Just for fun, here are a few images of period-era posters for F. W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu: eine Symphonie des Grauens” (1922).
I’d love to have one (or more!) of these professionally framed. Anyone aspiring to be my wealthy patron, get right on that.
All posts by Eric Robert Nolan
“Blue Wolves Move In An Indigo Wood,” by Eric Robert Nolan
Blue Wolves Move In An Indigo Wood
“Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.”
— Carl Gustav Jung
All the colors are off —
Blue wolves move in an indigo wood
Their cobalt backs arrive, arising
Like coarse dorsal fins over
low-lying orange flora,
their beryl heads hung low — every
aquiline cerulean nose is angled down —
tracing the escape of a flaming hare —
their racing red rabbit has evaded them again.
Dreams leave all our long nights’ inner canvases
in singular tints and incongruous
strange iridescence.
Reason, here, is pariah.
Senses are its surrogates.
Vision its impostor
in the illogic’s ether:
Slow stars arc in scarlet.
Racing sable comets
make black wakes against
blinding white night.
A full moon rises in violet —
the fat and full and low-lying fruit of a
dark and overripe plum.
Yellow bucks bounce
high and away in the wolves’ wake —
sun-colored stags beat bright retreat
a running herd of burning gold —
all sunlit sinewed limbs and flashing hooves.
Flurries of green quail flutter,
flushed from fushia grasses —
alate bladed emeralds, blazing away.
The verdant birds burnish silhouettes —
angles on lunar lavender.
But ever all the blue wolves ignore the moon.
Each arrows forth in formation
ardently advancing —
oblivious to bucks and disregarding birds.
It’s the hare that they’re after —
its crimson prints
lure azure noses
and bait the ordered forward pace
of the great broad and blue padded paws.
In a surprising eloquence,
one predator’s head
rises and sonorously
sounds its disinterest.
“See, then, dreamer, see,
“what evades the lucid wit at dawn.
“The obvious moon is the obvious girl;
“your love is a glaring suggestion —
“as bare-faced and as common
“as a hundred thousand loves that came before — her face
“turning and facing away is as plain
“as a routine moonrise, but we,
“we are the Jungian Shadow.
“And our red hare is your red hare
“And hare for one and all.”
The predator’s head is an arrow —
its broad blue ears angle back
as its blue nose rises and scents.
And its voice is song.
“See then, dreamer, see
“what confounds the heart at noon.
“The stags to which we’re indifferent
“Are the heroes of your childhood.
“The flight of every bird is your every
“moment of loss, but we,
“we are the Jungian Shadow.
“And our red hare is your red hare
“and hare for one and all.”
Then the blue nose dips
to sniff the ground again
in the predator’s diligence. If
this wolf’s tones were physical,
they would be blue tears.
“See then, dreamer, see
“what escapes the brain at day, see,
“Arriving at your reservoir,
“that its pedestrian waters
“though shallow, still may drown
“in existential death, so rather
“hunt at its circumference
“the red of a Collective hope.
“We are the Jungian Shadow.
“And our red hare is your red hare
“and hare for one and all.”
Finally its eyes soften,
running from burning blue cobalt
to the warm sky-blue of hopeful new boyhood summers, and yet,
its sad irises reflect
a distant dancing red:
a spinning flame –a prancing hare.
“See, then, dreamer, see
“what renders your pain as prosaic —
“the racing red flame of the hare.
“It might have tempted Ovid once
“or pained the painters of caves,
“baiting them as their discovered fire
“first turned stone to a nocturnal
“canvas — the clay
“reddened their hands but they
“could only glimpse an inner quarry,
“as you glimpse it, now,
“turning away
“from your minutiae.”
“See, then, dreamer, see.
“See a universal grief
“and a shared catharsis
“rendered in red in your sleep:
“blood red, the color of prey,
“sunset red at end of day,
“flame, the color of pain
“and, yet, created light.
“See, then, dreamer, see.
“Hunt with us and hear our call.
“Our red hare is your red hare
“and hare for one and all.”
— (c) Eric Robert Nolan 2016
Photo credit: By Dennis Cowals, 1945-, Photographer (NARA record: 2196327) (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
A review of the Season 2 premiere of “Fear the Walking Dead.”
[THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR SEASON 1 OF “FEAR THE WALKING DEAD.”] “Fear the Walking Dead” has done something interesting. It’s taken two truly reprehensible characters, and made them the most attractive among an ensemble of protagonists in a survival-horror story.
I’m talking about Victor Strand and the young, troubled, drug-addicted Nick, who I’ve been reluctantly but undeniably rooting for since the closing episodes of last season. They’re both expertly played, by Colman Domingo and Frank Dillane, respectively. Colman is actually amazing: his deep voice and perfect line delivery should make him a leading man here or elsewhere, either as a hero or a villain. In just a couple of episodes, he’s easily become one of the best things about the show.
But these aren’t “good guys.” Or, at least I don’t think they are. Are they? Strand is openly a sociopath, and doesn’t even bother to hide it. He appears to act nobly in rescuing the group. But as Ruben Blades’ character, Salazar, shrewdly observes, he is almost certainly acting somehow according to his own self-interests. (And Salazar has been right about these kinds of things so far.)
As for Nick? No, I am definitely not judging the character about his addiction to illegal drugs. That would make him a flawed protagonist, not a bad guy. I’m talking about his demonstrated willingness in Season 1 to victimize the helpless in order to feed that addiction — he does nothing less than kill a sick, elderly man in order to get his “fix.” (I did understand that scene, didn’t I?)
And what about Salazar himself? He is easily the third most interesting character to me, and he’s perfectly portrayed by Blades. I want him to survive this show’s zombie apocalypse, simply because I enjoy watching him so much. He’s a former torturer for the El Salvadoran junta. That’s … that’s pretty much as bad as you can get, isn’t it? And this isn’t a character aspect that the viewer can easily put aside, as audiences did with the character of Sayid on “Lost.” (He was a past torturer with Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard.) Salazar’s deplorable skills are front and center at the end of the show’s first season, driving the plot.)
There’s nothing pathological about my attraction to these characters. (And I’m sure it’s shared by other viewers.) It’s just that these are creatively conceived characters on a show that seems to bungle its efforts to create anything resembling or interesting likable good guys. The remaining protagonists of “Fear the Walking Dead” are written to be utterly bland, even when they are very well portrayed by their actors. Travis (Cliff Curtis) is a one-note altruist. Madison (Kim Dickens) shows promise, but isn’t yet that interesting to watch. Alycia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) is a boring nice-girl. Ofelia (Mercedes Mason) is so forgettable that I can’t really remember how to describe her as I write this.
The worst offender, by far, though, is the character of Chris. I can’t imagine how dreadful a job it must be for actor Lorenzo James Henrie to play him. He’s an utterly punchable brat — an entitled, immature, self-absorbed teenager that makes you root for any zombies that pursuing him. I can’t imagine the show’s writers created him to be sympathetic … surely they must be setting him up as zombie fodder.
All told, though, the Season 2 opener last Sunday was good stuff. I’d rate it an 8 out of 10. Fans who were frustrated with Season 1’s slow pace (I wasn’t) will be pleased to discover that the show opens with an action sequence and a pretty skilled depiction of the destruction of Los Angeles. No, the show doesn’t have the same special effects budget as a major feature film. But this was still impressive — we get to see some of the destruction and mayhem that’s only been alluded to or briefly, limitedly portrayed via flashback throughout six years of “The Walking Dead.” (Remember the faraway shots of the bombing of Atlanta?)
The suspense is also quite good. I can’t really say much more for fear of spoilers. But I thought it was well written and intelligent, and I think it will please even seasoned fans of the zombie horror sub-genre.
This was pretty decent stuff. I think Season 2 should be a fun ride.
“Spied on an errand.”
Spied on an errand:
deer and heron,
in the very same vista.
(Only in Virginia!)
— ERN
Giulio Aristide Sartorio’s “The Siren,” 1893
Nolanferatu’s tip for a trippy vintage horror double feature!
Well there’s one thing I can cross off my bucket list. (There’s a lot on there, and some of it’s weird.) I finally saw F.W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu: ein Symphonie des Grauens” (1922).
And am I damn glad I did! I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I love plenty of classic movies; “The 39 Steps” (1939) and “To Have and Have Not” (1944) are among my all-time favorites. But I’m accustomed to modern horror — my tastes generally extend only as far back as “The Birds” (1963) and “Night of the Living Dead” (1968).
I waited until I was in just the right mood. (This is the first silent film I’ve ever seen from start to finish — the only exception being Mel Brooks’ 1976 parody, “Silent Movie.”) Then I began it shortly before midnight.
The movie just worked for me. It was sublimely creepy.
I think it helped that the grainy, flickering, black-and-white period footage made this expressionist movie utterly atmospheric for a modern viewer. These, combined with the shots of Max Schreck superbly made up as “Count Orlok,” were damned unsettling. Schreck also appeared to be a great physical actor, with his gaunt stance and stilted, inhuman movements. (Was he unusually tall too?)
The vintage footage also enhanced my enjoyment of the movie in a way that Murnau probably couldn’t have expected. I know this is strange, but … nearly a century later, the thought that occurred to me several times during this movie was this: “Everyone involved in this production is long dead by now.” Yes, I know that is a morbid thought — I’ve never done that before! I think it was just the film itself that did that to me — it’s about undeath and immortality, after all.
It also helped that I’d read Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” (1897), of which this film is an unauthorized adaptation. The resulting lawsuit by Stoker’s estate is interesting reading: supposedly all copies of the movie were ordered by the courts to be destroyed, bankrupting Prana, the production company. But a permanent cult following developed for the few surviving prints.
Anyway, I followed this up with the palate-cleansing “Night on Bald Mountain,” the final segment of Disney’s “Fantasia” (1944). That combination, too, totally worked for me — I followed up the black-and-white nightmare-fuel of the seminal vampire film with some vivid, incongruously hellish Disney nightmare-fuel.
“Nosferatu” is in the public domain. You can view the entire film on Youtube at the link below.
Throwback Thursday: Balsa Wood Gliders
This meme says the “THE 70’S,” but I encountered a little boy playing with something kind of like a balsa wood glider yesterday! I told him how much I loved these when I was his age.
His was a bit fancier — it might have been made of thin plastic. The gliders that I received from visiting aunts and grandparents were like the mostly unadorned balsa wood jobby that you see below. It came in a long plastic sleeve like the one pictured, and you had to assemble it yourself. (It wasn’t quite as high tech as the X-Box.)
Loop-de-loops were damn fun. It was slightly less fun seeing it snap off a wing or fin after a nosedive. Note to any well meaning aunts or uncles who might spy a balsa wood glider, if they’re still around: buy a couple of them for that kid in your life — these things break easily.
“Were it not that I have bad dreams.”
“O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.”
— William Shakespeare, “Hamlet,” Act II Scene II
Stay current with Nolan’s newest nerd verses (2016).
2016 has been good to me so far; I’ve been lucky to have a few pieces published since the start of the year. If you like my poetry and care to peruse my publications since January 1st, then just click the link below:
“April is the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land …”
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
— from “The Burial of the Dead,” Section I. of T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”
Source: Lady Ottoline Morrell [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 