(10.29) Magic Lantern Cinema presents a free Halloween-themed screening of a new 2K digital transfer of the Carl Theodor Dreyer 1932 creepshow, Vampyr, preceded by a few short films and a post-film discussion led by Professors Gertrud Koch and Philip Rosen. Fun tidbit from Wiki:
The entire film was shot on location with many scenes shot in Courtempierre, France. Dreyer and his cinematographer Rudolph Maté took part in scouting for locations for Vampyr. Dreyer left most of his scouting to an assistant, who Dreyer instructed to find “a factory in ruins, a chopped up phantom, worthy of the imagination of Edgar Allan Poe. Somewhere in Paris. We can’t travel far.” In the original script, the village doctor was supposed to flee the village and get trapped in a swamp. On looking for a suitable mire, the crew found a mill where they saw white shadows around the windows and doors. After seeing this place, they changed the film’s ending to take place at this mill where the doctor dies by suffocating under the milled flour.
You can’t swing a dead cat this week without hitting Edgar Allan Poe — and rightly so. Go here for the excellent PBS biography, “Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive.”
Monday night’s opening shorts are pretty damn short. Do not arrive fashionably late or you miss the fun. (Facebook event.)
Lonely Water — 1973, Jeff Grant, 1.5 min, digital
Necrology — 1971, Standish Lawder, 12 min, digital
The Green Ray — 2001, Tacita Dean, 2 min, digital
Free and open to the public, 8:30pm to 11:30pm, Monday, October 29, Avon Cinema, 260 Thayer Street, (directions)