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| The Tomb of Ligeia (Directed by Roger Corman) |
The Corman/Poe cycle is an eight-film series directed by Roger Corman and produced by American International Pictures from 1960 to 1965, with narratives based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe. With the exception of one, all of the films feature Vincent Price. Initially, AIP requested two low-budget black-and-white pictures; however, Corman persuaded them to let him make one colour feature based on Poe's narrative "Fall of the House of Usher." After the box office success of House of Usher, the idea for a series arose.
Though most of the films deviate significantly from the original Poe tales (indeed, The Haunted Palace is based on an H.P. Lovecraft tale), the themes of terror, sorrow, and death that run throughout Poe's writings are masterfully translated to the screen.
They're all outstanding creative feats, shot on a relatively cheap budget in a short amount of time. Though the most renowned moments are from Pit and the Pendulum and Masque of the Red Death, each picture is filmed with expertise and inventiveness. The Poe films seemed to represent a bridge between the new bold horror films of the late 1960s and the dreamy fantasy realms of the old Universal horror masterpieces of the 1930s, while being produced at the same time as the more widely known British Hammer horror films.
House of Usher has been chosen for preservation by the National Film Registry. The films have had a tremendous effect on horror films and films in general, with the startling imagery being referenced in other films and media several times. Martin Scorsese is a noted admirer.
Filmmaking was always a precarious balance for Roger Corman between the pressures of commercialism and vision. Budget constraints made it simpler for a picture to repay its expenditures at the box office. Nonetheless, several of his resourceful decisions, Corman turned to his advantage. Corman built his own cinematic universe in the Poe films, a realm of garish colour, fog-enveloped castles, and labyrinthine dungeons, via his artistic and practical judgments as a filmmaker.
Corman expertly recreated Poe's themes of metaphysical sorrow with a limited budget and infinite creativity, skillfully evoking the creeping dread as the lines between life and death, rationality and madness, self and other begin to disintegrate. It's a gloomy world filled with otherworldly and human horrors that are never far apart.
Set in a gloomy, mythological past, Corman's Poe adaptations provide ideal ground for exploring humanity's deepest issues. A quotation from Poe's storey “The Premature Burial” used as a postscript in Corman's The Tomb of Ligeia could as well be the epigraph for the entire cycle: “The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where one ends, and where the other begins?” The plots and tones of the films differ, yet each one manages to negotiate this ambiguous space between life and death.
From House of Usher to Tomb of Ligeia, the entire series teems with evidence of sexual repression, with the gloomy mansions the characters inhabit clearly divided into two realms: the upper floors, where daily life and its “normal” activities and traditions find expression (analogue for the superego); and the lower dungeons, where the family dead reside (the attractive-repulsive realm of the id). Trips to this location occur more frequently as the male character's anxieties rise.
The tormented male's need to discover the "secret" of his own past, of the influence of evil ancestors on current conditions, is usually seen in terms of a need to enter the crypt within the house rather than outside it – a "structural" symbol of death's preeminence – is usually seen in terms of a need to discover the "secret" of his own past, of the influence of evil ancestors on current conditions.
The following extract is an interview with Roger Corman by Patrick Schupp. From Séquences 78 (October 1974): 20–24. Translated by Gregory Laufer.
PS: Mr. Corman, can you tell me how you started your series on Edgar Poe?
RC: I was working at the time for a studio that had us make groups of two films with a small budget—about $100,000 or $200,000—in black and white. We sold them as a group.
PS: Attack of the Crab Monsters and Not of This Earth?
RC: Exactly. But I was more inclined toward science fiction, and I didn’t want to mix genres. All the films, however, had a common theme: horror. And then, one day, I was fed up with working like that, with a small budget and in black and white. I had been asked for two other films to be made in ten days, as usual. So I suggested that I make one instead, in color, and with fifteen days of filming, which was a lot more ambitious. I suggested a story by Poe that I like a lot, The Fall of the House of Usher. My studio, however, American International, a small company that had never done more than fifteen days of filming or put up a $200,000 budget, got scared. Finally, after several discussions, my bosses agreed and I started filming.
PS: Usher’s immediate success encouraged you to keep going, and probably the studio to keep paying. Poe was a goldmine, I believe. Based on his works, you directed The Pit and the Pendulum, Premature Burial, Tales of Terror, The Raven, The Terror, The Haunted Palace (which borrowed as much from Lovecraft as from Poe, if memory serves!), Masque of the Red Death, and Tomb of Ligeia. What connection have you drawn between films and books? I imagine that, in order to adequately translate the atmosphere created by Poe’s language in cinematographic terms, you must have run into some difficulties?
RC: Indeed, that’s an excellent question. We ran into some difficulties. First, there’s the brevity of Poe’s stories, which rarely go beyond a few pages. That meant that we had to explore Poe’s psychology and recreate the atmosphere in which he worked as well as his themes. Then we went back to the story in order to check and to clarify. Do you want an example? In “The Pit and the Pendulum,” Poe describes only the torture chamber itself. So in a sense we invented a prologue, a first and a second act. The characters end up in the chamber, that is, in the third act. What counts is in the chamber and that’s where Poe’s story begins. That, in fact, is one of our techniques: using Poe’s story as the conclusion to a story whose premise we came up with.
The second point is that, in my view, Poe worked quite a bit in terms of the unconscious, in a middle world that Freud tried to explore in Austria in the nineteenth century. Poe in America, Dostoyevsky in Russia, Maupassant in France, even other artists, in literature, music, and painting, have followed the same path—the subjective exploration of the unconscious. You see, I firmly believe that the artistic and scientific fields are tightly interwoven, that numerous, apparently contradictory or opposing facets are in fact joined together, but in a context that is not always self-evident. And yet, since Poe’s works are situated directly in terms of the unconscious, I’ve tried to recreate a completely imaginary world by using technical studio equipment. At that time, however, I tended to work in a more realistic manner, in the outdoors, etc. . . . I have no trouble saying that Poe brought me back to more intellectualized studio work. There, I had perfect control over the film’s atmosphere with lighting, scenery, accessories, photos, etc. . . . And when we had to leave the studio for certain reasons . . .
PS: In the case of Tomb of Ligeia, I believe?
RC: Yes! Tomb of Ligeia was my last film about Poe, and in it I proved my theory! In fact, at the beginning, I wanted to maintain that imaginary world, except for some ocean shots. On that note, I have to talk to you about the ocean. There is a deep fascination in man with the sea, just like when you look at fire. There’s a sort of hypnotism. So once I shot the ocean, and another time there was a fire in the Hollywood hills. And I reworked my schedule in order to go all the way to the burned area, to film and in that way to preserve a few scenes of a landscape with a supernatural atmosphere.
PS: So those are your outdoor shots. Burned land. Is that what you used in the opening sequences of Haunted Palace?
RC: No, Usher. But for Haunted Palace, I remade a similar set, inspired by that fire. I admit that that was a few years ago and my memory may cause me to overlook some details. I know that, for Usher, I went to the burned area, and in Haunted Palace, I used the shots of the ground where I remade a similar set. But that had had enough of an impact on me to make me want to reuse that impression of otherworldliness, of absolute desolation that only fire can offer.
PS: That, in effect, is the impression I had gotten. But the resulting atmosphere was remarkably accurate in comparison with Lovecraft’s text, I mean in Haunted Palace. I am one of his great admirers, and I was wondering how the film would come out when I knew that it was in production with you.
RC: Me, too. I love Lovecraft, but I find Poe more interesting.
PS: Indeed, if only because of his themes . . .
RC: Lovecraft, however, is probably one of the best occult writers of the twentieth century. I worked only once on a script based on Lovecraft, in Haunted Palace. But my artistic director for the Poe films, Daniel Haller, directed The Dunwich Horror, which I financed.
PS: I really liked that film. Really well done. Especially the wave effect at the end.
RC: You see, there again we were using the idea of the sea!
PS: It was very effective, and magnificently offset the real by hinting at the invisibility of those unspeakable beings.
RC: In fact, we found ourselves in a world that was identical to Poe’s, but contemporary....
PS: I would like you to talk to us now about Vincent Price, who has appeared in almost all of your films, and whom you cast in spectacular fashion into a genre in which he will henceforth reign as an undisputed master. The link that exists between an actor and a director, in general, reached an exceptional level between you two, I believe.
RC: Indeed, you could say that! I chose Vincent for House of Usher first and foremost because I found him smart and distinguished. It also seems to me that Poe described himself or used certain aspects of his own personality in his characters, at the very least those that had a leading role. He never wrote an autobiographical story as such, but often used the first person. And so he was describing himself, if only to a certain point, of course. That is why I wanted an actor who was as smart as he was cultured. And there aren’t too many, to tell the truth, who exhibit these two traits while at the same time looking the part. So it was totally natural for me to choose Vincent because, in addition to bringing a real dignity to his characters, not to mention a great talent for acting in keeping with a given time period, he conferred on them a raw and unaffected authenticity. Certain actors, as good as they may be, are used to acting “modern,” and they have trouble “passing off” a character from the eighteenth or nineteenth century, which Vincent’s flawless theater training overcame.
Furthermore, over the course of several conversations, Vincent and I came to agree that horror comes from the unconscious. In fact, for years we have had this theory, developed little by little over the course of our working together, that horror and fear are two quite distinct things. Horror is in part the reconstruction of childhood fantasies, and in part the anxiety from the world that surrounds us. You always fear someone bigger and stronger than you, who could hurt you, even if it’s in your unconscious. Civilization advances, of course, and that fear is currently transforming into a fear / horror of a superior culture, one that is around us and watching over us, or that comes from a distant past that you can sense and that ordinary people don’t suspect . . . And each time Vincent admirably knew how to express that ancestral fear that spurs horror.
– Roger Corman: Interviews. Conversations with Filmmakers Series. Gerald Peary, General Editor.
PS: Mr. Corman, can you tell me how you started your series on Edgar Poe?
RC: I was working at the time for a studio that had us make groups of two films with a small budget—about $100,000 or $200,000—in black and white. We sold them as a group.
PS: Attack of the Crab Monsters and Not of This Earth?
RC: Exactly. But I was more inclined toward science fiction, and I didn’t want to mix genres. All the films, however, had a common theme: horror. And then, one day, I was fed up with working like that, with a small budget and in black and white. I had been asked for two other films to be made in ten days, as usual. So I suggested that I make one instead, in color, and with fifteen days of filming, which was a lot more ambitious. I suggested a story by Poe that I like a lot, The Fall of the House of Usher. My studio, however, American International, a small company that had never done more than fifteen days of filming or put up a $200,000 budget, got scared. Finally, after several discussions, my bosses agreed and I started filming.
PS: Usher’s immediate success encouraged you to keep going, and probably the studio to keep paying. Poe was a goldmine, I believe. Based on his works, you directed The Pit and the Pendulum, Premature Burial, Tales of Terror, The Raven, The Terror, The Haunted Palace (which borrowed as much from Lovecraft as from Poe, if memory serves!), Masque of the Red Death, and Tomb of Ligeia. What connection have you drawn between films and books? I imagine that, in order to adequately translate the atmosphere created by Poe’s language in cinematographic terms, you must have run into some difficulties?
RC: Indeed, that’s an excellent question. We ran into some difficulties. First, there’s the brevity of Poe’s stories, which rarely go beyond a few pages. That meant that we had to explore Poe’s psychology and recreate the atmosphere in which he worked as well as his themes. Then we went back to the story in order to check and to clarify. Do you want an example? In “The Pit and the Pendulum,” Poe describes only the torture chamber itself. So in a sense we invented a prologue, a first and a second act. The characters end up in the chamber, that is, in the third act. What counts is in the chamber and that’s where Poe’s story begins. That, in fact, is one of our techniques: using Poe’s story as the conclusion to a story whose premise we came up with.
The second point is that, in my view, Poe worked quite a bit in terms of the unconscious, in a middle world that Freud tried to explore in Austria in the nineteenth century. Poe in America, Dostoyevsky in Russia, Maupassant in France, even other artists, in literature, music, and painting, have followed the same path—the subjective exploration of the unconscious. You see, I firmly believe that the artistic and scientific fields are tightly interwoven, that numerous, apparently contradictory or opposing facets are in fact joined together, but in a context that is not always self-evident. And yet, since Poe’s works are situated directly in terms of the unconscious, I’ve tried to recreate a completely imaginary world by using technical studio equipment. At that time, however, I tended to work in a more realistic manner, in the outdoors, etc. . . . I have no trouble saying that Poe brought me back to more intellectualized studio work. There, I had perfect control over the film’s atmosphere with lighting, scenery, accessories, photos, etc. . . . And when we had to leave the studio for certain reasons . . .
PS: In the case of Tomb of Ligeia, I believe?
RC: Yes! Tomb of Ligeia was my last film about Poe, and in it I proved my theory! In fact, at the beginning, I wanted to maintain that imaginary world, except for some ocean shots. On that note, I have to talk to you about the ocean. There is a deep fascination in man with the sea, just like when you look at fire. There’s a sort of hypnotism. So once I shot the ocean, and another time there was a fire in the Hollywood hills. And I reworked my schedule in order to go all the way to the burned area, to film and in that way to preserve a few scenes of a landscape with a supernatural atmosphere.
PS: So those are your outdoor shots. Burned land. Is that what you used in the opening sequences of Haunted Palace?
RC: No, Usher. But for Haunted Palace, I remade a similar set, inspired by that fire. I admit that that was a few years ago and my memory may cause me to overlook some details. I know that, for Usher, I went to the burned area, and in Haunted Palace, I used the shots of the ground where I remade a similar set. But that had had enough of an impact on me to make me want to reuse that impression of otherworldliness, of absolute desolation that only fire can offer.
PS: That, in effect, is the impression I had gotten. But the resulting atmosphere was remarkably accurate in comparison with Lovecraft’s text, I mean in Haunted Palace. I am one of his great admirers, and I was wondering how the film would come out when I knew that it was in production with you.
RC: Me, too. I love Lovecraft, but I find Poe more interesting.
PS: Indeed, if only because of his themes . . .
RC: Lovecraft, however, is probably one of the best occult writers of the twentieth century. I worked only once on a script based on Lovecraft, in Haunted Palace. But my artistic director for the Poe films, Daniel Haller, directed The Dunwich Horror, which I financed.
PS: I really liked that film. Really well done. Especially the wave effect at the end.
RC: You see, there again we were using the idea of the sea!
PS: It was very effective, and magnificently offset the real by hinting at the invisibility of those unspeakable beings.
RC: In fact, we found ourselves in a world that was identical to Poe’s, but contemporary....
PS: I would like you to talk to us now about Vincent Price, who has appeared in almost all of your films, and whom you cast in spectacular fashion into a genre in which he will henceforth reign as an undisputed master. The link that exists between an actor and a director, in general, reached an exceptional level between you two, I believe.
RC: Indeed, you could say that! I chose Vincent for House of Usher first and foremost because I found him smart and distinguished. It also seems to me that Poe described himself or used certain aspects of his own personality in his characters, at the very least those that had a leading role. He never wrote an autobiographical story as such, but often used the first person. And so he was describing himself, if only to a certain point, of course. That is why I wanted an actor who was as smart as he was cultured. And there aren’t too many, to tell the truth, who exhibit these two traits while at the same time looking the part. So it was totally natural for me to choose Vincent because, in addition to bringing a real dignity to his characters, not to mention a great talent for acting in keeping with a given time period, he conferred on them a raw and unaffected authenticity. Certain actors, as good as they may be, are used to acting “modern,” and they have trouble “passing off” a character from the eighteenth or nineteenth century, which Vincent’s flawless theater training overcame.
Furthermore, over the course of several conversations, Vincent and I came to agree that horror comes from the unconscious. In fact, for years we have had this theory, developed little by little over the course of our working together, that horror and fear are two quite distinct things. Horror is in part the reconstruction of childhood fantasies, and in part the anxiety from the world that surrounds us. You always fear someone bigger and stronger than you, who could hurt you, even if it’s in your unconscious. Civilization advances, of course, and that fear is currently transforming into a fear / horror of a superior culture, one that is around us and watching over us, or that comes from a distant past that you can sense and that ordinary people don’t suspect . . . And each time Vincent admirably knew how to express that ancestral fear that spurs horror.
– Roger Corman: Interviews. Conversations with Filmmakers Series. Gerald Peary, General Editor.
