Entries from October 2019 ↓

SUSPIRIA Day 28: details


Can you believe that 31 Days of Suspiria is almost over? There are only a couple of posts left (not that, you know, October 31st will be the last day I ever talk about it or something) so I wanted to highlight some of the details both large and micromicro that have contributed to this movie ruling my world. Stuff like...

Susie and Sara breaking my heart yet again with this split-second of eye contact during Volk.



They are way past the point of no return here. Sara has been irreparably damaged, and they are both a part of something much larger than either of them, something they cannot stop whether they want to or not. But even through everything that's transpired, even in the middle of a performance, they find each other. Watching Sara wordlessly plead with Susie during the entirety of her time in Volk is completely heartrending, but this small moment kills me.

This shot.


Gorgeous. Ominous. Yes.

Klemperer leaving this newspaper advertising Volk on the train.


It's a nice bit of foreshadowing. He has no idea that that show is going to wreck his whole world.

Klemperer fastidiously dusting.


I am hoping to post about Josef and Anke before this month is through, but this is one of the touches I wanted to highlight now. He takes such care of this sacred place and it's beautiful and yes, heartbreaking. I told you Suspiria was full of tragedies!

Boutaher being cool as fuck.


I should have mentioned this moment during Griffith's suicide dinner party yesterday when Boutaher got a shout out, but I was focused on another moment. If you came away from that thinking "Okay, but is she cool, though?" I present the above photo evidence. And this is before she starts pulling from a beer bottle. Iconic.

This shot.


I know that shortly after this she rips her fucking chest open but this shot, this is the one for me. Stunning. Luca's camera loves every one of these women and it radiates.

Frau Sesame.


I just want to give a shout-out to Frau Sesame the caring and ever-reliable. In a world composed almost entirely of madness, she is always a dose of sanity. The kindness and gentleness in her voice in the epilogue, when Klemperer doesn't recognize her...you get the feeling that they might just be okay. She's the real mother in this film.

Jessica goddamned Harper.


Okay, as I said, Josef and Anke deserve their own post. But look at her here: giving a masterclass of acting in one facial expression. We know by this point that something is up. Anke's reappearance is too good to be true. The border guards are awfully unconcerned with this couple walking through a checkpoint (a nice contrast with the bureaucracy we saw earlier in the film). But her face. She's conveying the gravity and grief and bittersweet happiness Anke would feel, but simultaneously there's another layer to it–a hint of malice, a tinge of the ruse. I know horror fans don't sleep on Jessica Harper, but this shot alone should have the world at her feet.

The breakfast scene.

Boy oh boy, the breakfast scene. The kitchen and dining room slowly fill up with Matrons as the camera moves around and through them. "Has Ended" plays while the voiceovers give us the results of the Markos/Blanc vote. It's the most erotic group breakfast I've ever seen, and I've been to Denny's after all the church people show up, so I know erotic group breakfasts!

We've got Vendegast greeting the day in her super hot racy negligée.


Pavla casually showing us how limber she is because, you know, dancing. Also if you notice the doorway in the back of the shot, you see part of a trend: nearly all of them enter the scene in pairs.


Huller swaggers into the room (with her Operation: Get Klemperer cohort Alberta) looking like she just got laid.


Balfour enters and greets Pavla by the face.


This scene is full of interesting pairs and intriguing looks. I'm not saying that the Markos Tanzgruppe is a lesbian sex coven, but also that's exactly what I'm saying. I mean...

The dinner scene.

The witches need to get the dancers under a spell for the Sabbath, but how do they do it? Not with a look or a small gesture, as we've seen them perform other spells. They do it with seduction.



Also, Caroline's pipe is a choice, no?


Mia fucking Goth.

She is truly jaw-droppingly brilliant in this movie, the real MVP. During the course of Sara's journey, she needs to channel everything: desire, fear, giddiness, worry, grief...basically the whole gamut of human emotion. More than that, she has to convincingly dance and maintain a state of undeath. She does all of it so authentically that I am constantly taken aback by every bit of her performance. I honestly cannot get through the Mutterhaus hallway scene without crying; her screams and pleas for mercy cut right through me.

(Like, seriously: the best horror movie screaming? I've seen so many horror films (duh) and the good screamers are more rare than you'd think. There are several...but Mia Goth is another level. Maybe because it's not about a man or monster chasing her–it's fear and pain and Luca really gives her plenty of time to shine. It's harrowing in ways I can't even comprehend.)

But I wanted to talk about a couple of micromoments in the cake scene, where Dr Klemperer tells her about Patricia's notebook and she tells him to stop bothering her. I'm not going to examine the way she eats that cake, because my longtime cyberpal Jason of My New Plaid Pants recently wrote a terrific piece all about that very thing over at The Film Experience. Go read it. Go read all of his "Great Moments in Horror Actressing" series. And everything else he's written!

In an interview, Goth described some of the background work she and Luca did for her character; you know, what was Sara's family like, what kind of person is she outside of the world of the movie, that type of actor stuff. The big takeaway: Sara's from a wealthy family. You get glimpses of it throughout the film–that wardrobe– but the entire cake scene really drives it home. I love how she conveys it through the tiniest of gestures, like the daintily raised fingers on her right hand as she eats, never quite resting on the plate or table:


Or the very well-mannered way she wipes up a few crumbs as she plots her escape from this nightmare meeting:


Those kinds of details can't be taught. They're not instructions given by the director. Okay, sometimes they are, but in those cases the moments come away as disingenuous. Sometimes you see the actress doing these things and they feel deliberate and inauthentic. In those cases, you can almost hear her process, you know what I mean? "On this word, I will touch the glass of water." That sort of thing.

The gestures Goth does here are natural and nuanced because she's so invested in the character that raising her fingers or wiping the crumbs very particularly become second nature. You don't always think about the way you wipe crumbs, do you? It's just how you wipe crumbs.

The planets definitely aligned for a lot of people on Suspiria. However she came to it, Mia Goth really connected with Sara Simms and thus, so do we. It's amazing. She's still so young, I can't wait to see all the great work she's going to do in what I hope is a long, long career.

This statue in the Mutterhaus art gallery.


Okay, I apologize: the Markos Tanzgruppe isn't a lesbian sex coven.

It's a creepy lesbian sex coven. But then, all the best ones are, I suppose.

SUSPIRIA Day 27: monsters and queens


Given that so many posts this month have featured Suspiria's major characters, I thought it was high time to discuss some of the Matrons who may not have as much screen time or dialogue–heck, sometimes you don't even catch their names–but they still manage to pierce your brain like a terrifying yet aesthetically pleasing hook. Each is given her moment(s) to really shine and serve as reminders that to put it mildly, there are no innocents at the Tanzgruppe. In fact, they'd just as soon eat your cunt on a plate as watch you dance because, as Rosemary Woodhouse might say, all of them witches.


Miss Boutaher (voted for Blanc)

Okay, I love Boutaher, speaking her French-inflected German with that deep voice. She gets a great introduction, waltzing into the building alongside Miss Vendegast; The two of them all messy-haired, looking and acting like they're cooler than you because guess what? They absolutely are.


They're certainly cooler than Susie at this point, and look, I know I've written about this scene several times before...but honestly, I probably could have spent 31 days writing about it alone because it has so many terrific moments of all kinds of flavors jammed into, like, five minutes. It's undoubtedly five of my favorite minutes in the film.

Anyway, Boutaher sets up this heavenly sequence by asking Susie "Where do you come from?"

"Ohio," Susie replies.






Boutaher huffs a scoff (or scoffs a huff, if you prefer) and leaves. I could talk for days about the way Dakota Johnson says "Ohio" here because it is perfect, a micromoment that is full of depth. She conveys shyness and embarrassment, but there's also a hint of that patented Susie Bannion fire underneath it, as if there's an "...and?" that's unsaid. And don't get me going about the way she's sitting on the edge of that chair or we will be here for days! The point is, Johnson is brilliant in a million different ways in Suspiria, and it's absurd to me that she's gone all but unrecognized for it.

No wait, that's not the point! The point is Miss Boutaher.

We don't see much of her after this introduction until after the Sabbath. She's the one who tells the dancers that Blanc has "left the Company," and the way she strolls into the studio and greets each girl in turn...well, it seems that for now, at least, Miss Boutaher is the Tanzgruppe's new Madame Blanc.


Miss Marks (voted for Markos)

If you listened to the first Suspiria episode of Gaylords of Darkness, then you know that Marks, aka DJ Witch, was my original aspiration. As I noted in my post about Miss Vendegast, Marks "sits around, playing music and watching rehearsals, smoking and looking sullen. She's in on all the action, but she doesn't have to do much." That seemed like the life for me: not having to clean up messes like Olga, never smiling, watching the women dance all day, sometimes maybe pressing a button.


Ultimately, though, Marks is decidedly less than "life" "goals." She voted for Markos and done got her head exploded, which, you know. No thank you. The very idea that she sat in that studio day after day, watching the creative process unfold, watching Blanc at work, and yet voted for Markos regardless is kind of delightfully passive-aggressive, though, so I still think she's rad.

Miss Pavla (voted for Markos)

Pavla is a big part of the reason why there's an Olga mess to clean up. As the dancer is on her way out of the "box of rabies," Pavla stops her on the staircase and facetiously asks if she's alright. Then we get a gorgeous, mesmerizing closeup as she casts a spell with that sound in the background–you know the one, it's sort of this Suspiria's version of the "Witch! Witch! Witch!" whispers in the Goblin soundtrack for the original film. (Incidentally, if you can manage it, it's worth watching this movie once whilst wearing headphones. The sound design is layered and rich and *chef kiss.*)


With the spell complete, Pavla laughs and continues on her way. Olga, meanwhile, now has her vision obstructed by goopy tears and, disoriented, continues on her way to becoming one of Auntie Anne's featured selections.


A few minutes later, Pavla joins a few others in the studio and...oh boy. That hook scene. I love the way it begins, with Pavla, Vendegast, Balfour, Alberta, and Millius gathered around Olga–who is still alive–looking...well, it's hard to discern what they're thinking, isn't it? We see each of them in turn and their faces are nigh unreadable. Pavla initially has an eyebrow cocked, then glances around almost nervously. Are they surprised by what Susie has done? Are they worried about repercussions in the Akademie and/or without? The moment just hangs there, keeping us in suspense over what they're going to do.





Then we find out: they're all monsters, every one of them. With menace and, perhaps more frighteningly, abject glee, they bury their hooks deep into Olga's flesh. They're adding more pain onto the unspeakable amounts she's already enduring, and they're enjoying it.





And, uh, Millius, right? (Voted for Markos.) That face. How is it that Alek Wek has been around since the 90s (a GD pioneering woman of color in the fashion industry, if you didn't know) standing nearly six feet tall with that face and this is her only juicy role? Bless Luca Guadagnino. When she appeared on screen the first time I saw this movie, I lost my fucking mind. Cinema desperately needs more dark-skinned Black women. I love Lupita Nyong'o as much as any rational person does, but she can't do all the heavy lifting.


And just to drive home how callous these women are, the next day we get a great little moment with Alberta (voted for Markos) as Tanner and Vendegast escort the two police detectives into the building. She enters frame from downstairs and after a long night of torturing Olga and inflicting indescribable horrors on her, Alberta yawns. Damn. Business as usual. Didn't get much sleep, I guess.


Miss Balfour (voted for Blanc)

Balfour is a whole lifestyle. She's got that butch prison matron vibe happening, with her gruff manner and chunky knits (50 shades of brown, natch). They way she nonchalantly–yet–boorishly sets about edging Sara out of the way and chopping Susie's hair, cigarette dangling, I love her.


That's to say nothing of her kicking off the Sabbath with that dirge. I take it back: Balfour isn't just a lifestyle, she's a lifestyle and a mood. You can hear this picture, can't you?


Miss Huller (voted for Markos)

Huller, Huller, Huller. Why did she have to break my heart by voting Markos and ending her astonishing career as a mess on the floor? Every time I watch this movie, I think we're going to get more Huller than we actually do. She was featured so prominently in the promotion of the film, yet she's a bit of a background witch...okay, maybe the background witch because hot damn, everything she does is amazing. Everything. First of all, she's another Company member who is much cooler than the rest of us. She is all effortless sex appeal, slinking around the dining room, smirking at everything. Huller can get it and she knows she can get it! An icon.


More than anyone else in the coven, Huller has a serious hate boner for Klemperer. She's the one who suggests that he be the witness for the Sabbath. When he arrives for Volk, she is all courtesy and light, showing him to his seat:


But she spends much of the performance glaring at him at best, casting a teeny-tiny choke a bit, why don't you spell on him at worst. I love all the glimpses of witchy power we get throughout the film, the little spells they cast. The Markos Tanzgruppe is no joke!



Later that evening, she skips the pre-Sabbath gropey dinner as along with Miss Alberta, she's charged with nabbing Klemperer. I can't sing Renée Soutendijk's praises high enough here; she's absolutely terrifying as she bursts through the doors of the Tanz building, screeching like a banshee, arms wide as she descends upon the hapless doctor. It's Suspiria's biggest "horror movie moment," practically a jump scare, and she is incredible.


As they drag him off to the Sabbath chamber, Klemperer pleads for mercy and Huller, spitting fire and brimstone, launches into a speech that, I admit, still colors my opinion of poor Josef:
What reason is there to pity you? You had years to get your wife out of Berlin before the arrests began. When women tell you the truth you don't pity them. You tell them they have delusions!
She ends it with a fucking cackle to end all cackles and oh, what a brilliant actress. What a marvel, making the most of one stunning showstopper of a scene. And that's before she ends up covered in blood and guts...and that's before, well she ends up nothing but blood and guts. Dammit, Huller! A queen, gone too soon.


That's right, a queen! A woman can be a monster and a queen. The Matrons of the Markos Tanzgruppe are all monsters, from the baby arm-riddled despot at the top all the way down to the sullen DJ who casts the wrong vote. They are monsters and queens, and I love them all endlessly.

SUSPIRIA Day 27: monsters and queens


Given that so many posts this month have featured Suspiria's major characters, I thought it was high time to discuss some of the Matrons who may not have as much screen time or dialogue–heck, sometimes you don't even catch their names–but they still manage to pierce your brain like a terrifying yet aesthetically pleasing hook. Each is given her moment(s) to really shine and serve as reminders that to put it mildly, there are no innocents at the Tanzgruppe. In fact, they'd just as soon eat your cunt on a plate as watch you dance because, as Rosemary Woodhouse might say, all of them witches.


Miss Boutaher (voted for Blanc)

Okay, I love Boutaher, speaking her French-inflected German with that deep voice. She gets a great introduction, waltzing into the building alongside Miss Vendegast; The two of them all messy-haired, looking and acting like they're cooler than you because guess what? They absolutely are.


They're certainly cooler than Susie at this point, and look, I know I've written about this scene several times before...but honestly, I probably could have spent 31 days writing about it alone because it has so many terrific moments of all kinds of flavors jammed into, like, five minutes. It's undoubtedly five of my favorite minutes in the film.

Anyway, Boutaher sets up this heavenly sequence by asking Susie "Where do you come from?"

"Ohio," Susie replies.






Boutaher huffs a scoff (or scoffs a huff, if you prefer) and leaves. I could talk for days about the way Dakota Johnson says "Ohio" here because it is perfect, a micromoment that is full of depth. She conveys shyness and embarrassment, but there's also a hint of that patented Susie Bannion fire underneath it, as if there's an "...and?" that's unsaid. And don't get me going about the way she's sitting on the edge of that chair or we will be here for days! The point is, Johnson is brilliant in a million different ways in Suspiria, and it's absurd to me that she's gone all but unrecognized for it.

No wait, that's not the point! The point is Miss Boutaher.

We don't see much of her after this introduction until after the Sabbath. She's the one who tells the dancers that Blanc has "left the Company," and the way she strolls into the studio and greets each girl in turn...well, it seems that for now, at least, Miss Boutaher is the Tanzgruppe's new Madame Blanc.


Miss Marks (voted for Markos)

If you listened to the first Suspiria episode of Gaylords of Darkness, then you know that Marks, aka DJ Witch, was my original aspiration. As I noted in my post about Miss Vendegast, Marks "sits around, playing music and watching rehearsals, smoking and looking sullen. She's in on all the action, but she doesn't have to do much." That seemed like the life for me: not having to clean up messes like Olga, never smiling, watching the women dance all day, sometimes maybe pressing a button.


Ultimately, though, Marks is decidedly less than "life" "goals." She voted for Markos and done got her head exploded, which, you know. No thank you. The very idea that she sat in that studio day after day, watching the creative process unfold, watching Blanc at work, and yet voted for Markos regardless is kind of delightfully passive-aggressive, though, so I still think she's rad.

Miss Pavla (voted for Markos)

Pavla is a big part of the reason why there's an Olga mess to clean up. As the dancer is on her way out of the "box of rabies," Pavla stops her on the staircase and facetiously asks if she's alright. Then we get a gorgeous, mesmerizing closeup as she casts a spell with that sound in the background–you know the one, it's sort of this Suspiria's version of the "Witch! Witch! Witch!" whispers in the Goblin soundtrack for the original film. (Incidentally, if you can manage it, it's worth watching this movie once whilst wearing headphones. The sound design is layered and rich and *chef kiss.*)


With the spell complete, Pavla laughs and continues on her way. Olga, meanwhile, now has her vision obstructed by goopy tears and, disoriented, continues on her way to becoming one of Auntie Anne's featured selections.


A few minutes later, Pavla joins a few others in the studio and...oh boy. That hook scene. I love the way it begins, with Pavla, Vendegast, Balfour, Alberta, and Millius gathered around Olga–who is still alive–looking...well, it's hard to discern what they're thinking, isn't it? We see each of them in turn and their faces are nigh unreadable. Pavla initially has an eyebrow cocked, then glances around almost nervously. Are they surprised by what Susie has done? Are they worried about repercussions in the Akademie and/or without? The moment just hangs there, keeping us in suspense over what they're going to do.





Then we find out: they're all monsters, every one of them. With menace and, perhaps more frighteningly, abject glee, they bury their hooks deep into Olga's flesh. They're adding more pain onto the unspeakable amounts she's already enduring, and they're enjoying it.





And, uh, Millius, right? (Voted for Markos.) That face. How is it that Alek Wek has been around since the 90s (a GD pioneering woman of color in the fashion industry, if you didn't know) standing nearly six feet tall with that face and this is her only juicy role? Bless Luca Guadagnino. When she appeared on screen the first time I saw this movie, I lost my fucking mind. Cinema desperately needs more dark-skinned Black women. I love Lupita Nyong'o as much as any rational person does, but she can't do all the heavy lifting.


And just to drive home how callous these women are, the next day we get a great little moment with Alberta (voted for Markos) as Tanner and Vendegast escort the two police detectives into the building. She enters frame from downstairs and after a long night of torturing Olga and inflicting indescribable horrors on her, Alberta yawns. Damn. Business as usual. Didn't get much sleep, I guess.


Miss Balfour (voted for Blanc)

Balfour is a whole lifestyle. She's got that butch prison matron vibe happening, with her gruff manner and chunky knits (50 shades of brown, natch). They way she nonchalantly–yet–boorishly sets about edging Sara out of the way and chopping Susie's hair, cigarette dangling, I love her.


That's to say nothing of her kicking off the Sabbath with that dirge. I take it back: Balfour isn't just a lifestyle, she's a lifestyle and a mood. You can hear this picture, can't you?


Miss Huller (voted for Markos)

Huller, Huller, Huller. Why did she have to break my heart by voting Markos and ending her astonishing career as a mess on the floor? Every time I watch this movie, I think we're going to get more Huller than we actually do. She was featured so prominently in the promotion of the film, yet she's a bit of a background witch...okay, maybe the background witch because hot damn, everything she does is amazing. Everything. First of all, she's another Company member who is much cooler than the rest of us. She is all effortless sex appeal, slinking around the dining room, smirking at everything. Huller can get it and she knows she can get it! An icon.


More than anyone else in the coven, Huller has a serious hate boner for Klemperer. She's the one who suggests that he be the witness for the Sabbath. When he arrives for Volk, she is all courtesy and light, showing him to his seat:


But she spends much of the performance glaring at him at best, casting a teeny-tiny choke a bit, why don't you spell on him at worst. I love all the glimpses of witchy power we get throughout the film, the little spells they cast. The Markos Tanzgruppe is no joke!



Later that evening, she skips the pre-Sabbath gropey dinner as along with Miss Alberta, she's charged with nabbing Klemperer. I can't sing Renée Soutendijk's praises high enough here; she's absolutely terrifying as she bursts through the doors of the Tanz building, screeching like a banshee, arms wide as she descends upon the hapless doctor. It's Suspiria's biggest "horror movie moment," practically a jump scare, and she is incredible.


As they drag him off to the Sabbath chamber, Klemperer pleads for mercy and Huller, spitting fire and brimstone, launches into a speech that, I admit, still colors my opinion of poor Josef:
What reason is there to pity you? You had years to get your wife out of Berlin before the arrests began. When women tell you the truth you don't pity them. You tell them they have delusions!
She ends it with a fucking cackle to end all cackles and oh, what a brilliant actress. What a marvel, making the most of one stunning showstopper of a scene. And that's before she ends up covered in blood and guts...and that's before, well she ends up nothing but blood and guts. Dammit, Huller! A queen, gone too soon.


That's right, a queen! A woman can be a monster and a queen. The Matrons of the Markos Tanzgruppe are all monsters, from the baby arm-riddled despot at the top all the way down to the sullen DJ who casts the wrong vote. They are monsters and queens, and I love them all endlessly.

SUSPIRIA Day 27: monsters and queens


Given that so many posts this month have featured Suspiria's major characters, I thought it was high time to discuss some of the Matrons who may not have as much screen time or dialogue–heck, sometimes you don't even catch their names–but they still manage to pierce your brain like a terrifying yet aesthetically pleasing hook. Each is given her moment(s) to really shine and serve as reminders that to put it mildly, there are no innocents at the Tanzgruppe. In fact, they'd just as soon eat your cunt on a plate as watch you dance because, as Rosemary Woodhouse might say, all of them witches.


Miss Boutaher (voted for Blanc)

Okay, I love Boutaher, speaking her French-inflected German with that deep voice. She gets a great introduction, waltzing into the building alongside Miss Vendegast; The two of them all messy-haired, looking and acting like they're cooler than you because guess what? They absolutely are.


They're certainly cooler than Susie at this point, and look, I know I've written about this scene several times before...but honestly, I probably could have spent 31 days writing about it alone because it has so many terrific moments of all kinds of flavors jammed into, like, five minutes. It's undoubtedly five of my favorite minutes in the film.

Anyway, Boutaher sets up this heavenly sequence by asking Susie "Where do you come from?"

"Ohio," Susie replies.






Boutaher huffs a scoff (or scoffs a huff, if you prefer) and leaves. I could talk for days about the way Dakota Johnson says "Ohio" here because it is perfect, a micromoment that is full of depth. She conveys shyness and embarrassment, but there's also a hint of that patented Susie Bannion fire underneath it, as if there's an "...and?" that's unsaid. And don't get me going about the way she's sitting on the edge of that chair or we will be here for days! The point is, Johnson is brilliant in a million different ways in Suspiria, and it's absurd to me that she's gone all but unrecognized for it.

No wait, that's not the point! The point is Miss Boutaher.

We don't see much of her after this introduction until after the Sabbath. She's the one who tells the dancers that Blanc has "left the Company," and the way she strolls into the studio and greets each girl in turn...well, it seems that for now, at least, Miss Boutaher is the Tanzgruppe's new Madame Blanc.


Miss Marks (voted for Markos)

If you listened to the first Suspiria episode of Gaylords of Darkness, then you know that Marks, aka DJ Witch, was my original aspiration. As I noted in my post about Miss Vendegast, Marks "sits around, playing music and watching rehearsals, smoking and looking sullen. She's in on all the action, but she doesn't have to do much." That seemed like the life for me: not having to clean up messes like Olga, never smiling, watching the women dance all day, sometimes maybe pressing a button.


Ultimately, though, Marks is decidedly less than "life" "goals." She voted for Marcos and done got her head exploded, which, you know. No thank you. The very idea that she sat in that studio day after day, watching the creative process unfold, watching Blanc at work, and yet voted for Markos regardless is kind of delightfully passive-aggressive, though, so I still think she's rad.

Miss Pavla (voted for Markos)

Pavla is a big part of the reason why there's an Olga mess to clean up. As the dancer is on her way out of the "box of rabies," Pavla stops her on the staircase and facetiously asks if she's alright. Then we get a gorgeous, mesmerizing closeup as she casts a spell with that sound in the background–you know the one, it's sort of this Suspiria's version of the "Witch! Witch! Witch!" whispers in the Goblin soundtrack for the original film. (Incidentally, if you can manage it, it's worth watching this movie once whilst wearing headphones. The sound design is layered and rich and *chef kiss.*)


With the spell complete, Pavla laughs and continues on her way. Olga, meanwhile, now has her vision obstructed by goopy tears and, disoriented, continues on her way to becoming one of Auntie Anne's featured selections.


A few minutes later, Pavla joins a few others in the studio and...oh boy. That hook scene. I love the way it begins, with Pavla, Vendegast, Balfour, Alberta, and Millius gathered around Olga–who is still alive–looking...well, it's hard to discern what they're thinking, isn't it? We see each of them in turn and their faces are nigh unreadable. Pavla initially has an eyebrow cocked, then glances around almost nervously. Are they surprised by what Susie has done? Are they worried about repercussions in the Akademie and/or without? The moment just hangs there, keeping us in suspense over what they're going to do.





Then we find out: they're all monsters, every one of them. With menace and, perhaps more frighteningly, abject glee, they bury their hooks deep into Olga's flesh. They're adding more pain onto the unspeakable amounts she's already enduring, and they're enjoying it.





And, uh, Millius, right? (Voted for Markos.) That face. How is it that Alek Wek has been around since the 90s (a GD pioneering woman of color in the fashion industry, if you didn't know) standing nearly six feet tall with that face and this is her only juicy role? Bless Luca Guadagnino. When she appeared on screen the first time I saw this movie, I lost my fucking mind. Cinema desperately needs more dark-skinned Black women. I love Lupita Nyong'o as much as any rational person does, but she can't do all the heavy lifting.


And just to drive home how callous these women are, the next day we get a great little moment with Alberta (voted for Markos) as Tanner and Vendegast escort the two police detectives into the building. She enters frame from downstairs and after a long night of torturing Olga and inflicting indescribable horrors on her, Alberta yawns. Damn. Business as usual. Didn't get much sleep, I guess.


Miss Balfour (voted for Blanc)

Balfour is a whole lifestyle. She's got that butch prison matron vibe happening, with her gruff manner and chunky knits (50 shades of brown, natch). They way she nonchalantly–yet–boorishly sets about edging Sara out of the way and chopping Susie's hair, cigarette dangling, I love her.


That's to say nothing of her kicking off the Sabbath with that dirge. I take it back: Balfour isn't just a lifestyle, she's a lifestyle and a mood. You can hear this picture, can't you?


Miss Huller (voted for Markos)

Huller, Huller, Huller. Why did she have to break my heart by voting Markos and ending her astonishing career as a mess on the floor? Every time I watch this movie, I think we're going to get more Huller than we actually do. She was featured so prominently in the promotion of the film, yet she's a bit of a background witch...okay, maybe the background witch because hot damn, everything she does is amazing. Everything. First of all, she's another Company member who is much cooler than the rest of us. She is all effortless sex appeal, slinking around the dining room, smirking at everything. Huller can get it and she knows she can get it! An icon.


More than anyone else in the coven, Huller has a serious hate boner for Klemperer. She's the one who suggests that he be the witness for the Sabbath. When he arrives for Volk, she is all courtesy and light, showing him to his seat:


But she spends much of the performance glaring at him at best, casting a teeny-tiny choke a bit, why don't you spell on him at worst. I love all the glimpses of witchy power we get throughout the film, the little spells they cast. The Markos Tanzgruppe is no joke!



Later that evening, she skips the pre-Sabbath gropey dinner as along with Miss Alberta, she's charged with nabbing Klemperer. I can't sing Renée Soutendijk's praises high enough here; she's absolutely terrifying as she bursts through the doors of the Tanz building, screeching like a banshee, arms wide as she descends upon the hapless doctor. It's Suspiria's biggest "horror movie moment," practically a jump scare, and she is incredible.


As they drag him off to the Sabbath chamber, Klemperer pleads for mercy and Huller, spitting fire and brimstone, launches into a speech that, I admit, still colors my opinion of poor Josef:
What reason is there to pity you? You had years to get your wife out of Berlin before the arrests began. When women tell you the truth you don't pity them. You tell them they have delusions!
She ends it with a fucking cackle to end all cackles and oh, what a brilliant actress. What a marvel, making the most of one stunning showstopper of a scene. And that's before she ends up covered in blood and guts...and that's before, well she ends up nothing but blood and guts. Dammit, Huller! A queen, gone too soon.


That's right, a queen! A woman can be a monster and a queen. The Matrons of the Markos Tanzgruppe are all monsters, from the baby arm-riddled despot at the top all the way down to the sullen DJ who casts the wrong vote. They are monsters and queens, and I love them all endlessly.

SUSPIRIA Day 27: monsters and queens


Given that so many posts this month have featured Suspiria's major characters, I thought it was high time to discuss some of the Matrons who may not have as much screen time or dialogue–heck, sometimes you don't even catch their names–but they still manage to pierce your brain like a terrifying yet aesthetically pleasing hook. Each is given her moment(s) to really shine and serve as reminders that to put it mildly, there are no innocents at the Tanzgruppe. In fact, they'd just as soon eat your cunt on a plate as watch you dance because, as Rosemary Woodhouse might say, all of them witches.


Miss Boutaher (voted for Blanc)

Okay, I love Boutaher, speaking her French-inflected German with that deep voice. She gets a great introduction, waltzing into the building alongside Miss Vendegast; The two of them all messy-haired, looking and acting like they're cooler than you because guess what? They absolutely are.


They're certainly cooler than Susie at this point, and look, I know I've written about this scene several times before...but honestly, I probably could have spent 31 days writing about it alone because it has so many terrific moments of all kinds of flavors jammed into, like, five minutes. It's undoubtedly five of my favorite minutes in the film.

Anyway, Boutaher sets up this heavenly sequence by asking Susie "Where do you come from?"

"Ohio," Susie replies.






Boutaher huffs a scoff (or scoffs a huff, if you prefer) and leaves. I could talk for days about the way Dakota Johnson says "Ohio" here because it is perfect, a micromoment that is full of depth. She conveys shyness and embarrassment, but there's also a hint of that patented Susie Bannion fire underneath it, as if there's an "...and?" that's unsaid. And don't get me going about the way she's sitting on the edge of that chair or we will be here for days! The point is, Johnson is brilliant in a million different ways in Suspiria, and it's absurd to me that she's gone all but unrecognized for it.

No wait, that's not the point! The point is Miss Boutaher.

We don't see much of her after this introduction until after the Sabbath. She's the one who tells the dancers that Blanc has "left the Company," and the way she strolls into the studio and greets each girl in turn...well, it seems that for now, at least, Miss Boutaher is the Tanzgruppe's new Madame Blanc.


Miss Marks (voted for Markos)

If you listened to the first Suspiria episode of Gaylords of Darkness, then you know that Marks, aka DJ Witch, was my original aspiration. As I noted in my post about Miss Vendegast, Marks "sits around, playing music and watching rehearsals, smoking and looking sullen. She's in on all the action, but she doesn't have to do much." That seemed like the life for me: not having to clean up messes like Olga, never smiling, watching the women dance all day, sometimes maybe pressing a button.


Ultimately, though, Marks is decidedly less than "life" "goals." She voted for Marcos and done got her head exploded, which, you know. No thank you. The very idea that she sat in that studio day after day, watching the creative process unfold, watching Blanc at work, and yet voted for Markos regardless is kind of delightfully passive-aggressive, though, so I still think she's rad.

Miss Pavla (voted for Markos)

Pavla is a big part of the reason why there's an Olga mess to clean up. As the dancer is on her way out of the "box of rabies," Pavla stops her on the staircase and facetiously asks if she's alright. Then we get a gorgeous, mesmerizing closeup as she casts a spell with that sound in the background–you know the one, it's sort of this Suspiria's version of the "Witch! Witch! Witch!" whispers in the Goblin soundtrack for the original film. (Incidentally, if you can manage it, it's worth watching this movie once whilst wearing headphones. The sound design is layered and rich and *chef kiss.*)


With the spell complete, Pavla laughs and continues on her way. Olga, meanwhile, now has her vision obstructed by goopy tears and, disoriented, continues on her way to becoming one of Auntie Anne's featured selections.


A few minutes later, Pavla joins a few others in the studio and...oh boy. That hook scene. I love the way it begins, with Pavla, Vendegast, Balfour, Alberta, and Millius gathered around Olga–who is still alive–looking...well, it's hard to discern what they're thinking, isn't it? We see each of them in turn and their faces are nigh unreadable. Pavla initially has an eyebrow cocked, then glances around almost nervously. Are they surprised by what Susie has done? Are they worried about repercussions in the Akademie and/or without? The moment just hangs there, keeping us in suspense over what they're going to do.





Then we find out: they're all monsters, every one of them. With menace and, perhaps more frighteningly, abject glee, they bury their hooks deep into Olga's flesh. They're adding more pain onto the unspeakable amounts she's already enduring, and they're enjoying it.





And, uh, Millius, right? (Voted for Markos.) That face. How is it that Alek Wek has been around since the 90s (a GD pioneering woman of color in the fashion industry, if you didn't know) standing nearly six feet tall with that face and this is her only juicy role? Bless Luca Guadagnino. When she appeared on screen the first time I saw this movie, I lost my fucking mind. Cinema desperately needs more dark-skinned Black women. I love Lupita Nyong'o as much as any rational person does, but she can't do all the heavy lifting.


And just to drive home how callous these women are, the next day we get a great little moment with Alberta (voted for Markos) as Tanner and Vendegast escort the two police detectives into the building. She enters frame from downstairs and after a long night of torturing Olga and inflicting indescribable horrors on her, Alberta yawns. Damn. Business as usual. Didn't get much sleep, I guess.


Miss Balfour (voted for Blanc)

Balfour is a whole lifestyle. She's got that butch prison matron vibe happening, with her gruff manner and chunky knits (50 shades of brown, natch). They way she nonchalantly–yet–boorishly sets about edging Sara out of the way and chopping Susie's hair, cigarette dangling, I love her.


That's to say nothing of her kicking off the Sabbath with that dirge. I take it back: Balfour isn't just a lifestyle, she's a lifestyle and a mood. You can hear this picture, can't you?


Miss Huller (voted for Markos)

Huller, Huller, Huller. Why did she have to break my heart by voting Markos and ending her astonishing career as a mess on the floor? Every time I watch this movie, I think we're going to get more Huller than we actually do. She was featured so prominently in the promotion of the film, yet she's a bit of a background witch...okay, maybe the background witch because hot damn, everything she does is amazing. Everything. First of all, she's another Company member who is much cooler than the rest of us. She is all effortless sex appeal, slinking around the dining room, smirking at everything. Huller can get it and she knows she can get it! An icon.


More than anyone else in the coven, Huller has a serious hate boner for Klemperer. She's the one who suggests that he be the witness for the Sabbath. When he arrives for Volk, she is all courtesy and light, showing him to his seat:


But she spends much of the performance glaring at him at best, casting a teeny-tiny choke a bit, why don't you spell on him at worst. I love all the glimpses of witchy power we get throughout the film, the little spells they cast. The Markos Tanzgruppe is no joke!



Later that evening, she skips the pre-Sabbath gropey dinner as along with Miss Alberta, she's charged with nabbing Klemperer. I can't sing Renée Soutendijk's praises high enough here; she's absolutely terrifying as she bursts through the doors of the Tanz building, screeching like a banshee, arms wide as she descends upon the hapless doctor. It's Suspiria's biggest "horror movie moment," practically a jump scare, and she is incredible.


As they drag him off to the Sabbath chamber, Klemperer pleads for mercy and Huller, spitting fire and brimstone, launches into a speech that, I admit, still colors my opinion of poor Josef:
What reason is there to pity you? You had years to get your wife out of Berlin before the arrests began. When women tell you the truth you don't pity them. You tell them they have delusions!
She ends it with a fucking cackle to end all cackles and oh, what a brilliant actress. What a marvel, making the most of one stunning showstopper of a scene. And that's before she ends up covered in blood and guts...and that's before, well she ends up nothing but blood and guts. Dammit, Huller! A queen, gone too soon.


That's right, a queen! A woman can be a monster and a queen. The Matrons of the Markos Tanzgruppe are all monsters, from the baby arm-riddled despot at the top all the way down to the sullen DJ who casts the wrong vote. They are monsters and queens, and I love them all endlessly.

SUSPIRIA Day 26: two sides of this


In college I took a class called "The Gothic and Grotesque in Anglo-German Film and Fiction" and yes it was exactly as effing rad as you're thinking it sounds. I mean, I wrote a 10-page paper about a single passage in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, so, you know, it was clearly formative in my journey toward becoming a person who would write about a single movie 31 days in a row.

But! I don't tell you this because all of the details of my life are incredibly scintillating, although that's very obviously true. I bring it up because one fine day we spent class time discussing who was ultimately more terrifying, Max Schreck's Nosferatu or Bela Lugosi's Dracula. (I told you, this class ruled hard.) Essentially it boiled down to which iteration is the bigger danger–the monster who is quite plainly a monster given his repulsive appearance and mannerisms? Or the suave, seductive one who doesn't seem like a monster until it's too late? Obvious vs. insidious, which frightens you more? It's very much a Markos vs. Blanc question, don't you think?


I've talked about the Markos picture before, of course, but seeing them juxtaposed is just so perfect, the women and their ideologies delineated not only by the door frames running between them, but by the photos themselves. Markos, the mysterious despot kitted out in her dictator sunglasses and Frauwear from Dress Barn West Berlin, not giving two shits about being photographed well; it's a far grander statement that she's the only one in the Company photos afforded a first name. On the other side, Blanc, the artistic director looking cool as fuck, making her statement by ensuring that her photo is something gallery-worthy. However, while those door frames run right down the middle, separating them like the Berlin Wall, they're more alike than their differences in aesthetics and charm would initially make it seem.

Side note: no, the photos underneath Blanc and Markos do not line up exactly with how each woman voted. I suppose that would be too on-the-nose, although given all the other details in this movie I was a bit surprised to find they didn't all match up.

Who among us wouldn't be enamored with Madame Blanc? She is a powerful, confident creative force. She commands the room as a tough but fair instructor, the kind everyone wants to impress. Tanner and Sara both speak of Blanc's "light," with Sara describing how powerful it is. "'Addictive' is the word for it." I would say that above all else, she is an artist, but I don't think that's entirely accurate. It's true she's an artist nonpareil, but she has a way of making us forget that above all else, she's a witch. And she will use monstrous means and inflict enormous suffering in the name of her work.

We first see a glimpse of her true nature in Susie's first session, where Blanc transfers the power to her that utterly destroys Olga. What happened to that poor girl is entirely on Blanc, and it shows us immediately that while she gives off an "aloof creative" vibe, she is not one to be fucked with, no matter how gentle her tone or touch. One moment she was soothing and smothering Olga with "kindness" and the next, Olga was a crumpled heap on the floor.


If we're feeling, uh, generous, that atrocity could be reasoned away as a protective measure–an unspeakably cruel one, of course, but done for the safety of the Company lest Olga leave and send trouble their way. But later, she casually inflicts intense pain on another dancer for the sake of being completely self-serving.

Blanc argues with Susie about the timing of her jumps in Volk, telling her "We need to get you in the air." She then takes the power behind Caroline's jumps and transfers it to Susie, the new star dancer.




Side note: there's a great crash zoom–one of several–from a closeup of Caroline to that closeup of Susie. Techniques like that really make Suspiria feel like a 70s film; how the movie is shot and edited is just as important as set dressing if a director wants to make an authentic genre period piece. Another great example: Ti West's The House of the Devil.

Minutes after that transference, Caroline collapses and suffers a horrific seizure that leaves her writhing on the floor and foaming at the mouth. Blanc isn't bothered by it in the slightest, even going so far as to brush off everyone's concerns.

But the scene that perhaps most demonstrates just how slyly nefarious she is occurs later...and it's one of my favorites. I briefly talked about it in the post about hands, and I'll talk about it again in another post before this month is over: the sequence where Blanc and Susie are alone in the mirrored studio, talking creativity and practicing jumps.


This scene is intercut with Griffith's dining room suicide, during which the Matrons discuss the failure of Patricia as the vessel. Tanner says "Blanc is working on the new approach." They tried one method with Patricia–being more transparent with their plans–and it didn't work. Here, in the mirrored room, we see Blanc's "new approach," wherein she gives many inspirational speeches to her protégé, including this:
When you dance the dance of another, you make yourself in the image of its creator. You empty yourself so that her work can live within you.
It's a beautiful way of conveying the essence of performance to her new lead dancer. But that's just it, that's what's so treacherous: Blanc is absolutely an artist, and she is absolutely seducing Susie with her art faggotry. But to what end? For another incredible Volk performance, sure. But more so, she's manipulating Susie's infatuation and willingness to learn in order to prime the girl for Markos's takeover. All of Blanc's creative expounding is done largely in the service of the Sabbath, such as telling Susie to dance lead in a new improvisational piece, "Rebirth." She just does it, you know, artistically. It's disgusting. But again, first and foremost, she's a witch. What do we expect?

And really, that speech of hers is just a prettied up version of this:


"There will be nothing of you left inside. Only space for me."

Do I think Blanc's feelings for Susie are genuine? One hundred percent. I'll talk about the Susie/Blanc love story in another post this month, how they manipulate each other, what it's all about. It's delicious. It complicates things for Blanc. But it doesn't make her any less of a monster–in fact, it might make her even worse, that she has feelings for Susie and still deliberately manipulates her towards her very literal end.

Say what you will about Helena Markos, but at least she's honest. With the exception of maybe (perfect) Sara, Helena Markos is probably the most honest person in the entire film.

This isn't vanity. This isn't art.

Blanc can dress it up all she likes, can choreograph performances and talk art theory forever and completely mean every word. But ultimately, she's as monstrous as the repulsive, Hutt-adjacent Helena. Markos is right when she says they've "been on two sides of this," as their means and methods and "careers," as it were, might differ, but their ends are the same.

Which iteration is the bigger danger–the monster who is quite plainly a monster given her repulsive appearance and mannerisms? Or the suave, seductive one who doesn't seem like a monster until it's too late?

SUSPIRIA Day 26: two sides of this


In college I took a class called "The Gothic and Grotesque in Anglo-German Film and Fiction" and yes it was exactly as effing rad as you're thinking it sounds. I mean, I wrote a 10-page paper about a single passage in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, so, you know, it was clearly formative in my journey toward becoming a person who would write about a single movie 31 days in a row.

But! I don't tell you this because all of the details of my life are incredibly scintillating, although that's very obviously true. I bring it up because one fine day we spent class time discussing who was ultimately more terrifying, Max Schreck's Nosferatu or Bela Lugosi's Dracula. (I told you, this class ruled hard.) Essentially it boiled down to which iteration is the bigger danger–the monster who is quite plainly a monster given his repulsive appearance and mannerisms? Or the suave, seductive one who doesn't seem like a monster until it's too late? Obvious vs. insidious, which frightens you more? It's very much a Markos vs. Blanc question, don't you think?


I've talked about the Markos picture before, of course, but seeing them juxtaposed is just so perfect, the women and their ideologies delineated not only by the door frames running between them, but by the photos themselves. Markos, the mysterious despot kitted out in her dictator sunglasses and Frauwear from Dress Barn West Berlin, not giving two shits about being photographed well; it's a far grander statement that she's the only one in the Company photos afforded a first name. On the other side, Blanc, the artistic director looking cool as fuck, making her statement by ensuring that her photo is something gallery-worthy. However, while those door frames run right down the middle, separating them like the Berlin Wall, they're more alike than their differences in aesthetics and charm would initially make it seem.

Side note: no, the photos underneath Blanc and Markos do not line up exactly with how each woman voted. I suppose that would be too on-the-nose, although given all the other details in this movie I was a bit surprised to find they didn't all match up.

Who among us wouldn't be enamored with Madame Blanc? She is a powerful, confident creative force. She commands the room as a tough but fair instructor, the kind everyone wants to impress. Tanner and Sara both speak of Blanc's "light," with Sara describing how powerful it is. "'Addictive' is the word for it." I would say that above all else, she is an artist, but I don't think that's entirely accurate. It's true she's an artist nonpareil, but she has a way of making us forget that above all else, she's a witch. And she will use monstrous means and inflict enormous suffering in the name of her work.

We first see a glimpse of her true nature in Susie's first session, where Blanc transfers the power to her that utterly destroys Olga. What happened to that poor girl is entirely on Blanc, and it shows us immediately that while she gives off an "aloof creative" vibe, she is not one to be fucked with, no matter how gentle her tone or touch. One moment she was soothing and smothering Olga with "kindness" and the next, Olga was a crumpled heap on the floor.


If we're feeling, uh, generous, that atrocity could be reasoned away as a protective measure–an unspeakably cruel one, of course, but done for the safety of the Company lest Olga leave and send trouble their way. But later, she casually inflicts intense pain on another dancer for the sake of being completely self-serving.

Blanc argues with Susie about the timing of her jumps in Volk, telling her "We need to get you in the air." She then takes the power behind Caroline's jumps and transfers it to Susie, the new star dancer.




Side note: there's a great crash zoom–one of several–from a closeup of Caroline to that closeup of Susie. Techniques like that really make Suspiria feel like a 70s film; how the movie is shot and edited is just as important as set dressing if a director wants to make an authentic genre period piece. Another great example: Ti West's The House of the Devil.

Minutes after that transference, Caroline collapses and suffers a horrific seizure that leaves her writhing on the floor and foaming at the mouth. Blanc isn't bothered by it in the slightest, even going so far as to brush off everyone's concerns.

But the scene that perhaps most demonstrates just how slyly nefarious she is occurs later...and it's one of my favorites. I briefly talked about it in the post about hands, and I'll talk about it again in another post before this month is over: the sequence where Blanc and Susie are alone in the mirrored studio, talking creativity and practicing jumps.


This scene is intercut with Griffith's dining room suicide, during which the Matrons discuss the failure of Patricia as the vessel. Tanner says "Blanc is working on the new approach." They tried one method with Patricia–being more transparent with their plans–and it didn't work. Here, in the mirrored room, we see Blanc's "new approach," wherein she gives many inspirational speeches to her protégé, including this:
When you dance the dance of another, you make yourself in the image of its creator. You empty yourself so that her work can live within you.
It's a beautiful way of conveying the essence of performance to her new lead dancer. But that's just it, that's what's so treacherous: Blanc is absolutely an artist, and she is absolutely seducing Susie with her art faggotry. But to what end? For another incredible Volk performance, sure. But more so, she's manipulating Susie's infatuation and willingness to learn in order to prime the girl for Markos's takeover. All of Blanc's creative expounding is done largely in the service of the Sabbath, such as telling Susie to dance lead in a new improvisational piece, "Rebirth." She just does it, you know, artistically. It's disgusting. But again, first and foremost, she's a witch. What do we expect?

And really, that speech of hers is just a prettied up version of this:


"There will be nothing of you left inside. Only space for me."

Do I think Blanc's feelings for Susie are genuine? One hundred percent. I'll talk about the Susie/Blanc love story in another post this month, how they manipulate each other, what it's all about. It's delicious. It complicates things for Blanc. But it doesn't make her any less of a monster–in fact, it might make her even worse, that she has feelings for Susie and still deliberately manipulates her towards her very literal end.

Say what you will about Helena Markos, but at least she's honest. With the exception of maybe (perfect) Sara, Helena Markos is probably the most honest person in the entire film.

This isn't vanity. This isn't art.

Blanc can dress it up all she likes, can choreograph performances and talk art theory forever and completely mean every word. But ultimately, she's as monstrous as the repulsive, Hutt-adjacent Helena. Markos is right when she says they've "been on two sides of this," as their means and methods and "careers," as it were, might differ, but their ends are the same.

Which iteration is the bigger danger–the monster who is quite plainly a monster given her repulsive appearance and mannerisms? Or the suave, seductive one who doesn't seem like a monster until it's too late?

SUSPIRIA Day 26: two sides of this


In college I took a class called "The Gothic and Grotesque in Anglo-German Film and Fiction" and yes it was exactly as effing rad as you're thinking it sounds. I mean, I wrote a 10-page paper about a single passage in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, so, you know, it was clearly formative in my journey toward becoming a person who would write about a single movie 31 days in a row.

But! I don't tell you this because all of the details of my life are incredibly scintillating, although that's very obviously true. I bring it up because one fine day we spent class time discussing who was ultimately more terrifying, Max Schreck's Nosferatu or Bela Lugosi's Dracula. (I told you, this class ruled hard.) Essentially it boiled down to which iteration is the bigger danger–the monster who is quite plainly a monster given his repulsive appearance and mannerisms? Or the suave, seductive one who doesn't seem like a monster until it's too late? Obvious vs. insidious, which frightens you more? It's very much a Markos vs. Blanc question, don't you think?


I've talked about the Markos picture before, of course, but seeing them juxtaposed is just so perfect, the women and their ideologies delineated not only by the door frames running between them, but by the photos themselves. Markos, the mysterious despot kitted out in her dictator sunglasses and Frauwear from Dress Barn West Berlin, not giving two shits about being photographed well; it's a far grander statement that she's the only one in the Company photos afforded a first name. On the other side, Blanc, the artistic director looking cool as fuck, making her statement by ensuring that her photo is something gallery-worthy. However, while those door frames run right down the middle, separating them like the Berlin Wall, they're more alike than their differences in aesthetics and charm would initially make it seem.

Side note: no, the photos underneath Blanc and Markos do not line up exactly with how each woman voted. I suppose that would be too on-the-nose, although given all the other details in this movie I was a bit surprised to find they didn't all match up.

Who among us wouldn't be enamored with Madame Blanc? She is a powerful, confident creative force. She commands the room as a tough but fair instructor, the kind everyone wants to impress. Tanner and Sara both speak of Blanc's "light," with Sara describing how powerful it is. "'Addictive' is the word for it." I would say that above all else, she is an artist, but I don't think that's entirely accurate. It's true she's an artist nonpareil, but she has a way of making us forget that above all else, she's a witch. And she will use monstrous means and inflict enormous suffering in the name of her work.

We first see a glimpse of her true nature in Susie's first session, where Blanc transfers the power to her that utterly destroys Olga. What happened to that poor girl is entirely on Blanc, and it shows us immediately that while she gives off an "aloof creative" vibe, she is not one to be fucked with, no matter how gentle her tone or touch. One moment she was soothing and smothering Olga with "kindness" and the next, Olga was a crumpled heap on the floor.


If we're feeling, uh, generous, that atrocity could be reasoned away as a protective measure–an unspeakably cruel one, of course, but done for the safety of the Company lest Olga leave and send trouble their way. But later, she casually inflicts intense pain on another dancer for the sake of being completely self-serving.

Blanc argues with Susie about the timing of her jumps in Volk, telling her "We need to get you in the air." She then takes the power behind Caroline's jumps and transfers it to Susie, the new star dancer.




Side note: there's a great crash zoom–one of several–from a closeup of Caroline to that closeup of Susie. Techniques like that really make Suspiria feel like a 70s film; how the movie is shot and edited is just as important as set dressing if a director wants to make an authentic genre period piece. Another great example: Ti West's The House of the Devil.

Minutes after that transference, Caroline collapses and suffers a horrific seizure that leaves her writhing on the floor and foaming at the mouth. Blanc isn't bothered by it in the slightest, even going so far as to brush off everyone's concerns.

But the scene that perhaps most demonstrates just how slyly nefarious she is occurs later...and it's one of my favorites. I briefly talked about it in the post about hands, and I'll talk about it again in another post before this month is over: the sequence where Blanc and Susie are alone in the mirrored studio, talking creativity and practicing jumps.


This scene is intercut with Griffith's dining room suicide, during which the Matrons discuss the failure of Patricia as the vessel. Tanner says "Blanc is working on the new approach." They tried one method with Patricia–being more transparent with their plans–and it didn't work. Here, in the mirrored room, we see Blanc's "new approach," wherein she gives many inspirational speeches to her protégé, including this:
When you dance the dance of another, you make yourself in the image of its creator. You empty yourself so that her work can live within you.
It's a beautiful way of conveying the essence of performance to her new lead dancer. But that's just it, that's what's so treacherous: Blanc is absolutely an artist, and she is absolutely seducing Susie with her art faggotry. But to what end? For another incredible Volk performance, sure. But more so, she's manipulating Susie's infatuation and willingness to learn in order to prime the girl for Markos's takeover. All of Blanc's creative expounding is done largely in the service of the Sabbath, such as telling Susie to dance lead in a new improvisational piece, "Rebirth." She just does it, you know, artistically. It's disgusting. But again, first and foremost, she's a witch. What do we expect?

And really, that speech of hers is just a prettied up version of this:


"There will be nothing of you left inside. Only space for me."

Do I think Blanc's feelings for Susie are genuine? One hundred percent. I'll talk about the Susie/Blanc love story in another post this month, how they manipulate each other, what it's all about. It's delicious. It complicates things for Blanc. But it doesn't make her any less of a monster–in fact, it might make her even worse, that she has feelings for Susie and still deliberately manipulates her towards her very literal end.

Say what you will about Helena Markos, but at least she's honest. With the exception of maybe (perfect) Sara, Helena Markos is probably the most honest person in the entire film.

This isn't vanity. This isn't art.

Blanc can dress it up all she likes, can choreograph performances and talk art theory forever and completely mean every word. But ultimately, she's as monstrous as the repulsive, Hutt-adjacent Helena. Markos is right when she says they've "been on two sides of this," as their means and methods and "careers," as it were, might differ, but their ends are the same.

Which iteration is the bigger danger–the monster who is quite plainly a monster given her repulsive appearance and mannerisms? Or the suave, seductive one who doesn't seem like a monster until it's too late?

SUSPIRIA Day 26: two sides of this


In college I took a class called "The Gothic and Grotesque in Anglo-German Film and Fiction" and yes it was exactly as effing rad as you're thinking it sounds. I mean, I wrote a 10-page paper about a single passage in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, so, you know, it was clearly formative in my journey toward becoming a person who would write about a single movie 31 days in a row.

But! I don't tell you this because all of the details of my life are incredibly scintillating, although that's very obviously true. I bring it up because one fine day we spent class time discussing who was ultimately more terrifying, Max Schreck's Nosferatu or Bela Lugosi's Dracula. (I told you, this class ruled hard.) Essentially it boiled down to which iteration is the bigger danger–the monster who is quite plainly a monster given his repulsive appearance and mannerisms? Or the suave, seductive one who doesn't seem like a monster until it's too late? Obvious vs. insidious, which frightens you more? It's very much a Markos vs. Blanc question, don't you think?


I've talked about the Markos picture before, of course, but seeing them juxtaposed is just so perfect, the women and their ideologies delineated not only by the door frames running between them, but by the photos themselves. Markos, the mysterious despot kitted out in her dictator sunglasses and Frauwear from Dress Barn West Berlin, not giving two shits about being photographed well; it's a far grander statement that she's the only one in the Company photos afforded a first name. On the other side, Blanc, the artistic director looking cool as fuck, making her statement by ensuring that her photo is something gallery-worthy. However, while those door frames run right down the middle, separating them like the Berlin Wall, they're more alike than their differences in aesthetics and charm would initially make it seem.

Side note: no, the photos underneath Blanc and Markos do not line up exactly with how each woman voted. I suppose that would be too on-the-nose, although given all the other details in this movie I was a bit surprised to find they didn't all match up.

Who among us wouldn't be enamored with Madame Blanc? She is a powerful, confident creative force. She commands the room as a tough but fair instructor, the kind everyone wants to impress. Tanner and Sara both speak of Blanc's "light," with Sara describing how powerful it is. "'Addictive' is the word for it." I would say that above all else, she is an artist, but I don't think that's entirely accurate. It's true she's an artist nonpareil, but she has a way of making us forget that above all else, she's a witch. And she will use monstrous means and inflict enormous suffering in the name of her work.

We first see a glimpse of her true nature in Susie's first session, where Blanc transfers the power to her that utterly destroys Olga. What happened to that poor girl is entirely on Blanc, and it shows us immediately that while she gives off an "aloof creative" vibe, she is not one to be fucked with, no matter how gentle her tone or touch. One moment she was soothing and smothering Olga with "kindness" and the next, Olga was a crumpled heap on the floor.


If we're feeling, uh, generous, that atrocity could be reasoned away as a protective measure–an unspeakably cruel one, of course, but done for the safety of the Company lest Olga leave and send trouble their way. But later, she casually inflicts intense pain on another dancer for the sake of being completely self-serving.

Blanc argues with Susie about the timing of her jumps in Volk, telling her "We need to get you in the air." She then takes the power behind Caroline's jumps and transfers it to Susie, the new star dancer.




Side note: there's a great crash zoom–one of several–from a closeup of Caroline to that closeup of Susie. Techniques like that really make Suspiria feel like a 70s film; how the movie is shot and edited is just as important as set dressing if a director wants to make an authentic genre period piece. Another great example: Ti West's The House of the Devil.

Minutes after that transference, Caroline collapses and suffers a horrific seizure that leaves her writhing on the floor and foaming at the mouth. Blanc isn't bothered by it in the slightest, even going so far as to brush off everyone's concerns.

But the scene that perhaps most demonstrates just how slyly nefarious she is occurs later...and it's one of my favorites. I briefly talked about it in the post about hands, and I'll talk about it again in another post before this month is over: the sequence where Blanc and Susie are alone in the mirrored studio, talking creativity and practicing jumps.


This scene is intercut with Griffith's dining room suicide, during which the Matrons discuss the failure of Patricia as the vessel. Tanner says "Blanc is working on the new approach." They tried one method with Patricia–being more transparent with their plans–and it didn't work. Here, in the mirrored room, we see Blanc's "new approach," wherein she gives many inspirational speeches to her protégé, including this:
When you dance the dance of another, you make yourself in the image of its creator. You empty yourself so that her work can live within you.
It's a beautiful way of conveying the essence of performance to her new lead dancer. But that's just it, that's what's so treacherous: Blanc is absolutely an artist, and she is absolutely seducing Susie with her art faggotry. But to what end? For another incredible Volk performance, sure. But more so, she's manipulating Susie's infatuation and willingness to learn in order to prime the girl for Markos's takeover. All of Blanc's creative expounding is done largely in the service of the Sabbath, such as telling Susie to dance lead in a new improvisational piece, "Rebirth." She just does it, you know, artistically. It's disgusting. But again, first and foremost, she's a witch. What do we expect?

And really, that speech of hers is just a prettied up version of this:


"There will be nothing of you left inside. Only space for me."

Do I think Blanc's feelings for Susie are genuine? One hundred percent. I'll talk about the Susie/Blanc love story in another post this month, how they manipulate each other, what it's all about. It's delicious. It complicates things for Blanc. But it doesn't make her any less of a monster–in fact, it might make her even worse, that she has feelings for Susie and still deliberately manipulates her towards her very literal end.

Say what you will about Helena Markos, but at least she's honest. With the exception of maybe (perfect) Sara, Helena Markos is probably the most honest person in the entire film.

This isn't vanity. This isn't art.

Blanc can dress it up all she likes, can choreograph performances and talk art theory forever and completely mean every word. But ultimately, she's as monstrous as the repulsive, Hutt-adjacent Helena. Markos is right when she says they've "been on two sides of this," as their means and methods and "careers," as it were, might differ, but their ends are the same.

Which iteration is the bigger danger–the monster who is quite plainly a monster given her repulsive appearance and mannerisms? Or the suave, seductive one who doesn't seem like a monster until it's too late?

Butternut Squash Alfredo Baked Shells

#Butternut, #Squash, #Alfredo, #Baked, #Shells

SUSPIRIA Day 25: appropriate vs appropriation


One of the things I love about Suspiria (how many times have I said that this month?) is that it's a deeply feminist film that embodies feminism. It's not a cheap "How d'you like that, boys?" exercise in "girl power." There are no mean girls, no "cat fights." It's not about women being "good" or "bad," necessarily...although it obviously explores the concepts of power and relationships in an all-female environment wherein some are heroes and some are villains. But it's more the totality of the feminine, right? The Great Mother. You can't venerate the Goddess without also acknowledging her power to destroy. And as I've discussed, it's a showcase for a new kind of Final Girl. While it was written and directed by men, it's foolhardy to cite them as the only creators of the film. The women in front of the camera were not merely actresses. They were collaborators and vital creative contributors, in particular Tilda Swinton, whose fingerprints are all over this movie. And then there is the art.

As we all know by now, this movie is about so much that it's like a seven layer burrito comprising many...smaller seven layer burritos. Okay, that metaphor doesn't super work (maybe it's just getting close to din din time), but you get my point. It's a weighty thing, a work of art about art. The power art has to save and sustain us, and the power it has to obliterate us...the power of it. How fitting for a coven of witches. Creativity as witchcraft, a means of independence and agency, a method of operating outside of the rules of society and the patriarchal industrial complex. When "the Reich just wanted women to shut off their minds and keep their uteruses open," the women of the Markos Tanzgruppe–in particular Madame Blanc–kept making art.

When Susie and Blanc are in the mirrored room, about to engage in sex practicing Susie's jumps, Blanc tells the young dancer:
There are two things that dance can never be again: beautiful and cheerful. Today we need to break the nose of every beautiful thing.
Not only is this the philosophy under which she, as choreographer and artistic director, guides the Company, it's a direct rebuttal to the Reich and anyone who has ever tried to tell these women how to be. It's a rephrasing of and a response to this 1937 declaration by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels:
Dance must be cheerful and show beautiful female bodies and have nothing to do with philosophy.
Everything about the Markos Tanzgruppe flies in the face of that mandate. You want "beauty"? These women will create their own kind of beauty, and they will fucking destroy you.

Suspiria doesn't simply hint at its influences, however–it often puts them right there on the screen, and this is where it can get tricky. I've got a friend who didn't like the movie much at all (and yes, we're still friends, can you believe it), and one of the things that really got her mad was its use of artists' imagery. She didn't see it as a tribute, as I do–she found it to be "flavor wasting." I strongly disagree with her assessment, but I get it. It's how I feel about basically everything, say, Lady Gaga does, or...hmm, maybe this:



So what's the difference? Am I just a big Suspiria apologist because I love it so much? Maybe. But I think there's a key factor between honoring or paying tribute to an artist or her work and simply mimicking or appropriating. I feel that Suspiria tries to do the former, while this Beyoncé video is engaging with the latter. A large part of this is transparency: are you talking about the creators who came before you? Are you citing their work as influences and discussing why they were important and influential?

Heck, maybe Beyoncé talked about the film and Volk when talking about this video. I don't know! I am the leader of the sovereign nation of Dakotastan, not Beystan. But I do know that Luca Guadagnino and David Kajganich have been incredibly vocal about how important feminist art and artists are to Suspiria. They've directly referenced those women by, in my opinion, appropriately appropriating their work on the screen. Why do I think it's appropriate and not flavor wasting? Because of their use in the context of the film: where and when do we see these images? We see them when Susie sees them, in the dreams that Madame Blanc sends her. The dreams are (as I've mentioned plenty of times this month) gross, horny dreams...and they are full of art. Blanc sends images she finds indelible–the work of her contemporaries–to Susie, and she pries the dancer's memories out in turn. This is seduction by deep art faggotry, y'all. Here are some–some!–of the artists and their work that are important to Blanc, to women, to culture:

PINA BAUSCH


Top: Suspiria Bottom: Pina Bausch, Blaubart, 1977

I mean, duh. The late German dancer/choreographer is hugely influential on the character of Veva Blanc, so much so that Tilda Swinton is essentially wearing Pina Bausch drag in the film.



I love this quote from her, which could be attributable to anyone behind Suspiria, really:
It is almost unimportant whether a work finds an understanding audience. One has to do it because one believes that it is the right thing to do. We are not only here to please, we cannot help challenging the spectator.

ANA MENDIETA

Suspiria draws–or drew–heavily from the work of this late Cuban-American performance/video artist and painter. Images that evoke–or recreate–her work can be seen in the film's teaser trailer, but were edited out for subsequent trailers and the final cut after the artist's Estate sued for copyright infringements. (A settlement was reached about a month after the lawsuit was filed.) This is where it gets real hinky: when does homage simply become rip-off? Do intent and context matter? Mendieta was–is–one of the most essential feminist artists of the last...ever. Her work focused on life, death, our connection to the Earth and our roots, women's suffering and denigration under the patriarchy and the violence of men; of course she would influence Suspiria and the women in it. But hey, artists gotta respect artists and get permission to use the work.

Top: Suspiria Bottom: Ana Mendieta, (Untitled) Rape Scene, 1973


Left: Suspiria Right: Ana Mendieta, Silueta Works in Mexico 1973-1977

CLAUDE CAHUN

To call photographer/writer Claude Cahun (née Lucie Renee Mathilde Schwob) "pioneering" severely undersells the kind of work they were doing in the early decades of the 20th century. Their self-portraits in particular challenged notions–and still challenge notions–of gender identity, beauty, the male gaze, and the role of the viewer. With their lifelong partner Marcel Moore (née Suzanne Malherbe), Cahun lived a life of art and activism. The pair was arrested and sentenced to death for their resistance work against the Nazi occupation of France, but they were released after the liberation a year later. I think Guadagnino would have been remiss not to pay homage to such a formative queer feminist artist.



Top: Suspiria teaser trailer Bottom: Claude Cahun, Self-Portrait (in Cupboard) 1932

As Cahun's work was also cited in the lawsuit filed by the Ana Mendieta Estate, a different shot was used in the final cut of the film:


GINA PANE

Also cited in the lawsuit and referenced in the teaser trailer, Gina Pane was a queer performance artist/photographer during the "body art" movement of the early 70s. She attempted to create a kind of "empathy" with the viewer through her suffering, using body as discourse as she inflicted injury upon herself.


Top: Suspiria Bottom: Gina Pane, Death Control, 1974

FRANCESCA WOODMAN

Only 22 when she died by suicide in 1981, photographer Francesca Woodman has received accolades and attention that eluded her during her all-too-brief life and career. Largely working in derelict spaces, she focused mostly on self-portraits and portraits of other women. Her images seem to be out of step–out of time?–from the era in which she worked. Her photographs are often intimate, haunting, and ethereal, challenging the idea of photography as "truth" while seeking her place in the world as a woman artist and subject. If you've never seen the 2011 documentary The Woodmans, well, you really should.


Above: Suspiria Below: Francesca Woodman, Providence RI 1976



MARY WIGMAN

This pioneering German dancer/choreographer served more as...mmm, let's say a fine patina for the Tanzgruppe, as she was more of an inspiration to screenwriter David Kajganich than to choreographer Damien Jalet. The Nazis viewed her as a degenerate leftist and shut down her Akademie (Mary Wigman-Schule) in 1942, but allowed her to teach in Leipzig contingent on following the rule of law and firing all of her Jewish dancers. After the war she opened a new school–for dancers of any creed–in West Berlin.

While she wasn't the impetus behind his choreography, Jalet still worked some Wigman flavor into Volk, in particular her 1914 piece Hexentanz. I mean, it's called Hexentanz. Isn't that what Volk is?






Volk was inspired largely by Jalet's piece Les Médusées (in particular the excerpt Les Médusées), which was in turn inspired by Dario Argento's Suspiria. It's all a hexentanz, baby.



JUDY CHICAGO and CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN

Truth be told, I don't know how much of Judy Chicago's work can be seen or felt onscreen, aside from a sort of thematic haze, so I was reluctant to include her here. But the filmmakers have cited her as an influence, and as a kind reader pointed out in the comments of yesterday's post, the Sabbath (as it appears in the original screenplay) reads like it would be very evocative of her seminal 1979 installation The Dinner Party. Then again, maybe she did make it in the film; The Dinner Party was criticized by some as making no grand feminist statement beyond "vaginas on plates." Ahem.


While provocative performance artist Carolee Schneemann hasn't directly been called an inspiration by Guadagnino (that I know of), the Sabbath we get on-screen brought to mind her 1964 piece Meat Joy, wherein performers writhe around together with paint and all manner of raw meat.

Top: Suspiria Bottom: Carolee Schneemann, Meat Joy, 1964

Look, I'm not going to tell anyone how to feel about the inclusion/referencing of work by these artists. If you find it to be wasted flavor, so be it. As I said, I see it more of an honoring these women, of putting a spotlight on them while also informing the world of the film. The world at large didn't always see the importance of these women and their work, for the art world often treats–and has forever treated–women and anyone considered "other" as lesser creators. But to Luca Guadagnino and David Kajganich and Madame Blanc and Susie Bannion, they are life itself.

SUSPIRIA Day 25: appropriate vs appropriation


One of the things I love about Suspiria (how many times have I said that this month?) is that it's a deeply feminist film that embodies feminism. It's not a cheap "How d'you like that, boys?" exercise in "girl power." There are no mean girls, no "cat fights." It's not about women being "good" or "bad," necessarily...although it obviously explores the concepts of power and relationships in an all-female environment wherein some are heroes and some are villains. But it's more the totality of the feminine, right? The Great Mother. You can't venerate the Goddess without also acknowledging her power to destroy. And as I've discussed, it's a showcase for a new kind of Final Girl. While it was written and directed by men, it's foolhardy to cite them as the only creators of the film. The women in front of the camera were not merely actresses. They were collaborators and vital creative contributors, in particular Tilda Swinton, whose fingerprints are all over this movie. And then there is the art.

As we all know by now, this movie is about so much that it's like a seven layer burrito comprising many...smaller seven layer burritos. Okay, that metaphor doesn't super work (maybe it's just getting close to din din time), but you get my point. It's a weighty thing, a work of art about art. The power art has to save and sustain us, and the power it has to obliterate us...the power of it. How fitting for a coven of witches. Creativity as witchcraft, a means of independence and agency, a method of operating outside of the rules of society and the patriarchal industrial complex. When "the Reich just wanted women to shut off their minds and keep their uteruses open," the women of the Markos Tanzgruppe–in particular Madame Blanc–kept making art.

When Susie and Blanc are in the mirrored room, about to engage in sex practicing Susie's jumps, Blanc tells the young dancer:
There are two things that dance can never be again: beautiful and cheerful. Today we need to break the nose of every beautiful thing.
Not only is this the philosophy under which she, as choreographer and artistic director, guides the Company, it's a direct rebuttal to the Reich and anyone who has ever tried to tell these women how to be. It's a rephrasing of and a response to this 1937 declaration by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels:
Dance must be cheerful and show beautiful female bodies and have nothing to do with philosophy.
Everything about the Markos Tanzgruppe flies in the face of that mandate. You want "beauty"? These women will create their own kind of beauty, and they will fucking destroy you.

Suspiria doesn't simply hint at its influences, however–it often puts them right there on the screen, and this is where it can get tricky. I've got a friend who didn't like the movie much at all (and yes, we're still friends, can you believe it), and one of the things that really got her mad was its use of artists' imagery. She didn't see it as a tribute, as I do–she found it to be "flavor wasting." I strongly disagree with her assessment, but I get it. It's how I feel about basically everything, say, Lady Gaga does, or...hmm, maybe this:



So what's the difference? Am I just a big Suspiria apologist because I love it so much? Maybe. But I think there's a key factor between honoring or paying tribute to an artist or her work and simply mimicking or appropriating. I feel that Suspiria tries to do the former, while this Beyoncé video is engaging with the latter. A large part of this is transparency: are you talking about the creators who came before you? Are you citing their work as influences and discussing why they were important and influential?

Heck, maybe Beyoncé talked about the film and Volk when talking about this video. I don't know! I am the leader of the sovereign nation of Dakotastan, not Beystan. But I do know that Luca Guadagnino and David Kajganich have been incredibly vocal about how important feminist art and artists are to Suspiria. They've directly referenced those women by, in my opinion, appropriately appropriating their work on the screen. Why do I think it's appropriate and not flavor wasting? Because of their use in the context of the film: where and when do we see these images? We see them when Susie sees them, in the dreams that Madame Blanc sends her. The dreams are (as I've mentioned plenty of times this month) gross, horny dreams...and they are full of art. Blanc sends images she finds indelible–the work of her contemporaries–to Susie, and she pries the dancer's memories out in turn. This is seduction by deep art faggotry, y'all. Here are some–some!–of the artists and their work that are important to Blanc, to women, to culture:

PINA BAUSCH


Top: Suspiria Bottom: Pina Bausch, Blaubart, 1977

I mean, duh. The late German dancer/choreographer is hugely influential on the character of Veva Blanc, so much so that Tilda Swinton is essentially wearing Pina Bausch drag in the film.



I love this quote from her, which could be attributable to anyone behind Suspiria, really:
It is almost unimportant whether a work finds an understanding audience. One has to do it because one believes that it is the right thing to do. We are not only here to please, we cannot help challenging the spectator.

ANA MENDIETA

Suspiria draws–or drew–heavily from the work of this late Cuban-American performance/video artist and painter. Images that evoke–or recreate–her work can be seen in the film's teaser trailer, but were edited out for subsequent trailers and the final cut after the artist's Estate sued for copyright infringements. (A settlement was reached about a month after the lawsuit was filed.) This is where it gets real hinky: when does homage simply become rip-off? Do intent and context matter? Mendieta was–is–one of the most essential feminist artists of the last...ever. Her work focused on life, death, our connection to the Earth and our roots, women's suffering and denigration under the patriarchy and the violence of men; of course she would influence Suspiria and the women in it. But hey, artists gotta respect artists and get permission to use the work.

Top: Suspiria Bottom: Ana Mendieta, (Untitled) Rape Scene, 1973


Left: Suspiria Right: Ana Mendieta, Silueta Works in Mexico 1973-1977

CLAUDE CAHUN

To call photographer/writer Claude Cahun (née Lucie Renee Mathilde Schwob) "pioneering" severely undersells the kind of work they were doing in the early decades of the 20th century. Their self-portraits in particular challenged notions–and still challenge notions–of gender identity, beauty, the male gaze, and the role of the viewer. With their lifelong partner Marcel Moore (née Suzanne Malherbe), Cahun lived a life of art and activism. The pair was arrested and sentenced to death for their resistance work against the Nazi occupation of France, but they were released after the liberation a year later. I think Guadagnino would have been remiss not to pay homage to such a formative queer feminist artist.



Top: Suspiria teaser trailer Bottom: Claude Cahun, Self-Portrait (in Cupboard) 1932

As Cahun's work was also cited in the lawsuit filed by the Ana Mendieta Estate, a different shot was used in the final cut of the film:


GINA PANE

Also cited in the lawsuit and referenced in the teaser trailer, Gina Pane was a queer performance artist/photographer during the "body art" movement of the early 70s. She attempted to create a kind of "empathy" with the viewer through her suffering, using body as discourse as she inflicted injury upon herself.


Top: Suspiria Bottom: Gina Pane, Death Control, 1974

FRANCESCA WOODMAN

Only 22 when she died by suicide in 1981, photographer Francesca Woodman has received accolades and attention that eluded her during her all-too-brief life and career. Largely working in derelict spaces, she focused mostly on self-portraits and portraits of other women. Her images seem to be out of step–out of time?–from the era in which she worked. Her photographs are often intimate, haunting, and ethereal, challenging the idea of photography as "truth" while seeking her place in the world as a woman artist and subject. If you've never seen the 2011 documentary The Woodmans, well, you really should.


Above: Suspiria Below: Francesca Woodman, Providence RI 1976



MARY WIGMAN

This pioneering German dancer/choreographer served more as...mmm, let's say a fine patina for the Tanzgruppe, as she was more of an inspiration to screenwriter David Kajganich than to choreographer Damien Jalet. The Nazis viewed her as a degenerate leftist and shut down her Akademie (Mary Wigman-Schule) in 1942, but allowed her to teach in Leipzig contingent on following the rule of law and firing all of her Jewish dancers. After the war she opened a new school–for dancers of any creed–in West Berlin.

While she wasn't the impetus behind his choreography, Jalet still worked some Wigman flavor into Volk, in particular her 1914 piece Hexentanz. I mean, it's called Hexentanz. Isn't that what Volk is?






Volk was inspired largely by Jalet's piece Les Médusées (in particular the excerpt Les Médusées), which was in turn inspired by Dario Argento's Suspiria. It's all a hexentanz, baby.



JUDY CHICAGO and CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN

Truth be told, I don't know how much of Judy Chicago's work can be seen or felt onscreen, aside from a sort of thematic haze, so I was reluctant to include her here. But the filmmakers have cited her as an influence, and as a kind reader pointed out in the comments of yesterday's post, the Sabbath (as it appears in the original screenplay) reads like it would be very evocative of her seminal 1979 installation The Dinner Party. Then again, maybe she did make it in the film; The Dinner Party was criticized by some as making no grand feminist statement beyond "vaginas on plates." Ahem.


While provocative performance artist Carolee Schneemann hasn't directly been called an inspiration by Guadagnino (that I know of), the Sabbath we get on-screen brought to mind her 1964 piece Meat Joy, wherein performers writhe around together with paint and all manner of raw meat.

Top: Suspiria Bottom: Carolee Schneemann, Meat Joy, 1964

Look, I'm not going to tell anyone how to feel about the inclusion/referencing of work by these artists. If you find it to be wasted flavor, so be it. As I said, I see it more of an honoring these women, of putting a spotlight on them while also informing the world of the film. The world at large didn't always see the importance of these women and their work, for the art world often treats–and has forever treated–women and anyone considered "other" as lesser creators. But to Luca Guadagnino and David Kajganich and Madame Blanc and Susie Bannion, they are life itself.

SUSPIRIA Day 25: appropriate vs appropriation


One of the things I love about Suspiria (how many times have I said that this month?) is that it's a deeply feminist film that embodies feminism. It's not a cheap "How d'you like that, boys?" exercise in "girl power." There are no mean girls, no "cat fights." It's not about women being "good" or "bad," necessarily...although it obviously explores the concepts of power and relationships in an all-female environment wherein some are heroes and some are villains. But it's more the totality of the feminine, right? The Great Mother. You can't venerate the Goddess without also acknowledging her power to destroy. And as I've discussed, it's a showcase for a new kind of Final Girl. While it was written and directed by men, it's foolhardy to cite them as the only creators of the film. The women in front of the camera were not merely actresses. They were collaborators and vital creative contributors, in particular Tilda Swinton, whose fingerprints are all over this movie. And then there is the art.

As we all know by now, this movie is about so much that it's like a seven layer burrito comprising many...smaller seven layer burritos. Okay, that metaphor doesn't super work (maybe it's just getting close to din din time), but you get my point. It's a weighty thing, a work of art about art. The power art has to save and sustain us, and the power it has to obliterate us...the power of it. How fitting for a coven of witches. Creativity as witchcraft, a means of independence and agency, a method of operating outside of the rules of society and the patriarchal industrial complex. When "the Reich just wanted women to shut off their minds and keep their uteruses open," the women of the Markos Tanzgruppe–in particular Madame Blanc–kept making art.

When Susie and Blanc are in the mirrored room, about to engage in sex practicing Susie's jumps, Blanc tells the young dancer:
There are two things that dance can never be again: beautiful and cheerful. Today we need to break the nose of every beautiful thing.
Not only is this the philosophy under which she, as choreographer and artistic director, guides the Company, it's a direct rebuttal to the Reich and anyone who has ever tried to tell these women how to be. It's a rephrasing of and a response to this 1937 declaration by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels:
Dance must be cheerful and show beautiful female bodies and have nothing to do with philosophy.
Everything about the Markos Tanzgruppe flies in the face of that mandate. You want "beauty"? These women will create their own kind of beauty, and they will fucking destroy you.

Suspiria doesn't simply hint at its influences, however–it often puts them right there on the screen, and this is where it can get tricky. I've got a friend who didn't like the movie much at all (and yes, we're still friends, can you believe it), and one of the things that really got her mad was its use of artists' imagery. She didn't see it as a tribute, as I do–she found it to be "flavor wasting." I strongly disagree with her assessment, but I get it. It's how I feel about basically everything, say, Lady Gaga does, or...hmm, maybe this:



So what's the difference? Am I just a big Suspiria apologist because I love it so much? Maybe. But I think there's a key factor between honoring or paying tribute to an artist or her work and simply mimicking or appropriating. I feel that Suspiria tries to do the former, while this Beyoncé video is engaging with the latter. A large part of this is transparency: are you talking about the creators who came before you? Are you citing their work as influences and discussing why they were important and influential?

Heck, maybe Beyoncé talked about the film and Volk when talking about this video. I don't know! I am the leader of the sovereign nation of Dakotastan, not Beystan. But I do know that Luca Guadagnino and David Kajganich have been incredibly vocal about how important feminist art and artists are to Suspiria. They've directly referenced those women by, in my opinion, appropriately appropriating their work on the screen. Why do I think it's appropriate and not flavor wasting? Because of their use in the context of the film: where and when do we see these images? We see them when Susie sees them, in the dreams that Madame Blanc sends her. The dreams are (as I've mentioned plenty of times this month) gross, horny dreams...and they are full of art. Blanc sends images she finds indelible–the work of her contemporaries–to Susie, and she pries the dancer's memories out in turn. This is seduction by deep art faggotry, y'all. Here are some–some!–of the artists and their work that are important to Blanc, to women, to culture:

PINA BAUSCH


Top: Suspiria Bottom: Pina Bausch, Blaubart, 1977

I mean, duh. The late German dancer/choreographer is hugely influential on the character of Veva Blanc, so much so that Tilda Swinton is essentially wearing Pina Bausch drag in the film.



I love this quote from her, which could be attributable to anyone behind Suspiria, really:
It is almost unimportant whether a work finds an understanding audience. One has to do it because one believes that it is the right thing to do. We are not only here to please, we cannot help challenging the spectator.

ANA MENDIETA

Suspiria draws–or drew–heavily from the work of this late Cuban-American performance/video artist and painter. Images that evoke–or recreate–her work can be seen in the film's teaser trailer, but were edited out for subsequent trailers and the final cut after the artist's Estate sued for copyright infringements. (A settlement was reached about a month after the lawsuit was filed.) This is where it gets real hinky: when does homage simply become rip-off? Do intent and context matter? Mendieta was–is–one of the most essential feminist artists of the last...ever. Her work focused on life, death, our connection to the Earth and our roots, women's suffering and denigration under the patriarchy and the violence of men; of course she would influence Suspiria and the women in it. But hey, artists gotta respect artists and get permission to use the work.

Top: Suspiria Bottom: Ana Mendieta, (Untitled) Rape Scene, 1973


Left: Suspiria Right: Ana Mendieta, Silueta Works in Mexico 1973-1977

CLAUDE CAHUN

To call photographer/writer Claude Cahun (née Lucie Renee Mathilde Schwob) "pioneering" severely undersells the kind of work they were doing in the early decades of the 20th century. Their self-portraits in particular challenged notions–and still challenge notions–of gender identity, beauty, the male gaze, and the role of the viewer. With their lifelong partner Marcel Moore (née Suzanne Malherbe), Cahun lived a life of art and activism. The pair was arrested and sentenced to death for their resistance work against the Nazi occupation of France, but they were released after the liberation a year later. I think Guadagnino would have been remiss not to pay homage to such a formative queer feminist artist.



Top: Suspiria teaser trailer Bottom: Claude Cahun, Self-Portrait (in Cupboard) 1932

As Cahun's work was also cited in the lawsuit filed by the Ana Mendieta Estate, a different shot was used in the final cut of the film:


GINA PANE

Also cited in the lawsuit and referenced in the teaser trailer, Gina Pane was a queer performance artist/photographer during the "body art" movement of the early 70s. She attempted to create a kind of "empathy" with the viewer through her suffering, using body as discourse as she inflicted injury upon herself.


Top: Suspiria Bottom: Gina Pane, Death Control, 1974

FRANCESCA WOODMAN

Only 22 when she died by suicide in 1981, photographer Francesca Woodman has received accolades and attention that eluded her during her all-too-brief life and career. Largely working in derelict spaces, she focused mostly on self-portraits and portraits of other women. Her images seem to be out of step–out of time?–from the era in which she worked. Her photographs are often intimate, haunting, and ethereal, challenging the idea of photography as "truth" while seeking her place in the world as a woman artist and subject. If you've never seen the 2011 documentary The Woodmans, well, you really should.


Above: Suspiria Below: Francesca Woodman, Providence RI 1976



MARY WIGMAN

This pioneering German dancer/choreographer served more as...mmm, let's say a fine patina for the Tanzgruppe, as she was more of an inspiration to screenwriter David Kajganich than to choreographer Damien Jalet. The Nazis viewed her as a degenerate leftist and shut down her Akademie (Mary Wigman-Schule) in 1942, but allowed her to teach in Leipzig contingent on following the rule of law and firing all of her Jewish dancers. After the war she opening a new school–for dancers of any creed–in West Berlin.

While she wasn't the impetus behind his choreography, Jalet still worked some Wigman flavor into Volk, in particular her 1914 piece Hexentanz. I mean, it's called Hexentanz. Isn't that what Volk is?






Volk was inspired largely by Jalet's piece Les Médusées (in particular the excerpt Les Médusées), which was in turn inspired by Dario Argento's Suspiria. It's all a hexentanz, baby.



JUDY CHICAGO and CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN

Truth be told, I don't know how much of Judy Chicago's work can be seen or felt onscreen, aside from a sort of thematic haze, so I was reluctant to include her here. But the filmmakers have cited her as an influence, and as a kind reader pointed out in the comments of yesterday's post, the Sabbath (as it appears in the original screenplay) reads like it would be very evocative of her seminal 1979 installation The Dinner Party. Then again, maybe she did make it in the film; The Dinner Party was criticized by some as making no grand feminist statement beyond "vaginas on plates." Ahem.


While provocative performance artist Carolee Schneemann hasn't directly been called an inspiration by Guadagnino (that I know of), the Sabbath we get on-screen brought to mind her 1964 piece Meat Joy, wherein performers writhe around together with paint and all manner of raw meat.

Top: Suspiria Bottom: Carolee Schneemann, Meat Joy, 1964

Look, I'm not going to tell anyone how to feel about the inclusion/referencing of work by these artists. If you find it to be wasted flavor, so be it. As I said, I see it more of an honoring these women, of putting a spotlight on them while also informing the world of the film. The world at large didn't always see the importance of these women and their work, for the art world often treats–and has forever treated–women and anyone considered "other" as lesser creators. But to Luca Guadagnino and David Kajganich and Madame Blanc and Susie Bannion, they are life itself.

Hawaiian pizza dip

#Hawaiian, #pizza, #dip

SUSPIRIA Day 24: WHAT


Despite the sound of alarms ringing out in repeated doomsday-is-nigh articles, physical media is not dead. This is especially true for horror, where numerous boutique distributors regularly save, restore, and release titles from the well-loved to the obscure jam-packed with features, commentaries, and the like. Conversely, however, in this cybertastic day of streaming and platforms and I come from The Internet and I want content for free, plenty of home video releases (for lack of a better all-encompassing term) are all but bare-bones.

Side note: don't get me started on the lame-ass Blu-ray that Carol got or we will be her all day, all night, and into next week.

While there are plenty of folks who don't care a lick nor a whit for supplemental materials, there are also plenty of...well, "cinephiles" sounds too snooty, but let's go with it...who want to hear and see making ofs and criticisms and more. When our favorite movies get subpar releases, we're left hoping for some magical future time when rights are sold or the film in question is miraculously added to the Criterion Collection. Such is the case with me and my life partner Suspiria. Simply put, there is not enough for my tastes on the Blu-ray. There is not enough on the German Ultimate Edition, which mostly comes with physical gewgaws. I desperately want a commentary track. I want a big fat feature-length making of documentary. And today's post highlights a major reason why.

Spoiler alert: I've been working on a piece about the female artists whose work is heavily referenced throughout the film. This brought me back to Suspiria's first teaser trailer, because it contains several shots that were excised from the final product after Amazon Studios was sued by the Ana Mendieta estate, who alleged that the film drew too heavily upon her work. (The case was settled out of court; I'll be talking more about all of this in that future post.)

Well. It had been a hot minute since I'd watched that teaser. I don't think I'd seen it, in fact, since before the film came out. That ~2 minutes was enough to get me dying to see the movie, and I didn't want to be spoiled by anything else. I was instantly...dare I say...hooked. Watching it today, however, I was shocked–SHOCKED!–by this very brief sequence:



Now sure, trailers feature scenes that don't end up in theaters all the time. That's why we need healthy home releases, dangit–we need director's cuts and deleted scenes! And LAWD I want this one.

Is that Susie on the floor? It certainly looks like her leotard.


Sara's costume and robe seem to put this right before she entered the Mutterhaus. In fact, it'd be right around the scene where Susie gets her hair cut–you know, following that brief moment where we see again how far the two dancers have drifted from each other. Sara makes a move toward Susie, likely to warn her one final time about the Matrons...but Balfour purposefully steps between them. Sara leaves, and without a word, Susie watches her go. It's a point of no return for both of them.



Whether it's a newly-coiffed Susie or a less-fortunate dancer, though, I got my eyeballs right up on it because whoa, is that blood on her right hand? And then: what the actual fuck is with her left hand??


I thought maybe it was a weird frame, a blurry artifact from screencapping at the wrong moment, but nope. That horrifying chicken claw is just how her hand looks.

WHAT HAPPENED?

Guess I'll be waiting for the Criterion edition in the hopes that includes answers. Can I sue Amazon Studios for putting out such a skimpy Blu-ray package?

*ETA: check the comments for some answers!