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johnnymundano · 6 years

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Possession (1981)

Directed by Andrzej Żuławski

Written by Frederic Tuten, Andrzej Żuławski

Music by Andrzej Korzyński

Country: France, West Germany

Language: English

Running Time: 124 minutes

CAST

Isabelle Adjani as Anna/Helen

Sam Neill as Mark

Margit Carstensen as Margit Gluckmeister

Heinz Bennent as Heinrich

Johanna Hofer as Heinrich's mother

Carl Duering as Detective

Shaun Lawton as Zimmermann

Michael Hogben as Bob

Maximilian Rüthlein as Man with pink socks

Thomas Frey as Pink socks' acolyte

Leslie Malton as Sara, woman with club foot

Gerd Neubert as Subway drunk

It’s just a hunch but I reckon Andrzej Żuławski was having a tough time on the marital front when he made this deliriously nuts arthouse splatter classic. Just a hunch, mind. Certainly Anna (Adjani) and Mark (Neill) are putting each other through the relationship wringer. Mark returns home to ‘80s Berlin after a long absence doing some shadily vague spycraft, only to find Anna’s been finding solace elsewhere. Like many couples in movies Mark and Anna shriek and bellow at each other while a child (Michael Hogben) looks tearily on, but the sense that the stakes are raised higher than Kramer vs Kramer (1979) is cemented when they meet in a café and Mark starts smashing things like smashing things is going out of fashion. It’s all very entertaining stuff, full of “deep” conversations delivered in a stagey way, but the bits where Mark loses his shit are best. Which is good, because during Possession Mark loses his shit a lot; he might even have surreptitiously stocked up on shit beforehand so much shit does he lose. Anna looks like a much better bet for any sense, but it turns out that she too is losing her shit, and her shit losing will reach truly operatic proportions before the credits roll and the viewer is left wondering just what the holy hell they just watched.

Things would be bad if Anna was just messing about with her ballet tutor, Heinrich (a thrillingly unhinged performance by Heinz Bennent, which doesn’t so much challenge the viewer but rather the entire concept of performance itself, and possibly singlehandedly redefines cinematic camp for the next hundred years). Unfortunately it’s even worse, she’s messing about on Heinrich as well with…well, uh, spoiler? There’s a reason the credits include Carlo Rambaldi, the renowned creature creator. I’ve never really been a Rambaldi fan, preferring instead Rick Baker, Screaming Mad George or even Rob Bottin, but Andrzej Żuławski keeps Rambaldi’s work off screen or splashed with gore, so any deficiencies are lost in the very effective shock the visual carries.

Possession’s greatest special effect is the city of Berlin itself; it is set in Berlin when the Wall was up, see. It seems like some kind of early John Carpenter riff now in 2018, but, yes, the city of Berlin was in fact, post WW2, separated East and West, by a big wall with barbed wire, machine guns and sallow men in warm hats peering through binoculars. A divided city, a divided couple, yeah, all that stuff is in Possession. As is doubling, every clever director’s device of choice. And of course the title has more than one meaning. Sure, you could get all chalk and elbow patches about Possession but that’s on your own time. It’s the crazy shit I warm to and…hoo boy! Because as everything around him becomes ever more unhinged, some semblance of sanity finally possesses (ho!) Mark and he sets a detective on Anna’s trail, and when that works out badly he sets Heinrich on the case. Things look like they are trundling to a possibly merely slightly nuts conclusion when Żuławski goes “Ha!” and sets course for the heart of insanity with a final act that becomes apocalyptically demented and then carries right on through.

Possession’s an overwrought wail of a movie but it’s not lacking in discipline, don’t think that for one hot second. The tell is how the characters’ apparent lack of control in front of the camera is balanced by the total control behind it. Characters stomp around, spin on a pin and hurriedly flail off again, in rooms, down stairs, out of doors up and down, in and out, round and round but the camera stays right with them, it never misses a single step. No mean feat in the ‘80s when cameras were as big as suitcases. Żuławski’s hysteria is (ta-da!) rehearsed hysteria but the seeming spontaneity is uncannily convincing. The director’s control clearly extends to the performances; given everyone is so simpatico in their oddness Żuławski’s plainly had a word in every actor’s shell-like. Everyone is good, but Neill, Adjani and Bennent are volcanoes of thespian awesomeness.

Adjani in particular is a revelation. She definitely has the hardest (because it is the most ambiguous) part, but she tears into it like a dog with a bag of hot chips. Actresses are eternally undervalued, largely because their roles are frequently underwritten, but here Adjani gets a chance to thesp until something snaps and she grabs it with both clawed hands. The bit where she has a breakdown (miscarriage?) in a pedestrian tunnel and ends up slouched in her own secretions of (apparently) milk, blood and fairy liquid is the kind of frenzied brilliance you’ll die happy you witnessed. Andrzej Korzyński’s earworm of a soundtrack certainly doesn’t hurt either. For a movie so apparently overheated and unrestrained Possession turns out to be a thing of artistic precision and icy control.

Back in 1981 Possession was an unremittingly bleak spew in the face of optimism and yet…in 2018 the wall has gone, Berlin is united, Germany has healed and is doing just fine; so hope has snuck in retroactively. “This too shall pass” turns out to be the secret message of hope at the heart of Possession. A message secret even from the movie itself; a message equally applicable to divided cities and divided marriages; a message the movie wasn’t built to carry but then history always does the heavy lifting. I first saw this movie reviewed in “Starburst” (a British genre movie magazine, 1977 to present) in its year of release and made a pre-pubescent mental note to keep an eye out for it. Nearly four decades later I can rip that mental post-it note up. Possession was worth the wait.

#Possession #Movies #Horror #1981 #1980s #France #West Germany #Andrzej Żuławski #Heinz Bennent #Isabelle Adjani #Sam Neill #Weird on Top

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jonathantaylorthomas · 7 years

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Taylor Swift's New Album 'Reputation': Everything We Know, Everything We Want

The Old Taylor can’t come to the phone? Long live the New Taylor. Reputation is one of this fall’s most tightly guarded secrets; Taylor Swift’s sixth album is her first in three years, her longest vacation ever. So far, each Swift LP has been a major musical departure. But this time, she isn’t letting any secrets slip, declining interviews and, somehow, avoiding paparazzi detection wherever she may be. All we have to go on is a quote from a source close to the project who tells Rolling Stone, “Reputation is lyrically sharper and more emotionally complex than 1989. This music has and will continue to speak for itself.”

So what do we know about Reputation? We know it has 15 songs; “…Ready For It?” will be the first track and “Look What You Made Me Do” will be the sixth. We know it drops on November 10th, which happens to be Richard Burton’s birthday. (What if that makes Reputation the Burton to Taylor’s Taylor? What if she is about to marry herself and embrace her muse as her soulmate?) It’s one day before the nine-year anniversary of Fearless, which came out in 2008 on November 11th, whereas she usually prefers to pounce in late October, as she did with Speak Now, Red and 1989. So here’s a rundown of all the clues to the burning mysteries around Reputation – what we know for sure, what we wonder, what we want, what we hope.

The sound. The first two singles are moody electro-pop: the Hot Topic quasi-goth blare of “Look What You Made Me Do” (produced by Jack Antonoff) and the hip-hop island breeze of “…Ready for It?” (produced by Max Martin, Shellback and Ali Payami). “Look What You Made Me Do” is Sal-Tay in supervillain mode; “…Ready for It?” is sultrier and far superior. Neither sounds like any of her previous work. But drastic swerves are what Swift does. All five of her previous LPs have developed a sound she could have milked for years – but she’s never made the same record twice, even when that’s what everybody wanted, from her record company to her fans.

Last time the world was hoping for Red II: Fifty Shades Redder, Red III: Revenge of the Scarf or Red IV: Maple Latte Massacre, but instead she made 1989, an album as far from Red as Speak Now was from Fearless. Nobody sane would have advised her, “You know what you should do next? Make an album that sounds nothing like Red, but exactly like Erasure or the Pet Shop Boys.” Yet Swift followed her own muse and turned out to be right – when it comes to high-risk moves that pay off, she’s gone five for five. So whatever she tries on Reputation, it won’t be what she did last time.

The romance. The line that jumps out from “…Ready For It?” is “He could be my jailer / Burton to this Taylor.” Not her usual kind of love story. Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor got married and divorced twice, which by 1970s standards made them the ultimate glamour couple – even Sonny and Cher only got to break up once. Their boozy jet-set affair lasted a total of (hmmm) 13 years, despite the fact that they basically loathed each other. Burton was fond of referring to Liz as “MGM’s Little Miss Mammary,” while she called him “the Frank Sinatra of Shakespeare.” By the time Liz was Swift’s age, she was on Husband Four; Burton was Five (and Six). So Liz and Dick weren’t exactly Romeo and Juliet – their Shakespearean duet was a 1967 film adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew. Fans have speculated the song is her ode to her beau of the past year, British actor Joe Alwyn – currently filming Mary Queen of Scots, where he plays the lover of Queen Elizabeth. Burton once got an Oscar nomination playing her father, King Henry VIII.

The playlist. Her Spotify playlist “Songs Taylor Loves” is loaded with sad weepy ballads – the side of her music missing from the two new singles. It’s also full of younger artists – from pals like Selena Gomez and Ed Sheeran to country upstarts like Maren Morris and Brett Young to indie brooders like the National and Bon Iver. But none of the legendary names Swift usually loves to invoke – the girl named after James Taylor isn’t bumping “Fire and Rain” these days. Is the playlist representative of her new music? Or is she digging these tearful ballads because she’s no longer writing them?

The cover. She’s wearing black lipstick, clearly a sign that Old Taylor is dead, given her affection for the red-lip classic thing. She gazes blearily through newspaper headlines spelling her name – math experts have counted her name on the cover 899 times. The cover’s weirdest detail: the Richard Hell-like torn sweatshirt, stitched up to create five triangular peaks, one for each previous album.

The magazines. The exclusive Target edition comes with two different 72-page magazines full of Swift’s poetry, watercolor paintings, handwritten lyrics and fashion photography. (Oh, pop stars – always secretly fantasizing about being editors of print magazines.) Judging from the cover of Reputation magazine, the typographical sensibility evokes the famously experimental (and often illegible) 1990s music mag Ray Gun.

The snakes. She’s teased the album with serpentine imagery – want to buy a $60 Gold Snake Ring? Either she’s a budding herpetologist or she’s reviving her Kimye feud. You remember – from last summer, before Kanye’s 5150 or his rock-bottom moment ass-kissing the new President. But it’s safe to surmise the feud factor will be the least intriguing aspect of Reputation, since her celebrity conflicts have been fruitless musically for all the artists involved. “Look What You Made Me Do” is much stronger than Katy Perry’s “Swish Swish” or Kanye’s “Famous,” but that’s hardly an achievement given how those remarkably wretched gaffes sandbagged the albums they were intended to launch. All evidence indicates that we’re in a post-beef era where nobody cares about pop-star feuds, since we’ve got more pressing problems. Swift sending Cardi B flowers to congratulate her on “Bodak Yellow” hitting Number One – even though it replaced “Look What You Made Me Do” – is much more in step with the 2017 zeitgeist than snake emojis, which are so last year. And you have to love how Cardi B made sure to document the flowers on Instagram, to thwart any would-be Cardor truthers.

The Drake factor. Be on guard for Drizzy content. Last year, while the rumor mill was full of reports of them hanging out and possibly working together, the two did linked Apple Music ads, one with Taylor lip-synching the Drake/Future collabo “Jumpman” and the other with Drake doing “Bad Blood.” Since Aubrey Graham is the only pop star on earth who can approach Tay’s feelings-per-minute ratio, the mind reels at how they might sound together – let’s just say they could go from zero to 100 real quick.

The shirt. The “Look What You Made Me Do” video ends with an attention-grabbing shot of Swift in a “Junior Jewels” t-shirt decorated with her friends’ names. Squadologists plotzed at the roll call, from Patrick Stewart (he’s on it twice? Make it so!) to Abigail (the “Fifteen” bestie whose wedding had Swift as a bridesmaid last month). Who’s lurking on the back of the shirt? And who’s a blank space? The most high-profile absence was Karlie Kloss, currently seen in a new Cole Haan ad campaign with well-that-escalated-quickly pal Christy Turlington. (In Elle a few weeks ago, K.K. gushed, “I am surrounded by extraordinary women – from my mom and sisters to role models like Christy Turlington, Melinda Gates, and Sheryl Sandberg, and many more.”) Will Reputation offer a state-of-the-squad update?

The exes. Just because Swift seems to be in a functional relationship, is that any reason she should keep a dignified silence about her Long List of Ex-Lovers? Dignified silence is not this lady’s style. Between Tom Hiddleston and Calvin Harris, she has some real content opportunities. In the new video, Zombie Tay digs a grave marked “Nils Sjoberg,” her ghostwriting pen name; there’s also an empty engagement-ring box. Perhaps she’s mocking Harris for both his career and love life, given that Nils Sjoberg is an anagram for “Jobless Ring”? Or maybe she’s accusing him of swiping her work, since it’s also an anagram for “Robs Jingles”? Or maybe – just maybe – anagrams are meaningless and dumb coincidences?

The tour. One thing Swift has made clear over the years – she’s not into looking back. In the spirit of Madonna or Bowie, when she tours, she focuses on the new songs, not the hits of yesteryear. It was a shocker when she left “All Too Well” off most stops of the 1989 tour, just as she left “Enchanted” and “Long Live” off the Red tour. But given the choice between reprising the oldies or showing off her new songs, she’ll go new every time. And that goes for her albums as well – she’s never been an artist who repeats herself. Don’t expect her to start now. “Honey, I rise up from the dead, I do it all the time”? Bring on the New Tay-stament.

#rolling stone magazine #Taylor Swift

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viralhottopics · 7 years

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Not so haute: six writers on their biggest fashion mistakes

From tights on the beach to head-to-toe taffeta, writers reveal the outfits they regret

Kenya Hunt My version of day-to-night dressing was a night-time look worn all day

Despite working at a fashion magazine, Ive made a few sartorial mistakes. I comfort myself with the sentiment of an Instagram edict I saw: If youve never looked a little dumb, youre not having fun.

Id count the moment I met my husband as an off day, so it pains me no end that the clothes I wore have become a part of our marital lore. In his mind, the outfit is key to a story that must be retold, again and again: She wore a shiny shirt, tight jeans, big, gold hoop earrings, tall boots and a giant white furry jacket. And I said, I need to know this woman.

This visual loudness the metallics, the big proportions, the shaggy texture was my everyday look back in my late 20s, when I was living and working in New York. I dressed this way to please no one other than myself. I relished being able finally to buy and wear the labels I read about in magazines, but could never find in my suburban childhood home in Virginia.

My version of day-to-night dressing was basically a night-time look worn all day ready for whatever fun might happen later. Id think nothing of a morning commute in glittery Miu Miu heels or a gold Chlo sequin skirt. (To be fair, it was the era of high heels, flashy coats and skirts that were either very big and long, or very short.) No matter what the prevailing trend, Ive always had a soft spot for the razzle. For further proof, see this old image of me in Milan, in bright colour and print, layered on top of more colour and print.

Now, my wardrobe stands on a foundation of grey, navy and black, mostly because it suits my lifestyle and the London weather. I limit the flamboyance to my accessories (a bright shoe, big earring, bold handbag) or show it through shape, such as an enormous puffer jacket. Its just that now I choose pragmatic black rather than hot pink.

Theres a real joy that comes with loud dressing, because it requires a certain kind of go-to-hell spirit. Ive come to indulge this in a more restrained way, but I dont regret the mistakes. If I did, Id have divorced my husband a long time ago, for telling that story so very, very often.

Kenya Hunt is fashion features director of Elle.

Ruth Lewy: To think that this was my coolest look

Ruth Lewy, aged 20, with Dizzee Rascal.

It was May 2006 and I was coming to the end of my first year of university. I had just received my first proper student journalism commission: an interview with Dizzee Rascal. I borrowed a Dictaphone and hastily scrawled down three pages of uninventive questions (What is the best thing youve ever got for free?).

Now the important bit: my look. I loved Dizzee; I knew his two albums back to front and had mastered all the words to Fix Up, Look Sharp. What was I going to wear?

To think, looking back, that this was my very best outfit. My coolest look. Not one floral print top but two, a T-shirt layered over a shirt. Not one necklace, but two. (Made with beads collected while InterRailing around Europe. I know.) My curly hair was slicked back with Brylcreem. Off I went, looking like Laura Ashleys long-lost daughter.

He was courteous, holding eye contact and answering all my inane questions with grace. (The best thing he ever got for free? A lifetimes supply of trainers.) I stood up and shook his hand, and he invited me to his afterparty. The next student journalist sat down and went straight in with a question about homophobic lyrics and issues of representation in pop music, and I thought, Ohhhh, thats what journalism is.

The evening took a strange turn. My friends and I crowded into a bar on the high street, where Dizzee had a roped-off section at the back. It didnt take him long to zone in on my gorgeous friend L, persuading her to leave with him. We were agog.

Twenty minutes later, she was back, laughing her head off at the way he had clumsily propositioned her. She chose us over him.

What do I see when I look at this picture? I feel embarrassed at my choices. But Im also glad I spent my 20s dressing like a weirdo: it demonstrates a self-confidence that I dont think I appreciated at the time. These days, you could still file most of my clothes under eclectic, but Im much more careful, uninventive even. Now I tend to wear only one necklace at a time.

My interview never appeared in the end; the other journalist broke the embargo (she went on to write for the Daily Mail: go figure). I was left with only this blurry picture, a reminder of my youthful enthusiasm for floral prints, and an uncanny impression of Dizzee Rascals best chat-up line.

Ruth Lewy is assistant editor of Guardian Weekend.

Nosheen Iqbal: Everyone else on the beach was 89% naked

Nosheen Iqbal in Tuscany, aged 21.

I was a skittish 21-year-old in the mid noughties and I had, against my will, ended up on a Tuscan beach. It was the height of summer, but I was wearing thick black tights, thicker black skirt, black scarf and witchy pumps . Everyone else was dressed in 89% naked and the entire beach was rammed. Id been sent on a work trip with four other journalists who were, as far as I was concerned, super-old (fortysomething) and, I hoped, probably willing to buy my stubborn refusal to strip as some cool youth thing. (They didnt.) I made an attempt to style it out by looking casually moody, staring out to sea behind sunglasses, pretending not to notice my shoes sinking in the sand, legs looking like inky black stumps.

Why dont you take off your tights?

No.

What about if

No.

A couple of key things: the seaside was not on my itinerary and I hadnt packed for it. I didnt (and dont) own swimwear or a bikini, and I didnt (and dont) know how to swim.

Being Muslim is barely an excuse to look as daft as I did; there are chic ways to be modest by the sea childhood memories of Karachis Clifton beach were proof, where lawn cotton tunic and trousers were everyones friend. But being Muslim, plus an average level of body dysmorphia, was my bikini body ready get-out card. I knew there had to be more comfortable ways to be in public than permanently sucking my stomach in wearing what is, essentially, waterproof underwear. But 100-denier hosiery was definitely not the answer.

The general advice to give a shy 21-year-old should always be, Its not as bad as you think, to allay their disproportionate embarrassment. Except, in this case, the cringe levels are fully warranted; I havent been to a hot, sunny beach since.

Nosheen Iqbal is a commissioning editor for G2.

Morwenna Ferrier: I cant remember why I decided to cut off my hair

Morwenna Ferrier in Aldeburgh in her early 20s.

Other outfits have been more challenging. The mother-of-pearl bustier I wore to my graduation, say. Or, recently, the T-shirt printed with Valerie Solanass Scum manifesto I wore to meet a friends baby. But the outfit I am wearing here, worn on a walk along Aldeburgh beach in Suffolk, is the one I most regret.

It started a few months earlier when, in my early 20s, I decided to cut off my hair. I cant remember why. I imagine I fancied a change and, in fairness, I liked it. But then, I looked like a boy in a dress. I reacted by phasing out dresses and instead wearing drainpipes, striped T-shirts and headscarves. None of this was good. In the photo, Im wearing tight cropped trousers under the dress.

I had spent my late teens in dresses, grungy or flowery, with self-cut hems. It was a more innocent time, when I didnt really care what I wore. But the haircut triggered an anxiety.

What is it I regret? Back then it was the haircut; now, its that I ever worried about looking like a boy. I clearly hadnt been paying attention in those Judith Butler seminars; maybe I was still too attached to the binary. As my hair grew out, I started to care for the first time about how I looked. At 24, late in life, I became self-conscious.

Morwenna Ferrier is the Guardians online fashion editor.

Pam Lucas: I looked like a turkey at Christmas

Pam Lucas at a family party, aged 39.

As a single parent in the 80s, I was dirt poor. I didnt have the opportunity to make fashion faux pas because I didnt have any money. We shopped in jumble sales, and we had fun.

My family was invited to a party to celebrate my aunt and uncles golden wedding anniversary. I didnt know them that well, but my mum wanted me to impress them by looking modern. In the 80s, that meant puffy sleeves and big shoulders. My mother came with me to buy the outfit from BHS , so I had to comply. I was 39 at the time.

It was a beautiful colour between purple and lilac but I didnt like the synthetic fabric. It was watermarked all over and had a flared, taffeta skirt and a little jacket with a peplum. I looked like a turkey at Christmas, but it was such a fab party, I soon forgot how uncomfortable I felt.

In a way the outfit is a testament to my relationship with my mother. I was a grownup, with a child of my own, but she was still trying to keep hold of the mum bit of herself.

Pam Lucas is a model and appears regularly in All Ages.

Tshepo Mokoena: I settled on a vague hippy child look

Tshepo Mokoena at 19.

It would be nice if we could start over. To spare me, and others my age, a fair bit of niggling shame, by wiping all early photos from our Facebook accounts. Anyone who set up a profile between 2004 and 2009 now lugs around the digital baggage of horrible pictures of misspent youth and terrible outfits.

Case in point: this delight of a photo. I was 19, killing time between the second and third years of uni in Brighton. In a few weeks, my housemate and I would set off on an impulsive charity volunteering trip to Kerala because and I still cringe wed watched Wes Andersons The Darjeeling Limited.

Until my early 20s, my aesthetic consisted of not knowing when to edit. At 18, I would layer at least three beaded necklaces, two chunky bracelets, about 17 bangles and seven rings, for no good reason.

I attended secondary school in Harare, Zimbabwe, largely insulated from fashion, more concerned with my whizzing hormones than the latest velour tracksuit. I settled on a vague hippy child look at 15 and filled my wardrobe with earthy prints, flared denim and jewellery picked up in local markets. By 19, I looked like a substitute art teacher.

If youre old enough to have only private, analogue photography from your youth, or young enough to have crafted a near-fictional version of yourself online, youre spared the permanent reminder of your mistakes: 1,287 grim images owned by Mark Zuckerberg. I implore other twentysomethings to join me in calling for a digital purge. Its time.

Tshepo Mokoena is the editor of Noisey.