I was watching Guillermo Del Toro’s director’s commentary of Pan’s Labyrinth the other night and learned that he conceived of Pan’s Labyrinth as a companion piece to his 2001 film, The Devil’s Backbone. While it’s hard not to like that combination, I’m intrigued by another pairing: Pan’s Labyrinth, set in 1944 and made in 2006, about a young girl who escapes the brutality of her time through imagination, and Spirit of the Beehive, set in 1940 and made in 1973 during the waning days of Franco’s dictatorship, about a young girl whose imagination is informed by the brutality of her time. (Yes, I know, I've written about Spirit of the Beehive before, and this probably won't be the last time; you'll just have to indulge me.) Spirit of the Beehive, out of necessity, is all subtlety and poetry, two things that often elude or confound censors. There is no mention of fascism and the bad guys are a presence, but hardly present. Pan’s Labyrinth has its own poetry and subtlety, to be sure, but Del Toro didn't have to worry about incurring the wrath of Spain's Frankenstein Monster; the fascists are very present and working their evil with gruesome, eye-averting abandon. Seen together, it almost seems like Spirit of the Beehive has been censored, and the censored bits wound up in Pan’s Labyrinth. If I were some kind of mash-up expert, I’d try my hand at merging the two.
How about Annie Hall (1977)and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)? While I was watching Vicky Cristina Barcelona I thought, I'm watching Woody Allen channel Pedro Almodovar, and so the temptation would be to pair up those auteurs. But I think it would be more interesting to do the old comparing and contrasting of what I think of as Allen's first truly great film with what I think of as his most recent great film. (For many of you, he never left, but for me, he did, and for a really long time.) Though I am all for curated, extensive retrospectives that allow one to chart an artist's career, I think it's also interesting to make giant leaps in time and space and let one's imagination and faulty memory plot that artist's course. What were the first signs that Allen would leave New York City for jaunts in Europe? How have Allen's characters, usually similar from one film to the next, morphed in the last 30 years?
And because the rule of three cannot be ignored, what say you to Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922) and Shadow of the Vampire (2000). The former a very creepy silent horror film, the latter, the imagined making of, and loving homage to, that very creepy silent horror film. Both contain scenes burned into my memory. Shadow of the Vampire has two LARGE performances, Willem Dafoe as Max Schrek, and John Malkovich as his director-nemesis F.W. Murnau. This is an actor-director relationship like no other--Murnau endulges his vampire star but begins to object to his behavior only when he starts drinking the blood of his crew.
Malkovich, ever-reliable for at least one over the top freak out per film, delivers several, including probably my favorite in his oeuvre. The camera rolls and Murnau directs Schrek, talking him through his death scene. The following dialogue alone will not do it justice, you must imagine Malkovich doing his ramp up: "You start to die, alone, in anguish. Die, you, you fucking rat bastard vampire pig schwinehund shit! Yes! Die! Alone! Yes! The weight of the centuries bends you!" (And then he abruptly composes himself: "And... cut.") These two films seem to have a symbiotic relationship; when I watch Shadow of the Vampire it conjures images of Nosferatu, of Schrek rising stiff as a plank from a reclined position, of the sail boat crossing the sea and arriving in the port filled with nothing but rats and dead bodies, of the shadow ascending the staircase. When I watch Nosferatu I imagine what Schrek must have been like off set (did he, like Lugosi, occasionally remain in costume and make up after shooting?), of the cinematic vibrancy and decadence that was the German film industry in the 20s, of a director doing anything to realize his vision, the stuff of Shadow of the Vampire.
Of course these double features need not be a fantasy at all; I can get them all on DVD and watch them in my home with a greasy bag of microwave popcorn on my lap. But true to form, I want to see fresh prints of these playing at a wonderful venue like the Walter Reade Theater, I want a giant screen and giant sound and freshly popped popcorn.
What’s your double feature fantasy?
