Bergman Island (2021) | Notes

As an admirer of Isabelle Huppert and part of the touched audience of L’avenir (2016), I was curious about Mia Hansen-Løve’s new work. I noticed that she made another film in between which I haven’t heard at all. Maya (2018) has around 500 user votes on IMDb —at least, I’m not alone. For this one, the “Bergman” word in the title raised my expectations while hinting at another story of artist/intellectual characters.

A filmmaker couple, Chris and Tony, goes to a creative retreat at Fårö Island during “Bergman Week”. Tony is in the limelight and gives an interview after the screening of his film during the event. They participate in cinephile discussions, touristic Bergman safaris, and watch Cries and Whispers (1972) in a sacred film theater while working on their new projects. After some introductory sequences on the state of affairs of the couple and the sense of the location, Bergman Island steers more into Chris’ story. She is writing a film script where a young filmmaker Amy and her first love Joseph encounters after years in a wedding of their common friends, again in Fårö.

The film does not care much about praising or subverting Bergman but it comes with a couple of questions and jokes. The guide welcomes the couple to the shooting location of “Scenes From a Marriage” with a “the movie that caused millions of people to divorce” trivia. Chris and Tony stay in different flats that have a view of each others’ windows and while trying to focus on her screenplay during a writer’s block, pointing out to Bergman’s massive legacy that is felt in the room, Chris asks “How can I sit here and not feel like a loser?”. On the flip side, during a discussion with the akins of Bergman, she questions how to perceive a man who was “as cruel in his art as in his life”. He had six marriages and nine children where he most probably left all the domestic duties to his wives.

Apart from Bergman, I thought that the focus of the film was lingering around relationships and artistic imagination. It reminded me of my recent reading of the “Beautiful World, Where Are You” in the encounter of the second-degree fiction couple Amy and Joseph, of the people who picked up and sustained some sort of life story but constantly are doubtful about it. “I love two people”, one of them was saying. The tension Amy was having about bringing only a single dress that is “more cream or off-white” to a wedding and the surfacing of this dress during a tense encounter with the lover referred to a question of commitment and relationship.

Some interesting trivia I read about after the film about Hansen-Løve was that she is an author in Cahiers du Cinéma, wrote Eden (2014) with her brother who was a DJ in the 90s in France and had retreats in Fårö that gave her the idea of shooting a film there. In the film, Chris meets with a young Swedish man Hampus and spends the day with him instead of joining the Bergman Safari with Tony. The parallel editing of that particular day was highlighting the wondrousness of a random encounter and a twosome social event compared to a predetermined tourist attraction in a group during an exploratory and artistic journey. I’ve read that Hampus was someone Hansen-Løve met in her actual visit to Fårö and she included him in the film with his real identity. I read it as one of the many efforts to make an autofiction-like film.

Trivia: Denis Lenoir, the cinematographer of Bergman Island, publishes his production journal in American Cinematographer. Here is Part I.

Phoenix (2014) | Notes

Phoenix tells the story of Nelly who is freed from Auschwitz. As a demolished survivor with wounds on her face, she goes out of the hospital after an aesthetic surgery with bandages and starts looking for his husband. The loss and the recovery of identity after the camp start with the physical transformation. She is a singer, sadly we can only hear her singing towards the end. Her husband is a pianist. There’s a catch though about the whole capturing event. Did he run away and leave her? Both she and we are not sure. Nelly takes her time to find him and to find out.

She strolls in the dark ruined streets, tries bar-crawling in order to find him. Meanwhile, the woman who is helping her to run away is planning to migrate to Israel, she tries to persuade her too about the exodus. Unlike Nelly, who is still unable to process the horror, Lene is full of resentment about how the history unfolds after the camps, particularly about how Jews forgive all the perpetrators. The focus of Phoenix reminded me of the book I’ve read in Turkish which was also referenced a lot in the other texts, but I couldn’t find an exact English translation online, maybe the essays are translated and published in a different structure, as in At the Mind’s Limits. Jean Améry’s essay collection “Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne” was dealing with the survivors’, particularly intellectuals’, existence after the camps. It’s a hard and heavy topic for me to write about in a film-note-blog-post, so I’d better switch back to the film. It seems like, erstwhile, Améry launched the final scene.

“Für […] mich heißt Jude sein die Tragödie von gestern in sich lasten spüren. Ich trage auf meinem linken Unterarm die Auschwitz-Nummer; die liest sich kürzer als der Pentateuch oder der Talmud und gibt doch gründlicher Auskunft.”

If we go back to Nelly, after a short pursuit, she encounters her husband in a bar called Phoenix -reborn with a red dress- but he does not recognize her. Instead, he offers her a deal to act as if she is her wife to possess her inheritance. The second tier of the drama begins here. As Nelly is drawn together to her husband as a role-playing stranger, some archetypical narratives unfold. Johnny teaches her how to walk, what to wear, how to greet her friends after the comeback. She yields. Despite the despair, she values the joy of re-encountering with the loved one. It feels like a repetition of the first encounter with the lover.

The theme of the man forming the woman towards a desired object/subject traces back to Pygmalion and its variations. Vertigo, the film noirs, and the Frankenstein story can be counted as side-references. The director mentions the Frankenstein relation in one of his interviews, but I honestly don’t buy it, I don’t think there is enough ground for the convergence to that story, a hidden attic does not give enough material. Nina Hoss walking in the night like a vampire was another conceptualization by Petzold about the vampire stories which I didn’t really think of while watching the film. Another, maybe the last remark from the director was the actress Nina Hoss’ comments about him -as a director- following a similar path like the protagonist when it comes to director shaping the actress. Petzold is well known for his films with female protagonists but the distance between him and a woman filmmaker also lay on a great deal about the gaze and the intimacy of the director, storytelling, and the acting.

In many of Petzold’s films, I encounter a couple of scenes that I admire. In this one, the finale was exquisite with Nelly unexpectedly singing a song that proves her identity and epitomizes the whole ambivalence in the film.

Die Eingeladenen / The Invitees [Sinema Transtopia]

I found an institution that curates films and discussions around those films that they’ve selected. I attended three film screenings there which were about the migrant workers in Germany. Just in case they might remove the schedules from their website, I’ll annotate the ones I watched there. I really liked the fact that they don’t screen good films but taking these films as artifacts that one can talk about. It’s good to watch terrible films too, only if you’re in a movie theater where they present 16mm film.

The best one I saw was a documentary called Geld fürs Brot (1994) by Serap Berrakkarasu and Gisela Tuchtenhagen that tells the story of women workers in an industrial canned fish factory. A film that was able to convey the joy of the people working together with the smell of the fish that permeates into the clothes and body. I found the interview questions of the filmmakers full of directives towards the pain and despair. However, the sincerity they achieved was remarkable. There was a weekend scene where one of the workers cooked some food and there were a lot of leftovers. She was insisting the film crew about taking the extra food with them while leaving. That felt like a great example of engagement and relationship that is built during a film. Another good one was a scene during dinner with a couple where the woman was complaining about the gender roles to the filmmakers and her husband having no idea about what the discussion is about. She was telling the filmmaker, “You understand me, he doesn’t.”

I also watched some really weird institutional education and integration films that document how indoctrination works for migrants in asymmetric power relations. One of the films about teaching the rules inside the factory reminded me Staplerfahrer Klaus – Der erste Arbeitstag (2000, oh, now on YouTube). When I first watched it years ago, I was sure that this film was mocking some real-life educational content, glad that I watched what it mocks.

Here is their website: https://bi-bak.de/en/bi-bakino
Here is their about us: https://bi-bak.de/en/about-us


Good Luck in Germany, 01.10.2021

Guten Tag (Episode 26)
FDR 196?, 15 min. german OV, 16mm

Tipps für den Alltag II, Ausländische Arbeitnehmer im Industriebetrieb
FDR 196?, 12 min. OV with german subtitles, 16mm

Viel Glück in Deutschland (Episode 2)
Thilo Philipp / Uwe Krauss, FDR 197?, 15 min. german OV, 16mm

Zu Gast in unserem Land: Kemal
Herbert Ballmann, FDR 1977, 50 min. german OV

“I am a stranger here,” “I am a foreigner,” “I don’t speak German” are all phrases that can be learned in the Goethe Institute’s elaborately produced 26-part language course series, Guten Tag (Good Day). With a great deal of artistic imagination, scenes around “Language, Culture, Germany” are staged and slowly intoned in an effort to bring the newly arrived closer. Viel Glück in Deutschland (Good Luck in Germany), on the other hand, prepares employees for everyday life in the workplace with vocabulary such as “time card,” “personnel office” and “the foreman is waiting”. In Tipps für den Alltag (Everyday Tips), the portrayal of what is characterized as typically German and represented as the ideal norm also has a comic effect, while the depictions of foreign workers can certainly be perceived as problematic. Similar patterns can be found in the educational film series produced by the Federal Agency for Civic Education, Zu Gast in unserem Land (A Guest in our Country). Here, younger generations belonging to the social majority are prepared for confrontations with the so-called “guests”. Following the screening, there will be a discussion in which we dissect the persistent stereotypes unreflectively projected onto later generations of people with an immigration history and the racist behaviors that are subsequently internalized. (ML)

Nurse Kim’s Message Home + Ekmek Parası, 02.10.2021

Nurse Kim’s Message Home
FRG 197?, 16 min. OV

Ekmek Parası – Geld fürs Brot
Serap Berrakkarasu / Gisela Tuchtenhagen, Deutschland 1994, 86 min. OV with english subtitles

In Ekmek Parası – Geld fürs Brot (Money for Bread), the money doesn’t stink, but the fish does. A smell that is difficult to wash off. Women from Turkey and Mecklenburg work in the fish factory in Lübeck. Here, the camera acts as accomplice: Serap Berrakkarasu and cinematographer Gisela Tuchtenhagen establish a closeness to the workers who candidly describe (in Turkish) the working conditions at the factory, answering questions about life, death and dreams. The supporting film, Nurse Kim’s Message Home, produced by Hoechst AG, is accompanied by a paternalistic voiceover and follows a group of Korean nurses working in Frankfurt after the recruitment agreement with South Korea in 1971. (MB)

Bağrıyanık Ömer ve Güzel Zeynep + Geyikler, Annem ve Almanya, 08.10.2021

Bağrıyanık Ömer ve Güzel Zeynep
Yücel Çakmaklı, Turkey 1978, 30 min. OmdU / OV with English subtitles

Geyikler, Annem ve Almanya
Tuncer Baytok, Turkey 1987, 71 min. OmdU / OV with English subtitles

Two figures are particularly central to migration: those who return home and those who remain at home. Despite this fact, both are often forgotten in discussions about migration. With two films found in the archive of the Turkish state broadcaster TRT and shown for the first time in Germany, this film evening is dedicated to these two often neglected figures. In Bağrıyanık Ömer ile Güzel Zeynep, Ömer, a returned migrant worker, confronts his wife Zeynep about adultery in front of her lover: Poetically he shares the memories of his time abroad. The result is an idiosyncratic view of 1970s Munich from the perspective of an immigrant worker whose self-image has been wounded. In Geyikler, Annem ve Almanya, Nigar recapitulates her childhood in Turkey during the absence of her migrant father. Memories of life in the village, the move to Istanbul, longings for the father’s indefinite return, and the mother’s sudden departure for Germany reveal the effects of migration on a child’s life. (ÖA)

In cooperation with Philipps-Universität Marburg, funded by the DFG (German Research Foundation).

Merkez İstasyon’da Münakaşa

2008’de burada birkaç gün geçirmiştim. En güçlü hatıram çok geniş bir caddedeki uzun yürüyüşümüz sırasında televizyon kulesini kendimize nirengi noktası alışımız ve yanımdaki arkadaşımın sürekli olarak bu kulenin ve etrafının ne denli turistik bir muhit olduğunu, asıl Berlin’in ise hiç buralarla alakası olmadığını uzun uzun anlattığı anlara dair buğulu bir fotoğraftan ibaret. Belki güneşten kaçınmak için başımızı sürekli yana eğdiğimizden dolayı, bu fotoğraf eğri bir görüntüye sahip, aynı zamanda da bir gün batımı hissi var. Bu cadde imgesi (şimdi onun Karl-Marx-Allee ya da Frankfurter Allee olduğunu düşünüyorum) dışında kalan diğer iki anıysa Yahudi Anıtı ziyaretimiz ve belki de yolculukta muhtemelen bira içtiğimiz için çarpıttığım, hafızamda bir uzay istasyonu etkisi bırakan, kente vardığım tren istasyonuydu. O zaman bana çok metalik ve dijital gelmişti. Buraya geldiğimden beri o istasyonun hangisini olduğunu anlamamıştım. Görüntüleri net hatırlamıyorum, sadece bir renk ve doku hatıramda kalmış. Bugün içinde biraz vakit geçirince neresi olduğunun farkına vardım.

Hauptbahnhof’ta arkadaşlarımı beklerken tam olarak anlamasam da belki önyargılarımla beni bir yerlere götüren bir olaya tanık oldum. Onlarca kişi birlikte tanık olduk. Yarım yamalak anladığım, kalan yarısını da zihnimde bir şekilde tamamladığım bu olayı unutmamak için not etmek istedim. Belki de not ederken içine çeşitlemeler yaparım, gerçeklikten iyice uzaklaştırırım.

Bu gerçeklikten uzaklaştırma fikri az önce Ali Smith’in adlarını mevsimlerden alan roman dörtlemesinin ikinci kitabı olan Winter’ı okurken aklıma geldi. Romanda Art, ailesiyle buluşacağı bir Noel öncesinde sevgilisi Charlotte tarafından terk edildiği için başka bir kadınla (Lux) onu terk eden sevgilinin yerine geçmesi için anlaşıyor. Lux, bir süreliğine ailenin henüz görmediği fakat haberdar olduğu Charlotte rolünü oynuyor. Bir noktada Art, yazdığı doğa temalı blog yazılarından Lux’a bahsediyor. Bir deneyimin aktarımı şeklinde kayda geçirilen yazıları okuyan Lux, onu henüz tanımış olsa da, yazıdaki kişinin onun gerçekte olduğu gibi birisi olmadığını düşünüyor. Anlattığı arabayı soruyor, Art’ın hiç arabası olmamış. Köyü soruyor, Google Maps’ten bakmış. Sonuçta hiçbir deneyimi yaşamdan gelmiyor, tamamı kurulmuş. Roman olsa garipsemeyiz. Ama blog metni tamamen kişisel bir deneyim gibi yazılmış. Lux sonunda gerçekten deneyimlediği bir şeyi anlatmasını istiyor Art’tan. Art çok iyi olmasa da idare eder denebilecek bir hatırasını anlattıktan sonra Lux işte tam da bunu yazmasını istiyor. Fakat Art asla böyle bir şeyi yazamayacağını, üstüne üstlük bir de insanların erişimine kesinlikle açamayacağını söylüyor.

“Neden olmasın?”, diyor Lux.
“Fazla gerçek”, diyor Art.

İstasyonun Spree’ye bakan kapısından dışarı çıkıyorum. Hava kapalı. Bir süre içeri mi girsem dışarı mı çıksam diye gidip geliyorum. Karnım biraz aç, istasyonun içinde yemek satan yerlerin vitrinlerine bakıyorum. Seyahat mekanlarının pahalı olduğuna dair bir bilgim olduğu için vitrinlere şüpheli yaklaşıyorum. Fiyatlardan ikna olamadım, bulutların çekilmesiyle dışarı çıkmaya karar veriyorum. Çıkışın önünde orta ölçekli bir meydan var, orada bekliyorum. Kapının önünde onlarca başka insan duruyor, kimisi yemek yiyor, kimisi bir şeyler içiyor, kimisi öylece salınıyor. Yoga yapan birisi de var, sanki “birkaç dakikam var, şu trene binmeden son bir akış yapabilirim” dercesine kendiliğinden uyumsuz bir yere atmış matını, süzülüyor. Her tren istasyonunun önünde kontenjanları ayrılmış hayranlık duyduğum gündüz sarhoşları yerlerini almış. Etrafı izlerken, kulaklıklarım olmasına rağmen ya bir şeyler duyuyorum ya da görüş alanımdaki hareketin şiddetini fark ediyor ve dip dibe duran üç adama dikkat kesiliyorum.

Ellerinde yeşil bira şişeleri olan (yeşiller ayrı çöpe, kahverengi olanlar ayrı), birisi zayıf diğeri oldukça boylu poslu ve yapılı, vücutlarının yerleşiminden ve etkileşimlerinden arkadaş oldukları belli olan iki adam yanlarına sokulmuş bir başkasıyla bağırışıyorlar. Başkası, zayıf olandan bile en az yirmi santimetre kısa, sırtında çantasıyla daha çok bir yolcu izlenimi veriyor. İkiye tek ve fiziken dezavantajlı görünmesine rağmen aynı horozlanmayla cevap veriyor bağırışlara. Bağrışmalarının sebebini uzunca bir süre anlayamıyorum. Kulaklıklarımı boynuma asıp sözcükleri yakalamaya çalışıyorum. Neyse ki uzun cümlelerle değil de kısa kelime gruplarıyla iletişim kuruyorlar. “Hier” (burada) ve “bleiben” (kalmak) sözcüklerini seçebiliyorum. Bir mevcudiyet ve kendini ötekine kabul ettirme mücadelesi, diye düşünüyorum.

Sözcükleri birbiri ucuna ekleyince ancak “Ich muss hier bleiben” (Burada durmam lazım) diye bir cümle elde edebiliyorum. Aslında hala “zorunda olmak” ile “istemek” sözcüklerini karıştırdığım için ilk duyduğum anda “burada durmak istiyorum (hesap mı vereceğim)” diye yorumlamıştım. Sonradan fark ettim. Sonuçta kimin nerede duracağı üzerinden itişen küçük çocuklar gibiler. Birbirilerine dikleniyorlar. Bir yükselti var. Önce birisi oraya ayağını koyuyor, sonra öteki de bir ayağını yanına koyuyor ve diğer ayağı ittirmeye çalışıyor. Bu yakınlığa rağmen maskeleri boyunlarında, yakınlıktan dolayı uyaracak birisi gelse anında çekebilirler burunlarına. İzleyen belki 100 kişi vardır. Söz dalaşı ve itişmeler çok düşük bir ivmeyle şiddetleniyor. Çok büyümeyeceği izlenimini veriyor, çocuksuluğunu koruyor. Neden hiç kimse karışmıyor? Ben en yakında konuşlandım, tek yapabildiğim gözümü dikip bakmak, “ben buradayım, sizi izliyorum” demek, anlaşamam diye düşünerek konuşmaya girmiyorum. Kimse girmiyor. Kimse mi Almanca bilmiyor?

Sonunda bir kadın sorumluluğu alıyor. Kolunu uzatarak aralarına giriyor. İki grup birbirini işaret ederek ve tükürüklerle kadına haklı olduklarını anlatmaya çalışıyorlar. Kadının ardından belki liseli olabilecek iki genç çocuk da yanlarına gidiyor. Bu uzlaştırıcı profilleri bana çok Avrupai geliyor. Şaşkınlıkla kadının birkaç dakika boyunca arabulucu görevini ifa edişini izliyorum. Sonunda olayın çözülebileceğine dair inancını yitirmiş olsa gerek omuzlarını silkerek alanı terk ediyor. Gençler de “bizlik bir olay değil” diyerekten uzaklaşıyorlar. Üçlü yine baş başa kaldı.

Bir süre daha hafif hafif bağırıştıktan ve itiştikten sonra tek başına olan adam diğerlerinden uzaklaşıyor. Vazgeçmiş olmalı. Önce bir süreliğine istasyonun giriş kapılarının hemen önünde diğerlerini uzaktan gözlüyor, sonra içeri girip orada beklemeye başlıyor. Tam o anda diğer ikili sanki bir eureka anı yaşıyorlar. Art arda “polis, polis, polis” diyorlar ve Polis’i arıyorlar. O anda sebebini anlamıyorum fakat ikili içeri doğru koşup diğer adamın uzaklaşmasını engelliyorlar. Yürüyen merdivenlerin çıkışında önüne geçip “gidemezsin, Polis geliyor” diye kıstırıyorlar ötekini. Öteki bu durumdan hoşnutsuz. Yanlarından sızarak uzaklaşmaya çalışıyor fakat göbeklerini, bacaklarını ve kollarını gererek uzaklaşmasına izin vermiyorlar.

Olup biteni izleyişim garip kaçmasın diye yakınlarındaki dezenfektan makinesine gidip ellerimi temizlemeye çalışıyorum. On civarı polis geliyor, kişi başı bölüşüyorlar şüphelileri. Kimlik istiyorlar. İlaç akmıyor musluktan. Uzun uzun deniyorum, bir onlara bir musluğa bakıyorum. Bir gerilim var, neden polis çağırdıklarını merak ediyorum, önyargılarım var. O sırada arkadaşlarım geliyor, ellerime birazcık alkollü sıvı damlıyor. Ötekinin polislere bir kimlik kartı değil de üzerinde imzalar olan bir kağıt gösterdiğini görebiliyorum sadece. Hava birden açıyor. Biraz sonra yine yağmur.

Glossary: The Weird and the Eerie by Mark Fisher

Mark Fisher’s 2016 book The Weird and the Eerie traces these two concepts in popular literature and film with the help of other popular psychological and literary concepts. If one wants to read a more theoretical and hard-to-read book that focuses on a similar terrain that has examples from deeper cultural works, they can take a look at Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, I haven’t been able to read all of it yet.

Fisher, while giving references to the cultural content, likes to wander around the plots in couple of pages instead of briefly mentioning the content and building around it, an approach that Žižek aces. These long passages retelling the books and films that I haven’t read or seen made the book a bit less catchy for me. Nonetheless, since I know I will forget all these details in couple of days, I thought I can take notes for some of the mentioned works in their contexts so that I can come back in a distant time in the future.

The Weird and the Eerie (Beyond the Unheimlich)

  • Freud’s concept of the unheimlich
  • Displacement of the unheimlich by the eerie in D.M. Thomas’ novel The White Hotel
  • The soothsaying witches in Macbeth

THE WEIRD

The Out of Place and the Out of Time: Lovecraft and the Weird

  • Lovecraft, The Shadow over Innsmouth
  • Lovecraft’s work does not fit the structuralist definition of fantasy offered by Tzvetan Todorov
  • Arguing why Lovecraft doesn’t fit to fantastic, against the book Lovecraft: A Study in the Fantastic by Maurice Lévy
  • Notes on Writing Weird Fiction by Lovecraft
  • Other examples of egress: C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books, Baum’s Oz, Stephen Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant trilogy
  • The Colour Out of Space and The Shadow Out of Time: being out of
  • China Miéville’s introduction to At the Mountains of Madness
  • Erich von Däniken and Graham Hancock
  • Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle & Civilization and its Discontents
  • Call of Cthulhu by Lovecraft: abnormal, non-Euclidean, and loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours
  • The Unnameable by Lovecraft
  • Similarities with Tolkien
  • Postmodernist fictions of Robbe-Grillet, Pynchon and Borges
  • Necronomicon
  • Cthulhu mythos authors: August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Brian Lumley, Ramsey Campbell and many others have written tales of the Cthulhu mythos

The Weird Against the Worldly: H.G. Wells

  • H.G. Wells’ short story The Door in the Wall
  • a surrealist painting by Delvaux or Ernst
  • Randolph Carter Silver Key stories
  • Gateways: Lovecraftian stories of the Marvel Comics character Doctor Strange, David Lynch, Richard Matheson’s The Incredible Shrinking Man, Narnia in C.S. Lewis’ stories
  • Freud’s essay on Screen Memory
  • Michel Houellebecq on Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life

Body a tentacle mess: The Grotesque and The Weird: The Fall

  • A quote from Patrick Parrinder on James Joyce
  • post-punk group The Fall, City Hobgoblins (1980), Grotesque (After the Gramme) (1980), Impression of J Temperance, alluding to Jarry’s Ubu Roi, Hex Enduction Hour (1982)
    • The N.W.R.A.: like Lovecraft’s “Call of Cthulhu” re-written by the Joyce of Ulysses and compressed into ten minutes
    • Jawbone and the Air Rifle:  a tissue of allusions to texts such as M.R. James’ tales “A Warning to the Curious” and “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad”, to Lovecraft’s The Shadow over Innsmouth, to Hammer Horror, and to The Wicker Man — culminating in a psychedelic/psychotic breakdown, complete with a torch-wielding mob of villagers
    • Iceland: Nico’s The Marble Index, Twilight of the Idols for the retreating hobgoblins, cobolds and trolls of Europe’s receding weird culture

Caught in the Coils of Ouroboros: Tim Powers

  • The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
    • rhizomic under-London that is part Oliver Twist, part Burroughs’ The Western Lands
    • fictional poet Ashbless
    • Like his unhappier time-displaced fellow, Jack Torrance in The Shining

Simulations and Unworlding: Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Philip K. Dick

  • Welt am Draht (World on a Wire)
  • Daniel F. Galouye’s science fiction novel Simulacron-3
  • Tarkovsky’s take on SF in Solaris and Stalker
  • Philip K. Dick adaptations
  • Inception
  • Philip K. Dick’s Time Out of Joint
    • a scene in which Edward Hopper seems to devolve into Beckett

Curtains and Holes: David Lynch

  • Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks
  • Magritte’s This Is Not a Pipe

THE EERIE

Approaching the Eerie

  • abandoned ship the Marie Celeste
  • Planet of the Apes (1968)

Something Where There Should Be Nothing: Nothing Where There Should Be Something: Daphne du Maurier and Christopher Priest

  • Daphne du Maurier’s The Birds (1952), Hitchcock’s adaptation (1963)
  • George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968)
  • Daphne du Maurier’s Don’t Look Now (1971) Nicolas Roeg’s adaptation (1973)
  • Christopher Priest’s novels The Affirmation (1981) and The Glamour (1984)

On Vanishing Land: M.R. James and Eno

  • Fisher’s work with Justin Barton, On Vanishing Land
  • H.G. Wells’ Martian Tripods (The War of the Worlds)
  • Philip Kaufman’s 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers
  • Another way of marking the beginning and ending of our journey into the eerie is by thinking about two figures: M.R. James and Brian Eno
    • James:  “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” (1904), “A Warning to the Curious” (1925)
    • Eno: Ambient 4: On Land (1982) – an “aural counterpart” to Fellini’s Amarcord (1973)
  • Jonathan Miller’s adaptation: Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad (1968)

Eerie Thanatos: Nigel Kneale and Alan Garner

  • Kneale’s Quatermass and the Pit (1958-1959) and The Stone Tape (1972)
    • Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, J.G. Ballard’s The Drowned World (1962)
  • Kneale’s Quatermass serial (1979)
    • Tubeway Army’s Replicas, Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures instead of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind
    • barricaded streets inspired by Baader Meinhof and the Red and Angry Brigades
    • Jeff Nuttall’s Bomb Culture (1968)
    • Eerie children’s programme from 1976, Children of the Stones
  • Alan Garner’s Red Shift (1973)
  • Garner’s own earlier novels, Elidor (1965) and The Owl Service (1967)

Inside Out: Outside In: Margaret Atwood and Jonathan Glazer

  • Margaret Atwood’s 1972 novel Surfacing
    • Luce Irigaray’s Speculum: Of the Other Woman, and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus
    • something in common with the “bitches brew” that Miles Davis plunges into in 1969, emerging, catatonic, only six years later; it approaches the deep sea terrains John Martyn sounds out on Solid Air and One World
    • Oryx and Crake (2003)
  • Jonathan Glazer’s 2013 film Under the Skin
    • source material, the novel by Michael Faber

Alien Traces: Stanley Kubrick, Andrei Tarkovsky, Christopher Nolan

  • Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)
  • Kubrick’s 2001, The Shining
  • Poe’s Masque of the Red Death
  • Ligeti’s Lontano
  • Solaris (1972) and Stalker (1979)
    • Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris (1961) and Boris and Arkady Strugatsky’s Roadside Picnic (1971)
  • Nolan’s Interstellar (2014)

…The Eeriness Remains: Joan Lindsay

  • Joan Lindsay’s 1967 novel, Picnic at Hanging Rock
    • Peter Weir’s faithful 1975 film adaptation