The Fall of the House of Usher

This is great film. Based on the Poe poem it uses lots of camera tricks to create a magic and surreal world. Beautiful black and white cinematography. This was amazingly an "amateur" film that was made by some very talented film enthusiasts. If you have ever made your own independent or "amateur" film, as I have, you will marvel and REALLY appreciate the effort and time put into this film. This is one of the handful of films I wish I could say that I made it! If you like the 1920s German expressionist films etc, you'll eat this one up.

A traveler arrives at the Usher mansion to find that the sibling inhabitants, Roderick and Madeline Usher, are living under a mysterious family curse: Roderick's senses have become painfully acute, while Madeline has become nearly catatonic. As the visitor's stay at the mansion continues, the effects of the curse reach their terrifying climax.

This is a very odd film, and one that can quite correctly be called "Avant garde" or "experimental". Some rudimentary special effects were tested here, all of which had to be done in-camera. The camera itself is often off-kilter, giving a disorienting effect. We also have plenty of double exposures and what looks like kaleidoscope vision. The words "beat", "crack" and "scream" take on a life of their own.

Roderick is particularly creepy, and one wonders what influence -- if any -- this had on later versions of the Usher story. Today, the best known one is likely the Roger Corman and Vincent Price picture, but to compare that to this film would be difficult... even the most basic plot elements here are mysterious.

This film is also not to be confused with another film that came out the same year with the same name, starring Charles Lamy and Jean Debucourt. This other version had Luis Buñuel as Assistant Director, and is probably the better of the two.

As experimental as Jean Epstein's version of "The Fall of the House of Usher" was, coincidentally in the same year a more avant-garde 13-minute presentation on the same Poe story was released. Produced by two friends from Harvard University, Melville Webber, an art historian, and James Watson, a medical doctor and magazine editor, the two non-filmmakers sat down to compose a visual tour-de-force short film. The pair's "The Fall of the House of Usher," contains no inter titles except a handful of floating words as the house begins to fall.

The Americans' "The Fall" compiles a number of sequences with prisms multiplying the distorted view of the house bordering on insanity. The Weber/Watson team used many German Expressionistic visuals to translate the Poe story. The set design contains many irregular shapes of the house similar to 1920's "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." Using an optical printer, they created a few visually-pleasing zig-zag effects. Watson's wife, Hildegarde, lent her services by playing Madeline Usher.

Webber and Watson's film is reflective of the independent short films produced by experimental amateurs in the 1920s and 1930s. Before film festivals, these movies were picked up by movie groups and shown in small venues such as church basements, public libraries and people's homes. The high quality of the American version of "The Fall," however, reflects the lofty standards these amateurs were capable of producing. The two went on to create three additional short films, most notably 1932's 'Lot in Sodom,' and a Bausch & Lomb industrial short, before they dove into making 3D motion picture x-rays.

This example of cinema is composed as avant garde expressionism. It uses various prism shots, multiple exposures, slow motion (forward and reverse), and inventive uses of sets and miniatures. Creative and experimental, it's a showcase for the filmmakers. However, this is to story telling what ballet is to story telling; you'd have to have some familiarity with the original to make sense of the action. Not meant for human consumption. There's a fine line between "artistic" and "arty," and like most ultimately pointless examples of avant garde, this carefully crafted work is pretentious enough for easy derision by the common observer.

Intriguing early experimental treatment of Poe from the same filmmakers who would bring us the even more astonishing "Lot In Sodom" in 1933. Doesn't compete with the equally avant-garde feature length version made at the same time by Jean Epstein & Luis Bunuel, yet stands well on its own. More of a tribute to UFA & German Expressionism than an outright imitation, with specific nods to Caligari, Der Golem, and Faust. Visually rewarding for lighting, cinematography, sets, makeup. Compiled in a skewed fashion reminiscent of the structure of a nightmare. Captures the wonderfully gloomy, morbid atmosphere of Poe's work, the claustrophobic ambiance of "Usher" in particular. A treat for fans of the genre, in addition to being sufficiently unusual & brief (just over 12 minutes) to hold the average viewer's attention. At one time, this film was available on an anthology videotape called "American Avant-Garde" along with the aforementioned "Lot In Sodom." Great stuff if you're lucky enough to track it down.