Czech-born director Milos Forman known for his Academy Award-winning films ‘Amadeus’ and ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ has passed away at the age of 86.
Forman, a respected figure in the cinema redefined the world of film with this two films ‘The Loves of a Blonde’ and ‘The Firemen’s Ball’ during the peak of the Czechoslovak New Wave in the 1960s. Both of the films received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign language film and put Forman on the map of cinema forever. But this was only the beginning for the fresh Czech who later moved to the US to direct Academy Award-winning films ‘Amadeus’ and ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’. Both claiming the award for Best Picture.
As a director, Forman brought out terrific performances from several of the greatest actors like Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher and F. Murray Abraham, all who landed an Academy Award win for Best Acting. His films have become iconic to many filmgoers and look to stand the test of time with their ferocious stories and characters.
Forman passed away on Friday in the US after a short illness, his wife, Martina, told Czech news agency CTK.
Agata Pankowska an illustrator based in Poland created a fantastic series of prints done in offset lithography based on the tale of the Mice King.
The artist has brilliantly merged the graphic aesthetic of printmaking with an organic drawing style. Manifesting a technique that has the best of both worlds, graphic and organic. Wisely placed within hinting compositions, the illustrations make a perfect addition to the narrative.
Mice king
Also, you can follow Agata’s Instagram page and Artstation to keep up with her latest work.
In a house overlooking London’s Highgate Cemetery, amongst the beautiful architecture of the dead, Our Culture sat down with directors Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman to talk about their upcoming chiller,Ghost Stories. It is a deeply unsettling film, one which forces the audience into the dark, into the places where unnatural things tread.
In speaking with these directors, one is immediately hit with their palpable affection for horror; both directors throwing out classic horror references left and right, from Night of the Demon to Amicus Productions. It truly makes you excited for their film because you’re aware of the deep love of film from which it spawned.
The following is a complete transcription of that conversation. Warning, swearing is contained in this interview.
First of all, I’d like to say thank you ever so much to both of you for talking to Our Culture.
Jeremy: It’s our pleasure!
Andy: We’re delighted! Thank you!
To start, I’d love to know how the film got off the ground. Once the decision was made to go from stage to screen, how did you guys go about that?
Jeremy: Well it was, you know, it was quite a long journey that began when, in the very first week of us writing the play, we sensed as we came up with the story, that it had cinematic potential. But, we were quite disciplined at that time, saying “well yeah but we’re doing this play so all our focus will remain on the play and we’ll just park that as a thought” And then when it transferred into the West End, and there was a lot of, you know, heat and noise around it, we had a Hollywood offer from a major studio. That caught us by surprise but we wouldn’t have been allowed to direct it. It would have been to write the script and then hand it over, and we knew that that wasn’t…
Andy: It just didn’t feel right.
Jeremy: Didn’t feel right, yeah. It wasn’t going to satisfy us. It wasn’t the spirit that we’d set out to do the play in. And then there was another offer after that.
Andy: By then, we’d decided that we wanted to write it, we wanted to direct it, and I wanted to play [Professor] Goodman. We were sort of unshakeable on that because we’d decided that we wanted to retain as much of the spirit of the play as we could, including its British-ness. So then there was another very lovely American offer that came through and we spoke to them and they were onboard for us to do that, but the harsh reality of that was that there would have been a lot of forces outside of our control.
Jeremy: We would have had to give up quite a bit.
Andy: Yes, and we just went away from that whole experience thinking, “it’s not like we’re going to get paid £2 million each”, you know. The realities of writing a small, independent film are that you’re not going to get much money. And those offers were somewhere between not much money and fuck-all money.
Jeremy: [Laughs]
Andy: So, you sort of think, “well, if we’re going to get paid fuck-all, we might as well just do it ourselves, and write it ourselves, and try and pick the people we want to make it with” And I should say as well that those offers, it’s not like anyone’s going out to shaft you, it’s just the way it all works.
Jeremy: There’s just not that much money in low-budget films!
Andy: So, that’s what we decided to do, and we took eighteen months, because it’s not like we’re not doing anything. We’re both doing our own stuff. We took eighteen months on unpicking it and working, and one thing I’ve really learnt from Jeremy is he’s got the most amazing worth ethos and discipline, but also, you know, something he says a lot is “trust the process” and taking that time pressure away from you and just being able to let solutions find themselves in your subconscious has actually been a really exciting and useful way to work.
Jeremy: So, all the way through to completing the film and post-production, the principle was always trying to go for absolute authenticity of what we felt was the right way to go with it on every creative decision. And not out of any self-aggrandising arrogance, just that that felt like the best way of achieving what we’d set out to do. It was the same thing on the play, and historically, things always come out better when I’ve done that in my own career.
Andy: And also, the films that we love, especially within the genre where there’s an opportunity to see people demonstrate their personalities in the extreme, all of the films that have touched us most are films where you feel you’re getting to know what the filmmaker’s like, you know, be that John Landis, be that Tobe Hooper, Eli Roth.
Jeremy: Well it’s interesting, it goes back to Amicus Productions. They were informed by that spirit. You know, the Amicusses, [Milton] Subotsky was a complete genre freak. He adored the stuff. And Max Rosenberg was a businessman, but of course, he had the brains to let Subotsky take the creative side of it. It’s brilliant to know that they had a similar spirit that informed the things that we loved, historically.
Martin Freeman stars as Mike Priddle, a man haunted by something ghastly.
In watching the film, one gets an unmistakable air of M.R. James and, in particular, stories like Whistle and I’ll Come to You. How much of an influence was M.R. James on the film?
Jeremy: Well it was the adaptations that were the influence, you know, the Lawrence Gordon Clark ones. There’s another genius! How brilliant that somebody like that emerged out of the BBC just because that’s how the BBC operated in the seventies! It was, “as long as you don’t spend too much money, you can go and do what you want!”
Andy: [Laughs]
Jeremy: And he was a documentary maker! But he had a passion for those stories that went back to him being told them by his father at Christmas, I think.
Andy: And those versions, you know, are some of the greatest ghost stories ever put on film.
Jeremy: That’s no hyperbole, that’s for sure!
A Warning to the Curious is still utterly frightening!
Andy: Oh my God, yeah! And Lost Hearts!
Jeremy: And, you know, you look at how he achieved it and there’s so many clues how to go about it yourself. He had no money, so it meant intense creativity, but he cast it brilliantly, you know, and the locations do so much work. And then, they’re beautifully shot. And all those things don’t have to cost money.
Andy: And the sound as well! And the editing, I mean, honestly, they are remarkable. You think about the end of The Treasure of Abbott Thomas. Oh my God! That trick’s almost just edit and sound, and it just makes you go cold.
Jeremy: Well it’s timed like a joke.
Andy: It is.
Jeremy: It’s timed like a piece of comedy. He had grand aspirations, Lawrence Gordon Clark, he’s quite open about it. He thought he loved Hitchcock and he thought of himself as Hitchcock and how would Hitchcock do this? In A Warning to the Curious, you’ve got that great shot of the spade on the suitcase.
Andy: Yes, absolutely!
Jeremy: You know, brilliant cinematic storytelling! Telling you who this character is through dynamic camera work!
Andy Nyman stars as Professor Goodman.
And in films like Night of the Demon…
Jeremy: Which we share a passion for!
…there’s such an emphasis on the power of suggestion.
Jeremy: Yeah! But the fascinating thing about Night of the Demon is that it has this dual thing of one, it’s the power of suggestion, but two, it couldn’t be more balls-out with its monster! And for years, people were sniffy about it, but you know, I love the hutzpah of showing that demon!
That shot where it’s coming out of the smoke is horrifying to this day!
Andy: It is! We watched it again recently and we were like “…fuck” That is something!
Jeremy: It’s brilliantly done! So yeah, go on, sorry!
So, why do you think that the power of suggestion is so scary?
Jeremy: [Chuckling] Because you’re weaponising the audience’s imagination against themselves! We looked into it a lot when we were staging the play and there’s so much of it that’s neurobiology. A lot of what that feeling is when you’re scared by something in a film, or indeed in a theatre, is the prey response. It’s a very old circuit in the brain, and you’re accessing that bit of the audience’s brain and putting them into that ancient response that goes back to, you know, us being crustaceans!
Andy: And we’re not snobby about the period of horror films at the moment. We think there’s been a brilliant golden age, we think there’s been some absolutely fantastic genre films over the past fifteen, twenty years. I mean, amazing, but one of the things that kind of comes and goes that is something that maybe Get Out really tapped into so brilliantly…
Get Out was brilliant!
Jeremy: Oh yeah!
Andy: …is a sense of wrong. It’s a sense of the real world.
Jeremy: Oh so the moral element!
Andy: No, more so meaning…
Jeremy: Oh you mean…
Andy: …off-kilter!
Jeremy: Off-kilter, yeah!
Andy: There is just something…wrong.
Jeremy: But what’s interesting is that that “something wrong” resonates with the moral aspect.
Andy: One hundred percent.
Jeremy: It’s the one allied to the other.
Andy: Exactly.
Jeremy: And Night of the Demon does the same thing, you know, one of the secret weapons of Night of the Demon is Niall MacGinnis’ performance, and it’s in the script, when he’s talking to his mother and saying “you like how we live, well it came at a price, and that price is fear” And it’s brilliant! It’s saying something profound about corruption!
Andy: [Chuckles] At the risk of being political, that could be a sentence to come out of the mouth of, you know, a President…or a Prime Minister…or the head of a massive global company.
Jeremy: So, you know, when that monster comes out of the darkness, and it’s coming to get you, it means something. And that’s why you feel it. It’s not just a technical thing, it’s a story thing, it’s narrative.
Emily Carding is fantastically frightening in GHOST STORIES.
Yeah, absolutely! One of the most horrifying aspects of Ghost Stories, with regards to the off-kilter feeling, is how real it all feels. Could you tell us a bit about the practical effects element of the film?
Andy: Absolutely! We both love magic, conjuring, and always have done. And I’ve worked extensively in that world as a sort of parallel career to my acting. And there’s something really interesting about my own experience of watching films where there’s lots of CGI, and I’m sure it’s a sort of universal experience, which is that there’s a disconnect because it doesn’t hit you on an emotional level. You’re so au fait to seeing anything happen that it just negates it. And as a magic trick, it becomes null and void. If you think about The Spy Who Loved Me, with that ski sequence at the beginning, your stomach when he goes off the cliff…you can’t believe what you’re seeing.
Jeremy: And the same in Moonraker! I showed it to my kids and it was the same thing. They are jumping out of a plane! And that is for real!
Andy: So, the difference between that and when you see the CGI version of that where it has no impact other than sort of “oh it’s a moment in a film”, they’re very, very different things. And so as a magic trick, you’re conditioned, you know what’s real and what isn’t. This is aside from the benefits of doing it live because it’s cheaper and the benefits of doing it live because of the performances of an actor, I’m purely talking about the audience experience of seeing it. And so, it was really important to us. We knew we could do it eight times live on stage with bits of string and sellotape and there’s no reason why you can’t transfer that to film. We used to have this expression which was “Buster Keaton filmmaking” which is, you know, we’ve used techniques that are…
Jeremy: [Chuckles] that go back to George Méliès!
Andy: Yeah! And so one of the exciting things about that when you’re dealing with a story which is about not quite knowing what’s real and what isn’t real, is that if you can put the audience in the same shoes as someone experiencing it on the screen, that’s a really useful technique. And there are moments I look at, and I promise I don’t mean this in an arrogant way, where I think “I wish I didn’t know that was coming” because it’s so exciting to know that what an audience thinks they’re looking at is not what they’re looking at and you can’t wait for them to have revealed to them what they’re actually looking at!
Well, thank you ever so much Andy and Jeremy for sitting down with me. It’s been an absolute pleasure!
Andy: Thank you so much, and thank you for your support!
Jeremy: Yes, thank you!
Ghost Stories is released in the UK on the 6th of April and in the United States on the 20th of April.
Special thanks must be given to Lionsgate for their help in arranging this interview.
German music producer KLANGPLANET is back and this time with a highly anticipated album ‘Eternity’
Acclaimed and respected music producer KLANGPLANET is back, but this time with a bigger release than ever.
Having released numerous tracks with great success amongst the indie critics, the German music producer has recently announced his latest project ‘Eternity’, which includes eight equally stunning Deep House tracks that combine sounds soul, nature and beautiful chill-out melodies that have become partnered with KLANGPLANET style throughout all of his discography. This album looks to mark the great work of KLANGPLANET, and might be the beginning of what we hope is going to be a long and successful career in the world of music.
Sound Selection is back and this time with more great music to share for your playlists.
Raina Sokolov-Gonzalez ‘Unarmed’
The first song to enter our Sound Selection is ‘Unarmed’ by the amazing Raina Sokolov-Gonzalez who grips us in with her exciting and dynamic vocal that drives this song into this week’s Sound Selection with its beautiful soul and mysterious feel. A must-listen.
Gus ‘Roses’
Another great song to enter our Sound Selection is by the young and talented Gus, who debuts with ‘Roses’. A single that perfectly introduces this artist into the world of music, with a great commercial feel and perfectly fitting vocals that will surely shoot him straight to the stars in the years to come.
ATFC & David Penn ‘Hipcats’
Moving over to club music, we have a fun and exhilarating single ‘Hipcats’ by the fun ATFC & David Penn who bring us in with a wave of groovy and electrifying sounds. If you are looking for great music to flavour up your Spring, this one will be for you.
KLANGPLANET ‘You’
Previously featured KLANGPLANET is back and this time with another beautiful song ‘You’. In this latest single KLANGPLANET showcases just why we adore his music so much. ‘You’ grows with each bar and progression and its serene and delicate sound that so many are eager to hear.
Attaque ‘Don’t Leave Me’
Furthermore, we have another splendid song ‘Don’t Leave Me’ by Attaque who combines gripping lead synths with phenomenal melodies to make a raw and authentic single. This one will keep with us for weeks and months to come, for sure.
Mona Vale ‘Settle Down’
Switching our frequencies, we have Mona Vale who utilises roaring electronic sounds, with thickly layered vocals to give us a melancholy-driven hit ‘Settle Down’. With this song released, we are sure to hear more great things from Mona Vale, who bring great energy time and time again.
Clement Bazin ‘Catch Me’
Clement Bazin’s single ‘Catch Me’ is another terrific single to enter this Sound Selection with its dynamic production and commercially-driven vocals that make this song a true jam for those that love well-produced and vibrant radio-ready tunes.
Alexander Vincent ‘I Won’t’
The final song to enter this Sound Selection is by Alexander Vincent named ‘I Won’t’. This single is driven by the serene vocals of Vincent and minimal-urban electronic production, that makes this song a must-listen and one for the playlists.
This series of work she named ‘I AM SPECIAL’ stand out for its effective character interaction. HsinYi Fu gives the characters appeal and creates a short visual narrative through just four images.
Sample Magic’s Chillmatic is the new holy-grail of hip-hop sample packs.
Samples have been around for a while now, and while the market is expanding rapidly, the wondrous provider of samples and plugins Sample Magic is looking to take the lead with their high-quality and eclectic products. It must be noted that Sample Magic tend to tick all the boxes for wide-ranging music producers, and certainly, Chillmatic is a pack part of that.
This full of selection sample pack includes some great dynamic hip-hop drum loops but also fantastic melodies that will rightly get any music producer excited to use them. It even includes basic FL Studio project files for those that want to dive straight in with an already made project. While, there is also Serum, and MIDI presets for those want more customisation.
Overall, Chillmatic is a superb sample pack; it’s great for music producers that are looking for great samples and also for those that just need some inspiration to get started. A must for any music producer looking to expand their library.
Jose Mendeza Spanish artist based in London creates colourfull and energetic murals.
Jose Mendez explores wavy lines within his work to create an energetic and organic feeling within his work. This combined with the bright colour palette makes his work pop and an unmissable aspect of its environment. Consequently getting Mendez projects worldwide from Europe, USA and Australia.
MURAL LONDON
Mural painted in Shoreditch (London) in collaboration with Global Street Art.
Sound Selection 028 is here, and once again we bring you splendid music to add to your everyday playlists.
Satin Jackets & David Harks ‘Through The Night’
The first song to enter our Sound Selection is ‘Through The Night’ by the terrific Satin Jackets & David Harks, who combine smooth Nu-disco synths with warm and pleasant vocals. ‘Through The Night’ is a beautiful and haunting song that evolves beyond its production with its sensitive and expressive soul.
Nicole Millar ‘Gimme a Break’
Another fantastic song to enter our Sound Selection is ‘Gimme a Break’ by the wonderful Nicole Millar, who combines hooking vocals and superb production that will drive this song straight into your weekend playlists. With this type of music, we are sure to hear great more things from this very talented artist.
Amari & Nico Morano ‘Desire’ feat. Jinadu
Giving us a wave of deep sounds and a clash of serene vocals in their latest single ‘Desire’ is Amari & Nico Morano featuring Jinadu. ‘Desire’ has a flow of a mysterious yet warming range of textures that make it a perfect single to listen to at day or night. This single truly ticks all the boxes.
Robotaki ‘Butterscotch’ feat. Jamie Fine x falcxne
Final song to enter this Sound Selection is ‘Butterscotch’ by Robotaki featuring Jamie Fine x falcxne. Preston Chin or better known under the alias Robotaki has once again given us a dynamic and authentic single, that pushes warm vocals with its raw energy production that seems to expand from bar to bar. Truly magnificent work.
Body of a boy! Mind of a monster! Soul of an unearthly thing! So say the posters for 1957’s I Was a Teenage Frankenstein – the less charismatic but intriguing semi follow-up to American International Pictures’ I Was a Teenage Werewolf. Flatly directed, statically shot, but with enough pseudo-scientific positing to enjoy, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein is strangely enjoyable. Whilst this is not a well-made film, one can certainly find gleeful entertainment in its gruesome aesthetics.
Professor Frankenstein (Whit Bissell) intends to succeed where his “great ancestor” failed: to create a living being. But this time, the Professor intends to use “only the ingredients of youth” to bring forth a being whom he can instruct and control. Conveniently, just as the Professor is explaining his plans to his assistant, Dr. Karlton (Robert Burton), a group of teenagers crash their cars outside the Professor’s home. Naturally, this prompts the Professor to steal one of the dead teenagers’ bodies for his experiment. As the Professor acquires more bodies, his youthful creation begins to take shape – in the form of Gary Conway. Conway’s monster, once awoken, wastes little time before longing to see the outside world. However, Professor Frankenstein reminds him of why this isn’t possible: by showing him his scarred and twisted visage that lies beneath his bandages. From here, the teenage monster makes an escape, killing a girl in the process, and complicating the plans of the calculating Professor Frankenstein.
In June of 1957, Hammer’s groundbreaking The Curse of Frankenstein hit U.S. cinemas. With its bright Eastmancolor blood, the brilliantly malevolent performance of Peter Cushing, and the striking look of Christopher Lee’s creature, the film arguably remains effective to this day. Indeed, one can see its effects front and centre in I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, released in November that same year. The film has its share of gore (severed legs, decapitated heads, and the face of the teenage monster itself), which certainly lends it an edge over its relatively tame contemporaries, but the impetus for this may well have been Hammer’s box office success.
Whit Bissell’s performance as Professor Frankenstein is difficult to read. On one hand, the cold, manipulative performance of Bissell is sometimes effective. Bissell’s Professor is passionately obsessed with the completion of his work, leading him to neglect and eventually physically abuse his fiancé, Margaret (Phyllis Coates). In part, this is absolutely down to Whit Bissell’s acting abilities. His projection allows for much of the pseudo-science the script churns out to seem convincing; the words of a pompous man focused on proving his scientific prowess to the world. Bissell projects a man whose ease in manipulating others is unsettling.
However, one wonders whether the Professor being so evil was a conscious effort on the part of the filmmakers, or whether it was an accident of clumsy writing. Part of what makes the character so unlikeable is his casual (and sometimes aggressive) sexism, and one wonders whether this was intentional, or just a byproduct of contemporary social dynamics. It would be easier (and indeed more desirable) to believe that the script was written to intentionally paint a picture of a selfish man if it wasn’t riddled with lines that illuminate its ineptitude, such as “Speak! You’ve got a civil tongue in your head. I know you have, because I sewed it back myself!” Maybe it was a conscious decision, warranting further consideration and praise of Bissell’s performance. Sadly, that “civil tongue” line lingers. Perhaps we’ll never know.
Gary Conway menaces a young woman as the teenage monster.
Gary Conway’s monster is sympathetic, but perhaps this is more so because of the extra-textual knowledge that one is meant to sympathise with the Frankenstein monster. That being said, at times Conway genuinely does evoke our sympathies as we watch him stumble about a world unfamiliar to him. Sadly, the film does not explore more meaningful avenues of thought regarding the monster. We feel sorry for him, but from a disengaged perspective.
It’s interesting to note that when Richard W. Nason reviewed the film in 1958 for The New York Times, Nason seemed affronted at the prospect of the film aggravating what he called the, “mass social sickness euphemistically termed ‘juvenile delinquency’.” It’s a fascinating contemporary anxiety to consider, especially when one can alternatively read the film making a point (if it makes any points at all) not about teenage violence, but rather the damaging influence of authoritarian parenting. Professor Frankenstein orders his creation about remorselessly, only thinking of what its being means to his success. He is enamoured with its existence, not its personhood. And of course, it isn’t hard to imagine what kinds of trauma this leaves.
This is a flatly shot film; its simple setups allow the actors to casually amble through expository dialogue without any visual flare that could have alleviated from such lines as, “Isn’t that the way of women? They make us poor men suffer for their blunders.” The cinematography displays little creative innovation, perhaps due to it (and double-feature partner Blood of Dracula) being written and put into production in just four weeks – according to producer Herman Cohen. Perhaps the only noteworthy point regarding the visuals is that in the final act, the film bursts into vibrant colour. This was a trend American International Pictures played with for several of their horror and science fiction films at the time (also used in the final acts of War of the Colossal Beast and How to Make a Monster – both 1958). Admittedly, it is a fun gimmick.
I Was a Teenage Frankenstein is not a great film. And yet, it’s a film that one can very much enjoy. This isn’t to do so condescendingly – as so many critics and scholars tend to do with 1950s science fiction and horror. Rather, whilst accepting the film’s shortcomings, one can still find fun and entertainment in a horror picture that very clearly wasn’t aiming for high art. The inclusion of I Was A in the title arguably hints at some comedic implication, even if the film predominantly plays for horror. At the very least, one can certainly enjoy the visage of the teenage monster and the bang of the colour finale.
