Saturday, March 04, 2006

Trauma 10: Ed Wood


Renowned as “the worst film ever made” Glen or Glenda is cast into the camp trash can of B-Movie Aesthetics. Cast in the dies of sexploitation B-movies Glen or Glenda is perceived to be a poorly crafted B-Movie created to justify Ed Woods Transvestism, but beneath the surface of it’s reputation lays a genre crossing film, with a mix of classic 1950’s Education Movie and the formula for a Film Noir, Woods Glen or Glenda is an example of a pure cultural document of the Eisenhower Era.

With its reputation peeled away and its poor workman ship overlooked Glen or Glenda falls into place in 1940’s American film noir. It’s portrayal of the darker side to society, concentrating on Human Depravity, Perversion, Manipulative Sexuality, Failure, Despair and the “Forbidden”, film noir also implied a certain cinematic style — the use of light and shadow, nightmare sequences, voice-over narration, flashbacks, “eminent” doctors, hard-boiled detectives, and a seedy, urban landscape to portray a world gone wrong. Wood was heavily influenced not only by noir predecessors, such as Double Indemnity (1944), The Maltese Falcon (1941), and Stranger on the Third Floor (1940), but also by the horror movies of his idol, Bela Lugosi. In fact, Glen or Glenda, like Tod Browning’s horror film Freaks begins with a typically noir disclaimer: “In the making of this film, which deals with a strange and curious subject, no punches have been pulled — no easy way out has been taken. Many of the smaller parts are portrayed by persons who are, in real life, the characters they portray on the screen. This is a picture of stark realism — taking no sides — but giving you the facts — all the facts — as they are today.”



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With its obvious anti-war messages based around the atom bomb, first dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, woods experiences in World War 2 and his time spent enlisted in the marines, add dimension to the plot lacking in so many B-Movies of the same era, although this dimension is poorly delivered and sits uneasily in a monologue. Wood’s films are often identified by these face to camera monologues which adds wait to his depiction as an outsider and theorists essays charting his filming techniques as tools to depict outsider elements of society.

Woods films are elevated above the Sci-Fi B-movies of the 70’s to current day because his love for the genre’s he works in (i.e. the horror and sci-fi, not the B-Movie). His passion shines through the cracks left from his lack of technical ability. Woods love for film is outstanding, and is expressed subtlety unlike modern horror/zombie B-Movies.

Images such as the car hubcap/pie dish flying saucers have become icons of 50’s B-Movies and have become parodied in film such as Tim Burtons Mars Attacks! This among other filmic references through modern cinema history (from episodes of Sienfeld to its porn remake “plan 69 from outer space”) and its colourization and re-release in 2005, have helped to secure this film as an icon. Although this film is not an example of the Sci-Fi Genre at its best it is a monolith in the Sci-Fi B-Movie Genre.



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Season Presented by Alan Hook

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