All posts by Alfred Eaker

Alfred Eaker is the director of Jesus and Her Gospel of Yes!, voted Best Experimental Film in the 2004 New York International Film and Video Festival (which can be downloaded from DownloadHorror.com here), and the feature W the Movie. He writes the column "Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema" for this site, covering the world of underground film, as well as regularly contributing essays on other subjects.
Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

THE UNCOMPROMISING ALBAN BERG: CALIXTO BIEITO’S WOZZECK (2006)

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Calixto Bieito’s 2006 staging of Alban Berg’s “Wozzeck” has reaped equal parts praise and damnation from critics and audiences.  It is a powerfully reprehensible staging of a powerfully reprehensible opera.

Wozzeck is a common solider, shaving his Captain.  The Captain chastises him for having fathered an illegitimate child with one Marie. Wozzeck defends his lack of virtue, explaining that he is too destitute to have the blessings of the Church, but Wozzeck reminds his superior of Christ’s words “suffer not the little children.” The Captain heaps even more abuse and scorn on Wozzeck, and the soldier becomes indignant.

Wozzeck and his friend Andres are cutting sticks in a field as the sun sets.  Wozzeck tells Andres of horrifying visions and Andres unsuccessfully tries to offer Wozzeck reassurance.  Wozzeck visits The Doctor.  The Doctor scolds him for abandoning his diet. The Doctor, who is obviously insane, is delighted, however, when Wozzeck tells him of the violent visions he has been having.  Meanwhile, Marie notices the regiment’s Drum Major, and the two begin an affair.  The Drum Major gives Marie earrings as he parts.  Feeling remorse for her infidelity, Marie sings her child a lullaby.

Wozzeck returns him and tells Marie of his hallucinations.  Marie is disturbed and the tension between the two of them escalates when Wozzeck notices Marie’s new earrings and begins to question her about them.  Wozzeck’s jealousy engulfs him, and he becomes wild with visions of blood.

The Captain and the Doctor are are engaged in conversation on the street.  The Doctor is giving the Captain a terminal diagnosis when they encounter Wozzeck.  The Doctor and the Captain mock Wozzeck, telling him of the affair between Marie and the Drum Major.  Wozzeck flees to a tavern where he discovers Marie and the Drum Major dancing.  The tavern idiot confronts Wozzeck, telling him ‘I smell blood,” which, naturally, sends Wozzeck into a frenzy.  In the barracks, Wozzeck gets into a fight with the Drum Major, who knocks Wozzeck down.

Later, Marie reads of the gospel account of the woman taken in adultery.  Overwhelmed with feelings of guilt, Marie joins Wozzeck for a walk in the forest.  A blood red moon rises as they are walking, and Wozzeck slashes Marie’s throat.  Wozzeck throws the knife away, and heads


Continue reading THE UNCOMPROMISING ALBAN BERG: CALIXTO BIEITO’S WOZZECK (2006) →

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

THE UNCOMPROMISING ALBAN BERG: OLIVIER PY’S LULU (2011)

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This is the first of a two-part series on adaptions of Alban Berg’s controversial operas.

Be forewarned: After watching these two productions of Alban Berg’s operas “Lulu” and “Wozzeck,” showering may be advisable.

Alban Berg (1885-1934) may be the most notorious member of the Second Viennese School, even more so than leader Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) and Anton Webern (1883-1945). Schoenberg invented the twelve-tone language and is considered the boogeyman of the musical avant-garde. Webern, who composed mainly in miniature, is, possibly, the most influential of the three. Berg, on the hand, was the most romantic of the school, as influenced by Gustav Mahler as Schoenberg. Berg died young and did not live long enough to compose a large a body of work. However, he did compose what may very well be the two most repulsive operas ever written. Even Schoenberg was aghast, and urged his younger colleague to discontinue writing such filth. A premature death stopped Berg from finishing his final opera, “Lulu.” He completed two of the three acts, and the final act was completed in the short “particell” format. Some forty years later, Friedrich Cerha completed the orchestration for the third act, which premiered under the direction of Pierre Boulez. Both “Wozzeck” and “Lulu” are extreme operas from an extreme composer. One would think that this fact would make opera fans receptive to interpretive stagings.

Olivier Py and Calixto Bieito are two of the most notorious enfant terrible stage directors working in European opera today.  In 2005, Py presented a pornographic actor on stage, in full erection, for a staging of Wagner’s “Tannhauser.”  Bieito’s staging of Mozart’s “Abduction from the Seraglio” incorporated S &M and drug addiction (the story is set in a bordello), and his “Don Giovanni” explored similar themes.  In 2007 Bieito turned to adapting Berg, first with his controversial “Wozzeck,” then with an equally provocative “Lulu” in 2009.


Excerpt from Py’s stage production of Lulu

In November of 2011, Py’s filmed version of Lulu was released on home video, and it too provoked outrage among the traditionalists. American Opera fans are among the most fanatically puritanical in the world. Py and Bieito, while creating mixed reactions in Europe, are Continue reading THE UNCOMPROMISING ALBAN BERG: OLIVIER PY’S LULU (2011) →

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

ERICH VON STROHEIM’S THE MERRY WIDOW (1925)

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With this 2011 Warner Archive Release, most of Erich von Stroheim’s “personally directed” films have been released with the inexplicable, frustrating exclusion of his legendary, mutilated Greed (1924).   Only von Stroheim could have taken Franz Lehar’s 1905 giddy operetta “The Merry Widow” and turned it into a silent fetishistic melodrama.  The Merry Widow stars Mae Murray and John Gilbert.  Murray’s screen persona alternated between virgin and vamp . Here, she is the virgin who becomes the much sought after prize.  Despite having unique on-screen charisma, Murray, one of early cinema’s true divas, was among those who could not make the transition to sound, and her off-screen life was not afforded a happy ending.  She married a real-life Prince who forced her to leave MGM, then divorced her, and took custody of their children.  Years later, Murray, homeless, was arrested for sleeping on park bench in NYC.  She died, forgotten and in poverty, in a nursing home in 1965.  Gilbert’s decline into alcoholism is, of course, far better documented.

Still from The Merry Widow (1925)Quite surprisingly, The Merry Widow was a critical and box office success for von Stroheim.  The film was so successful that it was remade in 1934 by Ernst Lubitsch (as a musical, replete with the Lubitsch touch, starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald) and in a best-forgotten 1952 version starring Lana Turner.  Despite a studio mandated, ill-fitting happy ending, von Stroheim’s silent version is, predictably, the most bizarre.  The director added much to the story, stamping it with his idiosyncratic touch and causing the film to go considerably over schedule and over budget. The previous Continue reading ERICH VON STROHEIM’S THE MERRY WIDOW (1925) →

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

THE ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (1932) CRITERION RELEASE

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1932’s The Island of Lost Souls is the first of three cinematic adaptations of H.G. Wells “The Island of Dr.Moreau.” It is easily the best, although the 1997 attempt with Marlon Brando was not the disaster some critics claimed, and in fact was considerably better than the static, unimaginative 1977 version with Burt Lancaster.

The 1932 Island, directed by Erle C. Kenton, is rightly considered a classic, enough so that it has received the Criterion treatment for a 2011 release. This is Kenton’s sole classic.  Although he was a prolific director, he was essentially a journeyman, taking whatever was handed to him and usually injecting little style.  His other horror films for Universal were The Ghost Of Frankenstein (1942), The House Of Frankenstein (1944), and The House Of Dracula (1945), and they are all second rate, at best.

Island of Lost Souls deviates from the original story (which, predictably, prompted H.G. Wells to voice his disapproval), but the film is simply told.  Like 1932’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Island  is a pre-Hayes code film, and it shows.  Of course, both films were taken from  literary sources, and that too is apparent.  Lost Souls‘ literacy is due to screenwriter Philip Wylie, who also adapted Wells for ‘s The Invisible Man (1933).  The inimitable , one of the great classic screen actors, plays Dr. Moreua with a classicist’s relish.  Laughton is one of the major reasons for this film’s success, and as director Kenton shows atypical subtlety. These factors, combined with well-crafted sets and make-up, add up to a striking milieu.

Still from The Island of Lost Souls (1932)Island is almost an old-dark-house genre film, except that the stranded visitor, Edward Parker (Richard Arlen) ends up in a sort of kinky, contemporary Eden.  God is present in the symbolic persona of Dr. Moreau and although he is the antagonist, he is a three-dimensional one.  He is intelligent, crafty, and that naughty twinkle in the divine eye is ever present.  God is creating again, although this time he’s attempting to correct his previous mistake by making man from the image of Eden’s animals.  Eve (a Wylie addition) appears in the exotic Lota (Kathleen Burke, who notably showed up in the following year’s pre-Code Murders in the Zoo).  Lota, AKA Panther Girl, alternately projects innocence and unbridled sexuality, and she is utilized by Moreau to usher forth a new Adamic age, with Parker as the new Adam.  Of course, in every Eden there’s a rotten apple or two, and here it’s Parker’s abroad girlfriend (, from Freaks) and the Beast Men, Moreau’s ungrateful children who hold a grudge against their creator for little things like torture, brutality, and vivisection.  The Beast Men are led by the Sayer of the Law (, who is well-directed). The Sayer calls the creator out for hypocrisy and original sin.  The Beast Men are well sketched here, which is a sharp contrast to the mere animalistic portraits drawn in subsequent versions.  The finale is natural jolt, so much so that no other celluloid interpretation of the tale can match it.  This lucidly told imaginative spin on Dr. Frankenstein’s Eden still holds up remarkably well.

As for the Criterion treatment, most welcome authoritative commentary is given by historians Gregory Mank and David J. Skall, along with filmmaker (the original director of the 1997 version, who was replaced by John Frankenheimer).  Stanley offers entertaining, honest insight.  A little less welcome are reflections by John Landis and Devo.  Production stills and the theatrical trailer are excellent supplements.  This is a superb release that is essential for classic film lovers.

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE (1921) – 2011 CRITERION RELEASE

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Although it has been predictably labeled a “horror” film by more than a few dull and lazy commentators, ‘s The Phantom Carriage owes more to Charles Dickens and the literary world of supernatural dreams than it does contemporary, cheapened genre categories.  In October of this year, The Phantom Carriage received its long overdue Criterion release.  A telling clue to the film’s artistic merits can be heard in the academic commentary by historian Casper Tybjerg.  Another valuable and revealing extra in this Criterion edition is an excerpt from a filmed interview with in which the director discusses the influence that Sjostrom and The Phantom Carriage had on his own art. A video essay by historian Peter Cowie, and an accompanying written essay by Paul Mayersberg (screenwriter of The Man Who Fell To Earth) round out a typically impressive Criterion release.

According to the Scandinavian myth, the last person to die on New Years Eve is doomed to be the dreaded coachman for the grim reaper’s chariot until the following New Years Eve.  The director himself plays protagonist David Holm, and Sjostrom’s acting is strikingly contemporary in its naturalness, quite the reverse of what we think of in regards to histrionic, stylized silent film acting.  Holm, an alcoholic, is killed on New Years Eve and, at the stroke of midnight, it is he who is drafted to be Death’s charioteer.  An old acquaintance of Holm’s happened to have been death’s previous coachman and, like Jacob Marley in “A Christmas Carol,” he warns Holm of a spiritually bankrupt state.  Indeed, Holm’s life has been one of decay and shocking cruelty, but Sjostrom does not resort to oversimplification.  Although Holm has become a sadistic caricature, moments of human warmth still surface, ebbing towards regret and eventual redemption.  Compared to Holm, Ebeneezer Scrooge is the stuff of sainthood.

Still from The Phantom Carriage (1921)Comparisons to Dickens are apt, but Sjostrom’s film casts an even more complex and lugubrious milieu.  The movie is based on Selma Lagerlof’s novel “Korlarlen” and, in contrast to the expressionism popular during the period, Sjostrom opts for a naturalistic setting.  While The Phantom Carriage does not take the easy route of escapist fantasy for adolescent boys, that does not mean it is lacking in intensity.  One scene clearly seeded ‘s idea for Jack Torrance in the unsettling “Here’s Johnny” scene from The Shining (1980) .

The cinematography, by Julius Jaenzon, is exquisitely haunting.  Jaenzon’s use of double exposure in the ghostly carriage holds up impressively for a 90 year old film.  The Phantom Carriage was released the same year as Charlie Chaplin‘s groundbreaking The Kid.  Both films are, rightly, considered spiritually progressive, humanist films of the silent era.  However, Sjostrom’s film does not fall into the maudlin sentiment that occasionally mars Chaplin’s premiere feature.

Along with Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, The Phantom Carriage is one of the most important releases of the year.  Sjostrom’s influential classic is also among the most long-awaited Criterion releases of early cinema.