DR MABUSE, THE GAMBLER (Fritz Lang, 1922)

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(Directed by Fritz Lang from a script by Lang and Thea Von Harbou based on the original novel by Norbert Jaques. Starring Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Aud Egede-Nissen, Gertrude Welcker, Alfred Abel, Bernard Goetzke, and Paul Richter. Released 27 April 1922 (part one) and 26 May 1922 (part two); watched 2023w34 via Kino Blu-Ray)

FritzFest thus begins: this first viewing of DR MABUSE, THE GAMBLER being the start (to be followed by a first of DIE NIBELUNGEN, a rewatch of METROPOLIS, a first of SPIES, a rewatch of M, and an inaugural of TESTAMENT OF DR MABUSE – on Criterion Channel not, unfortunately, as with the others, on Blu - yet - though it might be if I have a region-free Blu player. Do I? Mem: check).

Happy that I was able to watch MABUSE not only as a 270-minute, two-film historical document, as a template for pretty much every great villain since – Ledger's Joker, among many others – but as the compulsively watchable, exhilarating tapestry of fascinating – and devastating, especially the Tolds and Carozza – characters at the mercy of the ruthless, titular force of nature played with mad-scientist-mold-defining aplomb by the great Rudolf Klein-Rogge, whose capture at the conclusion of Lang's four and a half hour epic is an epic in and of itself, a firefight wrapped in gunsmoke and sewer escape devolving into entrapped madness, a template for all great action denouements to come: THE THIRD MAN, HEAT and countless others, off the top of my head.

MABUSE’s true power is, like all of Lang's films, that it remains – in spite of being the century-old mold-forming work that it is – first and foremost a ripping yarn, a rare feat that exemplifies one of Lang's great hallmarks: his works always feel as though they were released yesterday – though some, like MABUSE, were released more than a century of yesterdays ago.

Highly, highly recommended.

THE VILLAINESS (Jung Byung-gil, 2017)

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(Directed by Jung Byung-gil from a script by Jung and Jung Byeong-sik; starring Kim Ok-vin, Shin Ha-kyun, Sung Joon, Kim Seo-hyung, Jo Eun-jil, and Kim Yeon-woo. Released 21 May 2017; watched 2023w31 via Prime.)

A treasure unearthed (and consumed with urgency) thanks to the most recent Polygon end-of-the-month, "catch them before they leave streaming" piece and, in the best tradition of South Korean genre cinema, one hell of a revenge story that's so very, very much more: led by brilliant performances from stars Kim Ok-vin, Shin Ha-Kyun, and Sung Joon and by turns exhilarating (those action sequences, JFC), pastoral, horrific, comedic, hopeful, and heart-wrenching (I refuse to apply the overused "heartbreaking," thanks CBR), THE VILLAINESS is truly something special. Blu purchased as soon as credits rolled (with three hours and some change to spare before it exited Prime), Jawan Koo's score the soundtrack to today’s work.

Haven't been this excited / inspired / enthralled by a film in awhile; hopeful it will bring with it an ability to be excited by other films again... I've missed the ability to recharge through cinema for far too long.

shelf permanence / "consumption platter"

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Two episodes into Max's DC documentary (quite good and worth a watch, BTW) and something Jeanette Kahn (I believe) said about trade paperbacks, that they were designed as permanent additions, kept on a bookshelf, struck me: as I've been growing and refocusing The (comics) Collection, I've simultaneously shifted away from purchasing trade paperback collections and towards purchasing the original issues (RONIN, CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, Moench / Jones BATMAN, ALIAS, SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE... etc etc...).

A desire, I think, to have comics' permanence be in their original, serialized form, to bring permanence to something designed (especially in earlier years) to be impermanent...

Among the things I've come to appreciate about the otherwise untapped potential of digital comics (which I'll be ranting about until my dying day, I mean come on) is that I can use those subscriptions (DC, Marvel, Comixology – DSTLLRY is next, definitely) – in this, my "back issue / library building" phase of collecting – to see not only what's going on in current comics (Zdarsky's BATMAN is about the only thing I read regularly and I love Ryan North's FANTASTIC FOUR) but use the digital versions as my reading copies while the originals live in their mylar sarcophagi in a manner not dissimilar to how I collect Blu-Rays and vinyl: more often than not, I leave the discs sealed and use the streaming / digital version (the trade-off for not fucking up the discs themselves being lowered quality) as my primary consumption platter.

All of this being my version of stockpiling food in my bunker for the inevitable day that streamers decide that everything should be a tax write off and delete themselves as soon as you watch it once.

Among the notes in my someday maybe are reorganizing bookshelves to have all physical media – books, comics, vinyl, CDs, Blu-Rays, etc etc – alphabetized by author and living next to one another in the truest reflection of my influences and passions.

NOSFERATU: EINE SYMPHONIE DES GRAUENS (Murnau, 1922)

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(Directed by F.W. Murnau from an adaptation of Bram Stoker's DRACULA by Henrik Galeen; starring Max Schrek, Gustav Van Wangenheim, Greta Schröder, and Alexander Granach. Released 04 March 1922); (re)watched 2023w06 via Blu-Ray)

a still from Murnau's Nosferatu: Orlok ascends the stairs in shadow

First time (re)watching Murnau’s masterpiece (among several) in years – first time, certainly with German intertitles – and it feels like I watched a different, even better, film than I remember: I’m sure I’ve seen countless iterations of it over the years – this site has a staggering and rich history of the film and its various theatrical and home video re-releases (though according to Reid’s work, the “different, even better film than I remember,” that I (re)watched was the awful version (the only available version in the US) but at least the jittery thing – which I knew wasn't in any of the other versions I've seen – makes sense):

Well, fuck.

Still, great to revisit it, even if it was something of a jittery mess (now I’m pissed but at least researching it brought me to DRAKULA HALÁLA so my lost film love has been sated). I'm going to go buy a region-free Blu-Ray player and binge on Euro-Blu and probably rewrite this thing once I see the BFI version.

NIGHTMARE ALLEY (Goulding, 1947)

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(Directed by Edmund Goulding from a script by Jules Furthman based on the novel by William Lindsay Gresham; starring Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker, and Mike Mazurki. Released 09 October 1947; watched fri/20230120 via Criterion Blu-Ray. )

While (I'm loathe to base my notes on a film on a fleeting comparison between it and its remake) GDT's version had a more powerful final third (mercifully devoid of the Zanuck-required hope for redemption that hampered this version's finale), that not only does Goulding's telling have none of the fat of Stan's backstory – his motivation for being such a shit is immaterial – but features commanding, visceral – and possessed of none of the sense of homage that took me out of 2021's story (exceptions being Rooney Mara and Richard Jenkins) – performances from Power (who played it as though he had everything to lose), Joan Blondell, Ian Keith, and Helen Walker (and Mike Mazurki, still my favorite on-screen Dick Tracy villain, 1945's Splitface) makes it, for me, the best. Wish I'd seen this one first – the Blu's been on my stack since it came out, months before GDT's landed in theaters, so I only have myself to blame.

THE GREAT SILENCE (Corbucci, 1968)

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(Watched: sat/20221008 via Blu-Ray. Directed by Sergio Corbucci from a screenplay by Vittoriano Petrill, Mario Amendola, Bruno Corbucci and Sergio Corbucci; starring Jean Louis Trintignant, Klaus Kinski, Vonetta McGee, Frank Wolff and Luigi Pistilli. Released November, 1968.)

While I knew that if Wallace Stroby said it was good (as he did in our March conversation about my favorite film of all time, Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST) it would be, little did I expect to find myself engrossed in one of the most profound experiences of discovery I've had with a Western since, perhaps, OUATITW.

Snowbound, brutal, and utterly bleak: if Leone's works are singularly operatic love letters to the American Western signed by big kid with action figures, Corbucci's – especially here – are slices of neo-realist pulp (even in a movie about a guy with a gatling gun in a coffin) that dismantle all notions of convention and leave them thumbless across an unsparing landscape. Add Klaus Kinski as a sadistic bounty hunter and you've really got something to behold.

Side note: always a joy to see Frank Wolff (ill-fated in OUATITW as Brett McBain and in life, having committed suicide in 1971, at age 43) and Luigi Pistilli, familar – among other roles – to me as Tuco's monk brother in THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY.

Adding both a rewatch of Corbucci's DJANGO (saw it years ago) and a first watch of THE SPECIALISTS (the finale of Corbucci's "Mud and Blood" trilogy, with SILENCE being the second film in the unofficial sequence) to the list. Definitely one of those "I wish I could see it again for the first time" experiences.