bavatuesdays episode 1: Black Sunday

A day late (but not necessarily a dollar short), we got the first of ten bavatuesdays film festival episodes in the bag, and I was joined by the great Paul Bond for a discussion about Mario Bava’s 1960 black and white masterpiece Black Sunday (a.k.a. The Mask of Satan). We spent an hour discussing everything from Tim Lucas’s massive tome on Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark (particularly the color shots from that book featuring the making of the film—all of which made me want it even more) to the aesthetic from the 1930s classic monster films to Bava’s influence on subsequent horror filmmakers to Barbara Steele as archetype of goth in this film. It was a far-ranging conversation, and that’s made the episode quite fun for me.

What’s cool is that Paul and I are just getting our feet wet with this broadcasting model, and this current experimenting with a mini-bava film festival is preparation not only for the ds106zone coming this Summer, but specifically for the True Crime class we are preparing for the Fall. The push to force myself to keep experimenting and exploring stuff like this is what keeps me interested. And while I hate it when I over commit to projects like this that no one is making me do—I always love it when its done. And talking about Mario Bava while sharing clips, images, and conversation while juggling on-the-fly production is a great way to explore with pressure 🙂 It also makes me wonder how soon it will be before pretty much anyone can do this seamlessly.

As for this episodes issues, the audio is not synched in the clips, and that is my fault, but the rest of the show plays through rather well regardless. The mic Paul was hearing me through went robotic at some point, so we need to fiddle with that because it results in a delay towards the end. That said,  for the first episode I’m thrilled at the result, and Paul remains an awesome researcher and respondent in all things literary and movie culture–I can’t thank him enough for his willingness to play along. Now it’s time to prepare for Mario Bava’s Hercules in the Haunted World (1961) —which I referred to wrongly as Hercules in the Underworld in this episode—my bad.

Anyways, all masochists should enjoy, and be sure to give us feedback, we will be experimenting with bringing in more voices as we continue to playover the next ten weeks.

This entry was posted in 106movies, bavatuesdays and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

5 Responses to bavatuesdays episode 1: Black Sunday

  1. Paul says:

    Great job on getting all that together on the fly.
    There are interesting parallels and contrasts between Black Sunday and Hercules in the Haunted World. I’ll have to write that up in case I’m not able to make it next Tuesday.

  2. Steven Kaye says:

    I’ve thought that Bava’s use of tracking shots from this movie was the inspiration for a long tracking shot in Argento’s Tenebre, but I’ve never looked for confirmation one way or the other.

    I also wondered if the iconic scene of the Princess with her dogs was supposed to evoke Hecate, or if it was just a gorgeous shot.

  3. Reverend says:

    Steven,
    I love both those threads on Black Sunday, I think you are right on about Hecate and Barbara Steel in that shot. So beautiful!

    As far the the Tenebre shot, can you give me an example. Also, I just set up a site for the Bava film fest if you want to share your posts, submit stuff through Tumblr, or what have. Thanks for playing along!

  4. Pingback: bavateusdays Film Fest Site Up and Running and we have Hercules on Tap | bavatuesdays

  5. She is too tall. Gangly looking. Mine screen test photo was better!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.