Trylove Trylove

With Kelly Krantz!

Liliana Cavani’s psychological, post-Holocaust perverted thriller went down as one of the most controversial movies of all time. In a concentration camp during World War II, concentration camp officer Max (Dirk Bogarde) and his prisoner victim Lucia (Charlotte Rampling) form a sadomasochistic relationship. Their relationship is colored as much by their shared depravity as by Max’s evil humanity and Lucia’s shame over her burgeoning desire.

Pretty inflammatory stuff! Hence the reputation. But we’re not convinced it’s the irresponsible exploitation film it’s been remembered as. On this episode, we explain why by focusing on the lead characters’ psychology, what brings them together, and what dooms them from the start.

References:


Watch THE NIGHT PORTER on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/the-night-porter-1974-dirk-bogarde
“Pain, Pleasure, and Depiction of Manipulation in The Night Porter” by Matt Lambert for Perisphere, the Trylon blog
“This Just In: Evil is STILL Banal” by Veda Lawrence for Perisphere, the Trylon blog
“The Night Porter: Power, Spectacle, and Desire” by Gaetana Marrone for The Criterion Current
“The Night Porter: Is this the most controversial film ever made?” by Steph Green for the BBC
“The Legacy of World War II in European Arthouse Cinema” by Samm Deighan

Find Kelly…


On Twitter at @kransekage_
On Letterboxd at @luckyhoss
On Trylove episodes about WINGS OF DESIRE (1987), ARREBATO (1979), and PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (1974), REVOLVER (1973), and THE DOOM GENERATION (1995)

Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/perisphere-blog-post-guidelines/

#CharlotteRamplingsIllusionsOfInvulnerability #DCP

Follow us on Twitter at @trylovepodcast and email us at trylovepodcast@gmail.com to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at trylon.org.

Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Closing audio: "Sonata 1950" by Daniele Paris from the THE NIGHT PORTER soundtrack.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 279: THE NIGHT PORTER (1974)

5:05 - Starting THE NIGHT PORTER with context

17:24 - Mistaking this movie for exploitation cinema

22:20 - Max’s perverse self-denial

37:46 - Lucia, Charlotte Rampling, voyeurism, transgression, and performance

41:26 - The power Max and Lucia have in their relationship

55:23 - The ending

1:02:50 - The Junk Drawer

1:13:10 - To All the Loves We’ve Tried Before: 1974

NORTH BY NORTHWEST is a hinky Hitchcock tale of mistaken identity, assumed identity, shifting truths, and a man with a huge butt chin using a SpongeBob-comically-small razor. Cary Grant stars as an ad man who gets caught up in a Cold War game of cat-and-mouse (he’s the mouse) opposite double agent Eva Marie Saint, Broadly European Bad Guy James Mason, and the FBI/CIA/NSA/WTFE as the other players stringing him along (they’re the cats).

A certain amount of NORTH BY NORTHWEST is best appreciated in context of Hitchcock’s previous films. After all, screenwriter Ernest Lehman said he wanted to write “the Hitchcock film to end all Hitchcock films”! To that end, it’s kind of a greatest hits collection, a suspenseful road movie keeping the tension high all the way from NYC to Mount Rushmore. What’s amazing is that it actually works totally on its own, too. Our discussion touches on the delightful sense of playfulness the movie has, Cary Grant as the perfect avatar of lovable pissantism, the cultural and political implications Hitchcock did not want us thinking about it, and how the auteur’s finely tuned filmmaking sensibilities serve his eighth-to-last film.

Do these things:


Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/perisphere-blog-post-guidelines/

#Hitchcock125 #DCP

Follow us on Twitter at @trylovepodcast and email us at trylovepodcast@gmail.com to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at trylon.org.

Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Closing audio: “Main Theme” by Bernard Hermann from the NORTH BY NORTHWEST soundtrack.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 278: NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959)

3:01 - The episode actually starts

6:44 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary

9:47 - How NORTH BY NORTHWEST plays to Hitchcock’s well-rounded filmmaking style

23:38 - Hitchcock looking back

45:43 - Critique of masculinity, nations, Cold War politicking

52:47 - Balancing critique and lighthearted fun

1:01:33 - The Junk Drawer

1:13:04 - To All the Loves We’ve Tried Before: 1959

1:14:21 - Cody’s Noteys: Trylove Movie Draft

LEGEND is a 1985 fantasy film directed by Ridley Scott and written by William Hjortsberg. It stars Tom Cruise in one of his first leading roles as Jack, a pure-hearted forest-dweller who is in love with Princess Lily (played by Mia Sara). Hoping to show her something beautiful, Jack introduces Lily to two majestic unicorns that live in a remote part of the forest. In doing so, he breaks one of the forest’s most sacred rules: That mortals must never touch the unicorns, lest they “upset the order of the universe”. The encounter creates an opportunity for goblin emissaries of the Lord of Darkness (played by Tim Curry) to poison one of the unicorns, steal its horn (alicorn), capture the other unicorn and enslave Princess Lily, threatening to plunge the world into darkness — unless Jack, the pure-hearted hero, can return the unicorn’s horn and avoid everlasting darkness.

It’s an arrow-straight premise with promise for more underneath — but after more than a dozen screenplay revisions and numerous cuts, LEGEND comes out the other end feeling rather hollow. So we’re reading WAY too far into it to see what we can get out of it beyond what it shows us!

On this episode, we also talk about the magical production design, marvel at Tim Cunty’s — er, Curry’s — sassy, satanic swagger; Tom Cruise’s tooth/teeth; and guess how tall two Tom Hardys are toe-to-tip when you stack them on top of each other.

Do these things:


Read “Before Lift Off: Tom Cruise in Legend” by John Blair for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2024/04/19/before-lift-off-tom-cruise-in-legend/
Read “When I’m Bad, I’m Better: Legend and Tim Curry’s Legacy of Villainy” by Courtney Kowalke for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2024/04/19/when-im-bad-im-better-legend-and-tim-currys-legacy-of-villainy/
Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/perisphere-blog-post-guidelines/

#OfSwordsAndSorcery #35mm

Follow us on Twitter at @trylovepodcast and email us at trylovepodcast@gmail.com to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at trylon.org.

Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Closing audio: "The Dance" by Tangerine Dream from the LEGEND soundtrack.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 277: LEGEND (1985)

2:16 - The episode actually starts

3:18 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary

8:08 - Starting thoughts

16:17 - TC’s CT

18:40 - The power of nostalgia in evaluating movies like LEGEND

33:31 - Rich visuals and a hollow story

42:47 - How Lily’s sexual awakening would bring this story together

1:07:41 - The Junk Drawer

1:16:53 - To All the Loves We’ve Tried Before: 1985

1:19:40 - Cody’s Noteys: L’edging (legend-adjacent movie trivia)

THE BEASTMASTER is a 1982 fantasy action movie directed by Don Coscarelli (best known for the PHANTASM films #TheBallIsBack). Marc Singer stars as Dar, rightful heir to the throne of Aruk and prophesied slayer of the evil priest Maax (Rip Torn). Born with the power to speak to animals, Marc befriends a number of mammals on his journey to reclaim the throne (including other humans, though they play a distant second fiddle to the beasts in this film, tbh).

THE BEASTMASTER is not a GREAT movie, and a couple of us even struggled to find much joy in it at all. But it still makes for a great discussion, including an evaluation of the movie on its own terms and plenty of comparisons with its (much better) contemporary, CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982). Plus, what animal familiar would we pick? What’s the largest animal we could beat in single combat? (My money’s on Harry and the kangaroo.)

Do these things:


Donate to help our friend and previous guest Nick Ransbottom get life-saving cystic fibrosis care: https://www.gofundme.com/f/get-nick-lifesaving-cystic-fibrosis-care
Read “Hey, Beastmaster’s On: Epic Fantasy Gets Its Revenge” by Michael Popham for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2024/04/05/hey-beastmasters-on-epic-fantasy-gets-its-revenge/
Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/perisphere-blog-post-guidelines/

#OfSwordsAndSorcery #DCP

Follow us on Twitter at @trylovepodcast and email us at trylovepodcast@gmail.com to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at trylon.org.

Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Closing audio: "Main Theme" by Lee Holdridge from THE BEASTMASTER soundtrack.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 276: THE BEASTMASTER (1982)

3:42 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary (under exclusive license from AG Enterprises, Ltd.)

10:38 - It’s not very good, is it? Or maybe it’s just boring

28:17 - Things that kind of make no sense

43:34 - CONAN-parisons

57:27 - The frustratingly un-pullable threads of this movie

1:05:35 - Our favorite bits of animal acting

1:13:24 - The Junk Drawer

1:17:42 - To All the Loves We’ve Tried Before: 1982

1:19:24 - Cody’s Noteys: Phy-love (animal-adjacent questions)

Featuring filmmaker/programmer Kris Montello and Something Rotten host Blake Hester!

SAMURAI REINCARNATION is a 1981 samurai fantasy action film written and directed by Kinji Fukasaku. Shiro Amakusa (Kenji Sawada) is the sole survivor of a massacre of Japanese Christians during the Shimabara Rebellion. Witnessing the devastation, Shiro renounces the Christian God and vows vengeance on the Tokugawa regime that perpetrated the massacre. Now in league with Satan, Shiro gains the power to resurrect the dead and assembles a team of the aggrieved undead to execute his plans, including disgraced samurai wife Gracia Hokusawa (Akiko Kano), the lustful monk Inshun Hozoin (Hideo Murota), legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi (Ken Ogata), and young ninja Kirimaru Iga (Hiroyuki Sanada). The movie follows Shiro’s group as he amasses a demonic force, pursued by Musashi’s rival, Jubei Yagyu (played by Sonny Chiba).

With noted Fukasaku Freak Blake Hester (of Something Rotten) and Kris Montello (filmmaker, Programming Manager for the Asian-American International Film Festival, and programmer for the Slamdance Film Festival), we’re picking apart this tokusatsu samurai freakout with a fine-toothed comb. How well does it work as an action movie? How do its historical origins make its transgressive violence hit even harder? How does it use Judeo-Christian imagery to tap into a specific Japanese social context? What does Fukasaku’s no-holds-barred iconoclasm bring to a demonic fantasy setting? That’s all in here!

Find Kris…


At the the Asian-American International Film Festival in August 2024 at https://www.aaiff.org/
On Twitter at https://twitter.com/kris_montello

Find Blake…


At https://blakehester.rocks/
On Twitter at @metallicaisrad
On Something Rotten, the podcast he co-hosts about nihilism in video games https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/something-rotten/id1523064458
On Trylove episodes about POSSESSION (1981), PULSE (2001), and BURST CITY (1982)
On Letterboxd at https://letterboxd.com/blakedtfp/

Also do these things:


Donate to help our friend and previous guest Nick Ransbottom get life-saving cystic fibrosis care: https://www.gofundme.com/f/get-nick-lifesaving-cystic-fibrosis-care
“Street Fighting Man: Samurai Reincarnation Star Sonny Chiba Was a Kinji Fukasaku Favorite” by Hannah Baxter for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2024/04/05/street-fighting-man-samurai-reincarnation-star-sonny-chiba-was-a-kinji-fukasaku-favorite/
Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/perisphere-blog-post-guidelines/

#OfSwordsAndSorcery #DCP

Follow us on Twitter at @trylovepodcast and email us at trylovepodcast@gmail.com to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at trylon.org.

Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Closing audio: “Illusion” by Hozan Yamamoto from the SAMURAI REINCARNATION soundtrack.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 275: SAMURAI REINCARNATION (1981)

7:06 - What is it about Fukasaku?

12:19 - Militarized power and the historical context of SAMURAI REINCARNATION

20:34 - No good guys or bad guys — just a struggle for power

28:21 - How Fukusaku robs powerful institutions of their ‘honor’

42:23 - Where the movie slows down and how well it actually works as an action movie

57:22 - Japanese cultural context of Judeo-Christian imagery

1:02:59 - To All the Loves We’ve Tried Before: 1981

1:06:34 - The Junk Drawer

Noted Arnie fan Celia Mattison is back to discuss the swords and sorcery classic!
John Milius’s CONAN THE BARBARIAN adaptation limits its view of the character to his pursuit of vengeance and conquest. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a rich, pagan paean to one’s drive for self-determination!

On this episode, we talk about what rocks in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s star-making role, how James Earl Jones’s cold, calculating Thulsa Doom is a perfectly cast contrast to Conan’s Austro-Cimmerian barbarism, and the different paths men can go after they become self-aware.


Find Celia on Twitter at https://twitter.com/CeliaMattison and on her Substack, “Deeper Into Movies”: https://deeperintomovies.substack.com/
Donate to help our friend and previous guest Nick Ransbottom get life-saving cystic fibrosis care: https://www.gofundme.com/f/get-nick-lifesaving-cystic-fibrosis-care
“Fathers True and False in Conan the Barbarian” by Chris Ryba-Tures for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2024/03/29/fathers-true-and-false-in-conan-the-barbarian/
“Conan the Chad and Tolkien the Virgin” by Timothy Zila for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2024/03/29/conan-the-chad-and-tolkien-the-virgin/
Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/perisphere-blog-post-guidelines/
Get tickets to the 43rd Annual Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival (April 11-15): https://mspfilm.org/mspiff/

#OfSwordsAndSorcery #35mm

Follow us on Twitter at @trylovepodcast and email us at trylovepodcast@gmail.com to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at trylon.org.

Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Closing audio: "Anvil of Crom" by Basil Poledouris from the CONAN THE BARBARIAN soundtrack.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 274: CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982) with Celia Mattison

4:20 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary

6:10 - A movie about conquering and being conquered

10:12 - A more moody, epic, anti-theist movie than you might assume

15:46 - How much character is there to Conan?

23:55 - Mythologization of the self as a man’s man

31:32 - “The opposite of ego death”

36:13 - Conan’s moral compass, such as it is

45:46 - How Thulsa Doom is cast in contrast to Conan

54:07 - How the ending foregrounds the action figure movies of the '80s

1:02:57 - The Junk Drawer

1:10:21 - To All the Loves We’ve Tried Before: 1982

1:13:30 - Cody’s Noteys: Conan the Parnassian (Conan-themed haikus)