Spirits of the Dead
Three tales of the macabre by Edgar Allan Poe
In 1968, three of the great names of European cinema came together to make a film based on the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. The result was Spirits of the Dead (Histoires Extraordinaires), an anthology of three separate stories revolving around themes of lust, guilt and retribution.
First up is Roger Vadim’s Metzengerstein in which Jane Fonda plays the spoiled, debauched and brutal Countess Frederique. Eventually she becomes besotted with her formerly despised cousin, Baron Wilhelm (Peter Fonda) who, being a goodly sort, rebuffs her advances. Unused to rejection, Frederique takes revenge, going further than she intended and a spooky black horse comes into her possession.
This segment is beautifully shot and gorgeous too look at, even if the Renaissance mini-skirts are a bit jarring sometimes. But the story itself meanders quite badly without reaching a really satisfying conclusion.
Much stronger is William Wilson, Louis Malle’s tale of an amoral sadist haunted by his more humane alter-ego. Alain Delon takes the lead role this time around and the film opens with him rushing to a church – having just killed a man - to confess to a priest and explain how he got here.
Delon’s puts in a truly mesmerising performance here and the film’s structure – using a priest’s confessional to justify a series of flashbacks - works to very effectively capture the sense of foreboding that runs through much of Poe’s work.
The highlight of the anthology, however, is Fellini’s Toby Dammit, which stars Terence Stamp as the title character, an alcoholic actor who has travelled to Rome to make a Catholic western. This segment is so different from what has gone before, and so densely packed with layer upon layer of meaning, that it’s easy to forget that this is the third part of an anthology.
Stamp is fantastic as his character steadily goes to pieces and, visually, Fellini superbly showcases the hallucinatory imagery with which he is justifiably renowned. And it all comes together perfectly in a story that is both genuinely horrific and which sends up the artificial nature of both celebrity and cinema.
Each of the three directors takes a very different approach to bringing Poe to the screen and the results range from the workmanlike to the outstanding. All three films work on their own terms and the anthology as a whole is well worth getting hold of.
Monday 29 Oct 2007 | Paul Pritchard | Horror
