Context plays an important role in what you consume. A book might hit harder if brought into the
context of the time when it was written.
A television show could depend upon news and headlines from the time of
its airing. A movie might need to be
seen within a filmography of other movies to be understood. Context is important in each of these
situations. Without proper context, you
do a disservice to the movie and yourself.
That’s how I feel this week, since context is such an important part of
the movie I watched.
A Cat in the Brain,
also known as Nightmare Concert, is a
1990 movie directed by Lucio Fulci that was a culmination of his filmography. Having never seen a Lucio Fulci movie before A Cat in the Brain, I wasn’t as
understanding of the meta concepts as I could have been. I took the movie at face value, watching what
was presented to me instead of having the history of Fulci affecting my
viewing. The movie could have been more
effective with that history to back it up.
Lucio Fulci played himself in A Cat in the Brain. As he
was working on a new splatter horror movie, he began experiencing PTSD. He wasn’t able to eat meat because of the
mutilated bodies in his movie. When a
yardworker at his home was using a chainsaw similar to one in a scene he had
been shooting, his mind snapped and he attacked paint cans. Fulci saw a therapist who used hypnotherapy
to help him. Only, it didn’t help him at
all. The hypnotherapy made him the lead
suspect in a series of murders that were occurring in the local area. He was experiencing events that seemed straight
from his own movies.
This isn’t the first time that I’ve covered a movie where a
director played a part in the narrative.
This has happened a couple times before and I think this post would be
the perfect place to discuss this story element. The examples that follow have a meta bent that
allowed the director to come into the movie playing themselves. They partially made fun of their own
tendencies. But they were also trying to
tell a story that would be entertaining.
It’s not always successful, as some examples show. They’re all interesting insertions of the
artist into the art, though, and they are worth noting.
30 Nights of
Paranormal Activity with the Devil Inside the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
This was covered for week 10 of the Sunday “Bad” Movies. It has been a long time. I still have a hatred for it crawling under
my skin when it is brought up in a post or in conversation. It was one of the worst, most groan inducing experiences
I’ve had. None of the jokes worked. Most would have been on a negative scale of
comedy, actively taking away from any joy mined out of the concept. It was a horrendous mess that didn’t know
what it wanted to do.
The reason that 30
Nights of Paranormal Activity with the Devil Inside the Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo gets into this post is because of a scene in which they broke the
fourth wall. When one of the characters
was attacked, he stumbled through the house.
He ended up in the kitchen where the director and crew were behind their
monitors. The victim asked who they were
and what they were doing. They said that
they were directing a movie. It was a
small unfunny joke in a movie filled with unfunny jokes.
The Human Centipede
III (Final Sequence)
When I wrote about The
Human Centipede franchise for week 180, I discussed the ways that the
sequels delved into meta humour. The
second movie had the first movie exist within it. Not the story. The actual movie existed. When the third movie was made, the first two
were movies within the world of the third movie. The characters in The Human Centipede III (Final Sequence) watched The Human Centipede (First Sequence) and
The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence).
The second movie paved the way by having the first movie
exist. It also brought one of the
actresses back to the franchise, this time playing herself. It was a hint at what would come in the third
installment. The Human Centipede III (Final Sequence) saw many actors return
from earlier in the franchise. There
were hints made to them looking like characters in the movies. When the entire prison population watched The Human Centipede movies, they made
comments that were ripped from negative reviews. Yet the biggest meta moment was when Tom Six
was brought into the movie playing himself.
The whole idea behind The
Human Centipede III (Final Sequence) was to have the population of the
prison sewn together, ass to mouth. The
prison warden, played by Dieter Laser from the first movie, wanted to have
every prisoner sewn together because they would better obey him. He asked director Tom Six to be a consultant
so that they could get every detail of the procedure as accurate as
possible. Tom Six played Tom Six, the
director of The Human Centipede movies,
who was consulting on a human centipede procedure because of the experience he
had making the movies. He was a sizeable
part of the story, having an effect upon what happened in the prison.
A Cat in the Brain
That brings us to the third and final movie that I’m going
to discuss in this week’s post. A Cat in the Brain, as I’ve already
said, was the culmination of Lucio Fulci’s career. It took the type of movies that he was known
for and flipped them on their head by having him involved in that kind of story. He was making the types of movies that hewais
known for, but he was also living through them.
It was an intriguing concept that would have landed better if I was more
acquainted with his filmography.
Even having not seen any Lucio Fulci movies prior to A Cat in the Brain, I still enjoyed the story. Because it was so like Fulci’s movies, it was
sometimes difficult to determine what was happening and what wasn’t. You were going along with the director as his
mind spiraled from his work. Though the
audience knew who the real killer was, the movie was so focused on Fulci’s mind
that it blurred the lines between reality and fantasy. He was going slowly insane and we watched
every moment.
Some directors are fully aware of their style and tendencies
to the point that they poke fun at it.
That is what Lucio Fulci did with A
Cat in the Brain. He made his style
the story. Many tropes from Lucio Fulci
movies (which I know through hearing about them, or actual references in the
movie) were present. The entire movie
was his look back on his own career and all the tendencies associated with
it. It was a good fictional story about
his career. I hope to watch it again in
the future after seeing more of his movies.
Perhaps that will make it even better.
One of the joys of movies is taking a look at the past and using
it to make more art. Few stories are
original anymore, and it’s the way that the stories are told that is the original
quality. Great artists know this and are
able to play into it. Wes Craven made New Nightmare as a meta look at the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise that
he began. Clint Eastwood made Unforgiven, which was a culmination of
his western career. Lucio Fulci came up
with A Cat in the Brain to look back
on his career in splatter horror. Each artist
knew their history and created their own tribute to it.
The great thing about this type of movie is that there is a
shared appreciation of film history between the creator and the audience. The artist (whether director, writer, or
actor) knows what the audience knows, or may even be giving the audience a
better look into the ideas. For people
who want to learn more about their favourite artists and movies, these are a
window into that world. They’re the best
document outside of documentaries of a career, a series, or many other things. And though some are bad (though I think A Cat in the Brain ended up being fairly
good), they are insightful. What better
way to learn about movies than through other movies? I can’t think of a better way.
Now for some notes:
- A Cat in the Brain was suggested to me by @JonCohen6, who seems to have disappeared from Twitter. I’m linking to whoever has the handle now.
- One actor from A Cat in the Brain was in another movie. That actor was Robert Egon, who was also in Captain America.
- I wrote about 30 Nights of Paranormal Activity with the Devil Inside the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Human Centipede in this post.
- Have you seen A Cat in the Brain? How about any of the other movies in this post? Have you seen anything by Lucio Fulci? If you’ve seen any of this stuff, you can discuss it in the comments below.
- Another thing that you can talk about in the comments are suggestions for future Sunday “Bad” Movies posts. If there’s a movie you would like to see me cover, let me know. You can find me on Twitter if you don’t want to use the comments.
- If you want to see some of the clips from many of the bad movies I watch, consider following me on snapchat. My username is jurassicgriffin.
- Next week, I will be covering a movie called Perfect. It stars John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis. It has something to do with working out. That’s about all I know. I’m interested in seeing it, so I’m excited for this coming week. I’ll bring back a post for you once next Sunday comes. See you then.
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