighten our existence on this miserable Earth. Nights of the mind, the imagination. Nothing more.”Gothic (Ken Russel, 1986)
Oct
1
Frankenstein
Percy Shelley (Gabriel Byrne), Mary Shelley (Natasha Richardson) and Dr Polidori (a deliriously delicious Timothy Spall). DP: Mike Southon.
A [favourite] Frankenstein film.
One wet, ungenial summer in 1816, lovers Mary Godwin and Percy Shelley, and Mary's stepsister Claire Clairmont, visited a dear friend at Villa Diodati. That friend was Lord Byron, exiled and residing in the Swiss villa with his physician Dr John Polidori
– Lord Byron
Forced indoors, over the cause of three days they turned to the occult, to laudanum, to stories from the Fantasmagoriana, and the horrors of their own. That summer, Frankenstein saw the light of day.
“This mirror reflected a painting… with words. Chinese idiograms. 'The she-crane calls in the shadow. Her cheek answers.'” Le orme [Footprints on the Moon] (Luigi Bazzoni + Mario Fanelli, 1975)
Sep
30
International Translation Day
Alice reflected/reflecting in a glass pane (via). DP: Vittorio Storaro.
A translator for International Translation Day
– Alice Campos
Alice, the always fantastically brooding Florinda Bolkan, works as a translator when all of sudden she loses her job and finds herself on the small island of Garma. People tell her she has been there before, recently, but she knows this is not possible.
Some English-language posters try to sell Le orme as an action-ridden sci-fi giallo, but oh boy leave that perception behind and you're in for one unsettling treat! Le orme can be placed somewhere between Don't Look Now and that other Alice film, Chabrol's Alice ou la dernière fugue. Drifting and elegant, distant and claustrophobic.
“There's too much on my mind
There's too much on my mind
And I can't sleep at night thinking about it
I'm thinking all the time
There's too much on my mind
It seems there's more to life than just to live it”Summer in the City (Wim Wenders, 1970)
Sep
26
Paul Newman – 2006
Hanns and Wenders playing billiards. DP: Robby Müller.
Billiards, or Paul Newman (1925 – 2006).
– The Kinks, Too Much On My Mind (from Face To Face, 1966)
Hanns (Hanns Zischler) plays billiards with Wim Wenders.