Guy Maddin: C/D

'40s Femme Fatale Star Ann Savage Dies at 87
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Ann Savage, who earned a cult following as a femme fatale in such 1940s pulp-fiction movies as ''Detour,'' has died at 87.

The actress died in her sleep at a nursing home on Christmas Day from complications following a series of strokes, said her manager, Kent Adamson.

Her Hollywood career had largely been over since the mid-1950s, but she had a resurgence over the past year with a starring role in Canadian cult filmmaker Guy Maddin's ''My Winnipeg.''

Starting with her 1943 debut in the crime story ''One Dangerous Night,'' Savage made more than 30 films through the 1950s, including Westerns (''Saddles and Sagebrush,'' ''Satan's Cradle''), musicals (''Dancing in Manhattan,'' ''Ever Since Venus'') and wartime tales (''Passport to Suez,'' ''Two-Man Submarine'').

Savage was best-known for director Edgar G. Ulmer's 1945 B-movie ''Detour,'' in which she played a woman ruthlessly blackmailing a stranger, played by Tom Neal.

''It's actually a showcase role,'' Adamson said. ''Neal and Savage really reversed the traditional male-female roles of the time. She's vicious and predatory. She's been called a harpy from hell, and in the film, too, she's very sexually aggressive, and he's very, very passive. It's very unusual for a '40s film to have a woman come on that strong.''

Decades later, ''Detour'' and Savage gained a cult audience on television and home video.

Adamson said Maddin had been a longtime fan of ''Detour.'' Maddin cast Savage to play his mother in ''My Winnipeg,'' a combination of documentary, drama and personal memoir about his native city in Manitoba.

Savage did some television in the 1950s, including ''Death Valley Days'' and ''The Ford Television Theatre,'' then left Hollywood for New York City, where she appeared in commercials and industrial films.

In 1986, Savage returned to acting with an appearance in ''Fire With Fire,'' a drama whose cast included Virginia Madsen and D.B. Sweeney.

http://edendale.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341bff3653ef010536a129d4970c-pi

"(H)e's like Mike Todd, Jean (Cocteau) and Jacques Tati all rolled into one!"

http://edendale.typepad.com/weblog/2008/12/ann-savage-guy-maddins-mother-in-my-winnipeg-dies.html

was gonna start a thread, r.i.p.

RIP

I'm thinking My Winnipeg might be one of my favourite films of the decade.

me too

Saddest Music & Heart of the World are two of mine.

So many people I love and respect like this guy's films and I cannot stand them. Watched My Winnipeg last night and it started ok but really started to grate after a while. Too wacky (or the wrong kind of wacky, I LIKE wacky). whyyyyy

if it was wacky i'd have hated it tbh

Quite like his writing though

(xp)

I went on a date to a Guy Maddin film once (Brand upon the Brain!) and it was quite nice, but then I watched Dracula on DVD a few months later and zzzzzzzzzzz. I can see how it could be construed as wacky. It kind of is; it's like a more "sophisticated" Tarantino or something.

'my winnipeg' and maybe 'heart of the world' aside i don't really care for him

it's like a more "sophisticated" Tarantino or something

I'm going to forget I read this!

sophisticated is completely not the right word, but I mean come on, it is highly-stylized IN YOU FACE pastiche of bygone eras.

Tarantino's shit the last 12 years is not elegant enough to be termed pastiche.

xpost: I think more than anything it's a dude making stuff he wants to, and in my opinion you may very well be mistaking a sort of DIY passion for a particular era/style with a self-conscious throwing it in your face (Tarrantino, of course, being a perfect example of that crossing that line to the point of "this fucking guy"ness). It may not be sophisticated, but highly stylized pastiche for pastiche's sake, I disagree.

I think a big part of it is also the really low budget/roughness aspect of it, which contributes so much to the style, also.

otm.

Also, especially in the case of My Winnipeg, it is used for a specific purpose (the air of legend, period evocation, as well as juxtaposition with the video of the somewhat drab, modern-day city). I like Tarantino, but I don't think he's ever used his genre call-backs in such an elegant and meaningful way.

tarantino's stuff is more interesting than pastiche.

but so is maddin's.

it's not JUST pastiche.

neither of them are.

the other guy is less than pastiche.

gay pr0n

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPGT0wV-WRY

Keyhole

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/toronto-2011-guy-maddins-keyhole

"'This penis is dusty,' a character notes matter-of-factly"

There's been a blog-a-thon going on all week.

I had no idea he was straight.

US openings in April

http://www.keyholemovie.com/

I'm glad I have 10 days and a screener to figure this one out.

Did not know he was married to Kim Morgan.

yeah, saw her with him at post-screening reception tonight.

oh, so you saw it tonight? initial thoughts beyond "need to figure it out"?

definitely he tried to change the tone up -- more "serious" in a way, fewer "joy buzzers" as he calls them (tho I don't know what else you'd call a dildo coming outta the baseboard or a bike-powered electric chair). Cinematherapy still; his fastest montages ever.

He also taked about this project:

http://sunsetgun.typepad.com/sunsetgun/2012/02/over-eighty-percent-of-silent-films-are-lost-ive-always-considered-a-lost-film-as-a-narrative-with-no-known-resting-fi.html

thats rad

so happy he exists

switched off 'keyhole' a half hour in.

i appreciate what GM's doing on some level but i don't actually like watching his films that much

watched keyhole on netflix last night. understand the reservations, cuz much of it is very bad (or "bad" perhaps, hard to tell), but i wound up rather enjoying it. the wacky tone and bad jokes that loom so large at the outset eventually give way to something creepier and more interesting. i'd made the decision in advance to watch it all the way through without checking the passage of time, and that definitely helped get me through the rough spots.

went and hung out on the set of this today. it was really great. will be coming to nyc next year, morbs, you have to go check it out.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/366364/Screenshots/8u93.png

well sure

cool!

another interview, eh

http://ca.blouinartinfo.com/node/929217/home/performing-arts/Guy-Maddin-Channels-the-Spirit-of-the-Silent-Film-Era

Really like his essay for I Married a Witch: http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2924-i-married-a-witch-it-s-such-an-ancient-pitch

new one looks amazing! title change from Seances, per s1ocki above?

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-sundance-berlin-2015-guy-maddins-the-forbidden-room

sounds great

wow! cool!

no wait, Seances is a diff film, missed that in first graf

there are vampire bananas in this

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/dreaming-bigger-cracking-the-forbidden-room-guy-maddins-inception-like-genre-explosion/

Kino Lorber to release in the fall

Sparks! excited

fuck fall! want it now >:[

Interview with GM and co-director Evan Johnson:

Fragoso: Have you both seen The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Johnson: Yep.

Maddin: When I first heard of ‘The Grand Budapest,’ I was worried.

Johnson: When we first saw it we were worried and a little horrified, because it begins nested. Right off the bat.

Maddin: (Laughs.) And I thought holy shit, ‘That fucker! That fucker Wes Anderson!’ We had been working on this for years and this fucker who already has a fan-base of hundreds of millions of people—and a coffee table book that’s through the roof….

But I only said ‘fuck Wes Anderson’ because I was scared he made the movie that we just finished ruining our lives making. When I went to see it, obviously, we were sloppy and all over the god damn place and he’s so formally pure.

Fragoso: Your lives are ruined?

Johnson: No, no. Not at all. We’re fine.

Maddin: No, not at all. I’m just used to taking regular rests, and I had to work hard to make this movie. So my routine was destroyed.

Johnson: It was financially difficult.

Maddin: Yeah and we went into overtime making this thing, so the money ran out a long time ago. So we’re struggling financially, but we’ll be okay.

Fragoso: It’s good to know you two won’t be homeless.

Maddin: It’s a grand tradition of filmmakers to go broke. Douglas Sirk was a bean farmer halfway through his career for awhile.

Fragoso: So that’s your next move.

Johnson: We’re doing it.

Maddin: We are farming beans.

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/maddin-johnson