Research and Obsessions

Despite many thoughts rattling around in my head, it's a struggle to get a post out each week. But I am more organized this week than ever, so one step closer to carving out time.

I did discover a great resource last week. A work friend, a certified smarty-pants (aka PhD), told me about the public computers at UCSF. I had found an abstract of two articles from The Lancet, from 1917 and 1926, but I don't have a subscription to these journals of course. But UCSF does! I was able to access the articles and email them to myself - yippe! More resources to feed my obsessions!

The articles are part of my research into the production of artist Anna Coleman Ladd and the tin masks of WWI. These masks are an interesting example of the intersection of art and science - a favorite subject. Using this same resource I also found articles from art journals on Ladd, with a focus on her sculpture (actually not mentioning the mask production). Tonight I'll check out an NPR "All Things Considered" episode on her. Then to start work on a blog post about it all.

Image from YouTube video.

 Image from the San Diego History Center website.

Zombies On Broadway!! Must. See. This. Film!

Just came across this film researching the films of Sheldon Leonard...OMG! This looks like a must see...I hope it's as "good" as it looks!!!

Exorcist Distraction

I stepped into a neighborhood used bookstore looking for books to use for my SF Silent Film Fest research project. Although I didn't find the books I was hoping for, as usual, I found other stuff - bookstores are so dangerous. I would drown in a mountain of books if I let myself go. I can't be a "cat-lady" with my allergies, but I could be a "book-lady."

Walking up the stairs I noticed the arresting photo of Lee J. Cobb. Upon inspection, the photo was taken by Richard Avedon. I really have to get to the show at the MOMA before it closes - note to self!

Lee J. Cobb made me think of The Exorcist. This film has obsessed me for years; the idea of someone, a priest, who agonizes over the loss of his faith only to have it restored when confronted by what he comes to believe to be real evil.

While going through the film books, I was surprised to find a book I didn't know existed, The Story Behind the Exorcist by Peter Travers and Stephanie Reiff (1974).

I've read William Peter Blatty on the Exorcist: From Novel to Film (1972), which gives a lot of insight into the book and film development and background from the writer's perspective. The Story Behind... gives a lot more general background and tidbits like the four month search for a child actor up to the task of playing the possessed girl and the controversy that almost lead to the dreaded 'X' rating.

In August of 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that obscene content was not protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution and went on to define obscenity. The Wikipedia article "Miller v. California" states the three points in the definition:

* the average person, applying contemporary community standards (not national standards, as some prior tests required), must find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest
* the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law
* and the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value

This ruling gave states more power to bring cases against what the community felt was "obscene." After the film's release in Dec. of 1973, a case was brought against film distributors in Boston siting the new obscenity ruling; the case sought to ban The Exorcist in Boston. Although the judge's ruling stated that "it does not meet the guidelines of obscenity as laid down by the United States Supreme Court" and the case was dismissed, the field was open for additional lawsuits. Soon after, the Division of Film and Broadcasting for the U.S. Catholic Conference rated the film A-IV, morally objectionable. They condemned the MPAA for giving the film a 'R' rating.

Finally, in Washington DC, community action achieved a success. On New Year's Day of 1974, the U.S. District Attorney's Office ruled to ban the film's ticket sales to anyone under 17 and warned theaters that arrests would be made for any violations of this ban.

Luckily for the film, produced by the author William Blatty, the 'R' rating stuck and The Exorcist became one of most talked-about films and biggest money maker in film history.

Okay now, enough distraction!!! I'm off to the library to do research for my festival project. I'm so easily sidetracked! And I want to sew too! My blouse project is languishing!!

SF Silent Film Fest & Thoughts of Film

This last weekend the San Francisco Silent Film Festival was at the Castro Theatre. I've written program essays and pre-show slide presentations for the festival in a committee for about seven years. I took last year off to give myself time to learn to sew. For this year's festival, I just wrote and produced images for the pre-show presentation for the Chinese film "The Wild Rose" (1932). I am excited this year that the festival has begun to post the program essays on their website. The last essay I wrote for them is up: www.silentfilm.org/archive.html under Title, click on "Maciste" (Italy, 1915).

This year, my favorite film was "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1928). Silent film does surreal and fantastic better than any other genre of film. The film was accompanied by the incredibly impressive Stephen Horne. If you hear his name, see the film regardless. He is truly amazing: piano one hand, flute in the other, sound loops and odd noises, choral clips all woven into a perfect audio experience that supported and enhanced the film.

Also today I learned something that made me ponder film for the rest of the day. I hear from a work-friend that her nephew, now eight years old, has never once seen a movie. His parents have strong ideas on child rearing and want him to grow up without the influence of media.

My first thought was shock. How, what, eh? My second thought was how much fun, someday, someone will have sharing his first movie experience - start from the beginning with the Lumiere Bros. or something like The Matrix? It's true that children for hundred, nay, thousands of years lived without movies...

As I walked to my train after work I thought a lot about what you could gain from clearing your childhood schedule of movies and television; but also what you would lose. Stream of consciousness and the warm Summer weather brought to mind two wonderful summers of movie-watching. I must have been 10 and 11 and the year would have been approx. 1978-1979 (yeow, when did I get so old, ack!). I walked with friends or caught a ride to the San Carlos Theatre with a Summer movie pass in my hand. I can't say how much it cost, but I do remember it got you into the daily, afternoon double-feature including I think the entire catalog of Disney live-action kid movies like The Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes, Escape to Witch Mountain, The Misadventures of Merlin Jones , The Shaggy D.A., The Parent Trap, plus classic adventure films like Jason and the Argonauts with effects and animation by the great Ray Harryhausen.

Jason fights the skeletons from "Jason and the Argonauts,"

creature animation by the legendary Harryhausen

Haley Mills and Hayley Mills in "The Parent Trap" (1961)

I remember sitting in the cool, dark theater in the height of a hot California Summer with my smuggled candy. Those afternoons in the dark shaped my obsessions and passions for fantastic stories (politicians who turn into dogs, skeletons fighting you at every turn, Kurt Russell becoming the smartest teenager in the world, child-witches who were really aliens from space driving around in a motor home) and well, sitting in the dark: the anticipation, the ritual of the curtains opening -- hearing the mechanical click and whirr in the hush of the dark silence, the rustle of popcorn bags. Despite all the benefits, I can't imagine losing out on this experience.