Film Trace

We continue our Camp Cinema season in our seventh episode covering The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and Barbarella (1968)Special Guest: Manish Mathur, host of the It Pod to Be You, covering romantic comedies from classics to modern hits and everything in between.French director Jacques Demy embarked on an ambitious project to create a film in which every line was sung. What initially appeared as a gimmicky opera about everyday life evolved into one of the most acclaimed musicals of all time. The film is imbued with vivid color and adorned with enchanting songs, showcasing Demy's profound appreciation for artifice, a hallmark of camp cinema.In stark contrast to Demy's refined sensibility stands Roger Vadim's audacious science fiction film, Barbarella (1968). Infamous for the wrong reasons, the film features Jane Fonda in the lead role, navigating an incoherent narrative inspired by a French erotic comic. Here, the camp is strikingly naïve, and the collective artistic intentions remain enigmatic and elusive.

We continue our Camp Cinema season in our sixth episode covering The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and The Day of the Locust (1975). Special Guest: scholar, artist, author, and curator Marisa C. Hayes of the wonderful Afterimages podcast and book series.The first film discussed needs no introduction, though Dan and Chris could have used one since the Jim Sharman-directed camp classic was a first-watch for both of them. Enter Marisa to help break down why it perhaps took so many years for two Midwest suburban boys to break through its storied midnight movie status and witness its madcap genius. Then, a hard pivot to John Schlesinger's takedown of the Golden Age of Hollywood in all its messy, over-the-top glory. The proto-Babylon isn't fully self-aware of its turgid and grisly nature, though perhaps that's exactly what defines it as an underrated camp gem, though certainly an oddity that lies on the fringes of canon.

We continue our Camp Cinema season in our fifth episode covering Hairspray (1988) and Xanadu (1980)Special Guest: Gavin Mevius and Louie Rendon from the great Mixed Reviews podcastJohn Waters is the prince of camp. We simply had to choose one of his films for our season on Camp Cinema. The lucky winner was Hairspray. While Waters is known for his deft ability to push the boundaries of taste and propriety, Hairspray spins and shakes upon the line of respectability without overly indulging in taboo. This spry wiliness in tone perhaps what makes it his most potent film. Xanadu on the other hand would never flirts with respectability or taboo. It exists in some liminal space between imagination and reality. Nothing about Xanadu makes any sense, especially the plot. But there is something a bit magical within this technicolor rumpus. Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton-John bring class and warmth to what could have been a real bad trip. Is Xanadu good? The syntax of that question is nonsensical. Camp is post logic, which is where Xanadu lies.

We continue our Camp Cinema season in our fourth episode covering To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995) and Magnolia (1999)Special Guest: Returning Guest, Rotten Tomato approved film critic, Natasha Alvar from Cultured VulturesWhen watching To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, there is an overriding sense of what could have been. Coming out in the mid 1990s, a surprisingly much more open time in American culture, Wong Foo went to number one at the box office. It was a modest hit, but clearly well received by the general public. If this movie was made today, everyone involved would get more death threats than residuals checks. Culture doesn't always move forward, sometimes it backslides.Magnolia is a controversial pick for Camp Cinema. To me, it is the paradigm of what Susan Sontag called Naive Camp in her 1964 essays Notes on Camp. Magnolia is a manically ambition film with a passionate and serious tone. Paul Thomas Anderson, like Cameron Crowe in Vanilla Sky, strived to reach the artistic heavens, but all he did was take on a tour of the sad and lonely people of the San Fernando Valley. Chris and Natasha offer some good counterpoints to my stance.

We continue our Camp Cinema season in our third episode covering Sugar and Spice (2001) and Vanilla Sky (2002)Special Guest: Good friend and frequent guest, MollyThe early Aughts was a bizarre time in American culture. The heady surge of the late 90s into Y2K was quicky benzo'd by 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our two selections for the 2000s were written and produced before the big comedown, and they both definitely have a "we can do anything" vibe. Sugar and Spice deftly somersaulted through the byzantine development process at New Line Cinema, who were likely distracted by their massive production of Lord of the Rings trilogy at the time. What could have easily been a teen movie cash-in is a rather spunky, satirical, and fun mess. Does it work? No, but it is sassy enough to not care. Vanilla Sky is not fun. Here Cameron Crowe's grandiose vision was blinded by his fiery ambition. Coming off his best film, Almost Famous, Crowe decided to tackle a remake of Alejandro Amenábar's 1997 Spanish film Abre Los Ojos. Vanilla Sky does not align with the traditional definition of camp, but it certainly seems to be the bullseye of what Susan Sontag called Naive Camp. It is a film so devoutly serious about something so frivolously stupid.

We continue our Camp Cinema season in our second episode covering The Love Witch (2016) and Black Swan (2010)Special Guest: Filmmakers Emily Gallagher and Austin Elston of Fishtown FIlmsAs the dust begins to settle on the 2010s, the topsy turvy decade begins to come into focus. At the start of the decade, Darren Aronofsky released Black Swan (2010) to critical acclaim. I saw it in a packed NYC theater opening weekend. The buzz was palpable. Looking back now, especially post mother! and the rise of peak tv, the trashy and overwrought elements of Black Swan overshadow the great performances and wonderful cinematography, which is why we have selected as our Naive Camp film for this episode.The Love Witch had a much quieter release in 2016, but it clicked with a small group of film lovers. While filmmaking is mostly a communal art, Anna Biller was so involved with every aspect of The Love Witch that it could only exist because of her. Biller's retro and kitsch style can not obscure the riotous passion for filmmaking and gender theory at the heart of the film. It is so campy that one could argue it is post-camp in that it is both obsessed with artifice and serious at the same time. At the very least, The Love Witch exists mostly in deviance of the ideas presented in Sontag's Notes on Camp.

Welcome to the first episode of Season 13 of Film Trace. In this season, we will explore the notion of Camp in Film. Building off of Susan Sontag's foundational 1964 essay, Notes on Camp, we will explore two films each episode we think demonstrate Sontag's concepts of naive camp and intentional camp.First off is the financial and critical disaster of Madame Web (2024). We argue this film is a good example of what Sontag would call naive camp: over the top, extravagant, but without much artistic merit. A spectacular failure. The open question with Madame is whether anyone involved thought it should be anything more than a lark inspired by the trashy comic book films of the 1990s.Countering the cinematic cacophony of Madame Web is the arthouse excess of Pearl. Ti West was given a million dollars by A24 to create a prequel to his 2022 slasher X. The star of that film, Mia Goth, helped write the script and plays the titular Pearl. Boy this one is a doozy. Goth is out there in a place all her own. We think it is a great example of intentional camp: total excess that somehow succeeds in being a good film.

We felt like doing an Oscars show, so we did:Topics of discussion1. Intro: 2023's Film Trace movies. They stood the test of time, but were they awarded upon release?2. Nominated film most obviously conceived specifically with little gold men in mind?3. Nominated film conceived originally with absolutely no award hopes in mind?4. Nominated director/writer/DP/actor most obviously groomed to one day become an Oscar winner?5. Nominated director/writer/DOP/actor least groomed throughout their career to one day walk to the stage?6. Conclusion: Release the hounds. What 2023 movies do we think will stand the test of time despite receiving zero nominations?

In the eighth and final episode of our Future Wars season, we discuss the sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) alongside the b-movie stunner Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).Alas we have come to the finale of our Future Wars cycle. It has been a long season with a super-sized eight episode run. Sci-fi is often a real bummer. Most of the movies we covered this season depicted humanity's future as a nightmarish dystopia. Here we trace back the genre to its roots. The Day the Earth Stood Still established many sci-fi genre conventions while Invasion of the Body Snatchers brilliantly depicted the nebulous unease that took over American domestic life in 1950s. The start of the Cold War did a real number on Americans. The real threat of nuclear annihilation doused the tranquil domesticity of new suburbia in caustic self-doubt and a deep fear of outsiders. But whereas more recent Future War films demonstrated the totalizing destruction of AI, aliens, or ourselves, these films from the 1950s had less fatalistic finales. Perhaps the actual threat of destruction gave them reason to think of an imagined way out.

In the seventh episode of our Future Wars cycle, we discuss the classic Dr Strangelove (1964) alongside a bizarre artifact from the French New Wave, Alphaville (1965)Special Guest: Good friend of the show and onscreen performer Harry Brammer, dialing in from Tokyo.Here we have two masters, Kubrick and Godard, spinning tales of future conflict and war in the mid 1960s. Slipping in their polemics right before the great social upheavals of the decade, these films depict the western world teetering on the edge of breakdown. Kubrick's scolding satire in Strangelove still smolders 60 years later. He depicts the most powerful people in the world, people with the ability to end the human race, as complete and utter buffoons. The accuracy of his portrayal is startling as it has only become more true with time. Godard's Alphaville is a very different story. Shot for next to nothing in Paris, this ambitious film can't support its own intellectual weight. While some scenes still pop off the screen, it is a trudge to get through despite it merits.