Roger Corman

Wprowadzenie do pop psychedelii - hybrydy sztuki, mody i marketingu, która stała się popularna pod koniec lat 60. na skutek absorpcji kultury psychedelicznej przez mainstream. Omówienie reprezentacji w filmie autorskim, filmie gatunkowym, kinie eksploatacji, muzyce i reklamie.

During the 1960s Roger Corman produced a series of adaptations based on the literature of Edgar Allan Poe, known commonly as his Poe cycle. They were B-films but they were also prestige pictures, flagship films for production company American International Pictures. This article argues that Corman embarked upon a renewal of Poe's literary influence through creative mistranslation and examines two of Corman's films. The Fall of the House of Usher (1960) signifies the "best" and "worst" of this series. The first of the cycle, it set a tone that was emulated by all the films to follow. The Terror (1963), a so-called honorary member of the cycle, has not had the deserved theoretical or critical attention, especially in studies of adaptation in the cinema and questions of translation, transmutation, and transfiguration. The Terror, in fact, might represent one of Corman's most enduring contributions to filmic art.

5000 word essay in: W. Hughes, D. Punter & A. Smith eds, Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of the Gothic 2 vols. (London: Wiley-Blackwell 2012). (Other entries: David Cronenberg; Hammer Films; W.H. Ainsworth; Thomas De Quincey; John Polidori; Regency Tales of Terror; Monster Movies; Richard Matheson.) This is an historical overview of the form from early European and American silent adaptations of Gothic novels and Victorian theatre to the hyper-real twenty-first century Hollywood product, via Expressionism, Universal Studios, Hammer Films, Mario Bava, and Roger Corman’s ‘Poe Cycle’ for American International. The full entry includes close readings of Robert Weine’s influential and often imitated Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920), F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922), and James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein (1935). The paper also considers period revivals such as Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein by Kenneth Branagh (1994), as well as more contemporary Gothic film, in particular the current trend for franchised vampires. I conclude that the synergy of the literary gothic, stage melodrama, and Expressionism that characterises Gothic film now finds its purest form in the films of Tim Burton and Guillermo del Toro.

At 91 years of age, Roger Corman has been called everything from the King of the Bs to the Pope of Pop Culture, has had a career spanning seven decades and has made over 400 films. Known primarily for exploitation fare, Corman’s output has been so prolific and diverse that his films are seen as not only alternative to Hollywood, but alternative to other exploitation pictures. There is a real art to his frequently experimental, often surreal, sometimes literary films, which has led many to now regard him as a serious auteur. This series of films will demonstrate not only Corman’s alternative streak as a director, producer and distributor, but also his outstanding contribution to the American film industry.

Aus: Thomas Hecken / Marcus S. Kleiner (Hrsg.): Handbuch Popkultur, Metzler Verlag Stuttgart 2017, S. 147-152

48. B-Movie Unter einem B-Movie versteht man heute einen günstig produzierten Film (low budget), der meist in Genrefilmkontexten vermarktet wird. Ursprünglich war dessen Funktion wesentlich klarer definiert, denn in Hollywoods Studioära der 1930er bis 1950er Jahre wurde ein B-Movie meist gepaart mit einem A-Movie als Double-Feature im Kino gezeigt. Obwohl dieses Phänomen, das als "second feature" bekannt war, schon Ende der 1950er Jahre aus der Mode kam, konnte sich das Phänomen weiter behaupten: In Form von billig produzierten Genrefilmen, reißerischen Exploitationfilmen oder anzüglichen Komödien produzierten einige Studios fleißig solche Werke für Drive-In-Kinos, Dollars-Houses und Grindhouse-Kinos. Daraus entstand eine spezifische B-Movie-Ästhetik, die den heutigen Kult um die B-Movies erklären mag. Die Geschichte des amerikanischen Genrekinos ist eng mit den B-Movies verknüpft, denn oft dienten einfach inszenierte Western und Kriminalfilme, später auch Science-Fiction-und Horrorfilme als ‚second feature'. Gerade im Western ließen sich B-Movie-Stars etablieren, die einen spezifischen Protagonisten über mehrere Filme hinweg verköperten (Tom Mix, der junge John Wayne). Der Ausdruck ‚B-Movie' signalisierte dabei nicht nur das gingere Budget, sondern auch den geringeren Werbeaufwand sowie meist auch die Ignoranz der Filmkritik diesen als marginal betrachteten Werken gegenüber. Im heutigen Sprachgebrauch ist der Begriff ‚B-Movie' ambivalent. Einerseits kann er noch immer abwertend auf die billige Machart und künstlerische Bedeutungslosigkeit eines Films verweisen, andererseits hat sich geradezu ein Kult um die B-Movies seit den 1930er Jahren gebildet, der betont, wie unabhängig diese Filme oft von den Anforderungen des Mainstreamkinos (A-Movies) entstehen konnten. Vor allem die Genrefilmforschung hat den Fokus auf die seriell produzierten B-Movies gerichtet, weil sich hier auf unverfälschte Weise die Mechanismen des generischen Kinos herausbilden konnten und dokumentieren lassen. Dabei gibt es durchaus Überschneidungen zum Phänomen des Indepentent Cinema (unabhängig von den großen Studios produzierte Filme) und zum Autorenfilm, denn zahlreiche spätere populäre Kultregisseure (Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese) begannen einst im B-Movie oder ziehen noch heute ihre Inspiration aus B-Movie-Klassikern (Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez).

The mid-1950s were eager for a Gothic revival. The cycle of Science Fiction creature features was petering out, increasingly the province of no-budget off-Hollywood productions. Audiences and critics were nostalgic not just for horror films, but for an older style of horror–and, crucially, the production values–that they associated with Universal in the 1930s. Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931), Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931), et al. had, after highly successful re-releases in the late 1930s, remained in semi-regular circulation and stayed at the forefront of the public imagination, but Universal had long since ceased producing monster classics, and Abbot & Costello were as prominent in the studio’s monster productions of the 1950s as were any of the iconic creatures. Hammer Film Productions’ Curse of Frankenstein (Terence Fisher, 1957) arrived at precisely the right moment to inaugurate what is often thought of as the last great Gothic horror revival, including a decade-plus of Hammer horror films and films by Roger Corman in the United States and by Mario Bava, Riccardo Fredo, and Antonio Margheriti in Italy, but also 1957’s enormously successful ‘Shock!’ (and, then, in 1958, ‘Son of Shock’) packages that brought hundreds of horror films to American television audiences. This television revival also ensured that no critic or fan in the U.S. could fail to compare Curse or Horror of Dracula (Terence Fisher, 1958) with their Universal forerunners. Hammer’s films to an extent depended on those associations, beginning their horror output by re-imagining Frankenstein and Dracula, with an official collaboration with Universal–on a remake of The Mummy–not far behind.

Recent discussions of ‘paracinema’ have highlighted the re-appraisal of so-called ‘cinematic trash’. This article addresses the theme of ‘badfilm’ by contrasting films from two of the most well-known purveyors of ‘cinematic trash’: Roger Corman’s X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes (1963) and John Carpenter’s They Live (1988). In X, a scientist develops X-ray vision, seeing into the fourth dimension and witnessing something so shocking he rips his eyes out. This act is analogous with Corman’s career as purveyor of trash cinema: refraining from pushing badfilm’s power to the absolute limit; foregoing the gift of ‘second sight’; and content to exist on a marginalized, second-tier, parallel reality to the Hollywood mainstream. In They Live, Carpenter re- empowers the thesis: the hero stumbles on a secret society that has developed sunglasses to see through the real to the alien-generated subliminal messages in advertising and politics. Rather than withdrawal, Carpenter’s hero declares: ‘I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass – and I’m all out of bubblegum.’ Unabashed, glorying in his outsider status, Carpenter reappropriates Hollywood values in a cheap ‘bubblegum’ universe, deploying trash culture as a smart bomb that aims to prise apart not only cinematic convention but also reality itself. Ultimately, both films, in very different historical specificities, offer up the B-movie as a response to the gathering global and economic forces of late capitalism, signified by what Slavoj Zizek identifies as the ‘ideological state apparatus’ of the Hollywood movie-making machine.

Artykuł nt. wzajemnych wpływów amerykańskiego kina eksploatacji i kina autorskiego. Tekst objaśnia m.in. wpływ okultyzmu Aleistera Crowleya na kino eksperymentalne Kennetha Angera, które "zapowiedziało" pojawienie się niskobudżetowych filmów motocyklowych lat 60., które były z kolei bezpośrednią inspiracją dla "Easy Ridera", czyli sztandarowego dzieła Nowego Hollywood.

Luźny esej filmowy, poruszający temat renesansu kina eksploatacji (exploitation revival), obnażający bezradność polskich krytyków wobec tych dzieł i tłumaczący powody, dla których "tradycyjne" kategorie filmoznawcze są nieadekwatne do ich analizy.

Lo scopo di questa tesi è di presentare una panoramica dei vari genere horror negli Stati Uniti a partire dagli anni Cinquanta tramite la figura del regista e produttore Roger Corman. Il periodo preso in esame coincide infatti con l'inizio della carriera di Corman, prima come produttore nel 1 954 e solo l'anno dopo il debutto alla regia con il western Five Guns West (1955), coprendo un breve arco temporale dei film di genere horror diretti dalla seconda metà degli anni Cinquanta fino ai primi anni Sessanta.

Como os demais gêneros cinematográficos, o horror mantém fortes relações com a história da arte. São diversos os filmes que, por exemplo, apresentam releituras de obras, fazem uso de citações plásticas ou mesmo utilizam-se da própria obra de arte como um mecanismo de propagação do medo. Uma forma em particular, não menos importante que as anteriores, parece se destacar e mesclar, talvez de forma mais interessante, essa relação entre medo e arte: a utilização de vítimas na composição do objeto artístico. Tópico caro à literatura de horror, a imagem do “artista louco” passou a ser trabalhado com maior força nos anos de 1950 e 60 pelo cinema e a televisão. Tal tópico não é, contudo, explorado de forma caricata ou desinteressante. Trata-se de produções culturais intrinsecamente relacionadas a seu momento histórico e aos manifestos artísticos de sua época. No que se refere à representação da pintura, por exemplo, vale destacar algumas dessas produções. O longa-metragem de Jack Hill, Blood Bath (1966) mantém forte correspondência com a série Tirage de Niki de Saint Phalle. O ato de macular a pintura acabada com o uso do revólver, alude à performance da artista, realizada poucos anos antes, em 1961. Para além das relações diretas com obras ou artistas, outro tópico aparece em algumas produções: o uso do sangue como componente da pintura ou dos corpos mutilados ao gosto do realizador em detrimento da obra final, como podemos identificar em Color Me Blood Red (Herschell Gordon Lewis, 1965), no episódio “Easel Kill Ya” (3ª temporada, episódio 08) da série Tales From the Crypt (1989-1996) ou ainda em Anamorph (Henry Miller, 2007). Vemos, com esses filmes uma crescente inserção da vítima na obra de arte. De modelos póstumos flagelados, o artista passa a incorporar a vítima fisicamente, através do uso do sangue. Contudo, é no âmbito da escultura que a presença física se faz por completo, através do uso dos corpos como base estrutural e estética da composição escultórica. Como podemos observar em A Bucket of Blood (Roger Corman, 1959), House of Wax (André de Toth, 1953), Môjû (Masumura Yasuzô, 1969), Il mulino delle donne di pietra (Giorgio Ferroni, 1960), House of 1000 corpses (Rob Zombie, 2003) e Sculpture (Pete Jacelone, 2009). Esta proposta de comunicação tem o intuito de apresentar, portanto, alguns exemplos no cinema e na televisão, nos quais a imagem do artista assassino se faz presente e a partir disso, compreender tais produções em diálogo com a História da Arte.

La trayectoria cinematográfica de Roger Corman ha estado sistemáticamente reducida a los condicionantes industriales del marco en el que se desarrolló: las producciones de bajo presupuesto, obviando, con ello, el apasionante sustrato de su cine tanto en lo que se refiere a la reformulación de géneros como a las numerosas lecturas que se integran en la mayoría de sus obras. A pesar de la reivindicación de la que es objeto en estas últimas décadas y al prestigio que acumula, sobre todo, su ciclo de adaptaciones de Edgar Allan Poe, su figura todavía se halla excesivamente simplificada debido a que el análisis de su cine se ha ceñido casi siempre a lo anecdótico. ‘Roger Corman. Poe, monstruos y extraterrestres’ pretende cubrir este vacío analizando minuciosamente cada uno de sus filmes como director, a través de los cuales se observan las constantes variaciones del cine estadounidense en un periodo clave para su desarrollo y el despuntar de nombres tan importantes para el mismo como Francis F. Coppola, Jack Nicholson o Peter Bogdanovich, quienes dieron sus primeros pasos bajo el auspicio de Corman.