When I was about eight years old I saw a film called Manster (1959) on TV. This film, sort of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde affair, scared the bejesus out of me. One image in particular burned itself deep into my consciousness. Our hero, who is given an experimental drug by a mad scientist, undergoes some serious changes. In fact, he grows another head, a seriously ugly head, but before the head sprouts out of his shoulder, an eye appears. Here is the image:
When I discovered it on Netflix, I was excited to see it again. I knew it wouldn’t be great, but I wanted to know why this film had made such an impact. (I am not alone. it seems to have affected Sam Raimi a bit, too, since he paid homage to it in Army of Darkness. Not surprisingly, Sam and I are about the same age.)
I watched it and it was awful. It has acquired something of a cult following, and that’s understandable. But awful as it is, its duality theme resonated, and still does. I think too I was attracted to the exotic nature of this film, even then. It has a Hollywood, b-movie aesthetic but it’s set in Japan and most of the cast are Japanese actors speaking halting English. It’s also very weird, and I’ve always been attracted to weird. Still, even now, even after the scales of my childhood memory have been lifted, I am fond of Manster. I would love to see it remade. In fact, I would love to be the one to remake it. As I said, it made something of an impact.
About thirty years later I sat down to watch Ross McElwee’s Sherman’s March (1986). In case you don’t know about this film, Sherman’s March is the grand daddy of the personal essay documentary, and so has a lot to answer for. But let’s try not to judge it because of that. In it, McElwee, who was given money to make a film about the lingering affects of William Tecumseh Sherman’s destructive sweep through the South, can’t quite seem to make that film and so instead makes one about his ex-girlfriends and his recurring nightmare of a nuclear holocaust. When I first saw it in 1999 I was coming out of relationship I had been in for 13 years and I thought this film was the most self-indulgent piece of do-do I had ever seen. For some reason I decided to watch it again recently and this time I thought it was absolutely brilliant. Funny, sad, charming, insightful,romantic, and scary all at the same time. It might be a little long, but I can overlook that.
Clearly then, what I’ve done or seen in my past and where I am in my life at the moment greatly affects my response to any film I see. This isn’t a groundbreaking insight, I know. As I often confess here, I am not a professional critic, and maybe this is why. But it makes me wonder, are professional critics capable of not letting their pasts, their memories, their lives, their biases influence their judgement of a piece of art? And wouldn’t that be kind of inhuman?
Now the fun part. What films did you once hate but now love, or once loved but now make you scratch your head and say, "What was I thinking?"
David Licata will be on E.C. hiatus until October. Please don’t forget him.