"Set in the strange and oppressive emotional landscape of the year 1983, Panos Cosmatos' Beyond the Black Rainbow is a Reagan-era fever dream inspired by hazy childhood memories of midnight movies and Saturday morning cartoons"
Directed by Panos Cosmatos.
Produced by Oliver Linsley, Christya Nordstokke.
Screenplay by Panos Cosmatos.
Starring: Michael Rogers, Eva Allan, Scott Hylands, Marilyn Norry & Rondel Reynoldson.
Music by Sinoia Caves.
Cinematography by Norm Li. Editing by Nicholas T. Shepard.
Chromewood Productions. Distributed by Magnet Releasing.
In the 1960s, Dr. Arboria founds the Arboria Institute, a New Age research facility dedicated to finding a reconciliation between science and spirituality, allowing human beings to move into a new age of perpetual happiness. In the 1980s, Arboria's work has been taken over by his protégé, Dr. Barry Nyle (Michael Rogers). Outwardly a charming, handsome scientist, Nyle is in fact a psychopath who has been keeping Elena (Eva Allan), a teenage girl, captive in an elaborate prison/hospital beneath the Institute. Elena demonstrates psychic capabilities, which Nyle can suppress, using a glowing, prism-like device.
In an effort to understand Elena's abilities, Nyle subjects her to daily therapy sessions, which take the form of interrogations, during which Elena only communicates by way of telepathic demands to see her father. By night, Elena is kept in a brightly-lit, completely white room, with only a television for companionship. Nyle spends his own nights at home with his wife, a docile, servile woman who gives Nyle endless praise and exists in a state of constant stupor. Nyle, for his own part, takes massive quantities of prescription medication and disguises his lack of hair or color in his irises by way of elaborate wigs and contact lenses. Attempting to elicit an emotional response from Elena, Nyle presents her with a photograph of her mother, who died in childbirth. Nyle then informs Elena's nurse, Margo, that Elena has somehow smuggled contraband into her room. When Margo attempts to forcibly take the photo from Elena, Elena kills her, by causing her head to explode. Intrigued by this blatant display of psychic ability, Nyle allows Elena to escape her room. However, he activates the psychic suppression device, causing Elena to pass out. While she is unconscious, Elena is approached by a giant individual in a space suit (identified in the credits as "Sentionaut"), who injects her with a syringe, before wandering off.
Rosemary Nyle: "Barry... you're not wearing your appliances". Barry Nyle: "I don't want to wear them any more".
Nyle goes to see Dr. Arboria, now aged and on life support, somewhere on the grounds of the Institute. Displaying signs of senility, Arboria remains ignorant of Nyle's evil nature, regarding him as his best protégé. A flashback to the 1960s reveals that Elena's mother was Dr. Arboria's wife, who was present when Arboria led a young Nyle through a procedure meant to allow him to achieve transcendence. As a part of the procedure, Nyle was submerged in a vat of dark liquid; Nyle emerged from the vat hysterical and fatally attacked Mrs. Arboria. Elena was born shortly thereafter. Back in the present, Nyle kills Arboria by administering a drug overdose. Meanwhile, Elena encounters a zombie-like creature in an air shaft, as well as an entire room full of immobile sentionauts, revealed to be emaciated, sexless, skeletal entities with the faces of baby dolls. At home, Nyle presents himself to his wife without his wig or contacts, then kills her, as Elena escapes the Institute, venturing into the wilderness. While in pursuit, Nyle kills two heavy metal fans, in the style of a slasher film. Nyle finally corners Elena, in a clearing, where he confronts her with a knife. Elena uses her telekinesis to fling Nyle down onto a rock, crushing his skull. Free of her captors, Elena wanders towards a nearby town. Following the credits, the camera focuses on the floor of a living room with late 1970s/early 1980s decor; an action figure of a Sentionaut lies in the middle of the room. A static voice can be heard asking, "Do you read me?" twice before the film ends.
Scott Macaulay discusses Beyond the Black Rainbow and interviews it's Director/Screenwriter Panos Cosmatos:
"It’s a strange paradox of today’s cinema that so many films feature lavish and eye-popping special effects yet are such ordinary viewing experiences. Sure, today’s VFX and surround sound are capable of overwhelming you, of beating you into submission, but, with a handful of exceptions, they seldom take you further. One film that does is Panos Cosmatos’ Beyond the Black Rainbow, an astonishingly ambitious debut feature that is as much an elegant art object as it is a science-fiction head trip of the highest order. Set in 1983 — and feeling as if it was actually made in 1983 too — Beyond the Black Rainbow is a hazily remembered waking dream of a picture about a tormented scientist (described in Cosmatos’ script as “an aging surfer calcified into a reptilian wax vampire”), who is subjecting a beautiful young captive to a series of unsettling mind control experiments. The film has secrets, plot twists and a daring escape, but it is more focused on tone, feelings and sensations than linear plotting. Pulsing with an omnipresent score by Sinoia Caves, Beyond the Black Rainbow evokes the eerie early cinema of David Cronenberg, and not just with its repressed scientist protagonist, dispassionate tone and cool production design; the film also riffs on similar ideas about repression and social control, drawing from such shared inspirations as William Burroughs. Beyond the Black Rainbow premiered in 2010 at the Whistler Film Festival before it was discovered by the Tribeca Film Festival programmers and screened at last year’s event. Filmmaker then placed Cosmatos on our 2011 25 New Faces list, and the following interview was done in preparation for that piece" - Here.
Welcome to the seventh in a series of musical snap-shots, entitled: La Musique des Sons. Unable or unwilling to expand on the whys and what-fors of a particular artist/project, etc, two for one seemed like the way to go. Less is in no way more, but maybe less is enough.
Funny thing is, I didn't even realise these two 'acts' were on the same label, Jagjaguwar, until I started digging around for information for this post. Just a coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. As well as currently being signed to the same label (nothing is forever), both 'acts' are in fact solo artists: Jeremy Schmidt recording as Sinoia Caves and Ruban Nielson recording as Unknown Mortal Orchestra.
I became aware of Jeremy Schmidt's Sinoia Caves via his soundtrack for Panos Cosmatos' Beyond the Black Rainbow: "Set in the strange and oppressive emotional landscape of the year 1983, Beyond the Black Rainbow is a Reagan-era fever dream inspired by hazy childhood memories of midnight movies and Saturday morning cartoons".
Sinoia Caves' soundtrack has yet to be made available, which is a real shame. However, this lead me to Jeremy's only other release under the Sinoia Caves name: "The Enchanter Persuaded was originally self-released, in a very limited fashion, in 2002. This newest, more permanent edition comes with a slight remastering and vastly improved artwork". This quote relates to the 2006 re-release.
As with Beyond the Black Rainbow, The Enchanter Persuaded is a hallucinatory world, built on a foundation of organ drones and analog synthesisers, with adornments of light drum machine. However, where Beyond the Black Rainbow suffocates us in it's dry, air-conditioned corridors, The Enchanter Persuaded adds acoustics guitars and effected vocals, to the hallucination, beckoning us to venture beyond the geodesic dome, out, into the California sunshine.
What follows is text, regarding 2006 re-release of The Enchanter Persuaded, taken from the Jagjaguwar website, then some audio...
Sinoia Caves is another name for the analog synth wizard Jeremy Schmidt, who is also a principal member of the critically-lauded, maximal-rock band called Black Mountain. The Enchanter Persuaded is his solo debut full-length.
It is an ambient psych masterpiece, bringing to mind, as one writer puts it, "the warmth and majestic epic swales" of Florian Fricke's Popul Vuh plus a "little Rick Wakeman and Kraftwerk".
The Enchanted Persuaded opens with "Dwarf Reaching the Arch Wonder", a slowly building interstellar legato anchored by an ecclesiastic organ droning against cymbals, chimes, and ring modulator... "The Naro Way" is a splinter of psychedelic folk with half-buried melodies bending and giving way to the Emerson synth... then the steady heartbeat of the Linndrum marches [on] "Through the Valley", a vocoder-led hymn ushering the worn and weary to "The Wicker Chair", another poison drop of psych-folk now with an undercurrent of heavy breathing, white noise, and mellotron voices until all is peeled away to reveal the ether-synth abyss of "Sundown in the New Arcades (Milky Way Echo)", an infinite, swirling moment within the primordial depths of Jean Michel Jarre's sonic psyche with neither beginning nor end until the tape runs off the reel and in the open arch stands John Carpenter holding "The Evil Ball". By now, you get the idea.
Naro Way:
Through the Valley:
The Wicker Chair:
As so often is the case, I can't remember where I happened upon Unknown Mortal Orchestra. If memory serves, I became aware of them, then forgot about them, then stubbled upon them again, whilst looking for something else. I say they, but, as far as I can ascertain, UMO is basically Ruban Nielson, with bassist Jacob Portrait and drummer Greg Rogrove, lending their support, as-and-when: "UMO was a project conceived as Ruban’s escape hatch to a new musical dimension where his vision of junkshop record collector pop could be realized in a sound that recalled Captain Beefheart, Sly Stone and RZA jamming on some kids TV theme too dark to ever be broadcast".
In 2011, Ruban made the move from his native Auckland, New Zealand, to Portland, Oregon. This wasn't his first visit, however. In 2007, Ruban relocated to Portland, with The Mint Chicks, the band he'd started with his brother Kody in the early 2000s. Ultimately this didn't work out and the band returned to Auckland in 2011.
After returning to New Zealand, the band, now reduced to just the two Nielson brothers, released what would turn out to be their final recording, the EP "Bad Buzz". Calling time on The Mint Chicks, Ruban decided to return to Portland with his family, whilst Kody stayed behind, to continue his own journey.
Ruban's return should come as no surprise. Not only does he have history there, but, as the above descriptive quote suggests, the U.S. of A. would certainly appear to be UMO's spiritual home. A cliché perhaps, but music's geographic landscapes often transpose with music's imaginary landscapes, traveling beyond their earthly bounds. Ruban uses the tag 'Psychedelic R&B' for the music he makes as Unknown Mortal Orchestra. I would tweak this slightly to read 'Lo-fi Psychedelic R&B'.
What follows is text, regarding UMO's second LP 'II', taken from the Jagjaguwar website, then some audio...
Emerging from rampant hedonism and isolation is II, the new album from Unknown Mortal Orchestra.
The musical vision of Portlander-via-New Zealand Ruban Nielson started as an anonymous home-recording project that fused psychedelia, soul, choppy percussion and funk. UMO came to life in basements and bedrooms after Nielson moved from his native New Zealand to Portland, Oregon with his family. Following the recruitment of bassist Jacob Portrait, new drummer Greg Rogove and a deal with Jagjaguwar, UMO toured the US with Grizzly Bear and Liars. II builds on the break-beat, junk-shop charm the 32-year-old multi-instrumentalist and songwriter came to be renowned for following his self-titled 2011 debut, and signals the solidification of Unknown Mortal Orchestra's position as an endlessly intriguing, brave psychedelic band. UMO is unafraid to dig deeper than the rest to lock into their intoxicating, opiate groove and bring rock'n'roll's exaggerated myths to life.
Written during a punishing, debauched touring schedule during which Nielson feared for both his sanity and health, II illustrates the emotional turmoil of life on the road, painting surrealist, cartoonish portraits of loneliness, love and despair.
These conflicting themes are evident immediately; on the album's sleeve is an unnerving image of Janet Farrar, the famous British witch, Wiccan, author and teacher of witchcraft. The chilling refrain of opener 'From The Sun' sees Nielson deliver the line "Isolation can put a gun in your hand," softly, his words starkly intelligible above a warm, slow-burning melody that quickly brands itself onto your brain. His playful imagery ('I'm so lonely I've gotta eat my popcorn all alone') mirrors the melody, before a solo that borders on psychotropic ends II's introduction. As it unfolds, 'II' does find Nielson reenergized. 'One At A Time' and 'Faded In The Morning' boast dizzying choruses and instrumentals; these crusty hunks could have been excavated from a lost 1960s treasure trove. 'Monki' unravels over seven minutes like the yarn from a stoner's cardigan with an eye-frying pattern. 'Dawn' is a minute of disconcerting noise that stands out between the nooks and crannies of the choruses, guitar solos, groove-heavy bass and drums that were recorded live by newly-recruited drummer Greg Rogove and Kody Nielson in a move away from the electronic percussion employed on album one. 'II' closes with 'Secret Xtians', a tender observational puzzle that fizzes to a satisfied end.
Pulling Pink Floyd, the Family Stone, The Beatles and the Soft Machine through his warped rock'n'roll filter; Nielson created a collection of expressive, psychedelia. Unknown Mortal Orchestra was once Ruban Nielson's closeted concern. With an album that uses his singular musical imagination and extraordinary talent to parade his emotions with unyielding honesty, it is now a fully realized band operating at the peak of its powers.
The word 'folklore' was coined in 1846 by an English antiquary, William John Thoms, although Professor Dorson's study shows that the history of the folklore movement had its origins in an earlier period. Men and women in many fields, especially in Victorian times, succumbed to the fascination of folklore.
Professor Dorson traces the historical development of the idea of folklore, beginning in the emergence of English national history with Camden in the sixteenth century and reaching its climax with the 'Great Team' of Andrew Lang and his co-workers from the 1870's to the First World War.
Richard Mercer Dorson (1916–1981) was an American folklorist, author, professor, and director of the Folklore Institute at Indiana University.
Dorson was born in New York City. He studied at the Phillips Exeter Academy from 1929 to 1933.
He then went on to Harvard University where he earned his A.B., M.A., in history, and his Ph.D. degree in the History of American Civilization in 1942. He began teaching as an instructor of history at Harvard in 1943. He moved to Michigan State University in 1944 staying there until 1957 when he took a position at Indiana University as professor of history and folklore as well as that of chairman of the Committee on Folklore. He taught at Indiana until his death.
When the Indiana University Folklore Institute was established in 1963 Dorson became the first director, and in 1978 he became the first chairman of the Folklore Department.
Dorson has been called the "father of American folklore" and "the dominant force in the study of folklore". That study, according to Dorson, involved several roles; "polemicist, critic, field collector, library scholar". Dorson also wrote that "no subject of study in the United States today [1976] is more misunderstood than folklore".
Dorson contributed two terms to the study of folklore that have gained common currency. The first is "urban legend"; meaning a modern "story which never happened told for true". Dorson also coined the word "fakelore" in a debate with author James Stevens. Dorson dismissed Stevens' book on Paul Bunyan, and the later work of Ben Botkin as fakelore, or "a synthetic product claiming to be authentic oral tradition but actually tailored for mass edification", which "misled and gulled the public".
Dorson's fieldwork touched upon African-American folklore in Michigan, folklore of the Upper Peninsula, other regional folklore in the United States, the folklore of Japan, and other topics. Among other academic recognitions, Dorson was awarded the Library of Congress award in History of American Civilization in 1946, and three Guggenheim Fellowships (1949, 1964, and 1971). In 2003, Minnesota State University awarded him their "Heritage Award" posthumously.
Bibliography
Dorson's papers are held at the Lilly Library of Indiana University. Audio recordings from his fieldwork can be found at the Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University. In addition to his several books, Dorson also edited the Folktales of the World series, published between 1963 and 1979 by the University of Chicago Press.
1939: Davy Crocket, American Comic Legend, 1946: Jonathan Draws the Long Bow, 1950: America Begins, 1952: Bloodstoppers and Bearwalkers (reprinted by the University of Wisconsin Press in 2008), 1953: American Rebels: Personal narratives of the American Revolution, 1956: Negro Folktales in Michigan, 1958: Negro Folktales from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and Calvin, Michigan, 1959: American Folklore, 1961: American Folklore and the Historian, 1961: Folk Legends of Japan, 1961: Folklore Research Around the World: A North American Point of View, 1964: Buying the Wind: Regional Folklore in the United States, 1967: American Negro Folktales, 1968: Peasant Customs and Savage Myths: Selections from the British Folklorists, 1969: British Folklorists: A History, 1971: American Folklore and the Historian, 1972: African Folklore, 1972: Folklore and Folklife: An Introduction, 1973: America in Legend, 1973: Folklore and Traditional History, 1974: Folklore in the Modern World, 1976: Folklore and Fakelore: Essays toward a Discipline of Folk Studies, 1981: Land of the Millrats & 1983: Handbook of American Folklore.
More on Fakelore:
Fakelore or pseudo-folklore is inauthentic, manufactured folklore presented as if it were genuinely traditional. The term can refer to new stories or songs made up, or to folklore that is reworked and modified for modern tastes. The element of misrepresentation is central; artists who draw on traditional stories in their work are not producing fakelore unless they claim that their creations are real folklore.
The term fakelore was coined in 1950 by American folklorist Richard M. Dorson. Dorson's examples included the fictional cowboy Pecos Bill, who was presented as a folk hero of the American West but was actually invented by the writer Edward J. O'Reilly in 1923. Dorson also regarded Paul Bunyan as fakelore. Although Bunyan originated as a character in traditional tales told by loggers in the Great Lakes region of North America, James Stevens, an ad writer working for the Red River Lumber Company, invented many of the stories about him that are known today. According to Dorson, advertisers and popularizers turned Bunyan into a "pseudo folk hero of twentieth-century mass culture" who bore little resemblance to the original.
“I had forgotten that landscape photography is often motivated by utopian or ideological imperatives, both as a critique of the world, and to demonstrate the possibility of creating a better one”
One of the most distinctive voices to emerge in British cinema since Peter Greenaway, Patrick Keiller was born in Blackpool in 1950. He studied at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, and initially practised as an architect. Chris Marker's film La Jetée (France, 1962) left a deep impression, but he only made practical steps towards cinema in 1979, when he joined the Royal College of Art's Department of Environmental Media as a postgraduate student.
Slide-tape presentations blending architectural photography with fictional narratives pointed the way towards his first acknowledged film, Stonebridge Park (1981), visually inspired by a railway bridge in an outer London suburb. Images from a hand-held camera are accompanied by a voice-over commentary presenting the thoughts of a petty criminal panicked by the consequences of robbing his former employer. Norwood (1983) continued the 'story', and the technique, in another London suburb. Short films of increasing technical sophistication climaxed in 1989 with The Clouds, a further topographical exploration combining another anxious fictional commentary with imagery derived from a journey across the north of England from Jodrell Bank to Whitby.
None of these films stretched beyond twenty minutes. But any doubts about the limits of Keiller's idiosyncratic approach were obliterated by the feature-length London, an electrifying, slyly witty portrait of a city in decay, shot during 1992, and successfully premiered at the 1994 Berlin Film Festival. The essay format and audio-visual mix may superficially recall early Greenaway films, but the polemical punch and artistic strategies remain Keiller's own. Its success generated a sequel, Robinson in Space (1997), so similar in technique and spirit that for all the differences in emphasis and geography it seems as though we're watching the same film.
"In any train of thought, the end of one is followed by the beginning of the next"
Stylistically, these features extend the habits developed in Keiller's shorts. The visual material consists of static camera shots: images of urban decay and other socio-economic signifiers, road sign clutter, glowering skies - a landscape sharing some territory with the poetic realism of Humphrey Jennings and the Free Cinema film-makers, but framed and cut with a sharper, more avant-garde edge. Narrative input is chiefly found in the commentaries, spoken with quiet irony by Paul Scofield as an unseen friend of the equally unseen Robinson, a reclusive academic who undertakes research journeys into the 'problem' of London and England. Matters of architecture, French literature, fine art, Surrealism, photography, geography, history, sociology and economics all mingle in Robinson's analyses - aptly described in the London narration as 'exercises in psychic landscaping, drifting, and free association'. Both films explore and criticise Thatcher's Britain, but Robinson in Space pursues points more rigorously, advancing the contrast between prosperous new development and trade exports and the de-industrialised landscapes created by Thatcherite economics.
Keiller returned to architecture as the subject for his third and most cogent feature, The Dilapidated Dwelling (2000), made for television but never broadcast, with Tilda Swinton as the voice of another researcher, surveying the dilapidated state of England's housing stock after a twenty-year absence. Conventional documentary elements are featured (archive footage, talking heads), but Keiller continues to press home his points with the kind of intellectual fibre, wit, and precision rarely given a chance to bloom in British cinema. In between film work, Keiller teaches, writes, undertakes his research, and works on gallery installations.
Keiller's film Robinson in Ruins was released in November 2010. It was one of the outcomes of a three-year research project entitled The Future of Landscape and the Moving Image and reprised the Robinson character from London and Robinson in Space. Vanessa Redgrave assumes the role of narrator, after the death of Paul Scofield who narrated the previous films. Redgrave takes the part of the previous narrator's former lover. As her predecessor she guides us through the adventures of the unseen, titular character, Robinson. There is a special focus on the importance of nature as we are guided amongst Oxford's picturesque surroundings. Keiller weaves the surreal, philosophy, architecture, the arts, science, politics, history and agriculture in this exploration of the natural world.
“It is utterly implausible that a mathematical formula should make the future known to us, and those who think it can would once have believed in witchcraft” Jacob Bernoulli
Witchcraft, from the Old English wiċċecræft, compound of "wiċċe" ("witch") and "cræft" (“craft”).
Witchcraft (also called witchery or spellcraft) is the use of alleged supernatural, magical faculties. This may take many forms, depending on cultural context.
Beliefs in witchcraft have historically existed in most regions of the world. This was notably so in Early Modern Europe where witchcraft came to be seen as part of a vast diabolical conspiracy of individuals in league with the Devil undermining Christianity, eventually leading to large-scale witch-hunts, especially in Protestant Europe. Similar beliefs have persisted in some cultures up to the present, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa (e.g. the Bantu witch smellers), and have occasionally resulted in modern witch-hunts. The concept of witchcraft as harmful is normally treated as a cultural ideology providing a scapegoat for human misfortune. Since the mid-20th century Witchcraft has become the designation of a branch of contemporary Paganism, most notably including Wiccan traditions, who claim to practice a revival of pre-Abrahamic spirituality.
In Christianity and Islam, sorcery came to be associated with heresy and apostasy and to be viewed as evil. Among the Catholics, Protestants, and secular leadership of the European Late Medieval/Early Modern period, fears about witchcraft rose to fever pitch, and sometimes led to large-scale witch-hunts. Throughout this time, it was increasingly believed that Christianity was engaged in an apocalyptic battle against the Devil and his secret army of witches, who had entered into a diabolical pact. In total, tens or hundreds of thousands of people were executed, and others were imprisoned, tortured, banished, and had lands and possessions confiscated. The majority of those accused were women, though in some regions the majority were men. Accusations of witchcraft were often combined with other charges of heresy against such groups as the Cathars and Waldensians.
The Malleus Maleficarum, an infamous witch-hunting manual used by both Catholics and Protestants, outlines how to identify a witch, what makes a woman more likely than a man to be a witch, how to put a witch on trial, and how to punish a witch. The book defines a witch as evil and typically female. This book was not given the official Imprimatur of the Catholic Church, which would have made it approved by church authorities.
"Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt" Friedrich Nietzsche
Historically the witchcraft label has been applied to practices people believe influence the mind, body, or property of others against their will—or practices that the person doing the labeling believes undermine social or religious order. Some modern commentators believe the malefic nature of witchcraft is a Christian projection. The concept of a magic-worker influencing another person's body or property against their will was clearly present in many cultures, as traditions in both folk magic and religious magic have the purpose of countering malicious magic or identifying malicious magic users. Many examples appear in ancient texts, such as those from Egypt and Babylonia. Malicious magic users can become a credible cause for disease, sickness in animals, bad luck, sudden death, impotence and other such misfortunes. Witchcraft of a more benign and socially acceptable sort may then be employed to turn the malevolence aside, or identify the supposed evil-doer so that punishment may be carried out. The folk magic used to identify or protect against malicious magic users is often indistinguishable from that used by the witches themselves.
There has also existed in popular belief the concept of white witches and white witchcraft, which is strictly benevolent. Many neopagan witches strongly identify with this concept, and profess ethical codes that prevent them from performing magic on a person without their request. Where belief in malicious magic practices exists, such practitioners are typically forbidden by law as well as hated and feared by the general populace, while beneficial magic is tolerated or even accepted wholesale by the people – even if the orthodox establishment opposes it.
The familiar witch of folklore and popular superstition is a combination of numerous influences. The characterization of the witch as an evil magic user developed over time. Probably the most obvious characteristic of a witch was the ability to cast a spell, "spell" being the word used to signify the means employed to carry out a magical action. A spell could consist of a set of words, a formula or verse, or a ritual action, or any combination of these. Spells traditionally were cast by many methods, such as by the inscription of runes or sigils on an object to give it magical powers; by the immolation or binding of a wax or clay image (poppet) of a person to affect him or her magically; by the recitation of incantations; by the performance of physical rituals; by the employment of magical herbs as amulets or potions; by gazing at mirrors, swords or other specula (scrying) for purposes of divination; and by many other means.
In Early Modern European tradition, witches were stereotypically, though not exclusively, women. European pagan belief in witchcraft was associated with the goddess Diana and dismissed as "diabolical fantasies" by medieval Christian authors. Witch-hunts first appeared in large numbers in southern France and Switzerland during the 14th and 15th centuries. The peak years of witch-hunts in southwest Germany were from 1561 to 1670.
Early converts to Christianity looked to Christian clergy to work magic more effectively than the old methods under Roman paganism, and Christianity provided a methodology involving saints and relics, similar to the gods and amulets of the Pagan world. As Christianity became the dominant religion in Europe, its concern with magic lessened.
The Protestant Christian explanation for witchcraft, such as those typified in the confessions of the Pendle Witches, commonly involves a diabolical pact or at least an appeal to the intervention of the spirits of evil. The witches or wizards engaged in such practices were alleged to reject Jesus and the sacraments; observe "the witches' sabbath" (performing infernal rites that often parodied the Mass or other sacraments of the Church); pay Divine honour to the Prince of Darkness; and, in return, receive from him preternatural powers. It was a folkloric belief that a Devil's Mark, like the brand on cattle, was placed upon a witch's skin by the devil to signify that this pact had been made. Witches were most often characterized as women. Witches disrupted the societal institutions, and more specifically, marriage. It was believed that a witch often joined a pact with the devil to gain powers to deal with infertility, immense fear for her children's well-being, or revenge against a lover.
The Church and European society were not always so zealous in hunting witches or blaming them for bad occurrences. Saint Boniface declared in the 8th century that belief in the existence of witches was un-Christian. The emperor Charlemagne decreed that the burning of supposed witches was a pagan custom that would be punished by the death penalty.
In 820 the Bishop of Lyon and others repudiated the belief that witches could make bad weather, fly in the night, and change their shape. This denial was accepted into Canon law until it was reversed in later centuries as the witch-hunt gained force. Other rulers such as King Coloman of Hungary declared that witch-hunts should cease because witches (more specifically, strigas) do not exist.
The Church did not invent the idea of witchcraft as a potentially harmful force whose practitioners should be put to death. This idea is commonplace in pre-Christian religions. According to the scholar Max Dashu, the concept of medieval witchcraft contained many of its elements even before the emergence of Christianity. These can be found in Bacchanalias, especially in the time when they were led by priestess Paculla Annia (188BC–186BC). However, even at a later date, not all witches were assumed to be harmful practicers of the craft. In England, the provision of this curative magic was the job of a witch doctor, also known as a cunning man, white witch, or wise man. The term "witch doctor" was in use in England before it came to be associated with Africa. Toad doctors were also credited with the ability to undo evil witchcraft. Other folk magicians had their own purviews. Girdle-measurers specialised in diagnosing ailments caused by fairies, while magical cures for more mundane ailments, such as burns or toothache, could be had from charmers.
"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles" Thomas Jefferson
In 1645, Springfield, Massachusetts, experienced America's first accusations of witchcraft when husband and wife Hugh and Mary Parsons accused each other of witchcraft. At America's first witch trial, Hugh was found innocent, while Mary was acquitted of witchcraft but sentenced to be hanged for the death of her child. She died in prison. From 1645–1663, about eighty people throughout England's Massachusetts Bay Colony were accused of practicing witchcraft. Thirteen women and two men were executed in a witch-hunt that lasted throughout New England from 1645–1663.
The Salem witch trials followed in 1692–93. These witch trials were the most famous in British North America and took place in the coastal settlements near Salem, Massachusetts. The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings before local magistrates followed by county court trials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft in Essex, Suffolk and Middlesex Counties of colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693. Over 150 people were arrested and imprisoned, with even more accused who were not formally pursued by the authorities. The two courts convicted 29 people of the capital felony of witchcraft.
Nineteen of the accused, 14 women and 5 men, were hanged. One man who refused to enter a plea was crushed to death under heavy stones in an attempt to force him to do so. At least five more of the accused died in prison.
Despite being generally known as the "Salem" witch trials, the preliminary hearings in 1692 were conducted in a variety of towns across the province: Salem Village, Ipswich, Andover, as well as Salem Town, Massachusetts. The best-known trials were conducted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 in Salem Town. All 26 who went to trial before this court were convicted. The four sessions of the Superior Court of Judicature in 1693, held in Salem Town, but also in Ipswich, Boston, and Charlestown, produced only 3 convictions in the 31 witchcraft trials it conducted. Likewise, alleged witchcraft was not isolated to New England. In 1706 Grace Sherwood the "Witch of Pungo" was imprisoned for the crime in Princess Anne County, Virginia.
Images: 1-Witchcraft by Pennethorne Hughes (Penguin/Pelican 1970). 2-Witchcraft by Geoffrey Parrinder (Penguin/Pelican 1958). 2-New England Witchcraft by Pilgrim Theatre Museum, Provincetown Chamber of Commerce, Provincetown, Mass. USA. Postcard, original painting by Frank Milby.
BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time: The history of witchcraft in Reformation Europe.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss witchcraft in Reformation Europe. In 1486 a book was published in Latin, it was called Maleus Mallificarum and it very soon outsold every publication in Europe bar the Bible. It was written by Heinrich Kramer, a Dominican Priest and a witchfinder. "Magicians, who are commonly called witches" he wrote, "are thus termed on account of the magnitude of their evil deeds. These are they who by the permission of God disturb the elements, who drive to distraction the minds of men, such as have lost their trust in God, and by the terrible power of their evil spells, without any actual draught or poison, kill human beings".
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" says Exodus, and in the period of the Reformation and after, over a hundred thousand men and women in Europe met their deaths after being convicted of witchcraft. Why did practices that had been tolerated for centuries suddenly become such a threat? What brought the prosecutions of witchcraft to an end, and was there anything ever in Europe that could be truly termed as a witch?
With Alison Rowlands, Senior Lecturer in European History at the University of Essex; Lyndal Roper, Fellow and Tutor in History at Balliol College, University of Oxford; Malcolm Gaskill, Fellow and Director of Studies in History at Churchill College, Cambridge.
Now, opinion is divided about Patrick Troughton's tenure, and portrayal of the Doctor. For instance, I have read how popular Patrick was with the cast and crew (as below). And, I have read how unpopular Patrick was with the cast and crew, not to mention the viewing public. Recently, Patrick's Doctor has been reassessed, and not found wanting.
So, We may or may not be able to change how Patrick Troughton's Doctor Who was perceived in the past, but, for sure, we can effect how Patrick's Doctor Who is perceived in the future.
Patrick George Troughton (25 March 1920 – 28 March 1987) was an English actor most widely known for his roles in fantasy, science fiction and horror films, particularly in his role as the second incarnation of the Doctor in the long-running British science-fiction television series Doctor Who, which he played from 1966 to 1969, reappearing in 1973, 1983 and 1985. He was also the first actor to play Robin Hood on television.
Troughton was born on 25 March 1920 in Mill Hill, Middlesex, England to Alec George Troughton, a solicitor, and Dorothy Evelyn Offord, who married in 1914 in Edmonton, and had an elder brother, Alec Robert (1915–1994), and a younger sister, Mary Edith (1923–2005). Troughton attended Mill Hill School and continued to live in Mill Hill for most of his life. While at Mill Hill School, he acted in a production of J.B. Priestley's "Bees on the Boat Deck" in March 1937. His brother A.R. ('Robin') Troughton shared the 1933 Walter Knox Prize for Chemistry with the future Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick, who also attended Mill Hill School.
He later attended the Embassy School of Acting at Swiss Cottage, under Eileen Thorndike. After his time at the Embassy School of Acting, Troughton won a scholarship to the Leighton Rallius Studios at the John Drew Memorial Theatre on Long Island in New York, U.S.. When the Second World War broke out, he returned to Britain on a Belgian ship. The ship hit a mine and sank off the coast of Britain; Troughton escaped in a lifeboat. Troughton had joined the Tonbridge Repertory Company in 1939 and in 1940 joined the Royal Navy. He was a Lieutenant, R.N.V.R. on East Coast Convoy duty from February to August 1941, and Coastal Forces (M.G.B.'s) based at Great Yarmouth from November 1942 to 1945, and was "Mentioned in Dispatches". He was concerned in an "E" boat action, when one was successfully destroyed by ramming, and his ship and another destroyed two others by gunfire. His decorations included the 1939-45 Star, and Atlantic Star. He used to wear a tea cosy on his head in cold weather in the North Sea.
After the war, Troughton returned to the theatre in 1945. He worked with the Amersham Repertory Company, the Bristol Old Vic Company and the Pilgrim Players at the Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill Gate. He made his television debut in 1947. In 1948, Troughton made his cinema debut with small roles in Olivier's Hamlet, the TCF production Escape (one of the stars of which was William Hartnell), and a minor role as a pirate in Treasure Island appearing only during the attack on the heroes' hut. However, television was his favourite medium. In 1953 he became the first actor to play the famous folk hero Robin Hood on television, starring in six half-hour episodes broadcast from 17 March to 21 April on the BBC, and titled simply Robin Hood (Vahimagi, 42).
Troughton's other notable film and television roles included Kettle in Chance of a Lifetime (1950), Sir Andrew Ffoulkes in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1955), Vickers in the episode entittled Strange Partners in the Invisible Man (the ITP Series also starred one of Pat's future Doctor Who co-stars, Deborah Watling, as Sally) (1958), Phineus in Jason and the Argonauts (1963), Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop (1962), Paul of Tarsus (BBC 1960, title role), Dr. Finlay's Casebook (BBC 1962, semiregular). He voiced Winston Smith in a 1965 BBC Home Service radio adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Prior to Doctor Who he appeared in numerous TV shows including, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Ivanhoe, Dial 999, Danger Man, Maigret, Compact, The Third Man, Crane, Detective, Sherlock Holmes, No Hiding Place, The Saint, Armchair Theatre, The Wednesday Play, Z-Cars, Adam Adamant Lives! and Softly, Softly. He appeared as the murderer Tyrrell in Olivier's 1955 Richard III.
"It is a fact, Jamie, that I do tend to get involved with things"
In 1966, Doctor Who producer Innes Lloyd replaced William Hartnell in the series' lead role. The continued survival of the show depended on audiences accepting another actor in the role, despite the bold decision that the replacement would not be a Hartnell lookalike or soundalike. Lloyd later stated that Hartnell had approved of the choice, saying, "There's only one man in England who can take over, and that's Patrick Troughton".
Lloyd chose Troughton because of his extensive and versatile experience as a character actor. After he was cast, Troughton considered various ways to approach the role, to differentiate his portrayal from Hartnell's amiable-yet-tetchy patriarch. Troughton's early thoughts about how he might play the Doctor included a "tough sea captain", and a piratical figure in blackface and turban. Doctor Who creator Sydney Newman suggested that the Doctor could be a "cosmic hobo" in the mould of Charlie Chaplin, and this was the interpretation eventually chosen. Troughton was the first Doctor to have his face appear in the opening titles of the show. In the episode, The Enemy of the World, Troughton played two parts as both the protagonist (The Doctor) and the antogonist (Salamander).
During his time on the series, Troughton tended to shun publicity and rarely gave interviews. He told one interviewer, "I think acting is magic. If I tell you all about myself it will spoil it". Years later, he told another interviewer that his greatest concern was that too much publicity would limit his opportunities as a character actor after he left the role.
Troughton was popular with both the production team and his co-stars. Producer Lloyd credited Troughton with a "leading actor's temperament. He was a father figure to the whole company and hence could embrace it and sweep it along with him". Troughton also gained a reputation on set as a practical joker.
Many of the early episodes in which Troughton appeared were wiped by the BBC (a full list of Doctor Who episodes missing from the BBC Archives is available here). Troughton found Doctor Who's schedule (at the time, 40 to 44 episodes per year) gruelling, and decided to leave the series in 1969, after three years in the role. This decision was also motivated in part by fear of typecasting. Troughton's decision would eventually become something of an unwritten law (the "Troughton Rule") among actors, in order to prevent one from becoming typecast in a particular role in a potentially long-running television programme. Patrick Troughton was succeeded in the role by Jon Pertwee.
"Ever since Patrick Troughton, the Second Doctor, first produced it from his jacket, the Sonic Screwdriver has been the Doctor's most trusted tool. Now, for the first time, Doctor Who fans have the opportunity to bring the Time Lord's extremely cool and iconic gadget into their own homes"
Whomobilia images: Top, still from 'The Dominators' 1968 (BW37). Middle, Patrick Troughton as Dr Who 1966 (235).
He said: "The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you," he said. "They're freeing your soul. So, if you're frightened of dying and... you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth"
Directed by Adrian Lyne. Produced by Mario Kassar, Alan Marshall, Bruce Joel Rubin & Andrew G. Vajna. Written by Bruce Joel Rubin.
Starring: Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Peña, Danny Aiello, Jason Alexander & Ving Rhames.
Music by Maurice Jarre. Cinematography by Jeffrey L. Kimball. Editing by Tom Rolf. Studio: Carolco Pictures. Distributed by TriStar Pictures, Artisan Entertainment & Lions Gate Entertainment. Release date: November 2, 1990. Running time: 116 minutes. Country: United States. Language: English. Budget: $25 million. Box office: $26,118,851 (domestic).
The story begins on October 6, 1971, when Jacob Singer is an infantryman with the 1st Air Cavalry Division, deployed in a village in the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam War. Suddenly, his unit comes under heavy fire from the treeline and many of Jacob's comrades are killed and wounded. Soldiers around also begin to exhibit very abnormal behavior, some even going catatonic or collapsing into bloody seizures. Horrified, Jacob attempts to flee into the jungle, only to be stabbed in the stomach with a bayonet by an unseen attacker.
At that point, Jacob wakes up in the New York City Subway, dressed as a postal worker and with a copy of The Stranger in his hands. After Jacob finds himself locked in the underground he tries to escape via the tracks, where he is nearly hit by a train. The film then shifts back and forth between Jacob's chaotic memories of Vietnam, as well as memories of his late son Gabe (who was hit by a car and killed prior to the war) and ex-wife Sarah, to his present life in 1975, as a mailman living with a postal clerk woman named Jezzie in Brooklyn. He experiences grotesque hallucinations, apparently suffering from a severe case of posttraumatic stress disorder, and faces more direct threats to his life.
As the hallucinations become increasingly bizarre, Paul, one of Jacob's old Army friends, contacts him to tell him about sharing such experiences. Paul is later killed when his car explodes. After the funeral, his surviving platoon-mates confess to Jacob they too have been seeing horrible hallucinations. They agree to seek the truth about the incident through legal proceedings. They meet a lawyer, Mr. Geary, who at first says they have a case then backs out, saying he has found that they were never even in Vietnam, they were all discharged during wargame training in Thailand. Jacob's platoon mates also abandon the idea. Jacob himself is briefly kidnapped by apparent government agents trying to silence him.
Jacob is then approached by a man named Michael Newman (the same man is also seen treating his wounds in a medevac helicopter in one of the scenes taking place in Vietnam). Michael claims to have been a chemist working with the Army's chemical warfare division in Saigon, where he worked on creating "The Ladder", a drug that would increase aggression, taking people straight to their most primal urges. The drug was first tested on monkeys and then on a group of captured enemy combatants, with gruesome results. Later, small doses of "The Ladder" were secretly given to Jacob's unit. This revelation insinuates that Jacob was bayoneted by one of his fellow soldiers that, instead of targeting the enemy, attacked each other.
The last scenes have Jacob returning to the apartment building he once lived in with Sarah. He enters and begins looking through an old shoe box, containing his memories and the pain he has been clinging to, things like his dog tags and a picture of Gabe. Jacob then is surprised to see Gabe at the foot of the stairwell. Gabe takes Jacob by the hand and together the two of them ascend the stairwell and disappear into a bright light. At the dénouement, we learn Jacob never made it out of Vietnam; his body is shown in an Army triage tent just after he expired, with a now peaceful look on his face. It turns out that the entire series of events was mortally wounded Jacob's elaborate dying hallucination during his final moments.
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