Episode 710: Malpertuis (1971)

including the formidable Cassavius played by Orson Wells. We will be spoiling Melburt Twee as we go along, including the big twist at the end of the film. So if you don't want anything ruined, turn off the podcast and come back after you have seen it. We will still be here. So, Jessica, as the person who requested this one, when was the first time you saw Malpertwee and what did you think?

didn't entirely make sense of it the first time. Not surprisingly, I was very intrigued by it, and I actually it was quite I've seen the years before. I watched it for a second time, and really and at that point I had read the novel. I was very interested in Belgian art, Belgian literature, and I was able to put all the pieces together and it meant a lot more to me and I was able to understand it such as it is a bit more of the second viewing.

I'm also a big fan of Silvia Bartine, who has a small role in the film, so I was really intrigued initially to see it because of her and her role in it, albeit small. Though not disappointed. I just wanted to mention that and being a fan of Daughters of Darkness. Last year I did a pilgrimage to the hotel where Daughters of Darkness was shot in Austin, Belgium, and there is a star for Kumal on the sidewalk outside the hotel where some of the exteriors were shot.

There's like a star for in honor of Kummel's career.

and watching the whole thing. I always had a very I very much associated this film with a dreamlike atmosphere, which I think is it really does, and when you've only seen fragments of it, it seems even more dream But yeah, now, so coming back to it years later, I was two years ago, I was putting together a course on traditions of the fantastic and cinema, and I was looking at the French fantastic and this doesn't quite

fit into that sense, it's Belgium. But I did come back to this film again, and yeah, so I'm very intrigued by this way, We'll say that, and the Orsowell's appearance is its own kind of separate, fascinating bit of history. But beyond that, the film, I think it's just very fascinating on its own.

So I had heard about it, heard like, oh, there's this strange film with Orson Wells in it, and that kind of was the hook, but not enough to actually make me watch it. And then thank you again Jessica for saying, yeah, let's do this one. Finally sitting down, I was excited to see both more Wells as well as another Harrykamel film, and it did not disappoint whatsoever.

I had a great time with this. I started with the shorter version, and we'll definitely talk about the versions of this as we go along, or in the second half of the show, finally caught up with the long version. It had been long enough in between that I couldn't be like, oh, for sure, this is new to me, or that's new to me. It all felt of a piece,

It just felt more of it. Unfortunately, the longer version is all in Flemish and so there is no Orson Wells voice and I think you hear his laugh but that's about it, which is really sad because that's half well yeah, well, what would you guys say, half of an Orson Wells performance is the voice because that voice is just like melted butter in your ear.

hired another actor to readub his performance. Clarity that we associate with Wells as a speaker was not always present in this period of his career.

think are great. And the Didelu character, I really like him. Bookay plays him as so many characters are being played as very impish, but he's very good at being impish. And it's such a different because I just saw him a few months ago playing a very uptime boss in the Francis Weber film La Jouette's the Toy, so definitely plays it a lot differently than Jackie Gleason would play the same role in the American remake.

from him. He's absolutely hilarious. It doesn't even have to be speaking, and just like his movements, his body language, his facial expressions are just absolutely hilarious.

woman that might be his sister might not. It's so white rabbit and he goes right down the rabbit hole into I think this is supposed to be a bordello, is what I'm guessing. But what a wild space for him to go into. And then did Alou is the

entree into the whole malper twee. I don't want to say sequence, because the majority of the film takes place in Malpertwee, and it is a fantastical land where we don't know what the hell's going on for so much of this, and on purpose, it's very surrealistic and just that this whole space of malbur Twee is like what six or seven different locations all stitched into one. It just goes on forever.

visual sense, but somehow it all comes together. I think that sort of uncomfortableness is definitely intentional.

is that. I love what Kameel does where he actually shows you the stairs going down and then takes the shot and reverses it to show you the stairs going up. So it just looks like the staircase is infinite, like you don't know how high it goes up, and you don't know how high this goes down. And there's a very prominent shot of him coming down Yan coming down a stairway and just over and you get this kind of repetition of him coming down the staircase, and I'm

just like, oh, that's really nice. And you get that and him going through hallways a lot, you get this like maze like it's almost vertigo like with the way that he's chasing chasing perhaps Nancy. And again this space of the town that he's in is impossible. And to your point from earlier, this is in several towns. I think this was Ghent and Bruges, and I'm not sure

if there was a third location. So it's done, thank you, So Camell just stitching all of this stuff together too, to make an impossible city for an impossible house.

like the nerve center of a swirl. So much of the action takes place as like going up and downstairs or so I just saw it as a sort of spinal call, of kind of metaphor in a way.

very similar between the English and the Flemish versions. I love what he's doing and I love that he's just bonkers, fucking bonkers. If anything, he's the Manhatter of this picture.

is this person? And so I think Kamel really had a knack for casting. I think both in the sense of like these grand actors, he casts such as you know Orson Wells or Del sarig and Daughters of Darkness, but he also really knew how to fill those smaller parts, I think, And yeah, I just think that speaks to how much of an actor's director I think he is. I think he's aside from maybe some of these big personalities, he seems to work well with some of the act

of another. That's not entirely true, because there's Danielle we May and Daughters of Darkness who apparently wasn't treated particularly well. But I do think he had a special relationship with his actors and they were able to deliver these really great performances for him, even for characters who had smaller roles.

his director of photography, Jerry Fisher. He talks about him so much on the audio commentary and just all the inventiveness that he presented and some of the some of the real heart of the film goes to the cinematography and just some of the things that Kamel was doing around.

I know, he points out that he tries to light Yan if woman would be lit, and then Nancy, Jan's sister tries to light her as a man would be lit, and then even gives us like a porthole both behind Yan and then a I'm trying to remember, oh, the narwhal tusk for Nancy behind her. So this whole like gender play that he does, which then totally brings to mind the one character's mother from Daughters of Darkness, which is obviously a man in drags, which I love that.

an amazing collaboration on the film. It's almost like Fisher co directed it in a way, it just seems like his involvement and his influence on the film are so strong that he definitely deserves all the praise that Kummel gives him. Oh but I was going to say the lighting and the way that Jan looks. I've seen it argued in various reviews that Matthew Carrier is not really great in this role. I think Matthew Carrier is a

great actor, and he has some better roles. But really, I think you can tell he was chosen for his looks here because he has that absolutely beautiful, angelic look, and he's lit accordingly, and a lot of his shots remind me a lot of the way men are photographed in Paint Narcissus or the photographs of Pierre Gille almost can't be like very soft, very beautiful, very feminine. I just think that's interesting. So Camel seems not afraid to play around with gender for sure.

especially their multi colored wigs like very bright. I just I think it looks so good and just wild with the female forms, especially you've got the the I guess they're probably made out of wood, but the women. There's one who's got her hands over a crotch, but her boobs are exposed, and then right next to her is one where it's from the back, or a different women

from the back with their butt exposed. And just to watch the singer going through this whole setup that they have with this beautiful place with just again the reds are everywhere and it looks so good. And then you have just tons and tons of guys dressed in their sailors outfits, which Jean is a sailor. And then I love that in the longer version of this, you get those the little kids, and I think it's actually the same little boy where you see a little boy in

a sailor's outfit. And then there's another one who comes out of a storefront and he looks all ragged and he's got like a tiny tim crutch and he's coming out I'm just like, are these other versions of Yan? Is this where he could be or was? Because there's I thought about a twist at the end, but there's actually a couple twists to this. This probably is all in Yan's head, So I would not be surprised if these other little boys in sailor suits are just other incarnations of him.

the next paragraph. We could be in a completely different place, it could be completely all these surprises are just hiding around the corner. You can't really predict what's going to happen in this.

it's multiple periods and time. It's just like separate stories that merge onto each other. So I think Kamel's approach in adapting that was in John Ferry, to his credit, who was the screenwriter, were able to actually make something that was a mostly narrative film out of this unfilmable book.

And it's funny. So the book was written in nineteen forty three, and for those who aren't familiar with genre, he is a leading figure of the Belgian literary fantastique and he's a lot of people compare this his book Moper Tweet to the Call of Cthulhu by Lovecraft. I haven't read that one, to be honest, so I can't speak to the comparison. But a lot of people see some similarities in the story there, but it is very

much so. Jeanrey was mostly a short story writer. He wrote detective fiction, but he's very well that he's one of the most famous twentieth century writers in Belgium, and he does these stories that involved the fantastique. And whereas it's not he wasn't a fantasy writer per se, because he worked and again to define what the fantastique is. It's it's like a convergence of a fantasy world or

supernatural elements with the real world. And so it's whereas a fantasy novel could be set in an entirely supernatural world or a made up world, fantastique sort of deal with the tension between the surreal, the supernatural and real life. That's the definition of the fantastique is the sort of the tension between the two. So he worked in that genre and he was, as you say, quite an interesting figure.

He made up a lot about his life in interviews when he claimed to be sailor, which we can see is in Yan's character he was actually not a sailor, so he made up quite a lot about his life. And what's funny is Kumel also inserts a lot of nods to genre in the film. I think you see early on in the film, Yan stops outside of I forget exactly what the store is. It's like some kind of hardware store.

Jean Forrey, the screenwriter. And there's a lot of times in the commentary track too, where Kummel will be saying, oh, the screenwriter wanted this, so I gave it to him. That diving suit. He's the one that came up with that, or there's a part with and I'm going to have

a hard time because Susan Hampshire plays multiple characters. I think it's when she's Nancy, the sister character, where she's getting money out of this place they're called the Color Store and her hands I want to say, turn red while she's getting the money and I was like, oh, and he's like, yeah, the writer wrote that, and I thought I would follow suit, I would do what he wrote. I was like, Oh, how nice of you as a director to actually do what the writer is asking for. That's pretty cool.

of production that produced different outcomes. But yeah, so I think I don't know in what ways this screep that was tampered with or exactly you know what, But I know anecdotally from Herring, Kommel and the commentary talk about it that it's not exactly as written by his screen writer. It suffered from some interference.

Murphy in a fat suit. Of course, Eddie Murphy does pull that stuff off very well, so I'm sorry to pick on Eddie Murphy, but with this back in nineteen seven one and Susan Hampshire playing these multiple roles, there were times where I had to check myself and say, oh,

that's the same actress. I can't even believe that's the same actress, especially when she's let's just say to Gorgon, she looks so different, the way that they've shaped her nose, the way that they've given her green contacts, which were not easy or nice to put in back in the early seventies. I still remember Michael Jackson and all the problems he had with those contacts in the Thriller video.

They didn't come up with good contact technology until the nineties or two thousands, So back in nineteen seventy one, this poor thing wearing these green contacts was just suffering. I think the daughter of the producer who's also on that commentary track, is talking about how they would put bella donna in her eyes to numb them because it hurts so much. Talk about suffering for your art.

his childhood home. He's coming back home, and there are all of these weird people that are living there now, and all of them, except for I think Cassevius, there were some Well's character. They're all gods. They are all the original of Greek gods, and so you get hints here and there, as far as oh, this person's playing some notes, Okay, that's probably Apollo, the god of music, or like this person over here is Vulcan, or this

person over here is Infestus. Sorry, I always fuck up which one's the Greek and which one's the Roman, So apologies if I do that tonight. But you find out throughout the course of the movie, and especially there's a big reveal that Cassevius has captured all of these gods and basically has hit them doing his bidding. Most of these gods are now house servants, and they've forgotten who they are. And I keep screwing up the character's name,

I keep forgetting. But the crazy little guy who's the taxidermist, yeah had him. So all of these gods into human skin, and there are moments where they remember, and there's other moments where they don't, And yeah, I love this and that they're all trapped there by, and it almost feels like for his amusement to have all of these gods that he has power over. Jessica, you mentioned the kind

of almost palimppest way that this is written. That's one of those stories you're peeling back that onion because you have multiple narrators, like you're saying, and so many of these narrators it's fragments of stories or I collected this manuscript. That's I think again why it reminds me of sorry ghosta manuscript because of the multiple levels and layers that

you have, and I love that stuff. I absolutely love when you have a story that changes as you go through one narrator to another and then have to figure out where they are in relation to each other as well as in relation to history.

style in some of his works. I can think of one novel that he wrote that's very much you don't know where you are entire and you jumped back and forward in time. It's very surreal. It's like a classic text of h Surrealism was a big champion of genre in this novel.

She does stand out as far as she's the youngest of these three women and is probably the most interesting one. She's got the most dialogue, I think, but it's not look at me in this different role. And when she stands out as Nancy. I love the blue dress that she's wearing and that she's coated in this blue color. And Kumal again is so concerned about the colors and the color scheme. I just I love how careful he was with what colors people are wearing, what colors different

objects are. I love that big red and I don't know if it's a stone. When Yan wakes up and he's looking around, he suddenly he thinks he's back on his ship because there's a literal porcole right there and all of this nautical stuff. And I'm guessing is this his bed from when he grew up that he always I want to be a sailor. Is that why there's so many nautical things? Or did they just set up this place to make him feel comfortable when he woke up in this strange bed.

house is separate from Malpertwee. But yeah, so that's the different they're different spaces.

just very odd characters. And then you get the big reveal at the end of that, Oh, they've been dead this whole time, and she's actually in this Isn't she in an asylum in that one.

like Virgin among the Living Dead. There's several similarities throughout the film to Virgin among the Living Dead, which I was just delighted to be able to make note of any and not to jump to the end too much, but there is the scene at the end of where all the relatives I'll just say, comeback, is very much like the end of Virgin Mung the Living Dead. It just reminds me so much. I think the scenes are so similar.

Some of it's shut inside the Guador says Paris. Other things are shot in Italy, it's all mixed together in Yugoslavia. So yeah, I don't know. There's definitely a category of silves with this imaginative architecture, dreamlike juxtaposition of totally different spaces.

him sitting down. And I think that for the producers of the film too, they could sell the film as an Orson Welles film, But because all of his scenes take place in the exact same setting, it could be done very quickly. And I think it's three days plus the half day that he gave them pretty sheepish sleep free because he'd been such a bad play during the filming. He obviously had some remorse for being so unprofessional that he let them have a bit of extra time free.

pain in the ass. But that I think, I just can't imagine anyone else in this role but Wells. Weirdly enough, I think he just turned up and when they finally got him to do what he was supposed to do, he did it wonderfully.

I'm like, yeah, that's probably what I would be doing too, if I had the wherewithal to capture all of these gods and make them do my bidding. Yeah, I'd probably relax and just lay in bed all day too.

just flows so wonderfully. We were talking about Tinto Brass recently and just how he was like, Oh, yeah, editing is half the movie, and I have to edit these movies in order to imbue it with my style, and I could see Kamel being exactly the same way this feels like him from stem to stern at least the

longer version, the shorter one not so much. But with this one just such care taken with everything, and like we were saying, for as far as the DP being the co director, I don't think would argue with that at all because he was such an important figure to this movie.

I think that we've amused and upset by. And so they brought in their own editor. And I know we'll get to talking about the differences between the two versions later. But ultimately, when Kummel was allowed to make his own edit the film, which I think was maybe a year or two later, and United Artists saw it, of the producer saw and they said we should have let you

edit it. Why did you let this version out that it's nowhere near as good as the version that you cut together, And he said, I didn't want to go behind this editor's back, and so it was just all I think United Artists were afraid to take that chance on him, and obviously was a missed opportunity completely.

use of the animation, I thought that was fantastic. I like that Kummel admits that Nis is a little much and that he probably should have been rewritten and separated from the book a little bit more, because he is playing it to the hilt as that character and then him being tormented by the little people voices doesn't help very much at all. But because this guy is nuts and he's played by John Pierre Cassell, who, Yeah, I think he's a great actor, but man Omantisy just go

for it in this role. Hats off to him. He doesn't pull any punches.

them to leave. Nor does it feel like the house wants them to leave, Like you're saying, it does feel very much like melpur Twee is a character here and very much a living character. It almost feels like it's breeding sometimes, especially when you hear those gas lamps and the little noise that happens when they get put out. I'm like, that's totally somebody just doing a voice doing the sound effects for these lamps.

a Chabral film, and he did this. Being in that position of being an actor being directed brought out the worst in him. He'd been doing this for many years, being in a lot of movies, usually in Europe, sometimes some very bad movies. And when he found himself with a weak willed directors, he would completely take over as director, so he'd be performing and directing his own scenes. But then there were other occasions when he didn't have such

an easy time of taking over. Even on the Third Man, I said of legendary film, legendary performance by Wells, but he was not very cooperative in that role. I know that those that were chasing him around Europe to get into the do a post synchronization, and I think just generally was not happy being subordinate on its film sets and the stories Kummel tells about Wells and he seems to have really annoyed the crew because of the demands

he was making on them. Not surprising really, Wells was a bit like that at times and then in totally at other contexts he would be the most charming first and the universe, and something about being an actor and being directed brought out some ugly side of Wells, especially if he didn't respect the film. And I'm curious about something that I have always thought about Maltlea Twee, is what Wells actually thought about this material, because I think

we may get into this. There are some other Wells projects which echo certain aspects of Malpatwee. I think maybe the Immoltal story is something we're going to talk about. But that's a film Wells made in the late sixties, really a French television film, but it has another tall blonde sailor as its protagonist as well, and could make

an interesting double feature with Melpa Twee. It's about that old man played by Orson Wells who is manipulating the life of the lives of this young sailor and a woman played by Jean Moreau and in another weird house. I'm surprised Wells didn't take that seemingly take more of an active interest in this film and it's its subject matter.

or some Wells playing the taxidermists. Multiple reasons. He was that kind of grand actor, very tall, huge voice, all of this kind of stuff. Yeah, you can totally understand why they thought of Wells for this role. I'm actually not entirely impressed with this performance. I have some reservations about it, and I was interested to hear from you, Jessica that you do really like his performance, because I think the makeup issue which Kumo speaks about, is pretty

indicative of Well's approach to performance in this period. Very theatrical, and he would do his own makeup and it often looked really banged on the screen in the Multi Story, which is only three or four years before this. He did his own makeup for that film, and it just looks so fake. There's something very theatrical about it. When he would do fillows back in the United States and they would force makeup artists on it, he looks much better.

But yeah, this was a tendency of his his European period, and I think the performance is very theatrical too, and he does mumble his way through a lot of the lines. So anyway, I'm sure to hear Jessica your reflections on his performance.

and this big, over the top character. And yeah, I just think he for me, he handled it really well. I do love the stories about the makeup though, with having to color corrects for the greenness of the nose, and how they would make him sweat under the lights so they could dad some of the heavy makeup off of him when he wasn't really paying attention.

he's playing a gay probably test. It's like a kid testing what he can get away with.

back to work that afternoon. Man, I can totally understand being so torn between having lunch with Orson Wells, who's probably the best conversationalist in the history of the world, but actually having to go back and keep directing your movie when you have a very limited time to do this. So I will, I think, didn't really care. Quite happy to keep eating his lunch.

He's just openly a sorcerer. Of course, the church is a joke to him, and all these trappings of Christianity are a joke.

come to things like the Gorgon. And I love that Casseavius doesn't die, or he doesn't die a natural death. He has the Gorgon turn him into stone become part of her reliquary. You get to see at one point she's got all of these statues around her, and I'm just like, oh, these are the former victims. How nice. But when these gods wake up or realize what they are and what they could do, I mean, that's a

pretty frightening idea. And in the meantime they just seem so off balance that this whole place does not feel safe at all. Yeahn wandering around from room to room with all these mirrors and long hallways and things. I'm just like, you are in an unsafe place, my friend. I would leave as soon as possible if you can.

a kind of comical fashion. So it's a strange mix of lows that we see in this film.

self deprecating humor that Belgians have. And I really I hear when I hear Camel being interviewed, and I feel like I see it a lot in this film. When you mentioned the comedy, I think that's totally resonant with that kind of vibe of trying to interject some humor into what could otherwise be very serious, stark phil So, I love those moments. If you were in it again, it reminds you of how specifically Belgian this film is. Well.

going to be stuck at this house forever. But I love those shots where again, it reminds me very much of a stage presence, where you're just getting that almost establishing shot of these characters, and sometimes you cut into them and sometimes you don't. You just watch them, like the one moment where the taxidermist has that cup and ball game and he's just trying to do that and he's just over on the side of the screen doing that for a while everybody else is doing their thing.

And I just love those little reset moments because really the taxidermist is pretty fucking scary, because that's the one time where Yan really has to worry about his life, is that he almost gets cut open and stuffed by the text thermis. I love way he is just oh, and you've got such beautiful skin to flay. I'm like, oh my god, this is hawful. And I'm like he's just eyeing them up to put sawdust or straw inside of this poor guy.

a great mcgret reference, James enzeor with the Mask. So again, this kind of goes back to the pole Belgian nos of it is like it's the art and literature is very ingrained in their culture. So it's just part of growing up in Belgium is these things are are embedded in your psychee. So it doesn't surprise me all that you see these specific references to artworks throughout the film.

And there's even a point where one of the sequences where Ian is going through the house and opening various doors to rooms and he opens one and it's just like a painting. It's obviously there's a sort of almost like a cinematic reference to matt painting in cinema. But also it's again like surrealists are like Matis, so almost like a sky or something like that, So you don't expect to open a door and find a sky that doesn't just you know, not a window, just it's there.

And again it is very artificial as well, like it's not like a realistic painting of a sky. It's definitely like invoking surrealist art.

the background. That's the kind of approach Raw Ruiz takes, and sometimes two extreme almost comical lengths where you'll have extreme foreground objects and then with split diopters you'll have things in the very very distance. But in terms of the storytelling too, there's a lot of commonality these that kind of labyrinthine stories within stories, as you mentioned the Saragosa Manuscript of the one thousand and one Nights. The love of storytelling and the way that places sometimes are

the portals into stories and into different times. That's very much part of Ruiz's filmmaking.

chasing Nancy. And then you get to see, Oh, here's a sign and it has this character's name, and oh, here's another sign with another character's name. He's just oh, is this was this real or not? But then he actually finds the house and goes through that some more, and then eventually you find out that no, that isn't the finale of this, that we are one layer deeper, that he's actually a patient at a mental institution and has written this all out as almost like his therapy.

And yeah, I just I love that we keep pulling back and back only to find that the whole story wasn't even the story that we were being told.

You will give my pocket money that they my parents gave me every week to say you look to this. So the films look not at all like films in the cinema. They were all dreadfully film. But you know, and so I told him second day, he doesn't look like anything. If you can do it better. Here it's the camera and you buy film yourself and you show me what you can. Must have been I cannot exactly see.

So I made the film filmed in the street, the tricks, the tran ways disappeared, you know that kind of thing stage that I read about. And then my father out so without and said the immortal wealth. But where is your mother and where is your city? Who didn't it just me at all? At cirys Low. So that went the beginning with comrades at skin. One of them was quite wealthy, had very expensive double eight camera called bullets. They are still existing in sixteen millimeters and what's the

beny best camera on in the market. That's very very from about ten of my school cameras, I must have been through our thirteen we made a feature film together, not alone, feature of the detective story with false new stuff because of the blueberry length self want and using our own apartment center kind of pick and people saw

that and thought, well, it looks like a film. So then at fourteen I read a am purchasement that amateur films were showing their flow in Antwerp in real cinema, and I went to see that and that was a revelation for me because they were able to show films over sixteen win sounds, which at that time was something extraordinary because having sound on film at that time for

Amatuel was an extremely complicated thing. You got to struggle well about the details of the cher So I saw that I was a big fong and I at that time I already went two three times in the week to do cinema to the films that were children allowed, and I also was sent by my parents in English summer school since the age of twelve, and in Britain films that were not allowed to go and were not danger films. A film like Hitchcock you could go see when you were had where a company by an adult.

So there I saw my first Hitchcock when I was twelve, and that was dialm in three DS. That this was extraordinary that I've already seen on self a few Hitchcock films whom I thought were extraordinary. But I'd also seenilms by from steal Belt, among others. My father immediately because the boat very big television the story of anatahan By from stone Belt to say Masters, which also they impressed me very much. I also saw a unual on television which impressed me also the new not Forget. I was

a teenager of thirteen fourteen fifty. I said, I want to make films that look like that. And I went to the amateur of films who have shown these films in the cinema, which I'm made so much because you saw a kettle boiling and you help the sounds of the kettle and that guns so I have musical and wonderful editing. Because there were no films that only amateurs made films. So I went there and they saw this little guy of fourteen arrived me and saying I wanted

to be a member of your club. I became a mentep club and May with my sister my first feature film, The Wheel the Bow, destroying the house of my parents, and that was to go with the Maxsticks Anderson. I destroyed the pillows who makes snow with that kind of things,

well whatever that work. And some of the people that amateur club helped me to put taitoos on it and sounds which was musing back back the area, back the sad music, and it was four of Trick's film Trick with that I like, very bad double in the thing. And I showed this film indy amateur and it was what they call an over night said, these people could not believe that the guy, a young guy of what the years, had made the film that made him try. So I thought, I can do things that all those

cannot do. I had my studies to go on n go beyond me what very young man does when he is back studying. But at the same time, my only dream was to go to make film. My saga Tip day let me do his business what was nothing and I wanted to So I started to help people who work television were starting at that time. I'm talking now of fifty six exet and still in the amateur and in the a matter, we were atue that all these

amateurs found not belonging to amateurs. They said, you make films like they make in the cinema that does not interest us, so we became accepted which was being founded quite famous at the time called film fifty eight times that it was made, and we started to make much more important and at the same time we started to do little items for televisions were about cinema and I was helping and there and everything and not the mission.

I was ten twenty twenty one, still studying, just out of the army as a lieutenant, and the people at the Terribusion there was a show at the showing new fragments excerpts of new children in the weeks, and they asked me to come, because I've done I can for

that show, to come and direct that show. So I was able thanks to that to see a lot of fills in the week because I choose the e And at the age of twenty one, they said we have here a winter Skins the Wander Silent and the first big go production between Holland and Transers in my home country was big, big documentary about Erasmus the Philops and they said to me, do you work to make this documented.

I remember my school year, my different something, and in one month, less than one months, I read everything I could about as they said, okay, I'll do it, and we went with the school of four people throughout all of you because of that credible and travel in this time everywhere when it's anyway, but every rope, and we've filmed the documentary, you're seeing natural occasions where it will commentary be spoken by this My only I insisted, go

one thing because at that time everything on television on film but film on sixty minutes, I said, black and white. I said, oh no, I only want to made thirty five million, almost big, big to do when everything that I said, if I don't have that, it's five millimeters, I am not doing it. So they accepted. And you must always remember that at that time film were extremely expensive as the material to buy it, so that was

not a city. I went off to make that documentary and it went on in me have beached celebs price go at that time called the Italia ri it's so be it. And so I went on making a lot of prestigious documentary a little bit like Gems in the Indian's naturally not in that amount, but that kind of thing, big, big, big production. And also they started to give me and that was my first thing with actors on television because

I'd already started direct active stage. On the stage, I had been there in between, all in between, I had been an assistant to very famous stage story and definitely so I knew began you know something about active story. And they started to give me one of my first video feature all song thirty five million. It were the Grief Diggers by Hans Cuttery, only play that I recently saw. It began or somebody of twenty must have been twenty five.

What's not bad looking back, so they said to me at that time it looked different than what the people will pay. That's what's the whole point. And it was I would always been a very good technician. Please don't think and this are supposed to be a good technician is nothing, and that there's simply something one can love as one does. There is nothing to be a good technique. Unfortunately, the cinema is made of very bad technique nowadays.

mean with whom self? Such something depicted that didn't because it wasn't blending enough towards the basic novel by Henry Jane and Jane not especially a Flemish writer and uh and so I had adapted to Belgium, but that was not enough. I need to do them better. They counseled me to you a Semish writer, and I made my

first feature, which was going to do show. This film was not very well deceived in Belgium, but when it was shown in writ all of of a sudden it was chown as one of the ten best films of that year. Slowly I started to build up my careers.

look you about with excerpts of film. And for that I was sent to various films where I met a lot of film direct with whom I started to talk and they saw this young man that you'd have always the same thing. Oh, this very young man knows well. I got acquainted with very famous direct who were very nice, and we saw that film and liked it and made it knows compliments and so you see this. I have to tell you that I went to a lot, so I think three three years, for as long as ten years.

So I'm gonna gold I'm missed doing so from the film everybody, well, it returns to belt being this film. All the critics forget ever and start feeling too, bury me under ross and whatever you want, and they and somebody, the producer lady for you told me there is one subject that completely made for you. That is the novel nult three by genre and I said, I read the number. I said, my goodness, it is almost impossible to do. But being and that are twenty six emergive being about thirty,

I mean, I don't know. But before that the twenty take twenty nine, I was thirty nine. I said, But because it's still cool, and because I had made the first cook, which was not the easiest subject to do. I said, you know, when you are wet time you say,

you say to yourself, I can't do it. So I said, oh, well, outsied, But having made that very well film that was such, it said, certainly not immediately with the public here Roun, but it turns me and also with the young producers and film make it here in Belgium who ordered me and said you are the best of the TUC And they came to me and they said, we are young producers and we have directed and produced erotic movies. Well, what you call shan film. Are you prepared to do

one of these films for us in your style? I said everything. If it is in my style, the style of that, it will never be commercial. Can no, no, no, no no. We believe in you make it. So where I watch, confronted with the idea that was while I was preparing mal so no mind said okay that at the same time I watch within my head, woom can I talked to I don't. I don't like to ride my mood myself. I'm like an opera composer. I Leally Nycoto, and I know the opera composers did their own little

great bos like Micha Plagner, the red food ramatists. And because they need four hours to do something you can do in twenty minutes. So not thinking away he's great that but that he could he was not very keep and that by myself. One of the reasons, and Hitchcock Network allot directly itself, was it's much better to work with someone so I have because I traveled a lot

of television who documentary that right. I gave him to contact with very important intellectual people in France and everybody I asked, do you perhaps know somebody in France who knows about cinema and would be capable to do that, not to adapt that not and never body will well do that novel that's a different one from them. That one of the very great publishers of France told me, I know of somebody do you treat up super start that food? There? What published tale that's trying to pick

that toy important? And he said, I know it and it's called not very Unfortunately, because of the novel guy, he has no longer much work. He had written at that time sixty five sins. Can imagine, among which one of the greatest French ever made the Kids of the Bahow. But not only that, he had written the treatment of the Children of Paradise. Can you imagine because of that quality, who did not have any working because of the new real lie. These idiots of the new reb believe that

they could write, which they couldn't. They couldn't throw that they couldn't write. Two thinks that the same mode, the biggest one being false. It's harmably bad director. And I don't even mention something that are of device. I go from it. And these people were there except with a few except female. Of course it will make that and song that they were in the bar. They were, and they were truly they were fantastic people, and of course example became. They were very good, but the rest scratch

so uh. This poor man, together with the other great writers for the bus, were written for ludeuphon were the best, the best of the best in France. And I can assure you that screaming scream writers when they were the best of the best, two them, they were very very very good. Then they presented me to that man he reads the book. It's it's a bit difficult. Which is

did you which? And said we better do to have I think about Meanwhile, now I go back to these young prodies who had said made for us and the optics in silent h and uh I said, oh my goodness, to do that. So and I didn't even know what kind of subject when uh as say about me. I went for a walk. You saw a magazine called the History up history, and and we retired to the bloody countess that counts sound count about the countess? That story I read about because oh, I said, this is the

subject for me. Seek under development. You dembeat in the blood of the refect. You stay young one. I go immediately back with this young produce. So we say you're completely bad. This low bugs in costume. It's seventeen sixth no no, no, no no no, that was before digit to see them up, that's where you could have multiplied the and I and I said, oh, but that's not the public. Since he bathes in the blood of words

to stay young. Maybe she's still young and she's still longing the world looking for to gets more difficult every day. And with the young Podude who asked me that, and it was very great, I must say. He asked that we wrote a treatment of sixty page which I didn't have on the on the corner of the table in during three days and three ninety all in one pie. And that's was the film that would become Daughters of Time. And I said, we couldn't. But if I hit it now,

this is a bad subject with erotic scenes. I cannot show this to my parents, who would the deaf care blitz. But you know, and and I said this, I've just made the film that has been applauded by a great director like Peter Brook in England said that was myself when we saw that they be a fine So whatever you know to be applauded by Peter Brook at that time, I don't know it. You can imagine, but that was just the great director of that was the accur dreams and more of his time. Oh, I thought, I have

got a salut. I can't insult his good younger producer. I send the treatment to jelfried is great writer. Letter written. They talk of the parody well the treatment, and regretted of the all the films of usul in Christian Jack name a great French filmmaker. He had word and this and he will certainly reject this as the world has he ever heard. And then I have the defense to do something else. I send it to him. At that time we use telegraph. That guy and courier communic key

and I get back to telegram this story. Is it the great Liberation? I want to write the dialogue and readapt the screen and adapt the skip from the script. My plan fell into the water. So I was down by this. I put in a second top stack in this. I said, if we do that, though, I want the greatest uh intellectual actress of France at that time, the great Delphin Sherry. She had just me that because he's the great actor side of the state actic, and I said I would do it because she will Confuse, of

course I don't do that kind of trust. This was not knowing either love or at that time who loved coming speak, and not knowing her sense of humor and intelligence. And she said, oh, this is one such completely different for what they lets me do and everything, we will have a lot of fun. I want to do it. So my second plan let into the water. So I was bound by that, that you'll go back to my earth that had been a little bit postponed that he was working on. So once thoughts of darkness we need,

of course again in Belgian. They didn't understand most to us about the film made by Belgian looking back, that it didn't look quite a maturist. But it was again and oh man, that's not exactly and overnight success in the United States because that finance the very little Mandyness and it came to Palace where also it was the Overnights. I couldn't believe it. I thought so was complete and that thought of darkness made the huge amount of money.

Well look it's still now, it's shown all over the world people, young people.

that time, very very good. Jerry reads the screenplay scream Papers, sitting at that track, said all I want to do it pixel wonderful and at last I can do something where I can show really what I do, et cetera. I had also the possibility of what who name a great director photography of that time in Britain or Simbawi, whoever. They all wanted to make. There is the they were there. Of course, it's a dream for the cinematter cut Jerry.

I care actors and everything, and I start to do the film and the few things can go wrong because when they saw that they didn't see the film. They were expected, of course if you were completely different movie than Doughters of dou and they started to interfere. They sent me, and the United Artists was in Gold, so they sent me an editor. I edit my films at the same time that I've been there, different called Richard Mark. He's probably dead by now, that should have been dead

by then. It was not the fault of this man. He has done a lot of films he destroyed, for instance, through the film by Yankee Witch that is one of this. If you see that film again and if you want to see a film that The Midnight Go Boy he also did for which he had an oscar. If you didn't on the credit there there you would know that officals don't need anything the vertically edit. So but on top of that, he couldn't understand. But it's completely beyond

edu capabilities, not only technical capability, intellectual career. This was not the film where somebody comes into a door and opens the door. That this people entered doors in a different way. In that way. It was well, he didn't understand. After one week, I say, getting me rid of that director and my abutity we were not the producer, doubt there were biggest producer. So no, no, no, no, this man has been sent to us by United Artists. We

can't do that. They will think something is open. Said, but he's just anagy to come out, get with jet and with it right now. No no, no, no, okay, we stayed with that man. It was awful, but disbanded. It needed understand and the film went on in digital. You can of course flopped, not only because it there for the reason that at that time John Camp where on Camp with your colleague journalist said, do you really think this genre belongs to a Christopher like Camp that

were be kind? It's un film. It's this immortal question has been registered and will enter history. Can you imagine? How did you step? But one thing? They were nice? The film was no good because it was completely wrongly it was. But I had one saving grace. Thism was for good parts subcitized by the Famish Ministry of Culture, and I was obliged to produce, obliged to do Flemish. Well U to the BELVESI and producers let me do

the Famish version, but re edited completely. But that was not just a rage that if it had been simply they negative and start all over again, wouldn't have been heeded. No, I had to swim between second takes and the ch thisim will never be but it could have been, because even what I did was not what it could have been if it had been well edited. That it's the

whole story of that. Fortunately, my films have a tendency to survive the time, and with the is it has the film as cad of reputation, and now it has not the colde status of A Dot of Darkness, which is something exceptional. But I don't speak about the quality of the film. I speak about the cold status, and it is well it has now it's kind of repeative. Its reputation will now be underful because you're being union uh and very vast. There are hat shoes in it.

As one of the ten films that they subsidized. To be completely restormed was not an easy task because the negative has suffered cuit a lot. But we managed. I supervised, the may take supervised. The fstorage Outdoors of Darkness is rapid than the original. When it is it is all right, and it will be shown in Bologna the old film historical films. But and then probably and I begin to feely. They all begin to say, oh, this very very special

film that nobody has ever made something like that. They begin to make the noises that I know they usually made my film, and uh, I would prefer they recognize them immediately, But that unfortunate, not the case with that's the story.

pre history. But we usually so that it would not land up in the data if something went on that you still had a second take et. So it's a film made out of second takes. And in between the in between the dates, there are also pieces and it's a piece so here now and then I had to make a duke of the original editing because I needed to shot as it was, or a piece of that short. But mostly it was second choice with a second choil,

so you'd see that. It's the reason if you know what a film bits, then you will understand its immediately. It is simply that you just the film that has been edited. You cannot unedited. That is everything. It is a unique material in the undercont bec people. Digital you have everything in all the quantities that you want without any problem. You can use the original constantly, whereas analog film you have only that one piece of negative like you may well anybody who want they where nobody and

involve its anatherog photography. But if you use an adog film which film, so you you only have that one piece, so you will have to navigate the you in thisy. So that's the It's a very simple. If you want like the old sy but the syn I used to be, then then.

one shot. But I couple one and sometimes something went from So you had a reserve and we had to redream all these speech bits and piece. It was the first of You cannot imagine how complex and complicates you it could not be got like you got a not I must say the results I see within the stipicity and very proud of technically because it's still with all its faults owns together. But it would have hell far better together if I had had it for the first time.

Little and they goes the people of United Artists who saw then the first verse and then the second verse, the one I get didn't. They came to me and they said, but why didn't you call us and say you get rid of that the editor? And I said, yeah, I can't pack. That's not my character. I cannot behind the back of my producers begin to call financiers or whatever that you don't that's smally apprehensible and you don't do that. I would have done it now because I

know that that this kind of that. At that time, I was pretty young, don't look at and with an extremely complicated film to make with the characters. It was a complicated to make a film itself. You don't have in Belgian, the very best usual, the best assistance in the world that date. Unfortunately, I had wonderful director for Productyons who they with it. They had a very good trade off of it. Also I had a few people and I had very very good British technicians for all

the special effects. So these people helped me during the fruiting. They were otherwise, but come cuckoo. It describe the thing because it remained Belgian production where the very it's not like films that we make today were in commerce. The cinema is a commercial, smaller film that we made that in these times and seeking of the very very long time ago I have sent those. That is the reason

why it is like it is like it. I don't understand me only I'm a crowd of what I did then with the material I help I think certain me during love it holds very well together and it is it's the young people you see. It seem to be increased because it's different from what if usually seen in that song and it have its reputation and I won't cry that fact, sure, but it could have been a thousand times that I have one of the greatest musicians of all time, the cinematical who told me, And I said,

you know the French, don't. You don't pay French composers. He works on authorights the times that film. I told him, Souse, you have not earned a lot of money with that, you know. And he said to me, listen, Harry, this is the best film I ever made. The score for this is the best score I have to be the best score I ever made. For them, I would have redone it and not asked one sup for it. All these people who work for it, Jerry and the actors.

I showed that an actor like he could do far more than what she did usually caught television and in the British industry and all these things. And I'm not this context, but you know it is not the film can I sometimes imagine, but it could be. I cannot. I cannot because one cannot know that there is something It is impossible to know. You cannot know it, you cannot even imagine it. And I certainly cannot because of it's something which went wrong in organization and should not

have come home. But I don't complain. I'm a film that remains that ows up after so many years. That's not the immense success that thoughts of darkness but still folds well, So why should I mean? There are not many that I can say that, So I while that'll be unhappy.

and I knew he was a great Dicam photogog. So from time to time the shots, we'll see that in the shots that kind of it's not not very I wasn't, but it was always, Ah, I'm going to invent for you something which is so difficult nobody can have resolve it, and he do, whereas it's mine. Uh, Whereas I decided, uh will you be able to do that?

the technic wonderful artists. But it were no surprise. It was all the time, in three times in museums, which is the way to learn how to do lights, because photography is life, nothing else. And he knew he understood the shop and the only thing that was different for Daughter of the Darkness that these photogogy called Edit Thunder and who was one of the very very best women's

photography I ever had, probably the best. Women looked fabulous and in gortural darkness you can see what I did, and they look so fabulous that when we were restoring the fill in rome now two years ago, the Italians that worked in the last you know sce guys of twenty five years came into the room where we were to read the story and said, how beautiful in the Italian of how beautiful these women are in a film of fifty years old, you see, because they look fabulous.

Now this director being Dutch were very good in sobs and faces and not very well adequate but not brilliant when it comes to atmosphere, whereas Jerry was only interested in atmosphere and women faces. He told me, he said to me, it's always the same you put that light the sixty degrees mean key, like a nighlight. And that's true. It is always the same thing, but it is not always safe. And that's that's problem of our business. It is the same thing. But if you have got talents,

it is not the same. You use the elements of the technique or that what you add without even sometimes knowing what you adds. That's what makes the difference between or made by fast what could fool and film made by to say too and Bill Bakers when an idiot and the other a great artist. So you had that one great actnication for that man up to the end

of his life. When he saw the film again in the be a fire we came out, then said in his in each very visual passion, Oh well, we didn't do too badly there.

always say ourself, if you understand what I need? And they in Belgium, for instance, when I say you have to do the adults I very demanding, they said, of course, your work so hard. It's your film. That's Belgium. And often also the American mentors, oh, look it's the world. Can we go from one? Pay? Never? The British technician has that mentality. They always are proud of their work and proud of the work they are working on, and that is a pleasure. I don't know it's still like that,

but I think so. It's in their mentality and U that they will all the British will always be in the because they have the strength of character and of knowledge. They and you get it hands the strollbacks, the the greateishness, and you can see that in some of their better films that are not so good and in the bad starts. The great directors they be clean, but in the lesser parts, say compare Ryan's Daughter, two Lords of Creatia, once of Raadia,

big piece of coms u uh. This perfection and it's self locker can sometimes make them blind for deficiencies in the setup of the whole dractic. This is the problem because they are so they are not upsetted by techniques like the Jones what do you of Google? Some to go gaga because they don't want everything must be see the ten the really to use the whip there to

get something done, and that it's outside their capabilities. But the British someone but I'm not the only director, but all people have work the greatest say the same thing. So it's nothing.

didn't understand cinema anymore. It was very tragic, and in fact he had always been the great produced, putting people together. His great look sick. But I have my doubts about other things. But he couldn't have. I had two and to give you an example, had three three possibilities ofs and Wells, John Houston or Peter Houstiner to play that part that could be called corking. Then this was an international co production, so we had to pick up people

from various countries. My first choice for the acting part that Susan did very well was Caprin Diener through did you see because Catherine. I don't speak about the quality of actors. I speak about the aspect. Catherine at something extraordinary. She has a blank face. She had a brand face. That phase you could fill up with everything. She was not the greatest intelligence, intelligent tactics towards not Defini, sharing whatever not the gheman sing array or that guy no no,

no no, but a face. You could do anything with it. And that was ideal for they do exact five parts. But see the unfortunately the idiotic produced. I had that that guy and arranged from her to see those of doctness in the cinema, no problem, but without telling me you have to come to that cinema at that time. This in the cinema. Unfortunately they outstand and Catherine had come from a suit suit somewhere and was not made up. And she's the kind of a pursume who needs to

have their mask, you see. And she comes out and and presented to her as the director and the matter was over. She didn't talk to do the fill you understand, because she had been tracked and need too and that right. So somebody said, oh, I know I need to fill and strect with let's married at the time. What would you think of a suit and hand seem as a which no, which is not exactly like that. She'd be part.

But she's very good. And they said to me, oh, we had the greatest of the that makeup man of the Brittany who used to be the makeup man of Ingridman afgt. It set a um and he will manage and which he did extraordinarily well. So I had general government and susan action. So that for a second, and I wanted to work because of you. In school group example, Miche greatest French actors at the time still is in my eyes along with us, and we said were perfect

for the past. On the other hand, and I said, oh, I loved that to work with not your No, I need French actors and loved to work with not you said, And since he s there with plays comedies, I'll do a counter effect with him and do something completely different.

This is that to do with my screen id. We love that character based and which comes directly out of the novel as such, And that was the biggest error I could have made, not yet yet, but as you know, and I've seen the film, all these characters are simple, the burgers an inside there are gods, okay, and I instead of making a strange character out of Jean Pierre, I should have made him the concerns of that huge house.

What is about these lights going out? You see? That's what's the immense error of my life, and which I will approach to myself, because the young guy who read the strict play had already told me before and that is wrong, and you never believe somebody who says that.

Here great difficulty too, but it's something on which you were a long time, which was this case strip all the other actors simply Vata I wanted to use because I do want to tell in fact, to play the young girl in Dods of Darkness, so see that she would have been better a time than that Canadian Canadian woman. And the rest yes, all Flemish, all pay music facts which we don't know good and and that one of them being out a comedian who played the non lumpy

and he was there. All these people with the Flemish people were wonderful, uh reason, the more that the attitude of mister Wells towards them was apprehensible. Even the story the scene with Michael Bouquet in both at this big scene and there's a comedy scene and in the middle of the scene awesome stuffs to learn. He had said to me before do you use a close up in that scene? I said, no, no, no, of of sudden, it's a comedy scene. We've been a medium soft and

we stay on the scene like it is. And Awsen did not like that. And in the middle of the scene, which a white comical scene, Michelle at very else, very very well and also started to laugh. So we redo the scene. And he always started to laugh at the same book so we had an Jerry behind me on the camera set. Give the bust if girts up, otherwise will be still be here to borrow. This gives you an idea of whom, as we else, was very dreadful person. But it happens, and if he wouldn't have been there,

it wouldn't have been the same. People suffered more than I have suffered with Marilyne Monroe. So did it nothing? That seems each kind of thing, that's it?

it does it stop very well. I think I made an error in this sense in my mind, because it took a long time before we made that, for three years. Don't forget. I had seen him in one wonderful film by called The Us the Humorist by Vocus Brindle, very much, very young, and in my mind he had stayed that boy. And I think it's a little too old for the part, but for the rest. But these are small things that in every film has a problem in my store, and it's a new film. The woman is an horror but

she can't help. She's very compactive, but I think she's she's n for the part. You know, some things happen, And who can explain that both the Caprio and about the Negro, who are such superb actors, are so awful in that Moon movie by scored the last thing that's complete. Nobody understands how how can a DiCaprio be so bad? I mean that, And it's not because coss my age. He's still the very great directory is its simply you know,

it happens. It happens with films. Things happen that are INCOMPREHENSI and that is that is, that's the right, because if we knew, we would be living or in huge castles with hundreds of retainers and that kind of thing. Nobody knows that Goldman who said that there, well, nobody knows anything. This is still the great truths about cinema. Man does not understand. I cannot understand for that in general, that film is very the tring of the wound. It

is Indian thing. But apart from that, you cannot understand how such great, great actual gets me so terrible. And it happens. It happens, and it is not the question of approach. It's not a question of source. One cannot understand. I have no national explanation for strange things that happen

in the cinema. Man can find you have a reason, like I explained to you that I told you that about the match, your career being a little bit too old, or so Captain the nor who would have probably he'd been more interested, not better, but more in certainly not as an act, but more interesting visually than Susan that kind of thing. But can explain I can explain why in Dads of Darkness Canadian actresses because she was incapable

of acting whatever I did. But I edited that movie, and therefore I could arrange things, and why the male and John Garland, but also to all he had been presented to me on photo has been twenty twenty years younger than he was. They did so that were the American people who wanted him because he had played the film in the House of dark Sadders and they said, ah,

if he had played that he could play that. You know, our producers hard to the bass is very amusing out anecdotes that I wanted that I get told you Silvis for that part that the Canadian idiot did. But I had also I had thought of Malcolm McDowell. I don't know them. I am tells you something. An English actor for the part English aristotra. He read the escape and threw it literally my head and set and I won't do such phonography, okay, chack. Six months later he did Caligula.

Now this must explain to you what actors are. And this can be translict into the very simple sentence, never believe that that's it, and there that's it. They are actor, they're acting. They can't help it.

two hundred and her cabaret. She had her own cabaret in Paris, but hung full of those paintings, and that is one of our of And she was a great singer. She sound only about about sailors and the sea, etetera.

But what she did was maybe. And the interesting part of her is she was the lesbian of all lesbians, but loved one man and not a little loved so she He was the most famous and most handsome French pilots of his time, who was killed during One of his friends called you won't can know him, but all the French many you know. It's so well known that many schools are named after him, and that kind of fire that makes it extremely interesting. She knew everybody. She

was what nowadays would be called an influence. She dressed that ambulish body, or great photographies like Manree photographed on all sides, the chacot, that name a great French artist and she is set about with it. So she was very important. The anything that produced us me who will we choose to play that part? And that's the big problem. But you will find that that is not and the biographies now something that is considered as being a good commercial bed. So I I hope that I will be

able to make it. It is not a horribly expensive film, but of course it's a costume would be and uh oh, I think that she did one everything and a very very great artist and very very very interesting. The sexual path is interesting. They'll have to like itself with interesting obsession with her art. She she considered herself a great artist. That she was also somebody who did not only sing, she recited poems in her cabaret and knew everybody. Uh and that's it's it's a kind of review a biography.

It's a bioa with that exception that most biography of flashbacks and did so it's chronological because I detest backs and that shit the dirty.

Like I said, the only thing that I'm missing is Orson Wells's voice, and Matthew doesn't sound like you even miss that.

other actors were speaking French. But in a way, this is like the Italian approach to making a movie, where you can const actors from all over the world with different languages doing scenes it seems, in their respective languages, and then being dubbed into one consistent language at the end. So we watch a lot of domes from the same period, you get very used to this type of the multi lingual approach.

which I really like. So watching those shallow films, watching more of the horror films and things, it's just, oh, yeah, this makes it even stranger because it feels like the voices aren't matched up perfectly with the faces.

was very disoriented too. But isn't a quiet taste, And once you're able to get on board with that, I think you benefit from that quality that the dubbing hads.

that was great. It was so nice to get so specific, to look at just Flemish horror. I'm like, is there enough to sustain a documentary on Flemish? Yes, yes there is. It's more than just Daughters of Darkness Malpertwee and then say this with red teeth. There is a lot of good films being made at this time, and I find these fascinating. I'm really curious to get into more, and I love to hear that there's actually that what did

you call it before, Jessica, the Belgian belgitude belgiitude. Yes, I'm curious to see, yeah, films that express belgitude.

there is in France or Germany or Italy. I think the lineage that sort of leads up to films like malper Twee. There's another sort of director in the surrealist tradition that came slightly before Camel called Andrea Delvo I believe, who worked up in starting in the fifties, and I

think up until the eighties. Rather, I think this sort of lineage of weirdness in our like they're surrealist roots, and prior to that, even the symbolist roots, because Belgian symbolism, which was a sort of precursor to Belgian or surrealism in general, is a weird, uncanny, strange, horrific images and channeling historical references. So I think, all in again, it's and I see it as part of the Belgian psyche.

It's just and though there may have not been as much opportunity for the Belgian cinema to thrive in a way that it might in a larger country, I think that because they had this rich lineage that like once there started to be a tradition of Belgian films, albeit a bit later than other countries that it's They're very dynamic, they have their own character, and that's for me. I feel like that where that comes from.

they have. And I love I've only been to Belgium once, but I really enjoyed it. Thought it was great. I loved ant Orp, and I love this whole idea of the two cultures living together and just that everything had to be in multiple languages. It was a little bit more organic than when you go to Canada and they're just oh yeah and the French stuff, like until you get to Quebec and that's just the French is the

most important thing, and fuck all the English stuff. But when you're in the English speaking part of Canada.

I can't find it, and I would like to see it because it does seem to from what I understand, it lines up with Daughters of Darkness and Malpertwee in

a fantastique kind of way. But my understanding is that after Malpertweet, Kummel was so disillusioned with the film industry that he just decided he was going to work in television and do documentaries, and so I think like the bulk of this work following Malpertwee is in that vein rather than I think he just decided like this he wanted, he liked doing those films, but also they weren't really working for him in terms of his career, and so

he just decided to move on from it. He did some The other thing that I have seen that he's done was there's a there was a TV show in the eighties and nineties from France called LASERI Rose. I don't know if you're familiar with this, but it was like an erotic late night TV and it was done like taking stories, erotic stories from classic literature and adapting them for TV. And Kummel did a few of those.

I think I did about Valerian Worovchick, the younger Bunuel, so they had it's quite weird, but they like sexy late night TV. But it's also like classic literature and very well respected directors working on these. So it's been a while since I've seen Kamel's contribution to that series. But now I have to revisit it just now, having deep dived into his the rest of his work.

there's no Blu Ray of this in sight yet. So I'm hoping that they get on track and somebody releases this on Blue Ray because I think it really deserves it, and the film, even on DVD looks freaking fantastic, and I just I can't imagine how nice this would be if it was presented as a restored Blu Ray version.

the European Film commissions. Basically, what they do is they take a number of films every year and fund their complete and total professional restoration in pandem with the director if they're still around, which in this case Kumel is so Opportunity was one of the films that was selected in twenty twenty three for this, so they've completely restored it from the negatives. I think that both the negatives

from the can version and the director's cut. He's had more say over the film than he ever has, and it's just been completely sorry. It's touring Europe. I think it's head of Screening and Brussels. I think it's screening in Italy earlier this year. He's got all the signs that yes, at some point we will get that, and I'm really.

that are unrelated. Lately, a lot of Belgian surrealism has been making its way into the feed, So if you want to look at some of these images that I've spoken about, you can check out on Instagram and see some of them there.

visit patreon dot com slash Projection Booth. Every donation we get helps the Projection Booth take over the world.