Spirits of The Dead

Anyone seen this? What wa your fovorite segement?

I personally like Louis Malle’s with Alain Delon. Didn’t care for Vadim’s or Fellini’s

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I love the Malle segment as well, but I’m very biased as I love everything the man ever did.

Some people consider this to be some of Fellini’s finest work. A bold statement, to be sure, but not without reason.

“Toby Dammit” us an absolutel masterpeice. Easuily Fellini’s third best film (after “8 1/2” and “La Dolce Vita”)

The Malle and Vadim segments are entertaining but they’re not in the sameclass at all.

Yes, I’ve heard good things about Toby

the Vadim is insufferable, the Malle is entertaining, the Fellini is pure genius — some of the best work he’s done.

Fellini provides his trademark circus atmosphere through a cavalcade of bizarre images and movie gargoyles. Italian style circa 1967 was distinctly clean and modern; yet in much of his work Fellini arranges for automobiles, appliances, clothes, and even people to look like they were dreamed up by Lewis Carroll and designed by Salvador Dali. I wish there were more moments like the bravura opening sequence for Terence Stamp’s arrival at the Rome airport. At one terminal gate a group of nuns struggle with their luggage against a fierce gale, while at another Muslims serenely bow toward Mecca as the wind gathers strength (this takes place indoors, mind you). As for the bewildering, image-rich limousine drive through Rome, during which producers discuss the symbology of the passion play set in the American Wild West—well, you just have to be there. These ultra-hip shenanigans are bizarre enough, but a wigged-out score by Nino Rota lends an other-worldy touch as well. This should be a real wild party, but Stamp’s drunken, death-obsessed character finds a way to bring everyone down. That may explain why so much of the film is shot through orange and red filters, which apparently conveys that the protagonist has in fact arrived in hell. I still had the impression that the afternoon sun simply parked itself on the horizon indefinitely, lending to each moment the warm glow of honey. La dolce vita, no doubt, even if no one seems to be having much fun.

All these directors and talent dabbling in kinky horror is an endeavor imaginable only in swinging-‘60s Europe, where exploitation films were temporarily honored with dubious high art/literary pretensions. There was the additional affectation of hipness and decadent chic, to the extent that Luis Bunuel, Jess Franco, Roman Polanski, and a slew of long-forgotten Hollywood hipsters were making Spain and Italy their playgrounds. Apart from offering huge savings on production costs, leaping around the continent allowed producers to elude censors and the Catholic church (another perk was the opportunity to tune in and turn on with jet-set Euro trash, rock stars, and gorgeous women). The trend lasted well into the next decade, the result being a canon of cult films such as Venus in Furs, The Wicker Man, Belle du Jour, Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, The Mephisto Waltz, and The Devils, along with countless other films having to do with occultism, necromancy, and lesbian vampires. So I guess we needed this picture to have been made.