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New Kino Release
Topic Started: Aug 26 2010, 04:31 PM (1,067 Views)
Stony Brooke da Mesquiteer
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It looks like one of our own is getting a release. Looks interesting. Very, very interesting.

Don't miss the trailer at the bottom of the page.

Fantomas
It's like Rodney King used to say, "Can't we all get a bong."
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panzer the great & terrible
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Arggh! Another duplicate!
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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panzer the great & terrible
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This is five feature films for $25, and not just any feature films -- these movies defined what goes on in serials and were revered by the Surrealists. Panzer's highest recommendation. I've had the UK release of this for a couple years but will get this anyway; the commentaries, the documentary on Melies and the two shorts are worth the money to me.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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Fantomas
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Of course, I think this is a great film. I once wrote about it on another site:

The FANTOMAS films are wonderfully entertaining---cleverly plotted, fast-moving, and totally involving. I'd rank them just under Feuillade's masterpiece LES VAMPIRES, and far above JUDEX. They may not be cinematically superior to JUDEX (the direction here is still pretty basic), but in themes and attitude FANTOMAS is miles ahead of JUDEX---at least if, like me, you prefer nasty cynicism to goopy sentimentality.
I think what appeals to me most in this work is the juxtaposition of the most fantastic plots and extreme criminality with the mundane facts of everyday existence: a respectable society lady, sitting in an overstuffed chair in her boudoir being confronted by a thief in a body stocking and black mask, worshippers in church at a funeral service finding themselves suddenly pelted with blood and jewels from the bell tower.
My favorite moment comes in the last film. The camera is tracking Fantomas as he walks through a busy street. We see a crowded trolley go by, a stray dog wanders along, and then a boy of about twelve walks into the center of the shot. The boy suddenly stops, looks off-screen, then runs out of camera range. Obviously, a crew member has yelled at him, "Hey kid, we're making a movie, get out of the way." It's hard to say why I find those few seconds so touching. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that everyone involved, including the dog and the boy, are all long dead. Yet their spontaneous moment lives on.
As to the quality of the DVD (assuming it's similar to the Artificial Eye release from the UK), I think its better presented than LES VAMPIRES---the tinting is more subtle and more carefully done, the music is more varied and played by a larger ensemble. Unfortunately, the last film in the series is not in very good shape---large chunks of it are missing and the plot has to be provided by lengthy explanatory intertitles. As a result, in the last shot we see Fantomas arrested, but in the last title we're told he escaped. Somehow that's fitting for Fantomas, who's always caught and never caught.
"For life is short, but death is long."
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Black Tiger
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I agree with Fantomas. The Fantomas serial is a fun silent French serial positioned below Les Vampires, yet above Judex.

Fantomas is a great villainous character - he's brilliant, a master-of-disguise, has a macabre sense of humor and is thoroughly evil.

Glad to see these Feuillade serials continuing to be released.
Edited by Black Tiger, Aug 26 2010, 06:51 PM.
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The Batman
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Excellent news, can't wait!
Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman!
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Stony Brooke da Mesquiteer
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I just placed my preorder and I'm chompin' at the bit.
It's like Rodney King used to say, "Can't we all get a bong."
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panzer the great & terrible
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I dragged out my British set and watched the first one, and Fantomas is on the money about Fantomas. The way bizarre criminal behavior erupts out of the ordinary was what the Surrealists loved, and I love too. The music seems to be from records, some poorly-chosen (the Blue Danube Waltz?). These pictures were never shown with a symphony orchestra, so using one is pure anachronism. As for ranking the Fueillades, I don't see the point. Judex may be marginally better-made than Fantomas, but both are obviously directed by a man who doesn't know or care how to impose his attitude on the material, so we get a deadpan take on reality. Judex is basically lifted from The Count of Monte Cristo, so it may seem 19th century in attitude, but F still didn't get it, so it comes out as amoral as the rest. A good modern parallel to the F pictures is Creation of the Humanoids, also great because they didn't know what they were doing and the result was a movie where camera placement, editing and even acting mean nothing -- a strange glimpse into a universe without intelligence.

I know the French like to pretend that this guy was some kind of genius, but he was more like an anti-genius. If somebody who had been following the development of the movies had the resources he had when he had 'em, the results would have been quite different. It's no accident that Griffith is called the "father of cinema" and Feuillade is in that little pigeonhole over there in the corner...

Not saying I don't enjoy his movies because I do, but he didn't a pioneer anything but exploitation pictures.

That said, the Fantomas pictures were wildly successful in the States as well as France. The public loved sensationalism and they got it. After they ran their course, F became a mostly European, and then wholly French phenomenon. His career was over by 1925. We may yet see two or three more of his serials, but the vast majority of his work is forgotten.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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riddlerider
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Talk about your coincidences! Last night I decided on a whim to watch my copy of the 1932 FANTOMAS, a French-language feature film directed by Paul Fejos and photographed by Hollywood cinematographer Peverell Marley. A classic-that-might-have-been.

As for the Feuillades....

FANTOMAS looks better than LES VAMPIRES primarily because the French restoration utilized original 35mm elements that were better. The underlying pre-print in LES VAMPIRES is a dupe of some kind, and I suspect the clumsy tinting was an attempt to obscure that fact.

Feuillade deserves a lot of credit, to be sure, but most of the best stuff in FANTOMAS comes from the original novels, to which he was quite faithful. I agree that JUDEX isn't as good as FANTOMAS or LES VAMPIRES, but the early chapters are wonderful and there's no denying the character presages countless "mystery men" avengers from The Shadow to Batman...and others.

TIH MINH (released here theatrically as IN THE CLUTCHES OF THE HINDOO) has been restored and deserves DVD release. The Feuillade serial that leaves me cold is BARRABAS, which gets high marks from most foo-foo cineastes. It was worth seeing once, but it's nowhere near as evocative or imaginative as the earlier ones.
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mort bakaprevski
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panzer the great & terrible
Aug 27 2010, 07:23 AM
A good modern parallel to the F pictures is Creation of the Humanoids, also great because they didn't know what they were doing and the result was a movie where camera placement, editing and even acting mean nothing -- a strange glimpse into a universe without intelligence.
Say what???

I'm guessin' that the fact that I haven't seen any of the pictures in question is a large contributor to my confusion. ....... least ways, I hope so!!
"Nov Shmoz Ka Pop."
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CliffClaven
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How would you rank FANTOMAS next to Fritz Lang's THE SPIDERS or DR. MABUSE?

THE SPIDERS was a planned series that ended after the first two, which left the hero foiled by the villain. I have to rate them as curiosities. You don't really see Lang's better work foreshadowed, and while there's a certain charm to the outrageous plots, they play as fairly ordinary and rather creaky examples of very early cinema. My favorite moment was a "split-screen" telephone call. The hero picks up a phone next to a wall that takes up most of the frame. Then, instead of an actual split screen, there's a dissolve and the wall disappears, revealing an office set where another character is taking the hero's call. It's perfectly obvious the two sets are side by side, like an effect in a stage show.

DR. MABUSE, designed and released as two films, is far more serious and realistic. To modern eyes it plays like a warmup for SPIES, but an invaluable commentary on the Image DVD puts the movies and their source novel in context of Germany after the war and before Hitler -- this isn't a supervillain thriller but a pretty tough political piece.
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panzer the great & terrible
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I don't rank movies against each other, but the main difference is that the first Fantomas movie was made in 1913, before any really good features were made. I'm not saying the Emperor has no clothes, exactly, but he sorta like went to the Grand Ball in pee stained Jockey shorts and a wifebeater. There are people who will tell you that these pictures are art, and my suggestion is, check out what else these people think is art. There's snobbery at work in this here cult.

I happen to like the Feuillade movies because I happen to like terrible movies and these qualify. They show what a man uninterested in film technique will do. Important scenes are done in one take, in long shot without titles. This was not an artistic decision, it was the work of a man uninterested in his job. Griffith was miles ahead of him three years earlier, and obviously F couldn't be bothered to check Griffith out. The Exploits of Elaine, made the year after Fantomas, has more thrills than F's complete works.

But. But. The films also show a plush, comfortable Gilded Age Paris, but with sinister and inexplicable events constantly erupting into ordinary life -- poignant because WWI erupted a couple of years later and forever brought that milieu down. As Riddle Rider suggests, this was straight from the novels. What makes the picture effective is a deadpan, artless style that makes the strangeness stranger. A more dedicated and talented man would not have made such an interesting film -- compare the sophisticated director Georges Franju's Judex to Feuillade's naive one, and Feuillade's wins. Don't believe me -- try it.

(Franju was one of the two founders of the Cinémathèque Française, and a key figure in the preservation of Feuillade's films. He also directed Eyes Without a Face -- yeah, the Criterion flick.)

If you twisted my arm I'd have to admit I like The Spiders better (I don't share your opinion of it at all, especially the idea that a 1917 movie is "very early cinema." To me the early cinema is stuff made before Griffith and Chaplin), and I love Dr. Mabuse, which I call one of the great movies -- but I enjoy Fantomas too. This is my second time through it, and I plan to watch the Kino version when it comes. I look forward to the commentary tracks.

I don't understand any implication that Les Vampires comes from an inferior print. Have 35 mm elements of Les Vampires become available to make a better version possible? If not, why make an issue of it? We both know that if a new version comes out, it will be done by the same people, now among the most prominent restorationists. Alas, the economy makes a new version risky -- the attitude is that most who want Les Vampires have it -- and there are essential projects clamoring for release, such as Tih Minh. I do hope that baby appears before I check out.
Edited by panzer the great & terrible, Sep 13 2010, 08:34 AM.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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Meandering Tortoise
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Dvdtalk.com has a review of the Kino release (not sure if I can post the link properly, I'm technologically challenged, but I'll try):

http://www.dvdtalk.com/


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panzer the great & terrible
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I certainly agree with this guy that the second picture, Juve vs. Fantomas, is the best in the series.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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panzer the great & terrible
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My copy arrived today and I'm checking out one of the films tonight.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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