Tre passi nel delirio

I'm a big fan of horror anthologies, especially the Poe/Hawthorne ones from Roger Corman and the Amicus films. Spirits of the Dead, based on Edgar Allen Poe stories and directed by Europe's most acclaimed filmmakers of the time, didn't disappoint...well, except for the first story.

#1, "Metzengerstein," directed by Roger Vadim. A cruel nymphomaniac countess (Jane Fonda) destroys the one man she can't have (Peter Fonda). That's right, this segment's biggest distinction is that it features a romance between real-life siblings Jane & Peter. Maybe I'm just a boor with no appreciation of high art, but watching those two gaze longingly at each other gave me the serious skeeves. Somewhere amongst the implied incest, the near- implied bestiality, and Jane's leftover costumes from Barbarella is the very thinnest of plots and narrative structure. Vadim doesn't seem to have any comprehension of suspense or what it takes to present a story that, if not scary, is at least spooky. You'll be constantly looking at your watch, but don't let "Metzengerstein" discourage you from seeing the other two stories.

#2, "William Wilson," directed by Louis Malle. An angel-faced but throughly rotten and sadistic man (Alain Delon) is hounded by a mysterious man that shares his name. This was a tight, satisfying little story. In contrast to Vadim, Malle is so talented at the art of suspense that he can make a simple card game exciting. Some reviewers have been put off by the scenes of misogyny--and to be honest, they did seem to spill over into exploitation. But I think it was necessary to present just how horrible the main character was, and to contrast it with how attractive he is physically (which to me was the most fascinating aspect of the segment). I found the ending slightly confusing, but still effective & tragic.

#3, "Toby Dammit," directed by Federico Fellini. This segment is so virtuoso and packed with Higher Meaning and Symbolism and Commentary On The Nature Of Man, God and the Devil that it really feels like its own movie. A jaded, alcoholic actor is invited to Rome to film a spaghetti western based on the life of Jesus Christ and attend a bizarre Italian version of the Oscars. The world as seen through Toby's eyes is populated with freaks, liars, and soulless puppets-- no wonder he prefers the Devil (uniquely and quite chillingly presented as a little girl). The scene where he is driving the Ferrari is a little overlong, but the ending is quite jarring and the last shot one of the unforgettable images of cinematic horror. The only real negative is that Terrance Stamp, who gives an incredible performance, has his voice completely dubbed by a French actor. If only we could have heard his own voice! It would be nice if Criterion could put this segment out on its own and give it the attention & study it deserves.

Call me deprived. This was my introduction to the films of Federico Fellini, way back when. But it was perfect, it was short enough and contained just enough to leave me wanting to see more.

The section is, of course, the "Toby Dammit" segment and, to me, was just so far ahead of it's time. Maybe it was just ahead of MY time and I had to age a little more to "get" more of it. I don't know, I just know that as I get older and, unfortunately, more cynical, the segment makes more and more sense to me. Well, as much sense as it ever will have anyway, let's not forget who we are talking about here.

Since it is my favorite segment and the only one I usually fast-forward to when watching the video, I will confine my comments to it alone. It concerns a celebrity deep in crisis who is invited to Rome to participate in an awards show. While there he is courted to appear in a movie and is given a Ferrari as part of his compensation. The segment is harrowing and nightmarish, a waking dream as only Fellini could have presented. You see people walking backwards, nuns, paparazzi, mannequins, people with paper masks, spectacularly lit roadside glass shops, gypsy fortune tellers, floating balls, a devilish girl in a white wig and dress looking very kabuki-esque, meat trucks and on and on. Get it? I don't, but it's a trip, man.

Like a dream, it is multi-layered and impossible to fully understand. I am certain that Fellini himself would be hard-pressed to explain every image. I am sure some were quite improvisational, occuring based more on what came up that day of shooting rather than planned out precisely.

Allow it's images to flow without getting bogged down in what this or that means when you first see it. You can always rewind the tape and try and take it apart scene by scene later if you are so inclined. Treat it as a celluloid dream / nightmare and you will probably be closest to the truth here.

Recommended to those who are new to Fellini, its a great introduction. You will be either drawn or repelled.

My vote of 9 is only for Fellini's entry, Toby Dammit. The other two are below the level of the average Twilight Zone, in my opinion. But Toby is so fine that I wish it could have been expanded to feature length. Perhaps the tone of agonized despair wouldn't have held up for 90 minutes but it certainly is great for 40. Stamp is superb. His role isn't easy, he's in every scene and has to descend from a very low point to an even lower one. Terence is completely believable the entire time. I'm not a fan of Fellini but perhaps he found his metier in humanistic horror.

It's interesting that no IMDb commenters seem to have caught Malle's significant homage in "William Wilson."

Malle makes Wilson far more sadistic than Poe's character. In the opening school sequence, Poe's Wilson is, to be sure, a leader of the other students: "the ardor, the enthusiasm, and the imperiousness of my disposition, soon rendered me a marked character among my schoolmates, and by slow, but natural gradations, gave me an ascendancy over all not greatly older than myself." Any sadism is, at most, implied: "If there is on earth a supreme and unqualified despotism, it is the despotism of a master mind in boyhood over the less energetic spirits of its companions." In Poe, Wilson does not try to strangle his doppelganger, nor is he expelled from the school. He approaches the other's bed at night, apparently sees his own face on the sleeping boy and "passed silently from the chamber, and left at once, the halls of that old academy, never to enter them again."

In Malle's film, Wilson is torturing another student as a snowball fight rages in the background. The doppelganger makes his first appearance by hitting Wilson with a snowball. The snow fight, the torture, the significant hit by a snowball, the expulsion from school are not in Poe's tale.

But all these elements ARE in Jean Cocteau's novel LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES. The snowball fight not only is featured in Jean-Pierre Melville's film of the novel, but Cocteau filmed the scene earlier in his own BLOOD OF A POET. The torture is briefly in Melville's film, but described more fully in the novel: "By the spasmodic flaring of the gas lamp he could be seen to be a small boy with his back against the wall, hemmed in by his captives...One of these...was squatting between his legs and twisting his ears...Weeping, he sought to close his eyes, to avert his head. But every time he struggled, his torturer seized a fistful of gray snow and scrubbed his ears with it." As the snow fight continues, Cocteau's iconic character Dargelos throws a snowball that hits another student and puts in motion the events of the novel/film.

Dargelos is the same sort of malignant leader of his schoolmates as Malle's young Wilson. The headmaster calls his influence on his classmates unhealthy, and after an outrageous act he is expelled from the school. Even more to the point, Dargelos has a doppelganger in the form of the character Agathe. In Melville's film Dargelos and Agathe are played by same person, and their mysterious resemblance is important to the story.

All of these added Cocteau elements are so strong that one assumes that Malle intended viewers to recognize the reference.

"Spirits of the Dead"(1968) - adaptations of three Edgar Allen Poe stories by three European directors, Roger Vadim's "Metzengerstein" with Jane and Peter Fonda, Louis Malle's "William Wilson" (with Alain Delon and Briget Bardout), and Federico Fellini's "Toby Dammit". The universal opinion is that only Fellini's entry is worth watching and it is indeed, spectacular with Terence Stamp fitting so well in the Fellini's freak show that it is impossible to take your eyes off him. The reason I wanted to see the movie so much was the CD that I bought some time ago - a compilation of some of the most beautiful themes composed by Nino Rota for the films of Federico Fellini. "The Ultimate Best of Federico Fellini & Nino Rota" includes the tunes arranged in the medleys for 16 films directed by Fellini. These are the full orchestrations (as heard in the movies they come from) and just listening to the familiar melodies brings back the memories and the images. There was one track I kept listening to over and over. It was written for the Fellini's episode in the "Tre passi nel delirio" aka "Spirits of the Dead" (1968), "Toby Dammit". The soundtrack for "Toby Dammit" simply stands out among the romantic and poetic gems. It is rich, obsessive and creates uneasy and creepy atmosphere which is quite appropriate for an episode that features a desperate actor (Terence Stamp) in a pact with the devil. Besides the score "Toby Dammit" has plenty of great typically Felliniesque images , an unforgettable ending, and not the least, Terence Stamp who might've played one of his best roles as the famous English actor, drugged and drunk out of his mind who arrived in Rome for the Italian Film Academy Awards ceremony. Toby was also offered the role of Jesus in the Catholic Western but all he remembered that he had been promised a Ferrari for participating in the ceremony and Ferrari he will get...with the ride to hell that looks exactly like Rome at night where every turn takes you to the dead end and the Devil only knows the way out but you will pay him a price...

I found all three films interesting and involving in their own terms. I don't agree with the comments that call Vadim's adaptation a failure - it is certainly not. If anything, it is beautiful to look at and listen to and any film featuring Madam Roger Vadim (Jane Fonda was married to the director at the time) wearing the costumes that were certainly inspired by or even reused from "Barbarella" that was released in the same year, 1968 is worth watching. Vadim changed the short story by transforming a protagonist, 18 years old Baron Frederic Metzengerstein into 22 years old Contessa Frederica but he did not change her character. She is rich, bored, corrupted, and ruthless, a "petty Caligula", until she meets her cousin Wilhelm (played by Jane's brother, Peter Fonda). Making siblings playing cousins in love tells us something (or maybe a lot) about Vadim and his mysterious Slavic soul and reminds about Poe's own dramatic love for his first cousin, Virginia Eliza Clemm, whom he married when she was only 13 and whose death at the age of 25 from tuberculosis could have let to decline of his own mental state and his untimely death less than three years after her.

Poe explores in "William Wilson" very popular in the Art and literature subject of a man and his double that represents his conscience, his dark and hidden side. The short story brings to mind such famous works of literature as Hans Christian Andersen's "The Shadow", Adelbert Von Chamisso's "Peter Schlemiel: The Man Who Sold His Shadow", Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray".

In Louis Malle's short film, Wilson (Alain Delon) confesses his sinful and dreadful life to the priest recalling the outrageous and vicious deeds that have been prevented or disclosed by his exact double whose name is also William Wilson. Two scenes of the short film stand out. The first is a simply chilling Wilson's attempt to perform an autopsy on a living woman and the second – Wilson plays cards, cheating shamelessly, with rich and arrogant Giuseppina (Brigitte Bardot almost unrecognizable in a black wig that does almost impossible – makes her look ugly). While it may be not the best Poe's adaptation and perhaps the weakest of three films in the anthology, two Delons for the price of one is reason enough to see it. I am glad that I finally saw the film that has achieved a cult status with years but is not easily available (I had to wait for several weeks for it from Netflix even after I had bumped it to the top). What started with my interest in the musical score by Rota, ended as a memorable watching experience.