The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2014: Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (1979), directed by Werner Herzog

     

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune: "Nosferatu Man", by Slint

     Out of all the monsters on this list, all the aliens and zombies and lovecraftian horrors, there is one creature who stands above them all as the absolute king of the creeps: Dracula. Often based on the historical figure Vlad III or ‘Vlad the Impaler’, the infamously brutal ruler of Wallachia in what is now known as Romania, the king of the shadows first appeared as the antagonist in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. Even though Stoker’s novel was not the first to feature vampires, nor was it all that successful when it was released, Dracula has gone on to become of the most significant pieces of horror literature of all time, and the Count has been propelled into pop culture stardom. And all without sparkling in the sun like some kind of asshole.

      Although the Dracula novel is obviously quite important, there’s no doubt that a lot of the popularity for the character came through film. The 1931 Universal Dracula starring Bela Lugosi is by far the most iconic form of the famous vampire with the 1958 Hammer Films Dracula starring Christopher Lee coming close behind, and he’s been in hundreds of movies ever since, including one that came out recently known as Dracula Untold, which has been rumoured to be the beginning of a monster equivalent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (not sure how that would work, but whatever). With all these movies, there are so many different iterations of Dracula that films that address the original story are probably in the minority. So in the spirit of Halloween, I’ve decided to honor everyone’s favorite corpse by making the last film on my Long Dark Marathon of the Soul one all about Count Dracula.  Because why the hell not?

      Directed by Werner Herzog (Fitzcarraldo, Grizzly Man), Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht comprises the entirety of Herzog’s feature-length foray into the horror genre. Though several things are altered from the original book (the film takes places in Wismar, Germany rather than London, Harker’s wife is now Lucy rather Mina and there are no ‘Brides’), the basic premise is the same: Jonathan Harker is sent by his employer to Transylvania to meet one Count Dracula (Herzog regular Klaus Kinski, whose design in the film closely resembles that of Max Schreck in the 1922 silent film Nosferatu), who is looking to purchase a house in the area. While there, Jon and Dracula have several incredibly awkward conversations about the night and the inevitable passage of time, and Jon suspects that this deathly pale man with long claws and a bat face might in fact be das vampyr. Jon’s suspicion turns to fear when Dracula discovers a picture of Lucy and becomes enraptured by her beauty, which is not the kind of attitude you want for a guy who lives next to your wife. He tries to escape but fails, and Dracula makes his way to Wismar. How will Lucy and Jon contend with the forces at the night nipping at their heels? Will Dracula feast upon the blood of the living? That’s for fate to decide.

      There are some interesting twists to the Dracula story here in Phantom der Nacht. Kinski’s portrayal of the vampire as a monstrous, miserable wretch rather than a suave seductor is a nice change of pace. Vampirism is supposed to be a horrible curse after all, not ‘free super powers and immortality at the cost of a tan’, and if people wanted to bang corpses so much they should go to the morgue. I also found that it interesting that about halfway through the movie Lucy becomes the protagonist, rather than Jon. Lucy is the one that Dracula wants to bang after all, so if anyone would have an issue here it would be her, but it’s a nice change of pace when you see the woman in a vampire movie that isn’t a damsel in distress or a vampire herself. Definitely one of the more dour movies on the list, and I can’t tell if it’s because of all the dead people or because it’s directed by Werner Herzog. Probably Herzog.

      Are you a big vampire fan? Do you have an unhealthy obsession with Germany or the German people? Then why not put on Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht on your television/computer screen this Halloween. It won’t make you scream in fright, but it will make you have long bouts of introspection on the nature of life and love, and isn’t exploring one’s feelings something which all men fear?

     There you have it, 31 movies that I watched this October, and perhaps some you might want to watch as well. For those who did read through all this crap, I hope you found some movies that you really enjoy. For those who didn’t, it’s pretty weird that you would read the last paragraph in a multi-page list and skip the list itself. But before we go, there were a couple of films I tried out for the marathon, but they were just too damn bad to go the next round:

The Hills Have Eyes (1977), directed by Wes Craven

 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre earned its place in horror movie history for its incredibly visual imagery and disturbing atmosphere, so it’s only natural that the crop of imitation films that came after it would try and copy that. Films like The Hills Have Eyes, which replaces a backwoods hick family with a backwoods hick family, essentially a lateral change, and still manages to fuck it up. No likable characters on either side, crappy story, unimpressive action, and a dog with a higher body count than the murderous hillbillies. Good thing Craven went on to do Nightmare on Elm Street, because sitting through this crap was a chore.

Godzilla vs King Ghidorah (1991), directed by Kazuki Ohmori

 I love Godzilla. I’ve loved Godzilla ever since I was a kid. I own almost every Godzilla movie (including the ‘98 Tristar film), I’ve watched the animated series, read the comics, played the video games, owned the action figures, etc. etc. I got that Godzilla shit on lock down. But HOLY SHIT is this movie a pain in the ass. Getting to see the 90’s badass Godzilla fight his greatest enemy? Awesome. Sitting through the hour or so of confusing time travel bullshit that makes no fucking sense at any point to get to that fight? Not awesome and frankly not worth the effort for those few minutes of greatness. There are better Godzilla movies out there.

Flesh for Frankenstein (1972), directed by Paul Morrissey

Produced by famous artist Andy ‘Soup Can’ Warhol, Flesh for Frankenstein is the shitty movie that high-minded art snobs have been waiting for. In the film, Baron Frankenstein is a fascistic Czech nationalist living with his sexpot sister/wife (who looks like a goddamn lizard person) and his two creepy mute kids in some castle presumably in Czechoslovakia. Frankenstein is an ardent believer in the idea that pure Czechs a descendent from the Ancient Greeks, and he plans to use his power to create a master race that will eventually dominate the world (sound familiar?). Bad acting, bad accents, unlikable characters, and Frankenstein fucks a corpse in the gallbladder. No amount of ultraviolence can stop this shambling trainwreck of a movie from pulling in to shit station, and good fucking riddance to bad rubbish.







Happy Halloween!

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2018: Heart of Glass (1976), directed by Werner Herzog

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune: "Der Ruf", by Popul Vuh

       Well now, here’s a director that’s slowly racking up the appearances in the Marathon: Mr. Grizzly Man himself, Werner Herzog. Herzog first appeared way back in 2014, when an interest in German actor Klaus Kinski (brought upon by the documentary My Best Friend) and the connection the infamous silent film classic pushed me to throw his film Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht onto the completely meaningless number one spot that year. It was an okay film from what I can remember, which admittedly isn’t much, but that was that. Life moved on, and there were plenty more movies to see.

Fast forward to 2017, and suddenly Herzog shows up again, with the absurdist comedy Even Dwarfs Started Small. The choice of doing another Herzog film wasn’t a whim, a streaming service I often use had a slew of them, but the choice of which film I believe was likely down to last minute decisions. Given that I had the choice of famous films like Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre and I ultimately went for the one where a bunch of little people get into shenanigans, it’s once again an example that the Monty Hall problem doesn’t work in the case of movies. Not the best movie I had ever seen, but we got through it, and life moved on.

Now it’s 2018, and since we’re revisiting the foreign last 10 movies angle, that means that Herzog is squeaking by with yet another one. You have to admire his tenacity, managing to worm his way to an entry not once but twice, where his other colleagues may falter. He may not be the highlight of any Marathon that he shows up on, but he’s still in there. You don’t have to be the MVP to get a Superbowl ring, you just have to be in the right place at the right time.

       Heart of Glass is not the hardest-hitting movie in the world when it comes to story, but I’ll tell you what I can. A few hundred years ago there was a small German village, we never learn its name, that was known for one thing: Shimmering red glass more popularly known as Ruby glass. However, the secret to making Ruby glass was known to only one man, Mühlbeck, and when he died he took the secret with him. Deprived of their source of livelihood, the village falls into a deep depression, as if they are sleepwalking through life. A depression which will become even worse, as Hias the herdsman has predicted that at nightfall the factory will burn, that the villagers will run into the forest and turn to stone, and that everything in the village will perish. The beginning of the end as the kids say, and Hias’ predictions are never wrong…

     There are two main selling points when it comes to Heart of Glass, the first being the use of hypnotism. Aside from Hias and a couple glassblowers (kinda want your wits about you when working with molten glass), every character in every scene was placed under hypnosis, with only minimal direction by Herzog when it came to dialogue. Occasionally you might even notice it, but then there are moments where you can’t do anything else. People mumbling their lines with blank expressions on their faces, characters suddenly laugh or scream for no reason, scenes that you would assume to be boisterous and noisy taking on the aspect of the grave, and so on. It’s intensely surreal and unsettling, uncontrolled, in a way that similarly strange films can’t quite replicate. If nothing else, the fact that this movie runs as smoothly as it does with all these tranced out zombies stumbling around doing scenes together is definitely worth a feather in Herzog’s directing cap. I don’t think many other filmmakers would want to put up with it.

       The other main selling point is that most of the music is done by a band, German progressive rock band Popol Vuh. It’s not an uncommon practice, Michael Mann contracted Tangerine Dream to do the music for his film Thief, not to mention Dario Argento’s many collaborations with the band Goblin, and props to Herzog using local music. Popol Vuh’s music is exactly the right feel for what Heart of Glass is; majestic when taking in the beautiful vistas of the Bavarian countryside, turning almost menacing when turned towards the villagers. It conveys aurally the emotion the scene is trying to convey visually and it does it well, which is what you need in a film score. Also you should check out Popol Vuh, they’re pretty damn good.

       Those two points aside, I’m struggling to find much to say when it comes to Heart of Glass. It’s one of those movies where things seem to just happen, which is appropriate for a village of ‘sleepwalkers’, with a lot of time dedicated to Hias and his strange prophecies. All of which likely holds great significance when you understand the meaning of the film, something like ‘certain against fate is ultimately pointless’ or ‘pessimists will always prove themselves right’ or even ‘make sure you write things down’, but which is otherwise comes across as inscrutable and perhaps even pretentious to those in a sour mood. Which is okay, I just got done talking about how I enjoy unpacking films in the last entry, but it’s also not really a film that leaves you on the edge of your seat in suspense. It’s a lot of sitting and thinking while watching a bunch of people sit and talk, set to the sounds of German progressive rock. Not quite everyone’s idea of a good time, I suspect.

       In the tradition of Herzog films in the Marathon, Heart of Glass isn’t the most exciting film that I’ve covered this year. However, it certainly wasn’t the worst either, and it was a unique gimmick for a film at the very least. If Even Dwarfs Started Small didn’t interest you then it’s probable that you won’t be interested in Heart of Glass either, but if you’re building a list of trippy, weird movies to watch this Halloween, then you might like throwing this one on the queue. You don’t even need to be hypnotized to do it! Although it might help.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2017 - Even Dwarves Started Small (1970), directed by Werner Herzog

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Nobody Spoil My Fun", by Dwarves

     Because of the nature of the Marathon, and my own rather hectic schedule, it’s rare that I get to take in a movie by directors like Werner Herzog. I was familiar with his work prior, the infamous documentary Grizzly Man, My Best Fiend, detailing his tumultuous relationship with actor Klaus Kinski, his little moments on Metalocalypse, and so on. As far as actually covering his films on the blog however, the only one that seemed appropriate at the time was Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht, his interpretation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Operative words being ‘at the time’. It’s a new time now, and since the tide has turned towards nostalgia and sentimentality, it seemed right to pull out another Herzog.

     And no, that’s not sexual innuendo.

     Related to us via a flashback at a police station, Even Dwarves Started Small brings us to a remote institution in the German countryside, populated by little people, or ‘dwarves’ in the context of this film. When the head doctor leaves for the day to get groceries, the dwarves, left to their own devices, decide to take over the joint. They destroy private property, steal the doctor’s things, kill and torture animals and the handicapped (a couple of the patients at the facility are blind) and generally lay waste to the place which has been their home and apparently their prison for so long. A lone instructor (also a dwarf) tries desperately to maintain a shred of order in the chaos, even resorting to taking one of them hostage within the administration building, but his demands fall on deaf ears. The inmates are running the asylum now, and they’re going to have the times of their lives.

     I’ve read that this film is meant to be an allegory for the dangers of a total liberation of the mind, which sounds Teutonic enough to be Herzog, and I’d say that theory makes sense. The dwarves act more like children and toddlers than the grown adults they are, completely self-centered and with the impulse control to match. No action or thought is considered more than once, moods and whims change at the drop of a hat, and it is done with a glee that borders on the perverse. A never-ending, anarchic quest to feed the id, in any way possible. In practice, it feels less like you’re watching a film and more like you’re suffering through a fever dream: A gaggle of middle-aged little people shouting at each other like 5 year olds, giggling constantly, as they burn trees and look at nudie magazines and tie monkeys to a cross while mariachi and African folk music plays in the background. The exact same thing you expect to see when you take exactly too much acid, or the exact right amount of magic mushrooms.

     Therein lies the major issue with this film though; It’s literally an hour and an half of watching a group of little people breaking shit and other random events. There’s not a coherent plot, little to no characters with a strongly defined character (most of the folks you see on screen don’t even have names, far as I can remember), and the soundtrack consists of two that are constantly repeated throughout the film. I’m a guy who has exposed himself to a lot of weird movies over the years so I had no issue, but I imagine this is one of those motion pictures that would be downright insufferable to those who aren’t used to it. Hell, despite my tolerance even I felt a little bit impatient during the seemingly endless variations on the ‘dwarves break stuff/instructor looks on awkwardly/music plays’ structure Herzog has built his movie on, and I’ve sat through Flesh for Frankenstein AND The Amityville Horror, so you know it takes a certain kind of mood to get into it.

     If you’re the type of person with relatively tame or modern tastes, or if you’ve tried tried watching movies while high, then you might prefer to skip over Even Dwarves Started Small this Halloween. Those fans of the weird, or 80s music videos, will likely have a better time of things. Just remember to not have too much fun though. And be kind to animals too folks, that’s just the right thing to do.