By Ben Reiser

Writer Mike McPadden currently resides in Chicago, where his encyclopedic knowledge of exploitation movies of all types and his winning way with double entendres and sex-based puns had served him well as editor-in-chief of the website, Mr. Skin. These days Mike is doing a ton of freelance writing and has had two books published within the last year. His most recent tome, Heavy Metal Movies is informative and entertaining in exactly the ways I’ve come to expect from McPadden.

For a recent blog post on death and taxes, Mike has compiled a wonderful list of movie clips featuring screen tests and unused alternative early versions from a wide gamut of films that were then famously revised. Included in this list is some super cool levitation test footage from The Exorcist. Check it out:

More to the point, I’ve never seen The Exorcist in a movie theater. Not sure how that happened but I’m gonna fix that this Wednesday night, October 8 at 7 p.m. when the Cinematheque and WUD Film present the 2000 re-release version as part of the Cinematheque's William Friedkin series.

This essay by Leo Rubinkowski, Graduate Student and Teaching Assistant in UW Madison's Communication Arts Department, discusses the first two features of Leos Carax, Boy Meets Girl and Mauvais Sang, both of which star Denis Lavant. The two films screen respectively at the UW Cinematheque on Saturday, October 4 and Saturday, October 11.

It is probably safe to assume that before the appearance of Holy Motors (2012) on US screens, most of that film’s American viewers (including yours truly) were more or less unfamiliar with Leos Carax. Helped along by the usual festivals, but surely benefitting from the ubiquity of online film criticism (Carax’s previous feature, Pola X, came out in 1999), Holy Motors performed respectably despite a very limited release in art houses and independent theaters. It is tempting, therefore, to fold renewed interest in Boy Meets Girl (1984) and Mauvais Sang (1986) neatly into the success of his latest work. Why else should Paris-based distributor Carlotta Films have inaugurated their US office with the first two features of an inarguably distinct, though commercially marginal, figure of contemporary French cinema?

In the mid-1980s, though, Leos Carax was not a pre-sold brand. To make sense of the new director, critics tended to look backwards, recognizing that what is idiosyncratic of Carax’s stories and style is also unabashedly familiar.

In Boy Meets Girl, Carax tells the story of Alex (Denis Lavant) and Mireille (Mireille Perrier), one an aspiring filmmaker recently dumped by his girlfriend and the other a suicidal actress whom Alex overhears breaking up with her boyfriend through an apartment intercom system. Despite not having actually seen Mireille, Alex falls in love with her. Later, the two meet at a dinner party and spend the night together until chance intervenes (again).

In contrast, Mauvais Sang is a heist picture. Marc (Michel Piccoli) must plot a crime to pay off a gangster known as “The American.” To help with the job, he brings on Alex (Lavant), the son of a recently deceased colleague. Alex falls in love with Marc’s lover, Anna (Juliette Binoche), who keeps Alex’s romantic overtures in check. Of course, the eventual robbery does not go as planned. Guns are fired, agreements are broken, a hostage is taken, and before long, all lines of action and feeling intersect in Alex’s dramatic final moments. (According to Carax, he stole several plot elements from a Raoul Walsh picture, Salty O’Rourke [1945].)

Following its run at the 1985 New York Film Festival, Vincent Canby mused of Boy Meets Girl, “one recognizes a bit of Jean-Luc Godard here, something of François Truffaut there, and every now and then one hears what may be the faint, original voice of Mr. Carax trying to make himself heard around and through the images of others.” Canby’s observations were not unique. More than a few critics treated Carax as a continuation of the French New Wave’s spirit, and the influence seems evident in both Boy Meets Girl and Mauvais Sang in many ways. When Alex and Mireille talk for the first time in Boy Meets Girl, can we imagine Carax is not quoting Vivre sa vie (Godard, 1962)? Mourning the vicissitudes of youth and l’amour fou, will Alex go to Antoine Doinel or Patricia Franchini for sympathy? And speaking of fated love, whose chemistry was more obvious: Michel and Patricia’s in the half-hour bedroom sequence from Breathless (Godard, 1960) or Alex and Anna’s during their all-night vigil in Mauvais Sang? Of course, the ties that bind Carax to the New Wave run deeper than mere situation. In Mauvais Sang, for instance, foreboding strings, primary colors, abrupt inserts, and flat stagings all call to mind similar stylistic elements at play in Godard’s Pierrot le fou (1965).

However, it would be misleading to think that Boy Meets Girl and Mauvais Sang are the products of a director working after his time. As likely as they were to praise Carax as a reincarnation of the past, French critics in the mid-1980s also associated him with a contemporary trend in French cinema unofficially dubbed le cinéma du look. Like contemporaries Luc Besson (Subway, 1985; Nikita, 1990) and Jean-Jacques Beineix (Diva, 1981), Carax’s non-naturalistic approach to aesthetics seems to draw heavily from the conventions of television commercials, music videos, and fashion photography. Tight depth of focus, lighting set-ups that cause faces and props almost to glow while drowning backgrounds in shadow, and framings that militantly organize attention to the mise-en-scène all contribute to a visual resonance atypical of most films, including those of the New Wave directors. If, as Alex observes in Mauvais Sang, “You need to feed the eyes for your dreams,” many a night of sound sleep must have originated in the minds of Leos Carax and his director of photography, Jean-Yves Escoffier.

This dream-like quality is likely the feature that will impress viewers most during a first viewing. In part, this is a consequence of Carax’s style. Editing, sound, cinematography, and mise-en-scène all conspire to suggest that the story is happening out of focus, out of earshot, or outside the frame. Mystery suffuses the look and sound of Boy Meets Girl and Mauvais Sang. In the best surrealist tradition, though, Carax allows that mystery – that fantasy – to tear at the seams of his story worlds. Indeed, it is as if Alex (both of them), Mireille, Marc, Anna, Hans (Hans Meyer), and Lise (Julie Delpy) occupy a universe not identical to our own, but adjacent, where the day-to-day vies for relevance with the grandiose and the subtly absurd. A man and a woman lock in a passionate embrace, and then begin to rotate in place like mannequins; a passer-by tosses loose change for their trouble. A bed retains only the barest signs of a would-be lover: a cigarette, a tissue, a single hair, and the impossible indentation of her curled body. A desperate criminal takes an equally desperate hostage. A wall of cupboards reveals a single, chipped teacup. The radio plays “the very tune that [is] humming inside your head.”

This last moment may be the most important, because it responds best to the tragedy of viewing Leos Carax’s work. There is no way to freeze Lavant mid-stride, capture Piccoli and Serge Reggiani mid-scuffle, or halt Binoche mid-stretch. The intensity of despair in Mireille’s shorn hair will always be locked away on film. The experience resonates, but that resonance is a shadow. Nevertheless, when the feeling of loss is too great, when the cement in our stomachs begins to harden, there’s the smile of speed…and there’s David Bowie.

These notes on Abel Ferrara's Ms. 45 were written by UW Madison's Maureen Rogers, Ph.D candidate and Teaching Assistant in the Department of Communication Arts. Ms. 45 screens as the Cinematheque's first 'Marquee Monday' for the Fall 2014 season at the Marquee Theater at Union South on Monday, September 29, at 7 p.m.

Ms. 45 and the Rape and Revenge Film

by Maureen Rogers

Ms. 45 (1981) marks Abel Ferrara's third directorial feature and third collaboration with screenwriter Nicholas St. John. Since its release, Ms. 45's melange of gore and low-budget stylization, set in gritty pre-Giuliani New York, has made the film a favorite among fans of cult and exploitation cinema.

Ms. 45 stars the 18-year-old Zoe Lund as Thana, a mute seamstress working for a two-bit fashion designer (played by a delightfully smarmy Albert Sinkys) in the Manhattan Garment District. (Lund would go on to collaborate with Ferrara in writing 1992's Bad Lieutenant.) Returning from work one day, Thana is brutally assaulted and raped twice in a span of mere hours. Traumatized and enraged, Thana doles out revenge on her assailants and, as the film proceeds, on the unrelenting array of sexual predators that populate Ferrara's early-1980s downtown Manhattan.

At a brisk 84 minutes, Ms. 45 is quickly plotted and rarely drags. Given the expressive limitations of the Thana character, Lund offers a moving and dynamic performance with impressive range conveyed largely through facial expression. The film also benefits from interesting sound design and music that ranges from expressive use of a tenor sax (a likely influence on Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill) to synth music more characteristic of the period and genre.

Ms. 45 is also among the most pared down examples of the rape and revenge film, a subgenre of the action revenge genre. Most rape and revenge films involve a similar set of situations and events that include extended scenes of the female protagonist's suffering. The protagonist typically survives the sexual assault(s), and the remainder of the narrative is spent detailing her plotting to kill the perpetrator(s) and finally achieving her revenge. There are a few common variations to this formula; for instance, in some rape and revenge films, as in the Japanese film Lady Snowblood (1973) and Death Wish (1974), family members seek vengeance on behalf of the female victim who is unable to carry out revenge herself. Many rape and revenge films present both the sexual assaults and the acts of revenge as moments of hyperviolent, sexualized spectacle and titillation.

It's worth noting that the rape and revenge plot has been used in a variety of budget levels and production contexts; higher-budget examples include Lipstick (1976), Wild Things (1998), and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo novel and film adaptations. However, in common parlance, the rape and revenge film is almost exclusively associated with a low-budget, exploitation mode of filmmaking. As such, 1970s and 1980s rape and revenge films, such as I Spit On Your Grave (1978), the Swedish sexploitation film Thriller: A Cruel Picture (aka They Call Her One Eye, 1973), and Ms. 45, are often considered classics of the subgenre. Indeed, in Ms. 45, Ferrara appears to draw significantly from Thriller: A Cruel Picture. Like Thana, Madeleine, the female protagonist in Thriller, is also mute, and there are substantial similarities in sound design and costume.

Ms. 45 is grisly at times and, at other times, playfully vengeful, particularly as Thana begins to fully inhabit her new persona as a killer. Indeed, the ambiguous moral valence of Ms. 45 and other rape and revenge films has been a topic of considerable controversy. On the one hand, some critics and commentators have understood films such as Ms. 45 as tales of female empowerment and patriarchal critique. On the other hand, the rape scenes in these films occupy a good deal of screen time and often depict the sadistic violence of the story in a highly sexualized, often troubling fashion. For some viewers, Thana's inability to speak might further mitigate a reading of Ms. 45 as feminist or politically transgressive, while the film's climax and Thana's fate further muddies the film's politics. Whichever way you understand it, Ms. 45 is a disturbing, entertaining, and controversial film.

This essay on the legendary Ealing Studios and the classic Ealing comedy The Ladykillers, was written by UW Cinematheque's Project Assistant and UW Madison PhD candidate Amanda McQueen. The Ladykillers will screen in 4070 Vilas Hall on Saturday, September 27 at 7 p.m. The screening concludes our series "Alec Guinness: Centennial for a Comic Genius".

The Ladykillers: The Twisted Last Hurrah of Ealing Comedy

By Amanda McQueen

The Ladykillers is the last of a group of nine films commonly referred to as the Ealing comedies. Along with Hue and Cry (1947), Passport to Pimlico (1949), Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), Whisky Galore! (1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Man in the White Suit (1951), The Titfield Thunderbolt (1952) and The Maggie (1954), The Ladykillers has become an exemplar of Ealing Studios' output and part of the canon of classic British cinema.

Michael Balcon, who became head of production at Ealing Studios in 1938, was a strong advocate for the development of a thriving British film industry. He was divisively outspoken about legislative and financial actions that could curtail Hollywood's box office dominance, and he frequently attacked British filmmakers, like Alfred Hitchcock, who left for America, and British studios, like the vertically integrated Rank Organization, that used big-budget films with international stars to try and break into foreign markets. Balcon's criticisms are complicated somewhat by the fact that Ealing films - particularly the comedies - were quite successful internationally, and by the fact that, from 1944 to 1955, Rank actually financed and distributed Ealing productions. Nevertheless, Balcon wanted Ealing to be "The Studio for Good British Films," and this was reflected in the company's work methods and overall philosophy.

Filmmaking facilities were first built in the London borough of Ealing in 1902, but it wasn't until Balcon took over, following stints as head of production at Gainsborough, Gaumont British, and MGM-British, that Ealing Studios became a production company in its own right. In reaction to his unpleasant experience at MGM, Balcon organized Ealing as an intimate, familial company, adopting the motto "The Studio with the Team Spirit." By 1942, he had assembled a stable group of writers, producers, and directors who collaborated at round table discussions (or over a pint in the pub across the road) but who were also encouraged to run with their individual ideas. Ealing released only four to seven films a year, and they were modestly budgeted so that they could recoup their costs solely from the domestic market.

Ealing's approach to filmmaking was strongly influenced by the documentaries of John Grierson's GPO Film Unit, which focused on British institutions. In fact, in 1940, after an unsuccessful attempt to wrest control of the GPO Film Unit from the Ministry of Information, Balcon hired away two of its filmmakers, Harry Watt and Alberto Cavalcanti. Watt became one of Ealing's core directors, and Cavalcanti's Went the Day Well? (1942) is a brilliant, wryly subversive example of the studio's interest in "projecting Britain and the British character." Moreover, Ealing films tended to be more diverse than those of other companies; while films from other studios featured predominantly middle-class characters from London's West End, Ealing's often displayed a wider range of socio-economic classes and regional accents, emphasizing the importance of a strong British community.
 
By the early-1950s, the studio's greatest successes were comedies - particularly the nine films that have come to be known as the "Ealing comedies." These were the films that spurred imitators at other studios, helped bring Alec Guinness to fame, and left an indelible mark on British popular culture. Though a diverse set of films, the Ealing comedies are united by an interest in the loveably eccentric, the dreams of "little men," and a tension between modestly progressive values and the power of tradition. While some display Ealing's penchant for warm-hearted whimsy, others are more cynical and morally ambivalent. Indeed, it was comedy's ability to "do things that are too dangerous, or that a certain audience can't accept" that attracted director Alexander Mackendrick to projects like The Ladykillers.

The plot for The Ladykillers reportedly came to screenwriter William Rose in a dream, and is dark comedy at its best. A gang of criminals, headed by "Professor" Marcus (Alec Guinness), rent a room from the widowed, slightly dotty, Mrs. Wilberforce (Katie Johnson, in a BAFTA-winning performance). Posing as musicians, Marcus and his four companions (Cecil Parker, Herbert Lom, Danny Green, and Peter Sellers - who also supplies the voice of Mrs. Wilberforce's parrot) plan to use the old woman as a cover for a robbery, but when she discovers what they are up to, they decide to kill her. Mrs. Wilberforce proves difficult to dispatch, however, and in their attempts to do her in, the criminals eliminate themselves one by one, leaving the little old lady - a staple figure of Ealing films - with all the loot.

The Ladykillers was received domestically and abroad as a distinctly British picture, and many have interpreted it as an allegory of the conflict between progressive forces (the criminals, the Labour party) and obstinate resistance to change (Mrs. Wilberforce, the Conservative party) that the country experienced both politically and socially after World War II. Moreover, some have seen it - and many other Ealing films - as being reflexively about the studio itself.

By the mid-1950s, Ealing was struggling and its films seemed more reactionary and stale than they had in earlier years, particularly alongside the rise of Hammer horror films and the angry young men of kitchen sink realism. In 1955, the studio facilities were sold to the BBC - fitting, perhaps, given that much of the audience for Ealing films had been lost to television. Balcon returned to MGM, and made films under the Ealing name at the facilities at Elstree until 1957. The Ladykillers is thus often seen as Ealing comedy's "twisted last hurrah"; it was the last comedy Balcon made at Ealing Studios (excepting a Benny Hill film, a comedy of a different type), and some claim it is a farewell, both mocking and affectionate, not only to the quaint little Britain the company had frequently depicted, but also to the type of filmmaking in which the studio had specialized.

Ealing Studios is still active, and iconic British productions continue to be shot there - Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead (2004) and the "downstairs" scenes in Downton Abbey (2010 - present), for example. And so, perhaps in some small way, the Ealing tradition, like Mrs. Wilberforce, carries resolutely on.