Autumnal Empires (Super 8 Film)

Autumnal Empires is a film (made from combining two originally-untitled film reels), which had languished unviewed for decades. I only lately arranged for a digital conversion; having previously only seen it once or twice, via a movie projector; and experienced a curious sensation, of the resurrection of times past. The cut-up of bursts of television imagery, created a mini-story all its own. Atmospheric glimpses of a mostly long-vanished industrial past in northwest Portland, Oregon, charged past; along with juxtaposed objects and scenes partly inspired by surrealist and Dadaist films (I might have seen a handful of such by then, such as those made by Hans Richter, Maya Deren, and others). I filmed part of the first section at Crown Point, and on a snowy day at Oneonta Gorge. 

Below are some stills, which give a different perspective on the movie. Depicted, starting from the top down: Roman Scott, me, NW Portland (as visualized by Ted Serios), Todd Mecklem, NW Portland, eye. 

Trances of Twilight, & The Howler

Two stills from The Howler (with Roman Scott, wearing the beret, and me, below, encountering a wall); a Super 8 movie we made in 1987. The film originated with an H.P. Lovecraft poem, from his Fungi from Yuggoth sonnet cycle.

Dual Weird/Horror HPL Events

Director Richard Stanley (with Brian Callahan), Q and A, after a showing of Color out of Space, closing night, H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, 2019. The movie presented a contemporary take on HPL's masterpiece; remaining mostly faithful to the bleak cosmicism of the original (with pathos, and a bit of humor, and scenery-chewing, from Nicholas Cage).   During the question session afterward, I offered a question about the appearance, in the film, of a copy of Algernon Blackwood's The Willows. 

Robert Corman and Victoria Price, talking about Vincent Price, filmmaking, and other matters, after a showing of The Haunted Palace, at the 2019 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival. I also saw Robert Corman (with Andrew Migliore) in a discussion after a showing of X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (the first time I'd seen the film; he revealed, among other things, that Don Rickles was nervous at first, since it was his first movie).

I also took in Shorts Blocks 1 & 3, & the audience-involved Dark Adventure Radio Theatre production of HPL's The Lurking Fear, among other events.

Cody Goodfellow, reading at the Lovecraft at the Lovecraft (Bar) event, 10-19-19 (he appeared, along with a number of other performers, writers, and poets). Also pictured: John Shirley (who fronted the Screaming Geezers, appearing as a sort of punk preacher of chaos, and Adam Bolivar, who put on a grimly compelling marionette show).

John Shirley and the Screaming Geezers

Sarah Walker reading at the Lovecraft Bar (with John Shirley, and Wendy Wagner watching on the right). Jason V. Brock, and Nathan Carson, also read.

A trip I recently took, to Colorado, Nebraska, and New York City (and running into some traces of past voyages/stays in those places), had for bookends these two H.P. Lovecraft-inspired festivals/events. 

Polyvision Napoleonic

A digital collage I made, based on a cutting with a review (by Bob Hicks) from The Oregonian, of a reissue of Abel Gance's silent film Napoleon (1927), and other elements. I attended the film with the family, at the long-defunct Movie House theatre in Portland, Oregon. Based on the profusion in the ads of films from 1981 and 1982, this event must have been in 1982 or 83. I could stand to see the film again; the triptych sequence at the end, and dizzying camera work throughout were intense.

H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival and CthulhuCon 2018

l-r, Gwen Callahan, NECRONOMIDOL, Brian Callahan, Cthulhu Girl, 10-7-18

l-r, a spectral Andrew Migliore, the artist Skinner, Richard Stanley, Scott Connors, Darin Coelho Spring, Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire, panel discussing Clark Ashton Smith and the rapturous documentary on Smith, The Emperor of Dreams. 10-6-18.

Upstairs, at one section of the CthulhuCon.

I attended all three days of the 2018 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival; joining a panaroma of HPL festivals I have attended, starting in 1996. There were a panel or two, and a reading I wish I had seen, but I was pleased with Short Film Blocks 1, 2, 3, and 4. Among other events and films, this year's standouts include the performance by Necronomidol, the world premier unveiling of The Emperor of Dreams, and the surprise showing of a subtle, disturbing version of The Shadow over Innsmouth, from the 1990s, by Chiaki Konaka (the question session, assisted by a translator, afterward included a reference to a Arnold Böcklin influence in the film!). Overall another great festival.  

October Routine, at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival

On 8 October I experienced the day at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival and CthulhuCon in Portland, Oregon -- around the 14th time I've attended, off and on, starting with an early event in 1995 or so at the Fifth Avenue Cinemas.

 

 Q & A with participants in Lovecraft Under the Gun.

Tim Uren's extraordinary solo, dramatic interpretation of Lovecraft's The Rats in the Walls.

Photos by JF.

Oliver Stone, 1997 Photo

Oliver Stone signing a copy of his novel A Child's Night Dream. Portland Art Museum (in the former Masonic Temple building), Portland, Oregon, October 13, 1997. Powell's Books hosted the event, a talk and book signing.

Photo by JF

Rebel Without a Copernicus

In recent weeks, I watched, for the first time in its entirety  the deeply accursed film of Nicholas Ray, Rebel Without a Cause. I saw a little of it on a videocassette once, which unraveled while the movie was in progress.

I was pleasantly startled to find an element of cosmicism, conveyed through astronomy, in the planetarium sequence, embedded in the James Dean vehicle.

What visions of Porsche Spyders and wind-up toy monkeys did Jim Backus have on the isle? "You're tearing me apart, Gilligan!"

Collage by JF, Independence Day, 2016

H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival and CthulhuCon, 20th Anniversary

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Hollywood Theatre, Portland, Oregon

 

Scott Nicolay

 

Richard A. Lupoff

"Sexuality and Lovecraft" panel

Photos by JF

On 3 and 4 October, 2015, I haunted the 20th anniversary of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival and CthulhuCon, in Portland, Oregon. The first time I attended the festival, then at the 5th Avenue Cinema in Portland, was for its inaugural run (at that time I was sure it would never last more than a few years). I have attended many of the festivals since.

During the weekend of the event, I wished that I had the ability to exist in separate locales. What I took myself to see was remarkable, though. I caught, among others, Scott Nicolay, Richard A. Lupoff (reading in his courtly manner a melancholy time-shifting story), David Barker, Adam Bolivar (wearing a vintage suit and hat), reading fiction and poetry in the small classroom in the Esoteric Order of Dagon hall (otherwise known as the Hollywood Senior Center). The compact space had the aura of a living room.

 On Sunday, I witnessed a panel with S.T Joshi, Scott Connors, and Richard A. Lupoff, on "H.P. Lovecraft's editors," a sturdy crash course in the author's relations with editors. Scott Connors also spoke earlier on Clark Ashton Smith's artwork. At the "Sexuality in Lovecraft" panel, I mentioned the Lovecraft revision work (with C.M. Eddy) The Loved Dead. S.T. Joshi responded with something about the story still being disturbing today, and:  It was banned in my home state of Indiana.

I marveled at Jeffrey Combs giving a dramatic reading of The Doom That Came to Sarnath. He also held forth on the making of, and impact of, Re-Animator, following a showing of the film. I also saw Cool Air, from 1999, followed by a Q&A from director Bryan Moore, and many other films and panel discussions.

Unrealized Film

Roman and Dave Scott, Sandy Oregon, 1987. The photos (and a few others) are the only fragments remaining of the production of a Super 8 movie on which we worked. As I recall the camera malfunctioned, so little if any footage resulted from the shooting. The movie was to have been an exercise in rural independent surrealism. Photos by me.

And happy 2015!

H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival October 2014 (Best of)

Best of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival

4 October 2014 I queued up for the Best of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival at the Hollywood Theater in Portland. The festival occurred on a hot October evening. In due time I absorbed the nearly five hours of short films. The Falstaffian gent seated to my left obliquely involved me in a type of conversation. Through the darkened auditorium I viewed movies both old and new to me. Dirt Dauber I had seen, and it held up mightily with its surreal stream of humor and darkness. The Raven dramatized Poe's lines with littoral scenery and much emotion. The organizers included some good stop-action cinema, including an atmospheric Japanese version of The Festival. I also viewed not one but two versions of From Beyond, the intensely funny Doctor Glamour, a pleasantly understated version of W.F. Harvey's August Heat, and more besides.

The choices tilted heavily toward shorts from the last 5-10 years of the HPL Festival-- a few older selections would have been nice. But the event was mostly outstanding. The absence of the usual merchandise vendors made it a purely filmic night.

The evening proceeded without a thought of Lovecraft's racialism. This is because his legacy and influence result from his role as a writer. His racialist views have had little or no impact, as far as influencing others to take up similar beliefs.

Photos of me in Providence, Rhode Island, August 1986

Assembled Films

The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty (1927), Rain (1929), Apocalypse Pooh (1987)

The past couple weeks I watched these three films, all new to me.  The first and third are examples of found film (Apocalypse Pooh includes found audio as well);  all are examples of film montage.  Esfir Shub 's The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty requires some patience but creates a dialectic momentum as it proceeds.  For me the artifact film clips produce fascination with a vanished past more than they work as propaganda.  This version is subtitled in English and Esperanto (Esperanto, as if it weren't already arcane enough).  It's also completely silent, so I opened up a track of Tchaikovsky's greatest hits as accompaniment, which serves the movie well (although the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy didn't work as a soundtrack for WWI, had to jump to another piece).   Joris Iven's and Mannus Franken's Rain conjures fleeting moods and tones in a prewar Amsterdam. Todd Graham's  Apocalypse Pooh is a funny and well-crafted mashup.

H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival and CthulhuCon, Portland, 2014

With Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire

Wilum reading 

 Other Voices Diversity and Lovecraftiana panel 

Ross E. Lockhart, Nate Pedersen, Jason V. Brock, Mike Davis 

 Other Voices Diversity and Lovecraftiana panel 

Ross E. Lockhart, Nate Pedersen, Jason V. Brock, Mike Davis, Silvia Moreno-Garcia