Mario Bava

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Michael
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 12:09 pm

#51 Post by Michael » Wed Mar 07, 2007 8:07 pm

Fletch, thanks. I'm going to look up the Video Watchdog site to see if I can order some of its back issues.

I just revisited Black Sunday. Oh. my. god. It keeps getting better as I grow older. Was there a strong female role in a horror film before Black Sunday was made? Barbara Steele deserves to be an icon as much as Karloff and Lugosi!

Harvey Domino
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#52 Post by Harvey Domino » Thu Mar 08, 2007 6:08 am

Black Sunday is a masterpiece, of course, and an obvious influence on countless films up to today -- including Burton's otherwise awful Sleepy Hollow.

Planet of the Vampires is extraordinarily stylish, which may be its only merit. I'm amazed how blatantly some of the sets and scene were ripped-off in Alien.

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Michael
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#53 Post by Michael » Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:26 am

Reading different sources related to Black Sunday and Barbara Steele, the title Castle of Blood keeps popping up. Some describe this as a rival to Black Sunday.

Any personal comments on CoB?

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Lino
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#54 Post by Lino » Thu Mar 08, 2007 6:20 pm

I haven't seen it myself but have read many, many things about it. Some enthusiastic, some not so. Basically, if you want more Steele and more italian B/W gothic horror, this is a no-brainer, I guess. Here are some reviews for you to get lost in.

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Matt
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#55 Post by Matt » Thu Mar 08, 2007 6:33 pm

Michael wrote:Reading different sources related to Black Sunday and Barbara Steele, the title Castle of Blood keeps popping up. Some describe this as a rival to Black Sunday.
It's an okay way to spend 90 minutes, but it's no rival to Black Sunday. Not by a long shot.

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SHOCKMASTER
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#56 Post by SHOCKMASTER » Thu Mar 08, 2007 9:19 pm

Lisa & the Devil - full creative BAVA control booYEah!

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Felix
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#57 Post by Felix » Fri Mar 09, 2007 3:22 pm

Michael wrote:Reading different sources related to Black Sunday and Barbara Steele, the title Castle of Blood keeps popping up. Some describe this as a rival to Black Sunday.

Any personal comments on CoB?
Don't expect too much (he did six other films that year and shot this in two weeks, according to the notes) and you will be fine with this, it is good, so is The Virgin of Nuremburg. I don't know how far you go into Eurocult stuff, if you go in quite far then this is worth looking at but if Bava is the exception in your tastes, then maybe not. I think it is probably considered more as an influence on Black Sunday (Tim Lucas for one) rather than a rival or competitor to it. He does the interface between life and death very beautifully if rather soporifically (and I don't mean that in a negative way).

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Michael
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#58 Post by Michael » Fri Mar 09, 2007 4:31 pm

Netflix carries CoB so I will check it out very soon but I will make sure to keep my expectation low especially after seeing the astounding Black Sunday very recently. Tom Savini calls BS the Citizen Kane of Horror Films. Agree with that assessment?

Tonight I will be revisiting Blood and Black Lace. It's been ages since I saw it but I remember loving it. Lets see if I still feel the same.

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Felix
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#59 Post by Felix » Fri Mar 09, 2007 6:50 pm

Michael wrote:Tom Savini calls BS the Citizen Kane of Horror Films. Agree with that assessment?
It is a long time since I saw it, I am accruing Bava's to do a big season some day and want to leave it until then. When I did see it I had been a bit turned off Bava by seeing the awful version of Lisa and the Devil, but also I think I was still very much under the influence of the more direct Argento and he suffered by comparison. I dip into the DVDs I have and I can see I was wrong. Suspiria is the one for me though.

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Michael
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#60 Post by Michael » Fri Mar 09, 2007 9:26 pm

Suspiria is the one for me though.
However keep in mind Bava came way before Argento so I don't really see them as peers. Bava made most of his films 10 or 15 years before Argento's masterpieces took the storm.

I just finished watching Blood and Black Lace. Isn't it stunning or what? I can't get over the fact that it was made more then 10 years before Profondo Rosso or Suspiria. Bava was clearly way way ahead of his time and Argento's film would probably never be made if it wasn't for Bava's influence. What more can I say about BaBL except that I really love it and it's among the most breathtakingly visual films I've seen - the use of colors, the compositions and the camera movements all kept me frozen in awe for 90 minutes. For those young aspiring filmmakers out there, BaBL is the one to study.

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Felix
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#61 Post by Felix » Sat Mar 10, 2007 2:31 pm

Michael wrote:
Suspiria is the one for me though.
However keep in mind Bava came way before Argento so I don't really see them as peers. Bava made most of his films 10 or 15 years before Argento's masterpieces took the storm.
Don't worry, I am well aware of that. By the reference to Suspiria I meant that it was the groundbreaker for me because I saw it before Bava's stuff, purely subjective timeline. When I was discovering these films there was not a lot on the legit market. Redemption for all their faults gave these reasonable releases for those days. I bought Jodorowsky's sublime Santa Sangre thinking it was by Argentinian auteur Fernando Solanas. What a pleasant surprise.

Don't know what he means by the Citizen Kane of horror either, don't even know what Citizen Kane was the Citizen Kane of. Perhaps Black Sunday holds that iconic place in Euro Horror/Cult if not horror per se?

Bava certainly never screwed up his later career the way Argento seems bent on doing. (I have kind of given up hope of him turning the corner now.)

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Michael
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#62 Post by Michael » Sat Mar 10, 2007 5:13 pm

Don't know what he means by the Citizen Kane of horror either, don't even know what Citizen Kane was the Citizen Kane of. Perhaps Black Sunday holds that iconic place in Euro Horror/Cult if not horror per se?

Bava certainly never screwed up his later career the way Argento seems bent on doing. (I have kind of given up hope of him turning the corner now.)
In the film community, Citizen Kane is often regarded as the greatest or the most groundbreaking film ever made. So I think that's what Tom Savini meant when describing Black Sunday as the Citizen Kane of Horror Films. Do I agree with that? No. There are too many Citizen Kanes of Horror films - Nosferatu, Les Diaboliques, and The Exorcist to name a few examples.

Opera is Argento's last great film. Too bad he forgot magic since then.

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Felix
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#63 Post by Felix » Sat Mar 10, 2007 5:37 pm

Michael wrote: In the film community, Citizen Kane is often regarded as the greatest or the most groundbreaking film ever made. So I think that's what Tom Savini meant when describing Black Sunday as the Citizen Kane of Horror Films. Do I agree with that? No. There are too many Citizen Kanes of Horror films - Nosferatu, Les Diaboliques, and The Exorcist to name a few examples.

Opera is Argento's last great film. Too bad he forgot magic since then.
Spot on with Opera and ditto the groundbreakers of horror. Caligari, Vampyr, Carnival of Souls, Fall of the House of Usher, the Frankenstein Trilogy, all candidates for "Kane" status as well.

Anyway, all this piqued my interest so I raked Black Sunday out and watched it and it was significantly better than I remembered. I would certainly place it on that list above, especially as it is one you could show to non-genre fans, and also considering how very fresh it looks for such an old film. I have been doing screen caps from Jean Rollin films lately for my home made covers for the DVDs and I was struck by how beautifully composed some of the shots were. I find that even more so with this, almost every frame could be frozen and printed out. They are so perfectly balanced not just in terms of objects and people, but also in terms of light and dark, texture too.

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Michael
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#64 Post by Michael » Thu Apr 05, 2007 8:53 am

I picked up the just-released disc of Kidnapped/Rabid Dogs. First viewing for me and I loved it. Really loved it. Bava got right to the action from the first frame and refused to let go till the very disturbing end. Skip Kidnapped and watch Rabid Dogs. It's a big mistake that Kidnapped didn't include the very last scene because that scene (what an incredible effect!) ultimately peels off the already-ugly surface to something even more ugly and unsettling. I've not listened to Tim Lucas' commentary yet but I'm planning to this weekend when I have more time. Rabid Dogs may be an unfinished film but I think it's perfect just the way it is. Raw, sweaty, bloody. I don't really understand the point of including Kidnapped so maybe Lucas' commentary will give me a better understanding hopefully.

I think Rabid Dogs has more guts, rush and nihilism than all of Peckinpah's masterpieces put together. Worth a look at this very underrated film by a very underrated director.

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blindside8zao
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#65 Post by blindside8zao » Thu Apr 12, 2007 1:59 am

More than anything I really enjoyed the photography of Black Sunday. The contrast of the blacks and whites are really pleasing and make the witches face really stand out in a nightmarish way. Was anyone else reminded of the Exorcist make-up? They seem to share some similar style that is really effective. My two friends laughed for most of the movie (I joined in on a lot of it) but I think there are some really effective horror images (which is what really grabs me in horror). Really enjoyed the opening, too.

By the way, I was unaware that Bava used so many Russian stories. Is there any story behind that? I'm guessing Black Sunday was one of Gogol's Ukraine Tales? The flavor of Black Sunday really made me think of some of Turgenev's folk-flavored creepy shorts like Clara Militch and Song of Triumphant Love.

David Ehrenstein
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#66 Post by David Ehrenstein » Thu Apr 12, 2007 9:49 am

Barbara Steele deserves to be an icon as much as Karloff and Lugosi!
Most of us thought she already was and still is!

She tells me a number of her Italian horror films were shot at the same time. While on call for 8 1/2 , directors like Ricardo Freda would snatch her for a few days worth of shooting while Fellini was busy with other parts of his masterpiece.

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#67 Post by David Ehrenstein » Fri Apr 13, 2007 3:54 pm

Image

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blindside8zao
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#68 Post by blindside8zao » Sat Apr 21, 2007 9:39 pm

I'm a bit confused about all the praise Black Sabbath gets. It was very visually pleasing, as far as make-up and lighting, very stylish. I can see where the person who made lighting decisions for Suspiria got their ideas. I don't mean to say that I think Black Sabbath deserves little praise, it was good, I just wasn't floored. Can anyone comment on their appreciation of the film?

I enjoyed it thematically, too, love and murder tied together, at least in the first two. Karloff anounces it before the three even start. But the third seems to fall short of this, unless for some reason we're to see that her love of the jewelry is ultimately what kills her. That's kind of stretching it though, and didn't do much for me.

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#69 Post by djali999 » Sun Apr 22, 2007 2:38 am

I don't think Bava ever reached the sinister delirium of Black Sabbath again - in little bits and pieces, yes, like the antiques shop in Blood & Black Lace, but there is nothing in cinema that can compare to the labyrinth of Gothic excesses and maddening symbols which constitutes the dead medium's mansion in The Drop of Water. And that face is genuinely terrifying.

I think the most amazing thing about Sabbath is its' gradually rising unease. The Telephone is nice if increasingly overlong for my tastes as I see the film again and again, but The Wurdulak has some really scary, disturbing stuff in it - the dead child staggering out of the forest, the freakish floating of the dead family towards their daughter in the gothic ruins. The Drop of Water is perfection itself, simple, short, and almost unbearably frightening by the time the film comes around to it - after being made slightly uneasy by The Telephone and made to realize that punches were not being pulled in the Wurdulak, Bava really goes in for the kill and no matter how many times I see the film I always get pretty freaked out by the end.

And best of all he closes the circle and sends us out on a laugh, walking out of the theater feeling great rather than letting that final shot of the Drop of Water haunt us on our way out the door - it's just a movie, after all.

Watching it last night I was reminded how far he pushes the insanity of the lighting throughout - by the time we get to the strobing green light it's warranted and even natural. There's nothing in Blood & Black Lace or Kill, Baby Kill which can compare to the simple elegance and terror of the faces at the window, of the beautiful East European cottage, or much of anything else in horror cinema. I love the music, too, which is so often simple and atmospheric and never in the wrong place. In other films I feel like Bava is making up stuff to kill time but here, there isn't any fat.

It's just a lean, mean , horror machine and it gets better every time I see it.

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Barmy
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#70 Post by Barmy » Tue May 08, 2007 4:31 pm

The Tim Lucas book has been announced as shipping July 2007. So if you have any Bavaphile friends it might arrive in time for a nice Christmas gift. In 2010.

patrick
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#71 Post by patrick » Tue May 08, 2007 4:48 pm

The Tim Lucas book has been announced as shipping July 2007. So if you have any Bavaphile friends it might arrive in time for a nice Christmas gift. In 2010.
It's 100% done and barring the printer burning down or something it will ship when it's supposed to. I really want a copy, and it's surely worth the $120, but man...$120. According to the new issue of Video Watchdog, it's the equivalent of 4000+ regular pages (it's laid out in a four-column style, with each column being about a regular page's worth).

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Person
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#72 Post by Person » Tue May 08, 2007 7:22 pm

Of of the things that makes Tre volti della paura (Black Sabbath) so extraordinary is the masterful use of silence. He's up there with Jean-Pierre Melville and Robert Bresson.

Also, the final reveal in Tre volti della paura showing the film for what it is, underlines the ironic genius of Bava - his willingness to show us how he works his magic out of modest means, while still maintaining his integrity after a very tense 90 minutes.

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Matt
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#73 Post by Matt » Sat Sep 08, 2007 9:43 am

At long last, my Bava book arrived yesterday. I had to leave it at work over the weekend because it is so heavy I could not have carried it on my bike. It's beautifully made, though, and a steal at the pre-order price of $97.

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Person
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#74 Post by Person » Sat Sep 08, 2007 3:15 pm

Tim Lucas' Bava book has been published: Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark

Hardcover, clothbound, gold stamping on front and spine
Dimensions in inches: 10.85w x 11.87h x 2.63d
Dimensions in centimeters: 27.6w x 30.1h x 6.7d
Full-color French-fold laminated dust jacket
Full-color endpapers
1128 Glossy, full-color pages
Binding: stitched, extra-reinforced, roundback
12 lbs (5.45 kgs)

$260 USA
$290 Outside USA

(Includes Priority Mail shipping)

:shock:

I am so happy for Tim and Donna Lucas. They worked hard for years on this, with many frustrations and delays. Bava fans - rejoice! Long suffering partners of Bava fans... well, you'll just have to go without for a while.

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Galen Young
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#75 Post by Galen Young » Sat Sep 08, 2007 7:56 pm

I got my copy of the Bava book a few days as well. It's a spectacular piece of work -- best film book of the year, if not the decade!

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