Usher

A rather flat - and short - version of Poe's classic story. I was looking forward to an updating by Harrington of a classic Poe story (staples of 60s "art"-exploitation cinema (thanks, Roger Corman), but Harrington isn't up for the task. He throws together the sketchiest of sets to tell the story of some guy named Usher who lives in a big house, with a sister who is going crazy.

But at under-an-hour running time, it still seems drawn out. There is none of the creepiness of the Corman bright and garish version (let alone the surreal visuals of the Jean Epstein silent version) here to keep you interested in a story you know pretty well already.

Harrington has stripped down the elements to make this closer to a home movie - man visits old mansion and odd (crazy?) master of the house to retrieve his fiancé. But without style, is Poe as compelling? Is this horror story interesting without the baroque or Gothic trimmings (or the overacting of a Vincent Price)?

Someone notes this is intended to be the first half of an anthology film. Maybe, but I don't see it. My guess is this was shot and when it was cut together it turned out to be a mere 50 minutes, and therefore was relegated to the festival circuit. This is what happens when you don't plan ahead enough.

Usher (2000)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Reporter Truman Jones (Sean Nepita) heads to the home of poet Roderick Usher (Curtis Harrington) in order to get an interview but soon he gets caught up in the evil secrets that the house holds.

When director Harrington was sixteen he made his first film based on this Edgar Allan Poe tale so it's rather interesting that he would end his career the same way. This short runs at 36 minutes and while there are visually a lot of interesting things going on and some good performances, there's no question that you really have a hard time staying drawn into the material.

I think the biggest problem is that there are just too many scenes that have no real point and the thing begins to drag at times. I had a really hard time staying focused on the material but that's not to say there's nothing here. In fact, I thought Harrington was quite good in the role of Usher and he certainly did look like Poe himself! I also thought Nepita was good in his part. The cinematography was good and there's certainly some nice visuals throughout. I will also add that the finale packed a nice little punch.

"Now you understand: we share the same soul."

Curtis Harrington's final film, made when he was 74, is a version of Poe's 'The Fall of the House of Usher,' mirroring his first film, made at 14 and while in high school. All these years later it seems perfectly suited to where he was in life, facing his own mortality, sensing faded glory, and yet still having a playful sense of the macabre. It's a rather lugubrious story but that was in keeping with the source, and there are some wonderful shots in the film's climactic moments.

We also get some lovely little musings on artists and poets, such as "You must never forget that the life of the artist is less important than his art." That's something you could see Harrington believed with how he made 'The Wormwood Star' 44 years earlier, putting all of the focus on Marjorie Cameron's art and poems and none on her personal life or beliefs. And yet, "...the line between the two, that's where the mystery lies; it's a maze of ambiguity," something that called to mind 'Fragment of Seeking' or 'Picnic' for how the art reflected the artist's sexuality. Later, while talking about great poets, he has Usher say that poetry must be read in the original, citing an example of Nabokov's struggle to translate Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, because while the poem's meaning could be translated, "the meaning is not the poem." Attempts to dissect art or take it in a literal sense are bound to butcher its aesthetic beauty or miss its deeper, more profound truths. These are small little things in the film and aren't grand summations of Harrington's beliefs or anything, but I liked thinking about them in light of his body of work.

Curtis Harrington, who made an amateur short subject of Poe's THE HOUSE OF USHER, returns to the subject in his mature years. A touching and well-done extended short subject. Shot as early as 2000, and still making the rounds at film festivals (it is scheduled for Spain's Sitges Film Festival in the fall), USHER was recently screened at an intimate setting in Venice's Sponto Gallery with Director Harrington and Cinematographer Gary Graver in attendance.

A young writer comes to seek wisdom from an aging poet (played by Harrington in makeup VERY reminiscent of the most famous portraits of Poe himself!) at his spooky mansion. The writer soon learns not only of Usher's odd mannerisms, but of a phantom-like sister who prowls the grounds. In a bizarre waxworks-like masked ball, a birthday celebration turns deliciously ghoulish. the writer leaves the mansion with a lot of inspiration for his own future works! Taking off from the Roger Corman version of THE HOUSE OF USHER starring Vincent Price (not one of my fave Corman Poe's), Harrington's version is an improvement (perhaps not so coincidentally) because it uses the short film format to tell its tale rather than the rather convoluted plotting of the Corman version. As Usher, Harrington adds a touch of irony and poetry to the performance that overcomes his sometimes awkward acting. And, using his own house as an interior, brings an atmospheric touch to the proceedings. After the screening, Harrington gave his own props to Jean Epstein's silent version (1928) of the tale. Harrington also indicated that he is raising funds to shoot two more Poe stories in order to make up a feature length motion picture Anthology. It will be a film worth seeking out.