ACTHE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
05/25/12 -- Vol. 30, No. 48, Whole Number 1703
Peanut Butter: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Jelly: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Mark Leeper's Top Ten Lists
Statistical Titanic (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
My Picks for Turner Classic Movies for June (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
Free College Courses (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
This Week's Reading (SCHLIEMANN OF TROY, THE AENEID,
Teaching Company course on THE AENEID,
Stanford University course on THE AENEID,
and THE SEVEN SISTERS) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: Mark Leeper's Top Ten Lists
Mark just recently compiled a list of all his "Top Ten of the Year"
films for the last 25 years. The compilation (just titles) is
available at:
http://leepers.us/top_ten_titles.html
The compilation with mini-reviews of most of the films is available
at:
http://leepers.us/topten_text.htm
[-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Statistical Titanic (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
There is a scene at the end of the movie TITANIC in which the
crewman on a rescue rowboat is looking for survivors among many
bodies floating in the water. Suddenly he hears a whistle. If he
knew anything at all about statistics he probably would have
realized that one whistle had to be a sampling error. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: My Picks for Turner Classic Movies for June (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)
Okay, time for my June recommendations for Turner Classic Movies
For June there were not enough obscure goodies to forge an entire
article recommending. I want, however, this month to call
attention to Turner's nice practice of having themed blocks of
film. Record then and you can have several nights of festival of
films of a given theme. The Turner people will decide that for
June 6th they will just show the diversity of early sound horror
films. For twelve hours they will just show horror films from 1931
to 1935. But they will not just show Universal's entries which
would have been really easy will take films from several different
studios and show only the good stuff. And at the very least they
will show good prints. I do not recommend sitting through the
whole block as it is broadcast even if there are breaks between
films.
(Incidentally, all times listed are Eastern time zone.)
6 Wednesday Early Sound Horror Films
6:00 AM Frankenstein (1931)
7:15 AM Doctor X (1932)
8:45 AM Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (1932)
10:30 AM Freaks (1932)
11:45 AM The Mask Of Fu Manchu (1932)
1:00 PM Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)
2:15 PM Island of Lost Souls (1933)
3:30 PM Mad Love (1935)
4:45 PM Mark Of The Vampire (1935)
6:00 PM The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
Back when I was in college there was a triple feature playing
around the country. It proclaimed, "Let the Superstars of Shock
Take You on a Triple Trip to Where Horror Began!" The three films
were DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1932), THE MASK OF FU MANCHU, and
MARK OF THE VAMPIRE. In spite of the inaccuracy of the tagline I
thought to see these three classics for one ticket was pretty good.
Of course, here is TCM beating that triple feature all-hollow.
This is those three films and a lot more. If you record in one day
you can add to your collection ten of the best from that time. For
this listing I am including HUNCHBACK, but I am not sure whether it
was intended to be part of the block. It was, after all, four
years after MARK OF THE VAMPIRE. The only really good example that
is missing will play on TCM two days later. That is, of course,
THE BLACK CAT (1934). Of course I already had copies of all of
them, but it still is a great set of films. It is a ready-made
collection of the best of early sound horror.
8 Friday Dark Houses
8:00 PM The Spiral Staircase (1945)
9:30 PM The Innocents (1961)
11:15 PM The Black Cat (1934)
12:30 AM Gaslight (1940)
2:00 AM The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1977)
Again, I am not sure if the last film is intended to be in the
block, and I have not see it (yet). But the first four films seem
to be horror in films where the house becomes almost a character.
15 Friday The Foundations of Toho Science Fiction
8:00 PM Gojira (1954)
9:30 PM Rodan (1957)
11:00 PM Mothra (1962)
1:00 AM H-Man (1958)
2:30 AM Hausu (1977)
Speaking of starting collections, if you want the best of early
Toho science fiction, you have it here. GOJIRA (GODZILLA) is
probably the most influential Japanese film ever made. It created
a real international market for Japanese fantastic films. It
spawned all the Japanese Kaiju (giant monster) films. The first
three films each features a giant monster that would be popular in
it and later films. H-MAN is science fiction mixed with crime
drama with a very different idea for a monster. Once again the
last film in what appears to be a block is not. Toho's HAUSU
(which means HOUSE) is a bit like CABIN IN THE WOODS. It looks
like it is going to be a very clichéd horror film and then turns
into something very different. And you know from the beginning the
style is strange. This one eventually immerses the viewer in
surrealism in a haunted house and it is anything but obvious what
the director is doing. This is a very bizarre film. I cannot
promise the reader will like the film, but it will not be like much
he has seen before.
22 Friday Directed by Billy Wilder
8:00 AM The Seven Year Itch (1955)
10:00 AM Love In The Afternoon (1957)
12:15 PM The Spirit of St. Louis (1957)
2:45 PM Some Like It Hot (1959)
5:00 PM The Apartment (1960)
These are five films directed by Billy Wilder. He does some very
funny comedies, often very dark in tone. Usually there is a
European. A frequent theme is how sex drives men to weird or even
extremes. I think his strongest film is ACE IN THE HOLE (which TCM
is not showing), but his second best is probably THE APARTMENT.
There is no doubt that his most popular film is SOME LIKE IT HOT.
THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS is one of his rare films that just does not
work. He was the wrong director and James Stewart was too old to
play Charles Lindbergh.
28 Thursday 1960s Science Fiction
6:00 AM The Time Machine (1960)
8:00 AM Village Of The Damned (1960)
9:30 AM The Manster (1962)
10:45 AM The Snow Devils (1965)
12:30 PM War of the Planets (1965)
2:15 PM Wild, Wild Planet (1965)
4:00 PM Five Million Years To Earth (1968)
5:45 PM Green Slime (1969)
I guess this is just a mixed bag of 1960s science fiction films.
Well, you could pick a much worse decade for science fiction films.
This lists demonstrates that American and British SF film really
were maturing in the 1960s. The British and American films have
some sophistication. The Japanese films are THE MANSTER and GREEN
SLIME (the latter trying hard to hide its Japanese origins). THE
MANSTER involves an American journalist who is the victim of a
Japanese mad scientist who is trying to make him fission like an
ameba, starting with a second head growing out of his shoulder.
GREEN SLIME is better known because the title got people's
attention. It is set in space and has the explorers attacked by
cute little aliens who generate electricity like eels do but worse.
The three 1965 film are Italian space operas that form a series
(though are being shown out of order). Antonio Margheriti directed
all though for one film he used the pseudonym Anthony Dawson.
Oddly the Japanese produced GREEN SLIME is supposed to be in the
same series. If I were to pick one film for you it would be FIVE
MILLION YEARS TO EARTH--no contest. This is QUATERMASS AND THE PIT
with an American title, and I consider it the best science fiction
ever made. There are more engaging ideas in this film than I could
list here.
[Note: Margheriti's pseudonym Anthony Dawson should not be confused
with fine English character actor Anthony Dawson, whose villainous
face was his fortune. He played a very nasty nobleman at the
beginning of CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF and a man coerced to murder in
DIAL M FOR MURDER. Though his face was unseen he was also Ernst
Stavro Blofeld in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE and THUNDERBALL.] [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Free College Courses (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
In my reading column in this issue I talk about two courses I
listened to about Virgil's AENEID. Back in the 12/03/10 issue of
the MT VOID, I talked about some of the differences between the
Teaching Company course and the UC Berkeley course on ancient Rome.
Basically, the former was self-contained, while the latter assumed
that you have done all sorts of readings outside of class and were
attending weekly discussion sections in addition to the lectures.
For THE AENEID, I listened to the Teaching Company source, taught
by Dr. Elizabeth Vandiver, and a Stanford course for adult
students, taught by Susanna Braund. In this case, I found the
Stanford course much more informative than the UCB on Rome course
had been, and in fact probably better than the Teaching Company
course on THE AENEID. First of all, I actually read THE AENEID.
Second, the Stanford course was a two-hour lecture once a week with
no additional discussion sections, so I got the entire content of
the course. And third, the professor for this course was better
than the professor of the UCB course. The latter spent a lot of
time on diversions and procedural minutiae (re-arrangements of
schedule, discussion of questions on exams, telling people where to
get copies of the handouts, etc.), while Braund pretty much stuck
to the subject. And while the Teaching Company course is very
good, it is only six hours long, while the UCB course is twelve
hours long.
The biggest problem with the Stanford course is that it is
available only through iTunes U. I do not know what I am doing
wrong, but every time I download something from iTunes U to my
iPod, it disappears. If it is in a playlist, it is visible there
until I remove it--but that removes it only from the playlist. But
it is still occupying space on the iPod. It is not in Music, it is
not in Books, it is not in Podcasts, ... it is not anywhere
accessible. The only way to clear it off is to reset the iPod to
its factory settings and then reload everything that was on it.
The fact they they are not entirely self-contained is, ironically,
also one of the advantages of the non-Teaching Company courses.
Because they are (usually) longer, and also not committed to being
so self-contained, the professors can recommend other books,
movies, TV shows, and so on, that the Teaching Company audience is
not as receptive to following up on. (The major marketing strategy
of the Teaching Company is that you can get an education just by
listening to their courses while commuting, exercising, or
whatever.) [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
This column is devoted to books about or connected to Virgil's
AENEID, Troy, and the Trojans.
SCHLIEMANN OF TROY: TREASURE AND DECEIT by David A. Traill (ISBN
978-0-312-15647-2) begins with a brief paragraph about Schliemann:
"When he was eight years old he was captivated by the stories of
the Trojan War and resolved that one day he would excavate Troy.
He devoted the early part of his life to commerce in order to earn
enough money to be able to realize his childhood dream. At last,
in his mid-forties he went to Paris to study archaeology. On a
trip to the plain of Troy in 1868 he reached, on the mound of
Hisarlik, the historic decision that here, not at Bunarbashi
(Pinarbashi), as most scholars then believed, was the site of
Homer's Troy. Soon after this he set about proving his theory by
the evidence of his spade--the first seeker of Troy to take this
practical step. His theory received dramatic confirmation at the
end of May 1873, when, with the help of his wife Sophia, he
discovered a large treasure on the city wall. which he called
"Priam's Treasure". In 1876 at Mycenae, again with the help of his
wife, Schliemann excavated gold masks and masses of other jewelry
from the mud of the Shaft Graves. In one of the graves he found a
mummy wearing a gold mask, which he ripped off and, finding the
remains of a human face underneath, telegraphed the King of Greece.
'I have gazed on the face of Agamemnon,' he said. The gold mask he
called the 'Mask of Agamemnon' and it is still known by that name."
Traill then says, "Recent research ... has shown that every
statement in the preceding statement is false." For example, his
wife was not with him at either of the mentioned finds, the
treasure was found outside the wall, not in it, and the treasure
almost definitely included pieces found elsewhere or even
manufactured to make the find more dramatic.
SCHLIEMANN OF TROY is an odd combination--on the one hand it
attempts to be a biography of Schliemann and a record of his
archaeological efforts, but on the other it is an effort to
discredit almost everything he said or claimed. The two do not
blend well; I can't help but feel that it would be better either as
a straight biography, revealing but not dwelling on the
discrepancies, thefts, and falsifications, or as a monograph
detailing the discrepancies et al without attempting to write a
full biography.
I read THE AENEID by Virgil (translated by Robert Fitzgerald) (ISBN
978-0-679-72952-5) in conjunction with two audio courses: one
taught by Dr. Susanna Braund at Stanford in six two-hour sessions
available as podcasts, and one by Dr. Elizabeth Vandiver at the
Teaching Company in twelve thirty-minute sessions.
One of the things Braund covered that Vandiver did not was the
variation among English translations of THE AENEID. For example,
Braund thought that John Dryden's was the most poetic in its own
right. William Morris's was unusual in that he avoided Latinate
words; here are the opening few lines:
I sing of arms, I sing of him, who from the Trojan land
Thrust forth by Fate, to Italy and that Lavinian strand
First came: all tost about was he on earth and on the deep
By heavenly might for Juno's wrath, that had no mind to sleep:
And plenteous war he underwent ere he his town might frame
And set his Gods in Latian earth, whence is the Latin name,
And father-folk of Alba-town, and walls of mighty Rome.
As Braund notes, the use of Anglo-Saxon words such as "father-folk"
(rather than the Latinate "ancestors") makes it sound more like
Tolkien than like Virgil, though one has to respect Morris's
reasoning. Morris felt that just as Virgil wrote for his Latin
audience in a sort of "pure" Latin, without using all sorts of
Greek-derived words, so should he write for his English audience in
a sort of "pure" English, without using all sorts of Latin-derived
words. (One is reminded of Poul Anderson's wonderful "Uncleftish
Beholding".)
A few odds and ends:
The word "fatum", usually translated as "fate", literally means
"what has been spoken". In that sense one could consider it the
definition of a performative (e.g., "I promise", "I declare this
bridge open", etc.). There are echoes throughout other epics as
well. In THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, Pharaoh repeatedly sayd, "So let it
be written, so let it be done." In LAWRENCE OF ARABIA they
constantly speak of "what is written" (or, "for some men, truly
nothing is written"). But it is somewhat ambiguous: sometimes it
seems to be what Jupiter (Zeus) has decreed, but other times
Jupiter speaks of fate as being something external to him that he
does not control.
There are a lot of Homeric parallels: the flashback related by the
hero, Cassandra and Laocoon as prophets who are not believed, the
visit to the underworld (including the same sorts of shades met), a
profusion of similes, and a lot of epic tropes in general. There
are also anachronisms, e.g., Aeneas flees with his household gods,
but household gods are a Roman concept, not a Trojan or Greek one.
(And you thought that this was true only of modern movies!)
One can also see where Dante got his inspiration for Virgil as his
guide through the (Christian) underworld--and in fact Dante's
Inferno bears more than just a little resemblance to Virgil's
Tartarus, including various circles where different types of sins
are punished.
In Book V's description of the games, you get some notion of the
place of women in ancient society when you read that in a race, the
first prize was an embroidered cloak, the second was a shirt of
chain mail, the third was two cauldrons, and the fourth was a slave
woman and her two children. (For that matter, while Dido gets a
lot of attention, after Aeneas's first wife Creusa is rather
summarily disposed of in the Sack of Troy, we never hear of her
again. When Aeneas goes down to the underworld, he sees and speaks
to Dido, but no mention is made of Creusa.
Before Aeneas goes down to the underworld, he is told that he must
pluck a golden bough from a certain tree. If the gods are willing
that he make the journey, the branch will come away easily, but if
they are not, no amount of human strength could break it off. This
certainly sounds like an inspiration for Arthur's sword in the
stone (and with Roman expansion into Britain after Virgil's
writing, it is certainly possible that the Britons were aware of
the legend).
And when Aeneas asked about how to get in to the underworld, the
Cumaean Sybil tells him (in William Morris's translation):
"Man of Troy, from blood of Godhead grown,
Anchises' child, Avernus's road is easy faring down;
All day and night is open wide the door of Dis the black;
But thence to gain the upper air, and win the footsteps back
This is the deed, this is the toil: Some few have had the
might,
Beloved by Jove the Just, upborne to heaven by valour's light,
The Sons of God."
This reminds me of the exchange in Henry IV, Part I:
Glendower: "I can call spirits from the vasty deep."
Hotspur: "Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?"
Aeneas is the son of the goddess Venus and the mortal Anchises.
When Aeneas needs a shield, Venus goes to her husband, Vulcan, and
convinces him to make a shield. Does anyone else think there is
something strange about this: " Oh, sweetie, please make a shield
for my illegitmate son that I had when I cheated on you with
Anchises." "Sure thing, honey."
Scholars say that Virgil left THE AENEID unfinished, and they point
to two pieces of evidence. One piece is the incomplete lines--the
sentences are complete as they are, but some syllables are lacking
for the meter. The other is various inconsistencies. These are
not anachronisms (like the household gods mentioned earlier), but
things like having Ascanius's age. He was at least two years old
at the Sack of Troy. Seven years later, in Carthage, he seems to
be only about six or seven years old. Then in Latinum (maybe a
year or two after Carthage) he is old enough to be a leader and a
soldier during the fighting there. The Fury Alecto predicted that
the Trojans would "eat their tables"; later this prophecy was
attributed to Anchises. Palinurus fell into the sea either because
he fell asleep or because the rudder broke off. And so on.
(Many of these observations were triggered by or discussed in the
two courses I followed.)
THE SEVEN SISTERS by Margaret Drabble (ISBN 978-0-15-100740-0) was
recommended by Dr. Braund during her Aeneid lectures for Stanford.
That's one advantage of the non-Teaching Company courses. Because
they are (usually) longer, and also not committed to being so self-
contained, the professors can recommend other books, movies, TV
shows, and so on, that the Teaching Company audience is not as
receptive to following up on. (The major marketing strategy of the
Teaching Company is that you can get an education just by listening
to their courses while commuting, exercising, or whatever.)
Anyway, THE SEVEN SISTERS is about Candida Wilton, a divorcee in
London who was part of an adult education class on Virgil. The
class is canceled when the building is converted into a fitness
center, but when Candida gets an unexpected windfall, she convinces
the teacher, two other students, and two friends to join her on a
"Virgil" tour of Carthage (Tunisia) and Italy. Most of the novel
is about the same sorts of things that most modern novels are, but
there is a lot of Virgil in it as well. There are many references
that readers unfamiliar with Virgil will not understand. (For
example, the pilot ship for the ferry is named "Ascanius", and
Candida talks about how she doesn't have a Golden Bough to take to
the Cumaean Sybil.) In fact, the only parts of the book I enjoyed
were the Virgilian references. On the other hand, I can see how
this is probably popular as a "woman's book" and with book
discussion groups. [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste
of the American public.
--H. L. Mencken