Dating a Semi Sadist

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Tues Top Ten: Total Eclipse of the Sun

As you may or may not have heard one of the longest total eclipses of the sun in decades is about to happen. It's tonight in US time (we won't be able to see it) but tomorrow morning (Wednesday July 22nd) for the countries that will have a view like India, China, Japan and The Philippines for some examples. That ultra hot orb, life giver to us all, will be blacked out for six whole minutes from some vantage points. To commemorate the occasion I thought a top ten list was in order. What's more dramatic in a movie than a sudden cut to black?

But I kept coming up blank. Why aren't there more solar eclipses in the movies? It's such an exciting visual event. So I polled some blogging friends. We still came up short. This is not a preferential list so much as a list that requires your contribution for completion.

10 (er...8) Movie Eclipses

Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
You don't technically see the eclipse here but it sets the plot in motion, the alien plant using the sun blotting as cover to sneak itself in amongst the the flower district's zinnias in order to catch Seymour's eye. The lyrics are so hilariously innocent in their da doo obviousness. Especially the punchline.

Seymour: He didn't have anything unusual there that day.
Crystal, Ronette & Chiffon: Nope, da-doo,
Seymour: so I was just about to, ya know, walk on by,
Crystal, Ronette & Chiffon: Good for you,
Seymour: when suddenly,
Crystal, Ronette & Chiffon: Da doo
Seymour: and without warning, there was this...
Crystal, Ronette & Chiffon: TOTAL. ECLIPSE. OF. THE. SUN.
[pause]
Seymour: It got very dark.

Yeah, that happens with eclipses, Seymour. I always have to suppress giggles when I watch this movie. The giggling eventually wins out.

Baraka (1992) and Apocalypto (2006)
"It's even on the poster!" Glenn of Stale Popcorn proclaimed ...of course he did. He brought up the stunning all visual no dialogue 90s documentary about life here on planet Earth. Mel Gibson's sadist's confectionary about the ancient Mayans is also so enamored of its astrological event that it must be referenced in logo / poster form.

Dolores Claiborne (1995)
JA from MNPP immediately cited this Stephen King adaptation when I went fishing for examples saying

The entire film - hell, Dolores' entire life - revolves around what goes down during this eclipse. Sometimes I consider this Kathy Bates' finest performance (it's certainly an overlooked one), and nowhere is there more apparent to me than here in this moment when she lets us see a broken woman taking her greatest stand by not moving at all. Bonus points for the scene being shot so astonishingly.

The Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)
This acclaimed Béla Tarr film was Nick's suggestion.

The first, amazing sequence has to do with a funny-sad-weird pantomime of an eclipse.

How does one pantomime an eclipse? I'm intrigued now. I know I should have seen and loved Harmonies by now but ever since I read about Sátántángo and the cat torture sequence I have been too wary to approach the filmmakers work. I'll just have to deal with derivations thereof (hi, Gus!) because I can't do movies that can't claim "no animals were harmed".

Pitch Black (2000)
This film was the first to come to my mind. I remember being terrified by the eclipse but not why. My brain is like a sieve so I asked JA if I was remembering this correctly, and he verified that I was...

Once that giant ringed planet blots out the suns the action doesn't let up ever again. There are monsters in that there absence of light and I don't know about you but I'd not so much mind finding myself hunkered down in the dark with a strapping, tank-topped Vin Diesel (at least pre-Pacifier) at my side in such sweaty...

JA is always wandering off into a NSFW place isn't he? He can't help himself. Pitch Black came out in 2000. Remember when it looked like Vin Diesel might be an action star for the Aughts in the way that Schwarzenegger and Stallone were for the 80s?

L'Eclisse aka The Eclipse (1962)
Guest blogger Robert suggested this Michelangelo Antonioni classic. I reminded him that there's no eclipse in it.

Dang Antonioni and his metaphors!

...he replied. But the list is thin and this is a classic so I say it counts. Antonioni had originally intended to include the literal event. He described his own eclipse experience like so...

I am in Florence to see and film a solar eclipse. Unexpected and intense cold. Silence different from all other silences. Wan light, different from all other lights. And then darkness. Total stillness. All I am capable of thinking is that during an eclipse even feelings probably come to a halt. It is an idea that has vaguely to do with the film I am preparing--more a sensation than an idea, but a sensation which defines the film even when the film is far from being defined. All the work and the shots that came after have always been related back to that idea, or sensation, or premonition. I have never been able to leave it aside.
-from the preface to Six Films

Ladyhawke (1985)
The last ten minutes of this, the best of the 80s fantasy films, is pure magic for epic romance loving moviegoers. Etienne (Rutger Hauer) and Isabeau (Michelle Pfeiffer) have been cursed for years to never touch. By day she soars above him as a hawk and by night he accompanies her in wolf form. Etienne doesn't believe in the prophesied "night without a day, day without a night" that will break the curse. How can such a thing exist? But break the curse this eclipse does. At first they gaze into each other's eyes in rapturous disbelief and joy. Isabeau's ecstatic involuntary gulp of laughter/tears as Etienne lifts her from her feet, basking in her beloved's true physicality for the first time in years gets me every time. Total lump in throat, tears in eyes.

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We only came up with 8. Perhaps you can fill out this top 10 in the comments. What other movies find the magic in a 'night without a day and day without a night'?

previous top tens
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Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

It's the "Musical of the Month"!

One of the funniest sequences in Frank Oz's adaptation of the Off-Broadway hit Little Shop of Horrors is the introduction of the villain, Audrey II. At first Audrey II, a "strange and unusual plant" seems like a godsend for a struggling flower shop down on Skid Row. Tarty but kind Audrey (Ellen Greene) and mousy Seymour (Rick Moranis) have convinced their boss Mr Mutchnik (2-time Oscar nominee Vincent Gardenia) to display Audrey II in the window to drum up business. Immediately, to Mutchnik's disbelief, the pathetic trio are deluged with eager customers. The jokes fly fast, both visually and aurally, as huge handfuls of flowers are tossed about and overly expository dialogue is continually repeated in doorways, over registers and through windows.

Director Frank Oz was an inspired if obvious choice for transferring Little Shop from its stage pot into the larger garden of cinema with roots intact. The Audrey II would have to be a massive puppet villain and he knew from felt and foam. He provided the unforgettable voices of both Miss Piggy and Yoda and had previously directed the eye-popping puppet spectacle The Dark Crystal (1982). His filmography is wildly uneven but Little Shop proved the true jewel in his resume. It was, like the Audrey II, a strange and unusual movie for its time.

It's not really up for debate: the 1980s Musicals were Skid Row. The genre was the most undesirable of movie zip codes.

Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene belt out "Skid Row" with affecting desperation

Movie musicals were rare, and when they did arrive they were ill attended and relatively uninspired. Eventually filmmakers moved away. Maybe it was an unavoidable collapse, what with Bob Fosse's 70s masterpieces (Cabaret and All That Jazz) casting 'Can't top this!' shadows and MTV shrinking the taste for musical narratives into bite sized portions. Gentrification of the musical genre would start with the animated blockbusters of the 90s. Live-action musical would follow finally kicking up their heels again at the turn of the millenium. This is why I still cherish Little Shop of Horrors (1986). In the mid-80s it was rather like the Audrey II (prior to all the icky flesh eating!). For musical aficionados it was a strange and unusual sight but very welcome indeed.

I've always been fascinated with the decision making process involved in stage to screen transfers. Many movies based on plays are notoriously nervous about appearing "stagy". Little Shop of Horrors mostly avoids this awkwardness and seems delighted to be an odd hybrid of both traditions. The movie version never tries to present reality. The sets come with painted backdrops; pouring rain never once douses the trio of narrators (doo wop girls as Greek chorus = endlessly amusing) -- but it also takes obvious care to honor the "motion" in pictures. The camera is always moving, restlessly trying out new angles and there is a nifty depth of field to the production, even within small rooms. Little Shop acknowledges the diorama views provided by stage shows, but your eye is continually moving around and inside the prosceniums: up and down staircases, peeping through smudged windows and traveling through doorways. Frank Oz is taking you into every nook and cranny of Skid Row.

But the single most brilliant decision made in transfer was the retention of Ellen Greene for "Audrey" the role she created.

Audrey in a fog. Yet there isn't an out of focus moment in Greene's portrayal

Most movie musicals jettison their original stars, occasionally to their benefit (not all stage performers can kindle the same fire onscreen), but often to their detriment (the size of stardom superseding all else including vocal technique and general rightness for a role). Little Shop of Horrors provides us with the rare opportunity of seeing a star-making stage turn transferred in full with none of its magic diminished.

Greene's Audrey is a risky and unmovie-like creation (it's easy to imagine the same thing on stage -- which usually isn't a compliment), but her confidence and creativity are stunning. She so thoroughly owns the role that the performance transcends its origins. She'd performed Audrey hundreds of times but it's still vital and alive. She's Seymour's heart and the heart of the movie. To keep the blood of this production pumping she's got to swallow huge amounts of air. The oxygen only escapes her again in huge blasts, barely audible squeaks or quiet pockets of breathy tenderness. Greene's voice is a marvel both in song and spoken word. And so's her look: that impossible silhouette, round cartoon breasts, helmet hair, and tiny frame were surely visible from the back row in the theater and so, undoubtedly, was the performance. Yet for all of that she's still endearing in closeup.

I'd go so far as to nominate Ellen Greene for Best Actress for 1986. At the Oscars that year the nominee pool was a famously two-horse race (documented here before) between Marlee Matlin in Children of a Lesser God (working the disability hook that Oscar is often moved by), and Kathleen Turner in Peggy Sue Got Married who was inhabiting the more hit-n-miss terrain of the 'huge movie star whose time has (supposedly) come'. Here's a comparison chart:


I haven't seen any of these films recently, save Little Shop, so my nominees are subject to change (Farrow would be the first to drop but... for whom? Melanie Griffith in Something Wild? Jessica Lange in Crimes of the Heart? One of Oscar's choices?), but this is how I'm calling it today with Little Shop's soundtrack playing in my head. Forget "Somewhere That's Green", Ellen Greene was robbed of Something That's Gold in 1986. Marvel at this injustice: she wasn't even up for a Golden Globe for Comedy or Musical performance! Awards bodies were channeling her sadistic dentist boyfriend that year, weren't they? There weren't enough kindhearted Seymour's standing beside her.


Blogosphere of Horrors (MotM Participants)
Mondo Musicals has written about this movie extensively. It shows. His new piece is about the altered ending and the details surrounding it's release.

Warner Bros intended the film for the audience least likely to appreciate its genre-bending sensibility. For Little Shop was marketed not as a Halloween treat...but as a family-friendly Christmas picture.

Much Ado About Nothing on that great Greek Chorus
Movies Kick Ass Jose let's a train of thought carry him all sorts of places
Criticlasm remembers his first time with the movie and revisits to see if it remains as loveable
StinkyBits on his favorite bits and the most troubling one

...the plant becomes ever more like a manifestation of the vagina dentata, albeit with the voice of an urban black man. Two great castration anxiety tropes squished together in one giant puppet.

Monday morning, we'll round up the possibilities for October's Musical of the Month and reveal November's too!

In 8 Days... Seymour's Our Man

I snapped my fingers. Will you say 'sure'?
_______The "Musical of the Month" is Little Shop of Horrors. Participating blogs we'll be going down on skid row Saturday September 6th. Join us.