Post by klep on Jul 20, 2020 8:47:01 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 7/20: Freaks
1930s WEEK!
Note: This week's essay is graciously provided by a guest contributor.
Where to begin with Freaks? Both reviled and admired, subject to probably more scholarly speculation than any of director Tod Browning's other films. My own experiences with it began long before the first time I ever saw it; my sister's first boyfriend was prone to chanting "One of us! One of us!" at the slightest provocation. It's discussed in great detail in Stephen King's analysis of the horror genre Danse Macabre. It appears on any number of lists of important movies. It never made it to Roger Ebert's Great Movies, but I can't help wondering if it would have had he lived longer.
Hans (Harry Earles) is a little person who works as a sideshow freak. He had come into a large inheritance, which the lovely trapeze artist Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova) discovers. She seduces him away from Frieda (Daisy Earles). She plans to marry him, kill him, and run away with her lover, the circus strongman Hercules (Henry Victor). She even starts poisoning Hans at the wedding feast, in front of all the other freaks. It will end poorly for her and Hercules.
I think just about all a lot of people know about this movie is the dinner scene. Cleopatra gets drunk, which is not a good idea when you're in the middle of plotting a murder; she makes her disgust and disdain all too clear. She kisses Hercules in front of the others. And when the freaks declare her to be one of them, she does not hide how disgusted she is. The fact that their revenge will be making her one of them is all the more chilling because it's clear that it would be horrific to her.
Generally, the freaks are given more tender attention than the "regular" people in the movie. We see them getting along; we see them living the most normal lives they can. And while there's some debate about how sympathetic the movie is to them and how much they were exploited and so forth, and rightly so, they are definitely better characters than the vile Cleopatra and Hercules. There are even takes that the freaks are intended to represent the ordinary people during the Depression and characters like Cleopatra and Hercules were to represent the higher-class and still-rich people Browning would have been working with most of the time.
1930s WEEK!
Note: This week's essay is graciously provided by a guest contributor.
Where to begin with Freaks? Both reviled and admired, subject to probably more scholarly speculation than any of director Tod Browning's other films. My own experiences with it began long before the first time I ever saw it; my sister's first boyfriend was prone to chanting "One of us! One of us!" at the slightest provocation. It's discussed in great detail in Stephen King's analysis of the horror genre Danse Macabre. It appears on any number of lists of important movies. It never made it to Roger Ebert's Great Movies, but I can't help wondering if it would have had he lived longer.
Hans (Harry Earles) is a little person who works as a sideshow freak. He had come into a large inheritance, which the lovely trapeze artist Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova) discovers. She seduces him away from Frieda (Daisy Earles). She plans to marry him, kill him, and run away with her lover, the circus strongman Hercules (Henry Victor). She even starts poisoning Hans at the wedding feast, in front of all the other freaks. It will end poorly for her and Hercules.
I think just about all a lot of people know about this movie is the dinner scene. Cleopatra gets drunk, which is not a good idea when you're in the middle of plotting a murder; she makes her disgust and disdain all too clear. She kisses Hercules in front of the others. And when the freaks declare her to be one of them, she does not hide how disgusted she is. The fact that their revenge will be making her one of them is all the more chilling because it's clear that it would be horrific to her.
Generally, the freaks are given more tender attention than the "regular" people in the movie. We see them getting along; we see them living the most normal lives they can. And while there's some debate about how sympathetic the movie is to them and how much they were exploited and so forth, and rightly so, they are definitely better characters than the vile Cleopatra and Hercules. There are even takes that the freaks are intended to represent the ordinary people during the Depression and characters like Cleopatra and Hercules were to represent the higher-class and still-rich people Browning would have been working with most of the time.
And however well or poorly Browning treated his performers, it's still better than the studio. A large number of people allegedly turned down roles in the movie. Most of the performers had to eat their meals in a tent outside the studio commissary, as people refused to share a lunchroom with them. Indeed, the studio never gave Browning such latitude again, and the film is considered the effective end of his career. Stephen King speculates that it's because he used real circus freaks, and if it had just been people in makeup, the movie would've been laughable instead of visceral. Perhaps that's also why the film is considered a treatise on eugenics—though it strongly comes down on the side that outer perfection can often mask things much worse than outer deformity.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 7/27: Monsieur Hulot's Holiday
SUMMER WEEK!
Summer Week takes us to the idyll coast of France with our first Jacques Tati and the introduction of his famous Monsieur Hulot. Come join us next week for the gentle slapstick that kickstarted a career with Monsieur Hulot's Holiday, available on Criterion Channel, HBO Max, and Kanopy as well as for rent on Amazon and iTunes.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 7/21: Groundhog Day
Next week the podcast tackles time loops starting with the Bill Murray classic Groundhog Day. Join us on Wednesday for our discussion of this film, available on Netflix and for rent in the usual places.
SUMMER WEEK!
Summer Week takes us to the idyll coast of France with our first Jacques Tati and the introduction of his famous Monsieur Hulot. Come join us next week for the gentle slapstick that kickstarted a career with Monsieur Hulot's Holiday, available on Criterion Channel, HBO Max, and Kanopy as well as for rent on Amazon and iTunes.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 7/21: Groundhog Day
Next week the podcast tackles time loops starting with the Bill Murray classic Groundhog Day. Join us on Wednesday for our discussion of this film, available on Netflix and for rent in the usual places.