On Tuesday I had an interesting and unforgettable experience, a friend of mine, who belongs to the Producer’s Guild, will frequently invite me to free industry screenings of Hollywood features. He asked me to join him for a screening of "Toy Story 3" in 3-D, and naturally I brought along my mother, who is an avid fan of animation. What neither of us realized was that the screening was at, none other, than Pixar Studios in Emeryville. So, it was quite an experience to have access to the secure complex for a few hours, the grounds of the complex are laid out like a very sleek, 21st Century university, and the very history of the studio is laid out within the massive lobby.
Another perk of this screening, after the film, was an industry Q&A with Producer Darla K. Anderson, while I won’t reveal the bulk of the exchange; she did have some interesting answers regarding how Pixar stays connected with the Public. One of the general points she raised was that while an animated film is in production, it will be screened for family members of employees, as well as selectively screened for segments of the general public, and the film will be adjusted according to reactions. It is known that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas will go to movies along with the paying public, which I have always considered a very wise decision. After all, the public is spending their hard earned cash to attend a feature film at a Theatre, or Multiplex, and they have a right to expect value for their dollar.
Within Hollywood, it is common for industry people at attend free screenings, and it is an understandable perk: but it is also a two edged sword as well. Producer’s run the risk of becoming so insulated, and by doing so, losing touch with what a paying audience is connecting to. Often the entertainment media, and Hollywood is obsessed with the 'secret' to Pixar’s success - and the answers might be rather simple. Many Studios will, and can, cynically sound the notes without playing the music, of the Pixar formula, that is, to digress, if there is such a thing as a formula, which I personally doubt. The various production teams for Pixar have stressed the quality of the stories, as well as the care, and investment that goes into the characters they create, but a third secret to their success might be a willingness to stay connected with the paying public. In essence, they have found a way to follow the example of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, through their low key screenings, while astonishingly avoiding the scoops of on-line spoilers, that is, to my general knowledge, I don’t recall any revelations from the countless on-line movie news sites that exist, and circulate spoilers at a heavy rate in many cases these days.
So, how is this relevant to The X-Files, you might ask, The producers at 1013 Productions shared a similar savvy, in the mid nineties, of staying connected with the fans, and were accessible in a way, thus setting up a template that other television series use today, that was unusual for the time. One can still find examples of the forward thinking approach that Frank Spotnitz and Chris Carter took with the public, while managing to not reveal plot points for the series. It was, indeed, a delicate balance. These are lessons that industry people need to continue to apply when considering the commercial material they release to the public.
When I launched The X-Files Lexicon in May of 2005, all I really had were several pipe dreams, a vision and mission statement, and about a dozen pages. I could not have imagined what would develop, and I mean, I had no idea that we would have so much luck and be so fortunate, but we have been so. I have always felt like this website is the little engine that could, steady and slow, but it has reached or surpassed its objectives. Such fortune only drives myself, and other staffers, to produce better material. Red Scully, Robin and David will always be in my debt for starting on this journey with me. There’s more to come, rest assured, but it’s nice to step back for a moment, breath and look at what has been accomplished. Now onto all of the other goodies to come in 2010! – Matt Allair, webmaster and founder.
A while before I was asked to join The X-Files Lexicon staff as the editor, I used to have vivid dreams about working behind the scenes for The X-Files series. Being part of this significant website is a real privilege. I’m very, very thankful first to Red for recommending me and then to Matt for giving me this great opportunity. – Xscribe
When Matt told me that the X-Files Lexicon had reached its 5th anniversary my first thought was: "Has it only been 5 years?" In some ways it feels like the site has been around forever, always delivering quality content and interesting reads. I'm happy to be a part of it :) Congratulations, Matt - here's to another 5 years! – Jill
With its professional articles and interviews, the whole thing orchestrated by the ever-gracious Matt, the X-Files Lexicon has become a must for all Ten Thirteen fans! Five years is a long time in the internet world, but there's no end in sight: congratulations and long live the Lexicon! – Kimon - EatTheCorn.com
I'm very happy to contribute to this wonderful website because Matt is a very dedicated and efficient person that you automatically want to help. That's because he's also generous, incredibly patient and his passion is just positively contagious! It's been a pleasure to share a few pictures and artwork to add a bit of color to this amazing work. And all those interviews Matt keeps surprising us with are just little cherries on top of a delicious cake. :) – Polly
Congratulations on the Fifth Anniversary of the X-Files Lexicon. It's a great resource and a wonderful commemoration of a television series that meant so much to so many people. – Howard Gordon, (Producer and Writer, “24” and “The X-Files”.)
Millennium fans were once described as being more restrained in their support of their franchise than X-Files fans. I would concur that this is true. When I began working on the Millennium Movie Campaign I realized the need for the Millennium Fan Community to put its head above the parapet and reach out to our brothers and sisters in the wider Ten Thirteen Fan Community for support. The first webmaster to respond with enthusiasm was Matt Allair. Though my time has come to an end on that score, the Millennium Fan Community continues to enjoy his support and we are grateful to the hand of friendship he has extended to us. I am grateful to the hand of friendship he has extended to me.
I am of the opinion that the output of Ten Thirteen encourages the support of tenacious, creative and intelligent folk who relish the sense of community our enjoyment of the shows encourages. Matt is a fine example of that opinion. Though our show has been off air for over a decade and we do not enjoy new material as our X-Files friends do, our continued efforts to support and celebrate our show is made all the easier thanks to the support of people like Matt. I am sure I speak on the behalf of the whole of Millennium Fan Community as I wish him, and The X-Files Lexicon, many more years of success and prominence. Here's to Matt!
When XF2 became a reality, one thing I knew I wanted to do this time around, was see the production up close and personal. When I had a chance to do this very thing in February of 2008, and wanted to share the experience with other fans, there was only one place I considered--The Lexicon. Matt has always been fair, generous and gracious in any correspondence, and so it was with delight that I offered him my synopsis of my Pemberton visit to the X Files set. In the ensuing time, the Lexicon has only gotten better. Congratulations, Matt, on making it to year five, and doing so with such integrity. I look forward to the next five years.
- Angie
X-Files Lexicon is a fantastic resource for any X-Files fan. A good place to call home for all Philes. Congratulations on reaching your own Season 5! – Matt Hurwitz(co-author of “The Complete X-Files”)
Congrats to Matt and crew on the fifth anniversary of XFL. Can't wait to see what's cooking for the tenth anniversary! Keep rocking. – Chris Knowles(co-author of “The Complete X-Files”, and creator ofThe Secret Sun Blog
I had no idea that I would end up as a writer for The X-Files Lexicon. It was a mere suggestion from a friend of mine, Mark Hayden, that told me that Matt Allair could use my useless knowledge of paranormal information for his website. Well, being an X-Files fan I couldn't pass this up. I am so happy being a part of the X-Files Lexicon Family - Joe McBrayer
Congratulations to Matt Allair and X-Files Lexicon on your 5th anniversary! Your ability to survive and thrive in this ever evolving digital world is due to one thing. Relevancy. Your site has remained an incredibly entertaining and informative resource to philes all around the globe. I personally poke around the site just for fun every now and then and smile when I realize we all share this site and this fandom in common. Congrats. – Jana Fain
Happy 5th Anniversary X-Files Lexicon! Congratulations for five years of quality X-Files news and information. I look forward to offering tenth anniversary congrats! - Maurisa - XfilesUniverse.com and XFilesUltimate.com
XFilesNews would like to wish the X-Files Lexicon a very happy 5th birthday! Congratulations on 5 years and here's to many, many more and an XF3 greenlight over the horizon! Thanks for Believing in the Future with us, Tiffany, Avi and the whole XFN Crew. – X-Files News
As a newish contributor to the Lexicon, writing articles for the site has been a fantastic experience for me. The sheer volume of knowledge on display, and the dedication of Matt and the entire staff, is astounding. As we see more and more authors leaving the community for various reasons, and long-time XF sites going down, it's heartening to have a place like The Lexicon holding strong and continuing to provide their readers with fresh material.
Just because the show is no longer on the air, that doesn't mean the fans are less interested. New people are watching the episodes on DVD every day, then heading out onto the Net to find sites and Philes with whom they can share their new-found interest. It's good to know The Lexicon will be there for them. Congratulations on your 5th anniversary! Five-times-five more years may you reign! – Mimic
Many congratulations on five years of the Lexicon! It's a terrific site, and does The X-Files proud. The series may be out of production, and its future still uncertain - but you all keep it alive. – Robert Shearman(author of “I Want To Believe: a critical guide to The X-Files, Millennium, & The Lone Gunmen”)
It has been a pleasure working with Matt and all the staff at The X-Files Lexicon. I enjoy contributing articles and sharing my memories with Phile alike.
Happy 5th Anniversary and here's to many more. – EF (Raskolnikov)
It's been a pleasure to be part of the X Files Lexicon universe and to help out the indefatigable Matt in his quest to provide the definitive guide to one of TV's most seminal shows on the net. It's remarkable (and highly gratifying) to me that a show that has been off air for quite some time now still commands such enormous affection and fervent feelings and I would like to think that the sterling work of Matt and my co-contributors has contributed a tiny part to that. Five years, eh? I'll have to celebrate with a marathon session of my favourite episodes. Let me see, "Beyond the Sea", "Irresistible", "Bad Blood", "Small Potatoes", "Tempus Fugit".... – Robin England
"Movies are a magician’s forge; they allow you to build a story with your hands. Who knows... at least, that's what it means to me. What attracts me in movies is to be presented with a problem and be able to solve it. Nothing else; just to create an illusion, and effect, with almost nothing. That's the best thing about it." – Mario Bava
As I mentioned in my previous entry regarding Nicholas Meyer’s comment about "art thriving on limitations," that the production teams of The X-Files and Millennium share traits that are similar to the work and approach of Mario Bava. This great director thrived with working on low budget pictures. To a degree this was a conscious choice on his part, as he seemed to feel that by working on low budget pictures, he was allowed a freedom to craft his films to his vision without the interference of larger studios. While many might question why he never made his way to the United States to direct features for Hollywood, one reason was his preference to exclusively work in Italy, as well as this desire to have the creative freedom that low budget productions afforded him. This also drove him to be highly inventive. One classic example of his preference to work within limitations can be found in a story about the production budget of Danger: Diabolik. Dino De Laurentis had budgeted the film for three million dollars, and in an unprecedented outcome, Bava completed the film for around four-hundred thousand dollars, leaving enough to spare to direct a sequel! One of the reasons why I have a fondness for the early seasons of The X-Files was that due to limited budgets, they too were often forced to be inventive. The need to be inventive is a dying trait in a business that is offering younger directors every bell and whistle before it is truly earned.
When Bob Goodwin was interviewed in 2009, he did offer up that the visual look for The X-Files was inspired by Italian painter Caravaggio (1571-1610), which is interesting when you consider Bava’s initial interest in being a painter. One could speculate that the 1013 Productions team and Bava shared similar inspirations. When I interviewed cinematographer John S. Bartley in 2008, I questioned from a list of cinematographers who influenced him, and I asked about Mario Bava, and he did not cite Bava as a personal influence for the show. As of this writing, I have not interviewed Jon Coffin, Ron Stannett, Joel Ransom, or Bill Roe, and so I cannot cite any concrete evidence of Mario Brava’s visual work as an influence on The X-Files. This also holds true in regards to Millennium. I have not been in contact with Robert McLachlan, and hold no concrete evidence of a Bava influence on that series.
Possible Visual Influences
While The X-Files application of lighting for a shot tended to be more subtle, certain patterns reflecting the techniques of the Maestro Bava become hard to ignore. As cited below:
Black Sabbath – The Wurdulak / The X-Files – Firewalker
Bay of Blood (Twitch of the Death Nerve) / The X-Files – Conduit
Mario Bava, as well as the production teams for The X-Files and Millennium used locations as a key element of establishing a sense of place, atmosphere, and mood. In fact, horror films depend greatly on location to establish, psychologically, this sense of dread, or entering into another reality. Locations can also establish a sense of decay, Bay of Blood (1971), or something amiss, "Conduit."
The X-Files – The Post-Modern Prometheus / The Girl Who Knew Too Much
Chris Carter’s use of black and white in "Post-Modern Prometheus," as well as his framing may have been inspired by Frankenstein (1931), but they also share a striking similarity to Bava’s approach to compositional framing in The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1962). Could it have been an unconscious choice or influence?
Danger: Diabolik / The X-Files – Fight The Future
The use of back lighting, which is a common technique and does help to create depth, still does depend on the cinematographer having a psychological understanding of how best to create tension. Again, one could see a possible influence between this sequence from Diabolik (1968) and Fight The Future.
Hercules in The Haunted World / Millennium – The Time is Now
While this sequence from "The Time Is Now" might evoke the flavor of Dario Argento’s approach, Bava would utilize colors to create a psychological mood or a descent. For example, the descent into Hades from Hercules in the Haunted World (1961).
Rabid Dogs (Kidnapped) / The X-Files – Drive
Rabid Dogs (1974) has a visual directness, a dry and gritty feel; such an episode as "Drive" shares a similar sensibility.
Lisa and The Devil / Millennium – Force Manjure
Bava was known for using bold, innovative camera angles. Aside from the beautiful composition of this shot of Telly Savalas in Lisa and the Devil (1973), one could see the same sensibility of low angle camera blocking in this Millennium episode with Brad Dourif. As a matter of fact, this shot would not be out of place in the film, Bay of Blood.
Hercules In the Haunted World / Planet of the Vampires / The X-Files – Fight The Future
The use of artificial color schemes in many of Bava’s films, through the use of colored gels in the lighting rig, the heavy use of green to create an otherworldly atmosphere, as demonstrated in Hercules in the Haunted World (1961) and Planet of the Vampires (1965), could be seen in the ending sequence of Fight The Future.
The X-Files – The Post Modern Prometheus / The Girl Who Knew Too Much
Often, it was not only in the lighting that helped to create a mood or flavor, but the compositional choices; the floral patterns in the window light from The Girl Who Knew Too Much added additional textures. This sequence from The X-Files’ "Post-Modern Prometheus" would not be too out of place in Bava’s film from 1962.
Black Sabbath (The Drop of Water) / The X-Files – Dod Kalm
Two stills: The Whip and the Body (1963) / Millennium – The Fourth Horseman
The use of colors to evoke a sense of isolation, especially blue, could be seen in the Drop of Water sequence from Bava’s masterpiece Black Sabbath (1963), the pulsating neon light through the window adding tension. Or the light from the decaying ship in The X-Files’ "Dod Kalm", or the isolation of Daliah Lavi, or the ghostly hand of Christopher Lee from The Whip and The Body (1963), as well as the quarantine segment from Millennium’s "The Fourth Horsemen."
While all of the above examples cannot cite proof of an influence, one could be left to speculate that a second or third generation influence impacted the choices of many of the cinematographers who worked on The X-Files or Millennium.
I would strongly recommend to not just rely on viewing clips of Bava’s work on YouTube, but to invest in many of the titles now available on DVD. Bava’s films have to be fully experienced. Anchor Bay has re-released a number of titles, including two box sets that feature the bulk if his important films. Volume 1 includes, Black Sunday, Black Sabbath, The Girl Who Knew Too Much, Knives of the Avenger, and Kill, Baby...Kill. Volume 2 includes, Four Times That Night, Five Dolls for An August Moon, Roy Colt & Winchester Jack, Bay of Blood, Baron Blood, both versions of Lisa and the Devil, and both versions of Rabid Dogs. Anchor Bay has also re-issued Erik The Conqueror. The quality of all of these packages is excellent. Fantoma has released an excellent DVD print of Hercules In The Haunted World. Paramount Video has re-issued an excellent copy of Danger: Diabolik. VCI Entertainment has issued excellent prints of The Whip and The Body, and Blood and Black Lace, packed with extras. MGM / Midnight Movies has a basic print of Planet of the Vampires still available. Blue Underground has re-issued Shock. Image Entertainment did have a sizable catalogue of Bava films available, before they were discontinued, and some of the titles can still be found.
Special thanks to Xscribe for her assistance. X-Files and Millennium still images courtesy of Chrisnu, Most stills from Bava films were primarily taken from this site, as well various sources.
It might not be much of a secret to people who have followed the work I do with The X-Files Lexicon, of my obsessional passion for Italian genre director Mario Bava. I regard Bava with rather high esteem, and his work reflects an example, a philosophy in action, of another favorite film director, who happens to have an exceptional intellect and fascinating mind, Nicholas Meyer, director of Star Trek II and VI, as well as the terrific genre film, Time After Time. Meyer has often argued that "art thrives on limitations," and I feel that this philosophy is equally demonstrated throughout The X-Files, Millennium, as well as the overall body of work of the Maestro himself, Bava.
Black Sunday (The Mask of Satan)
Since the time that I posted a thread on the Lexicon Forum recommending Bava websites, interest in that thread has remained high which just validates that others must share a curiosity about Bava’s work. While Italian genre directors Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci tend to be more celebrated, and were more commercially successful than the great director, Bava laid the groundwork that allowed for their later success. While I can’t argue that Bava’s visual sensibilities influenced the cinematographers that worked on The X-Files and Millennium, I can speculate that there was a second or third generation of influence.
The X-Files – Gender Bender
Having just made that point, I realize that comparisons could be made with any filmmaker. Chris Carter has cited Silence of the Lambs as an inspiration for the series, and of course, Tak Fujimoto’s visual sensibility in Demme’s classic cannot be ignored, but it becomes difficult to just gloss over or ignore, the visual sensibility and style of Bava’s work in subsequent film artists. No one creatively lives in a vacuum, and unconscious influences come into play.
About Mario Bava
Throughout his career, Bava embodied the philosophy of art thriving on limitations. He is now seen by many as the Italian Hitchcock of his generation. Mario Bava was born on July 30, 1914 in San Remo, Italy. He was the son of cinematographer and visual effects technician Eugenio Bava. The boy was so entrenched within the Italian film industry, and the influence of his father was so profound, that Mario gave up his initial desire to become a painter to pursue a career as a cinematographer. Bava started as an assistant, working alongside such cinematographers as Massimo Terzano and Jacquez Tourneur. Bava became a cinematographer in his own right by 1939. In 1956, after director Riccardo Freda left the project he was working on, I, Vampiri (The Devil’s Commandment), due to a dispute with the producers, Bava was forced to finish the film. Delivering the project on time and finished, Bava gained enough of a good reputation for saving pictures, that by the time Freda abandoned another project, 1959’s Caltiki, The Immortal Monster, Bava finished that film as well. It was during this period that Bava was the cinematographer of the Hercules films that starred Steve Reeves. Due to his impressive work, Galatea Films offered him to direct a film of his choice. That film, The Mask of Satan (Black Sunday) (1960), became of one the most groundbreaking debuts in the history of genre cinema, and made a star out of Barbara Steele. The film itself which was loosely inspired by Russian writer, Nikolai Gogol’s 19th Century short story, "Viy", was one of the most unique tales about vampirism and witchcraft ever produced. It demonstrated his mastery of filming in black and white, as well as crafting the template for the kind of period gothic horror films he was known for.
Yet Bava was never a one-note filmmaker. He followed Black Sunday with a pair of sword and sandal adventures, Hercules in the Haunted World with Christopher Lee, and Erik The Conqueror with Cameron Mitchell (1961). He then produced one of the first Giallo thrillers, The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1962), starring a young John Saxon. In 1963, Bava directed his horror anthology The Three Faces of Fear (Black Sabbath) with Boris Karloff in one segment. This film is often considered his next masterpiece, and considered one of the best anthologies produced. The lesser known The Whip and The Body is regarded as one of the most darkly romantic horror tales produced, a ghostly psychological tale that starred Christopher Lee as a sadistic aristocrat, tormenting the stunning Daliah Lavi. Lee’s character, Kurt, had been engaged to Nevenka (Lavi) but was cast out by the family, when his affairs and sadistic desires drove another girl to suicide. Kurt returns, along with his sadistic ways, until he is murdered by unseen forces. Nevenka is driven to madness by sightings of Kurt’s ghost which builds to its darkly ironic ending.
In 1964, Bava tackled his first Western, Road to Fort Alamo, and his next Giallo thriller Blood and Black Lace (Six Women for the Murderer), which set the template for future slasher films, yet the fundamental difference between this film, aside from a wonderful visual flare, is the fact that there’s a dark, ironic, fatalism that separates it from later fare. In 1965, Bava directed his first Science Fiction horror film, Planet of the Vampires (The Demon Planet), a film whose influence could be very much seen in the first half of Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979). 1966 was a very prolific year, seeing another Western produced, Savage Gringo, a comedy sequel, Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs, another sword and sandal adventure, Knives of the Avenger, which manages to be more reflective than his previous sword and sandal epics, as well as another gothic horror film that is regarded highly by Bava enthusiasts, Kill, Baby... Kill (Operation Fear), a film that even Martin Scorsese has cited as an influence. In 1967, Producer Dino De Laurentis brought in Bava to direct Diabolik (Danger: Diabolik), which was based on an Italian comic book, co-starring John Phillip Law and Marisa Mell, Adolfo Celi, and Terry Thomas, as well as the only time that Bava worked with composer Ennio Morricone. The film was released at the start of 1968. Many comic book enthusiasts regard the film as one of the best adaptations ever, in part due to Bava’s understanding as to why the comic book format works. Diabolik is an anti-hero, and technically a terrorist, and yet outwits the authorities throughout most of the film, and considered by many to be one of the most enjoyable films he directed.
The general consensus is that Bava’s work started to go into a gradual decline from this period onward, in part due to struggles with securing financial backers, as well as having to pander to the type of exploitation fare that was marketable. In 1969, Bava directed another Giallo thriller with a clever psychological twist, Hatchet for the Honeymoon, as well as a sex comedy with a Rashomon theme, Four Times That Night. In 1970, he tackled a comedy western Roy Colt & Winchester Jack, as well as another thriller, Five Dolls for an August Moon. 1971 saw a film that would have a great influence, Bay of Blood (Twist of the Death Nerve). Filmmakers Sean Cunningham and Steve Miner admitted borrowing heavily from Bava’s film for Friday the 13th and its sequel. Yet, in spite of the fact that the film featured some brutal murders, there was a dark irony and fatalism to the film that distinguished it from the usual slasher film, therefore the various characters committing the mayhem are driven to do so out of greed.
Bava went back to a gothic horror film in 1972 with Baron Blood, a somewhat tongue-in-cheek film that co-starred Joseph Cotton and Elke Sommer. That next year, due to the commercial success of Baron Blood, he produced one of his best films, Lisa and the Devil in 1973, a Euro art house film that starred Telly Salvalas, and again Elke Sommer in a film that played like an extended dream or nightmare. In what should have been a triumph for Bava turned into a humiliation when the film was re-cut and new footage added to pander to the Exorcism craze, with the inferior House of Exorcism. 1974 saw the production of Rabid Dogs (Kidnapped), a taut crime thriller whose sensibilities predate the work of Quentin Tarantino. The film is more grounded in reality than his previous work, with one of the most bitterly ironic statements about human nature he was to make throughout the body of his work, but the film ran into trouble when its financial backer died, and the film was put on hold, not to be fully realized until it finally saw the light of day in 1996. His last film, co-directed with his son Lamberto Bava, Shock in 1977, was another contemporary horror film touching on the same themes of The Whip and the Body. That involved an uneasy relationship between a mother and her very young son, and the death of the father who was a criminal. Mario Bava died on April 25, 1980 due to a heart attack, just after providing visual effects to his contemporary, Dario Argento, for the film Inferno.
Bava once commented about his work and what drives his interests:
"My fantasies are always horrible. For example, I love my young daughter more than anything else in the world, but when I dream of her it’s always frightening. Do you want to know what character is haunting my subconscious? A violinist who serenades the woman he loves by playing on the tendons of his arms. Everyday life works on my imagination. Just this morning I found a letter--still sealed--from a friend who has since died, written to me ten years ago. It was like receiving a letter from a dead person. What would you do in my place? I burned it..."
Bava’s films were often criticized for the artificial aspects of their visuals, and yet the ends did justify the means. Many critics missed the point; there was a dream-like, heightened reality to his best work. Due to his background as second generation filmmaker, he had such a profound understanding of the medium of his craft, and this could be no better illustrated than in the black and white photographic work of The Mask of Satan. Nearly all old school cinematographers understood that color registers differently in the emulsion of black and white photography. The old masters understood this and used it to their advantage. For example, the work of photographer Authur Edeson, and make-up artist Jack Pierce in Frankenstein (1931). For the ending sequence where Princess Asa tries to take the life-force of Katia, the effect of her rapid emaciation was done with special make-up and a light dimming switcher with different color gels, one of countless examples of his mastery, as well with using glass-mattes, cutouts, and miniatures to create photo realistic visuals.
For a long time Bava’s work was dismissed as exploitation fare, and it was due to the acknowledged influences on Bava from directors like Martin Scorsese, Joe Dante, and Quentin Tarantino, as well as the life long and tireless advocacy of critics like Tim Lucas and Troy Howarth, that his films have been reexamined. We will continue with examples of the Bava influence on The X-Files and Millennium.
To be continued...
Special thanks to Xscribe for her assistance. X-Files and Millennium still images courtesy of Chrisnu, Most stills from Bava films were primarily taken from this site, as well various sources, You Tube clips courtesy of Giantfish2, and Monster4josh.
Script review of unpublished Darin Morgan script for The Night Stalker – "The ‘M’ Word"
The seminal early 70s series, The Night Stalker, which had a profound impact on Chris Carter during his development of The X-Files, was a show that involved Carl Kolchak’s pursuits into the unknown, usually this involved a Monster of the week, To anyone who is unaware, Frank Spotnitz developed a new retooling of the series for ABC in 2005, that lasted only a half season unfortunately. The obligatory Monster was a major component of both versions of this series, and so it was inevitable that someone would tackle this conceit head on. That person would be none other than Darin Morgan.
One of the greatest misfortunes within the cancellation of Frank Spotnitz's take on the classic series that originally starred Darin McGavin, The Night Stalker, was the missed opportunity of seeing another Morgan script get produced. That script, "The 'M' Word", examines elements behind the mythology of the Monster. One of the more insightful comments that Robert Shearman offered in his interview was the following:
"I think that Darin Morgan is a brilliant iconoclast. I think that what Darin Morgan liked doing was sort of destroying stuff. He does it very, very well in Millennium actually. There's that great episode, Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense, but that's wonderful because actually, what it really does, it looks at Millennium: The series, and it holds up to the light and Darin Morgan points out everything that he thinks is wrong with it."
With this script, Darin took the same approach with The Night Stalker, held it up to the light and pointed out it's absurdities, as well as the absurdities in life. Yet, Morgan was not just riffing, out of disrespect, on the genres he satires, he has pointed out in past interviews that he is not intending to write satire, but like Mark Twain, he points out the ironies and tragedies found in many people’s lives.
The script begins with a full moon, a pair of stoned kids, on a mountain trail, are talking about Werewolves, when upon hearing a scream, they find a Park Ranger being attacked by something that can’t be described. After the creature escapes, the kids and the ranger discover a body that’s half devoured. Reed inquires to the ranger about what happened, who explains he was warning the victim about wandering the trails at night, before they are both attacked. Reed assumes it was a mountain Lion, but the pair of stoner kids insists that wasn’t the case. Enter in Carl Kolchak, who takes them at face value that something other than a mountain lion was responsible.
This begins one of the brilliant themes in the first couple of acts in the script, differing points of view about what was perceived, everyone describes the creature differently, again this Rashomon theme has played out before with The X-Files, “Bad Blood”, for example. Reed and Kolchak have an incredulous exchange before the stoners arrive at a description that what they saw was reptilian. While Reed is questioning the grieving mother, an older man observes Reed and Kolchak, while, muttering "Why?"
Already the script seems to be making a reference towards a phrase from Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space’ – "This is not happening!" Even the Sherriff is annoyed with Kolchak until they stumble on a lair in a secluded area that is piled with half eaten human remains. At the Beacon, Kolchak asks illustrator Whitley to sketch a description of the creature. Reed manages the assistance of a Beacon staffer with a contact for an animal expert, while Kolchak uses the same staffer to identify the creature sketch as something resembling a horny toad. The staffer further explains that these reptiles shoot blood out of their eye sockets as a form of defense. Then, Kolchak is dismissed by his editor, Vincenzo, about the monster story.
After the Monster has terrorized a hooker named Babycat, whom has escaped, Kolchak interviews her, Babycat adds that the Monster was wearing underwear. After another encounter with Vincenzo, Reed reveals evidence that personal effects were found with another victim, and that the monster is quite human after-all. Kolchak follows McManus to the result of another attack, here is where there is another example of Darin’s brilliant abilities as a writer in destroying the very structure of a show he is writing. During Kolchak’s monologue, there’s a montage of Kolchak and McManus walking through alley way’s, they stop at a hot dog stand, and the monologue stops as they eat, then continues when they walk, thus poking fun at the monologue technique of the series. McManus and Kolchak debate over if they can call this creature a monster, or if that work was already taken in Frankenstein, another post modern reexamining of pop culture. McManus suggests "Lizardo", which again harkens back to the circus freak / Barnum theme of "Humbug", or could be a nod to Chris Carter’s own “Mutato” from "The Post-Modern Prometheus" episode.
McManus and Kolchak find another body, and while taking pictures, give chase to the "Lizardo" suspect, they lose the creature, but it reaches McManus and sprays him with blood, after McManus collects himself they continue the chase to find a man in a port-a-potty, the same man who was mumbling "Why?", and he reveals himself to be Guy Mann. Back at the Beacon, they can’t identify anything in the roll of pictures they have taken, but the sequence deftly illustrates an aspect of what happens with people who read into anything concerning with photo evidence of the paranormal, seeing something that isn't there. Kolchak suggests to McManus to not wash the blood off of his soiled shirt, so that it can be analised for evidence. After an exchange of catch-up with Reed, they re-visit the Ranger with further questions, as well as to identify the character known as Guy Mann, at this point, normally this should be the red-herring to the reader of something amiss regarding the Ranger. Kolchak manages to "borrow" the Ranger's bloody shirt from the first attack.
After another police report, they visit the manager of a seedy hotel, with facial cuts and a destroyed room from the suspect they have been pursuing. The man is clearly upset about something, and there’s an exchange that has Darin’s typical ironic humor.
KOLCHAK: There was mention of a “Monster”?
MANAGER: He had the nerve to call me that, right before he conks me on the head with a chair. I only asked him to pay his bill. That makes me a monster?
KOLCHAK: Of course not.
MANAGER: Obviously. Now, please – go away, or I’ll kill you.
Kolchak heads to his car, but after finding a hotel room open, investigates, finds a pill bottle on a night table prescribed to “Guy Mann” from a Dr. Rumanovich. It’s hard to say if this is a word play on Rumination, but this character does just that, as he explains to Kolchak, one of countless Dragon slaying mythologies, and points out to Kolchak that it is easier to believe in monsters, then to believe monsters are within us, in a later scene. Kolchak finds a crawlspace in the hotel that leads him back to the manager’s office, Kolchak manipulates the manager into telling his story, of finding this lizard like creature residing in one of his rooms, who sees the thing transform into Guy Mann.
Reed finds “Lizardo”, Guy at a Monster Donut, which Kolchak races to, only to find Guy has escaped again, after trashing the shop. She also reveals that the police have just arrested the murderer. Kolchak finds Guy Mann at a cemetery, studying a sculpture of Saint George slaying the Dragon. Guy asks Kolchak “Why?” in a touching scene.
KOLCHAK: Why?
GUY: Because I don’t understand, We go through all of the drudgery and heartbreak in life…just to end up here?
KOLCHAK: It doesn’t seem to make much sense, does it?
GUY: It doesn’t make any sense, nothing will ever make sense to me again.
Guy reveals he learned a few days earlier that everyone dies. This is where the story takes a brilliant 90 degree turn, and twists the monster mythology, as well as a reverse of the Werewolf origin. After a failed attempt by Guy to try and have Kolchak kill him, in the fabled manner of Saint George, Guy explains that his natural state is as a giant horned lizard, but he was attacked by a human, and bitten several days earlier, he was attacked by the Park Ranger, who has been responsible for the, what could only be described as psychotic cannibal attacks, terrible murders. That these transformations are not only physical but mental as well, Guy becomes self-aware and Guy has been appalled at the state of being human.
The character is baffled by clothing, or having a job, which he manages to secure a job through B.S., or feelings of lust, or infatuation, in this case the hooker, Babycat, who in actuality is a Transvestite, as well as Guy explaining his version on the assault of the hotel manager.
Daily, mundane things we take for granted, Guy looks at with horror.
Guy even wants to take revenge on the person who did this to him, which he realizes isn’t healthy, and which is why he went to Dr. Rumanovich, but the doctor offered no solutions. When Guy does find the Park ranger, it is to his horror that he sees another attack. Noting that the attack by a human was far more savage than anything he’s witnessed by his fellow animal companions.
The Script offers several clever twists, and while I won’t elaborate on the final, it manages to have us reexamine our assumptions. While I can’t say “The ‘M’ Word” is completely on par with Darin’s other X-Files and Millennium opus’s, it does have countless moments of brilliance. You can download a PDF file of the script from the interactive material on The Night Stalker: Complete Series DVD.
To close, from the reoccurring gag line: "Did it have one eye, or three?"
A review of Robert Shearman’s critical guide to The X-Files, by Matt Allair
Episode guides, as well as reviews, seem to be a common aspect of fandom, as well as the product made available to fans. Why we are drawn to this material is an interesting question to ponder; it might have to with this desire to connect with others, and this search for validation, to seek a confirmation that others share the same opinion about any given episode. Perhaps it has to do with gauging others’ reaction to collectively shared material, and perhaps that by gauging that reaction, it confirms our own thoughts about specific episodes. That’s one of the reasons why such a site like The X-Files Lexicon was created. Whatever the case, there seems to be a continuing market for product that deals with analysis and criticism. Robert Shearman has aimed to appeal to such a market with his newest book and first piece of work critiquing a series he wasn’t directly involved with: "Wanting to Believe: a critical guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen," published by Mad Norwegian Press.
The trend of established authors writing critical pieces is nothing new of course, and this also applies to reviews of genres. Stephen King wrote his critical work Danse Macabre at the start of the 80s, and then there is H.P. Lovecraft’s famous piece, Supernatural Horror in Literature. In a sense, Robert Shearman is following in that tradition by honoring his attention to the productions of Chris Carter. The book is unauthorized, and Mr. Shearman had no connection with anyone from Twentieth-century Fox and Ten-Thirteen productions, which naturally allowed him an objective freedom to access the shows and episodes on their own merits. The book is structured in a chronological order based on air date. In other words, Seasons one through four of The X-Files is reviewed, and then season one of Millennium, season five of The X-Files and then the second season of Millennium, then The X-Files feature, and so on…The intent of doing this seems to be to lay out the progression of the shows in the order in which they were produced by Ten-Thirteen Productions during this period.
The book is laid out, after a very personable introduction that really captures the anticipation that was building up, prior to the release of the film, "I Want To Believe," with a brief synopsis of the episodes for both shows, as well as synopsis of the X-Files films, written by Lars Pearson, and then a critique from Mr. Shearman. The usual information of the writer, director, and air date is provided, however, from a technical standpoint, this is my biggest complaint about the book, as I would have preferred the inclusion of each episode’s editor and cinematographer, as I have always felt that those technical areas were equally as important in shaping key aspects for both The X-Files, and Millennium, as were the writers and directors that told the stories.
This brings us to the most fundamental point about this book, the critiques. Do they achieve their intended aim and are they engrossing to read? The answer is yes. While I personally might fundamentally disagree with some of the critiques, and I do, that is beside the point. Critiques are objective, after all. It is Mr. Shearman’s prose style, his sense of humor, as well as a kind of lightness to his writing, that approaches the reader in a way that is relatable and that manages to not condensed to the reader, even when he is being scathing about his lowest review markings of episodes. While he is candid, he doesn’t strike me as malicious, and he does clarify his arguments frequently.
I should obviously concede a point that some might raise--if this judgment is based on the merits of the book or colored by an awareness of his high regard within the British critical community? My reaction is based on the fact that it is a well written, engaging, and entertaining read, which fans might enjoy, or appreciate, even in cases where they don’t necessarily agree with every critique. I hope that his forthrightness will not a stumbling block for which to give fans to a fair opportunity to judge “Wanting To Believe” on their own, as many might find the book quite valuable as a casual resource.
A recommended read.
Special Thank you to XScribe for editing this piece.
Last January, I wrote a piece warning about taking photo and video documentation at face value. To reiterate, for Ufologists, or believers in the Paranormal, or alternative theories, should allow a degree of skepticism, in any visual documentation – again, "Seeing is Believing" isn’t often true or prudent.
The following photograph is interesting, isn't it? A friend from Oregon might have taken this picture.
Recently, I took the following video on a fairly early morning.
Strange, and a little creepy, indeed.
Let’s go back to that photo…
I have to confess, I created this photo as a fabrication, while the sources were from other UFO images, this was created using Photoshop and Illustrator. Special thank you must go out to BJ Booth, for his gracious permission.
And while I did indeed take the video, it was on a stormy day, with heavy winds that were pounding the window’s of an apartment above me, and during a moment when the sun had broken out to cast a light reflection on the adjacent window. The light reflection throbbed, a hint of a human shape could be seen. But I have a very talented, old friend named Mark Solario, adept with such film software as After Effects and Final Cut, who manipulated the image to make an otherwise mundane image look paranormal.
There was a time, in the early history of UFO and Paranormal documentation, up through the 70s where it was more difficult to create Hoaxes, but with the advent of photo-realistic digital technology in the 90s, as illustrated above, it is all too easy to pull from sources and create any scenario.
Which brings us to the event in Norway last December 2009, the photos and videos, I admit, looked strange, and while I have doubts it was a failed Russian rocket test, as some have claimed, I also have been left wondering if this was an artificial event?
While this clearly doesn’t qualify as sharing any similarities to the manufactured photo and video I illustrated above, as there were countless video and film documentations of the event from various locations in that region, My first thought, my first impression, the actual image reminded me of the Spiral Galaxy animations that could be found at a Planetarium / Lazarium.
Could this have been an image projected into the Nordic skies, using a powerful Lazar Holographic projection system? If this was a staged hoax, it was a rather expensive one, as such a projection systems, from what I understand, and even if they exist, are cost prohibitive. Then there is the question as to why someone would stage something so elaborate without it being connected to some promotion campaign? I can’t say, perhaps to remind people that there is more to this planet than we have been conditioned to accept.
To those who do want to believe, the best advice is to not believe so fervently that you become blind to the fact when something isn’t there. Or to paraphrase Mr. Sherlock Holmes: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
Ultimately, finding the truth, that should the aim of such a journey.
Special thank you must go to BJ Booth for his permission of using the following photoshere and herefrom his site.
A great thank you must go to Mark Solario for his incredible work in the production of that video clip. If you are interested Mark’s other work, you can reach him at the following E-mail: marksolario@me.com
Spiral Norway UFO image pulled from Chris Knowles' Secret Sun Blog site.
Understanding Synchromysticism
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