CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST and a PSYCHO Thought Experiment
I started this blog with the intention of reviewing all the canonical “cannibal” films. I began with the Adamic Man From Deep River and moved on, chronologically, from knock-off to knock-off (or, from innovator to innovator, as the case may be). My plan, when I had neatly disposed of these cinematic anthropophagi, was to take up other genres — zombies, hagsploitation, killer cars, that sort of thing.
I never made it so far. In fact, I never finished with the cannibals. When it came time to write about my favorite of these films — the one that made me want to write about cannibals in the first place — I found I couldn’t keep my opinions organized and consistent. I was stumped by a number of problems relating to the nature of art and criticism, language and metaphysics — problems which, ten years later, still stump me.
What you are reading now isn’t my long-awaited review of Cannibal Holocaust but simply an account of one of the many intellectual impasses that have prevented it.
Continue reading CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST and a PSYCHO Thought ExperimentEmanuelle and the Last Cannibals
Sorry. You get no counter-culture cachet for knowing anything about the EMMANUELLE films. Go ahead if you like: spell her with two m’s; spell her with a less canonical single m; try spelling her with a positively uncanonical pair of n’s; modify her, even, with black or any other color. I don’t care. You will not win my regard. What you do win though is the privilege of skipping these introductory paragraphs, or — even better — the foresight to avoid every film whose title bears the name Emmanuelle or any of its various variations. That is prize enough.
Jungle Holocaust
REVERSE SPOILER ALERT!!!
So, the following review is about JUNGLE HOLOCAUST, a movie which contains some pretty reprehensible content. If you think it may spoil your mood or your day to read about things like animal mutilation, exploitation of indigenous peoples, ethically indifferent cinematic depictions of cannibalism, violence against women, sexual assault, and human brutality, please consider not reading any further.
And definitely do not watch JUNGLE HOLOCAUST.
Ever.
Edits, Loops, and Punch-ins: The Seamy Side of Sound
There was a time when I would have hated this. Adolescence is a hotbed of pretenses and idealism, a time for making a Halloween costume out of yourself and wearing it all year long in the hope that people will eventually forget that it’s a costume. It’s an an age when we cling to the tragically microscopic but massively important amount of order and understanding we’ve discover in the world during our previous decade or less of sentience. And we are direly committed to stopping up our ears against anything that might threaten that order.
I hear you saying, “But, Jason, that’s not just adolescence.”
Continue reading Edits, Loops, and Punch-ins: The Seamy Side of Sound
SAWADEEDJA! A THREE PART REVIEW/ANALYSIS OF MAN FROM DEEP RIVER: PART III
In Part I of this review, I introduced you to the riddle of John Harris, the unlikable protagonist of MFDR who kills a man, flees into the jungle, is captured by natives, works his way up from slave to prominent member of the tribe, and acts like a complete jackass the whole time. I posed the question, why are we supposed to like this guy? In part II, in the quest for an answer, I traced the narrative elements of MFDR, via the 1970 film A MAN CALLED HORSE, back to the 1950 short story of the same name. We saw a stark contrast between the message of the short story and the film. In this third and final part, we’ll see how that contrast solves the riddle introduced in Part I. Continue reading SAWADEEDJA! A THREE PART REVIEW/ANALYSIS OF MAN FROM DEEP RIVER: PART III
SAWADEEDJA! A THREE PART REVIEW/ANALYSIS OF MAN FROM DEEP RIVER: PART II
The Two A Man Called Horses
Nineteen Seventy Two’s MAN FROM DEEP RIVER was heavily influenced by 1970’s A MAN CALLED HORSE. This earlier film was actually based on a 1950 short story by Dorothy M. Johnson. There are some hilarious and/or unfortunate missed-the-point-style differences between the film A MAN CALLED HORSE and the original story. My writing about them right now might seem slightly out of place in a review of MFDR, but the cannibal movie makes a lot more sense within this context of missed points and altered emphases. There’s actually a story to tell in the progression (or regression, but, I swear, not digression) of these misunderstandings.
Continue reading SAWADEEDJA! A THREE PART REVIEW/ANALYSIS OF MAN FROM DEEP RIVER: PART II
SAWADEEDJA! A THREE PART REVIEW/ANALYSIS OF MAN FROM DEEP RIVER: PART I
This is the sort of movie that if you are the sort of person who is into cannibal movies you probably will not like. But if you are the sort of person who is into movies that transport you to a distant place and time where a man can be a man and a woman can be something considerably less than a woman, and you are also into boobs and monkey torture, you might think it is a not too awful movie.
Continue reading SAWADEEDJA! A THREE PART REVIEW/ANALYSIS OF MAN FROM DEEP RIVER: PART I