A Grimm Tale

"I am the master of a hundred arts, and furthermore I have a whole bag of tricks" Der Fuchs und die Katze (The Fox and the Cat)

 

I have just recently completed reading Grimm Tales: For Young and Old by the wondrous Philip Pullman and feel that I have been drawn into a dark and magical old world.  Pullman takes the Grimm Brothers original stories and slightly tweaks them to create a smoother and updated read, but without modernising them.  As he states in the introduction, "the formula of a fairy tale is made up of not detailed description but major events and how they pull the plot along".  There is no dicking around with a five page Tolkein, Dickens or Hardy metaphor (as much as I love those writers!), it's just straight into the action. 

These stories have always fascinated me, some I recognise from the colourful world of Disney and others from Jim Henson's gritty series The Storyteller (a dark and beautiful world created by the master of puppetry).  It's funny, but as a child you don't fully comprehend the "grimm"ness of the tales.  A prime example of this is tale of The Juniper Tree.  The stereotypical wicked stepmother beheads and cooks her stepson making him into sausages and pies.  Nice.

And then look at the witch in Hasel and Gretel about to fiendishly eat them before Gretel shoves her into the oven to be burnt alive.  Red Riding Hood and the wolf, etc, etc...  Talking of which, there is the most fabulous book The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly which is heavily influenced by the writings of the Grimm Brothers.  A most worthwhile read!

Assuming that violence was pretty commonplace in the 1800's, maybe these graphic images were not as shocking for children as they are today.  But maybe it's not even to do with time periods and historical settings, just that children are unable to grasp the real horror of what they are actually reading.  This can also be said of many Bible stories which I learnt at Sunday school.  I remember saying to my mum that my favourite stories from the Bible were Noah's Ark and Daniel and the Lion's Den.  When you look at what these are actually about from an adult perspective, it's quite grim to think they were the most entertaining tales for me as a child - God punishing the whole world by drowning everyone, except Noah and his family (and all the animals of course), and then Daniel was sent to the lion's den as punishment for daring to pray to a god other than King Darius (luckily coming to no harm as God was protecting him).

To sum up, I think that these dark and macabre stories are successful for a reason.  Fear and fantasy work well together and even if they're not real, having a dark shadowy world to be scared of as a child can help us to try and keep it a make-believe place when we become adults.  We fight for the good people like us and try to keep the wicked witches and fiends away from our family homes...

Melancholy Melodies

I think that films, art, poetry and novels evoke many emotions in me, but the one form of human expression that has been a real comfort of late is music.  Beautiful, beautiful, heartbreaking music.  Firstly, Bon Iver (Justin Vernon's band) were able to create genuine sorrow with the album For Emma, Forever Ago.  The feeling of loss and loneliness expressed in these songs touched me greatly and it really helped to know that someone else had been through the same crap I had and was able to use it positively to create such haunting, melodic beauty.  Creature Fear, Skinny Love and Wisconsin (Bonus Track) really delve into the darker side of our emotions - frustration, fear, bewilderment, hurt.  A real emotional roller-coaster journey of an album, but worth every tear, every grief-stricken cry and every pang in my heart. 

When I first listened to this album around July 2011, I was also reading a novel by Andrew Davidson called The Gargoyle.  The music complimented the book and it's romantic Gothic themes so well, I really felt like I'd been transported to another world.  Davidson's technique and storytelling ability has an almost fairytale and dreamlike quality about it, adding to the mysterious, ethereal character of Marianne Engle.  I would recommend you read this book with Bon Iver on your iPod, a big box of Kleenex and a large glass of wine (you'll need it!). 


Another singer/songwriter who has touched me in recent times is Regina Spektor.  Unusual lyrics and some fairly hectic melodies, but there is a certain otherworldly feel and very deep emotion to her songs.  My favourite track, Samson is from her 2006 album Begin to Hope.  She takes a doomed relationship such as Samson and Delilah's and then rewrites it into a beautiful (yet still-fated) love story.  I adore how she tells it from Delilah's (but is it Delilah or another woman?!  She says that  "I loved you first" and that "the Bible didn't mention us" - who could this mystery lady be?!) point of view and their closeness of being together but also still knowing that it is all hopeless:

"You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first, I loved you first
Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth
I have to go, I have to go
Your hair was long when we first met

Samson went back to bed
Not much hair left on his head
He ate a slice of wonder bread and went right back to bed
And history books forgot about us and the bible didn't mention us
And the bible didn't mention us, not even once

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first, I loved you first
Beneath the stars came fallin' on our heads
But they're just old light, they're just old light
Your hair was long when we first met

Samson came to my bed
Told me that my hair was red
Told me I was beautiful and came into my bed
Oh I cut his hair myself one night
A pair of dull scissors in the yellow light
And he told me that I'd done alright
And kissed me 'til the mornin' light, the mornin' light
And he kissed me 'til the mornin' light

Samson went back to bed
Not much hair left on his head
Ate a slice of wonderbread and went right back to bed
Oh, we couldn't bring the columns down
Yeah we couldn't destroy a single one
And history books forgot about us
And the bible didn't mention us, not even once

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first."

To conclude this sad and sombre post :(, I am confident that I will be writing more often from now on as I have lots of time on my hands these days (take a guess at my unfortunate plight from today's post!).  But I promise to continue to keep in the theme of my blog and I have a lot of ideas, comments and thoughts to put down about the dark, macabre world out there - as always, comments are always welcome!

The Dance of Death and Other Bloody Tales

For such a long time I've been fascinated with death and whether there is more to us beyond the grave.  It all started when I was 17 and my Granny passed away suddenly during my first year of A-Levels.  I remember being so angry that this wonderful lady was taken from me and how harsh it was not to have had more time with her.  I was still going to church at this point and felt that God had betrayed me by snatching her away so cruelly. I wrote a lot of poetry about death, religion and love and it helped me to deal with my loss as well as expel all the teenage angst.  I think as I've got older and sadly had to experience more deaths, it does become manageable and I don't feel as angry as I used to, just more sad that my Granny never got to see me graduate, go travelling by myself and work in my chosen field of publishing....I like to think that she's always with me in some way now, cheering me on.  So, yeah, I think this was a strong factor in where my interest of the dark, macabre world of death comes from.

Also as a wild teen, I was completely obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer (what teenager wasn't in the late 90's?!).  I think this interested me because vampires are immortal beings and Joss Whedon created a clever, funny and dramatic world which seemed to appeal to the frustrated teenager.  I believe that Buffy started the modern horror trend and cult following that we know (and love?!) today - e.g. True Blood, The Walking Dead, Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural, etc.  Check out the Buffy episode "Hush" which is the tenth episode in the fourth season. A brilliant and masterful piece of television that is genuinely terrifying - 'The Gentleman' are grinning, fairy tale creatures who take people's voices so that no-one can scream when their hearts are being carved out... watch if you dare! (It is brillaint though!)
 

My first love of vampires was Francis Ford Coppola's movie Bram Stoker's Dracula in 1992. I was only 10 when this came out and saw it a few years later when I was a bit older. It really really scared me (the blood and gore, etc.) but that fear then became a real fascination with this vampire character. I have read Bram Stoker's novel copious amounts of time and watched the 1931 Universal film with Bela Lugosi in the title role more times than is sensible. I also became enamoured with Christopher Lee's interpretation made by glorious Hammer (see previous posts!) studios.  I can't tell you how many other Dracula related films and books I have collected, but I always come back to the Coppola film because I'm a true romantic at heart and like to think that "Love Never (really) Dies".  I think Gary Oldman's portrayal of the immortal lover is also amazing and the main reason why the movie is so good, other actors that play important characters maybe should have not, but we won't go there!  Anthony Hopkins is also brilliant as the crazy Van Helsing, and seriously, who could not love the deranged portrayal of Renfield by Tom Waits (what a legend!).

Travelling the Long Road to Oblivion

"The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."

 Chris McCandless aka Alexander Supertramp

With the coming September 2012 release of the film On the Road, based on Jack Kerouac's beat novel, I've been thinking about films and stories that focus on a journey, ending (more than often) in tragedy...

One of my favourite books in recent years is Cormac McCarthy's The Road.  Very unconventional in style, but it becomes clear after a few pages that this is just a continuous flow of concious thought.  The harrowing journey taken on by a man and his boy is deeply disturbing, touching and heartbreaking.  The movie is a brilliant interpretation of the book with Viggo Mortenson taking the role of the father and Kodi Smit-McPhee playing the frightened boy.  Both mediums show a very dark exploration of the human psyche and they delve into the very common theme of human extinction and our own mortality.

Continuing on the theme of journeys, a true story that has really affected me in the last few years, is the inspirational yet tragic life of Christopher McCandless.  Having been recommended to watch Sean Penn's film Into the Wild by one of my friends, I was quite unprepared for how Chris' story was going to touch and haunt me for a very long time... 

His is a tale of wanting to go back to "nature" and live off the land without any communication from the outside world. 

After graduating, Chris travelled all over the States and Mexico, having given away his life savings to Oxfam, he lived by working as he went along all in order to go to Alaska and live in the wild.  Sadly for Chris, something went wrong because he roughly lasted 119 days before succombing to starvation.  There are many interpretations as to why Chris felt he had to experience this extreme self-suffiency - he was an educated and intelligent young man who loved and was influenced by the writings of Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, Jack London, William Steger, W.H. Davies and Jack Kerouac - and I believe it was to gain an understanding of true isolation and what can be achieved mentally and creatively by this kind of lone survival.  Sometimes I think he was so young and niave... and if he had just let one person know where he was.... but, in the end his tragic story has influenced many people to gain a better understanding and respect for going back to our beginnings and not being a slave to money and society.

Further reading I would recommend:

And the Hippos were Boiled in their Tanks by Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs
Junky by William S. Burroughs
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
Call of the Wild by Jack London

Music I would recommend:

Into the Wild Soundtrack by Eddie Vedder

Internet Sites I would recommend:

http://www.christophermccandless.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2480
http://www.backtothewildbook.org/

A Host of Horror

All aboard the:

My absolute favourite genre of film is horror.  Most people say to me when they find this out: "But I never would have thought you'd like those kind of films!"  Well people, appearances can be deceptive and we see this in many horror flicks - Norman Bates comes to mind...

There have been many classic movements of horror over the years including the Universal monster movies of the 1930's (Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolfman) as well as the slasher horror films of the late 70's and early 80's (Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elmstreet).  This post today, however, is going to focus on my all-time favourite - the Hammer Horror films from the mid 50's to the late 70's.  Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing are the icons of Hammer Horror (and are total legends in my opinion) and were involved in many of the Dracula's and Frankenstein's throughout this period as well as projects such as Rasputin: The Mad Monk and The Hound of the Baskervilles. 

Hammer Horror's were renowned for their fake-looking, vibrant-red blood, hammy acting and cheesey interpretations, but the audiences obviously enjoyed them otherwise Hammer wouldn't have made the 6 sequels to The Curse of Frankenstein and 8 sequels to Dracula.  This appreciation is still apparant today as I went along to a Hammer Horror film festival a few weeks ago in the Old Vic Tunnels (organised by The Flicker Club http://theflickerclub.com/).  With the release of Hammer's The Woman in Black, there was a whole host of other Hammer Horror films being shown, and when I was sat amongst 100 other people enjoying Dracula: Prince of Darkness as much as I was, it confirmed the appeal and timelessness of such an awesome collection of movies.

I love the fact that Hammer has re-emerged in the last few years with the modest Hilary Swank film The Resident and the more mainstream Let Me In.  Both were a great introduction for Hammer before their box office smash The Woman in Black. Along with the brilliant West End play and the chilling book by Susan Hill, I think Hammer created a distinct but (very!) spooky version of the tale (and to all you critics out there, I thought Dan Radcliffe was excellent in it!).

I have enjoyed so many Hammer Horror's since first being introduced to them at uni when learning about the history of British cinema.  My favourite would have to be Countess Dracula with the lovely Ingrid Pitt.  It is a tragic tale of the desperate pursuit of youth (the aged countess kills young women and bathes in their blood...this makes her young and beautiful again) which today seems even more relevant than ever! 

Hammer posters are another subject in themselves and you can see the extensive collection by legendary film-poster artist, Tom Chantrell at this link http://hammerhorrorposters.com/.

Hammer historian Marcus Hearn has also written some excellent books that are worth a look: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Marcus-Hearn/e/B001K8AA6A

Hearts and Shadows

 
With the release of the John Cusack thriller The Raven, I have been studying Edgar Allan Poe's writings again.  He is one of my favourite classic gothic writers, along with H.P. Lovecraft, Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley and Emily Brontë.  I'm intrigued to see how they will work this Seven-like suspense story: a mad-man goes about murdering people in different ways inspired by Poe's writings (when thinking of the Pit and the Pendulum I can only imagine the grimness that will unfold!).  I am very pleased that Hollywood has brought Poe to a mainstream audience, but I think that there is so much more that can be done with his extensive and brilliant repertoire.  The haunting novel by Andrew Taylor, The American Boy, deals with Poe's childhood and creates a whole world of mystery, murder and intrigue which is a fantastic homage to the tragic genius.  Definitely worth a read along with Poe's poem The Raven and his short story The Tell-Tale Heart.
        
 Now for some more American Gothic by a master of the dark arts - Mr Tim Burton and his new film Dark Shadows.   I am intrigued by this material as it originally started out as a 1960's American "gothic" soap opera.  I'd never heard of the show before reading about the film in the last Empire magazine and I do think that it may have a difficult time appealing to non-American audiences as we didn't grow up with the programme. But, I remember as a child watching re-runs of The Munsters and The Addams Family and really loving them, so maybe a watch of the original series will encourage me to watch the movie!  I'm sure Mr Burton has done a spiffing job as always!

Black Magicians and Other Worlds

I finished reading Trudi Canavan's second Black Magician book The Novice last night.  She reallyis a great storyteller and I love the fact that you never know where she's going with the plot.  I can't wait to start the third book!  Hopefully the film studios will cotton on to how great these books are and start looking into making a big movie trilogy.  I've already thought of actors who would be great as the characters:  Gary Oldman as Akkarin (you will see me mention Mr Oldman a lot in the future - he is just SO awesome!), Liam Neeson as Rothen and Chloe Moretz or Hailee Steinfeld as Sonea methinks!  So many great actors to choose from!

I've also been hearing a lot about The Hunger Games and think I will look into reading these, but I also really need to read the Game of Thrones books.  The tv show has had amazing reviews but I'm one of those people who loves to read the book before seeing the movie!  I've a million other books stacked next to the bookshelf as no more will actually fit in! 

Another book I must re-read is The Hobbit.  I cannot contain my excitment for (legendary) Peter Jackson's first instalment The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey coming out in December 2012.  The trailer gives me goosebumps when the dwarves are singing their deep, sonorous and melancholy lament.  Beautiful!

Prometheus

...cannot wait for this movie.  Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was originally called Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus - the monster is in his own personal hell, like the Greek legend, the immortal Prometheus endures eternal torture when an eagle eats his liver everyday, over and over again.  I wonder what similarities and common themes Ridley Scott will put in his newest work?  We will wait and see!