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Biweekly News Roundup 2024-04-21

Personal / Website News

Peplum Ponderings

I have a brand new Peplum Ponderings published!

I take a look at the 1961 sword and sandal film The Tartars. Check it out here.

Emmanuelle Legacy CFP Re-opened + Bibliography

Since garnering publisher interest, I’ve re-opened the CFP for the Emmanuelle legacy book. The updated CFP can be found here.

I’ve also started annotating Emmanuelle scholarship and posting it here at my website so other scholars have a nice bibliographic resource. The bibliography and annotations can be found here and it is a major WIP.

Miscellaneous Tidbits

Chopping Spree Re-release

Angela Sylvaine’s novella Chopping Spree is getting a re-release by Dark Matter Ink this upcoming autumn. Here is its sporty new cover:

I did a write up about this book back in 2021. If you’re curious about the book, give my review a read, and then consider pre-ordering the book directly from the publisher. There’s signed editions!

Call For Papers

Here is a collection of calls for papers/proposals for pop culture studies I want to help proliferate. If you have a CFP you need help proliferating and want me to add it to my news roundups, shoot me an email and I’ll get it added.

The Routledge Companion to Superhero Studies

Deadline for abstract submissions: 24th May 2024
Editors: Lorna Farnell and Carl Wilson

The editors have already commissioned a substantial number of chapters for The Routledge Companion to Superhero Studies and are seeking the last few essays that specifically consider the following topics:

  • Superhero tourism (including Disney parks)
  • Merchandise and toys
  • Superheroes in the Global South
  • Superheroes and refugees
  • Superheroes and the Anthropocene
  • Digital superheroes
  • British superheroes
  • Counterculture superheroes
  • Superhero narratives 1930-1970s, and offshoots/adaptations
  • Superhero origin stories
  • Superhero animations (including the X-Men, BTAS, She-Ra, He-Man, magical girls, and more)
  • Creators and the creative process
  • Fan communities

The editors invite abstracts of around 300 words on any of the above topics.

Final essays will be 5500 words in length, including references, and will be due two months after a provisional acceptance has been made.

Please email your abstracts (together with a short bio, 100 words max) for consideration to both editors: Lorna Piatti-Farnell, lorna.piatti-farnell@aut.ac.nz and Carl Wilson, carl@carl-wilson.com

The Cursed Archive: Dangerous Texts, Deadly Communications, and Gothic Media

A popular trope in horror and speculative fiction is a cursed archive: a textual communication that is dangerous, forbidden, or contagious. Medieval grimoires and alchemist treatises were early examples of such cursed or forbidden texts. However, in the age before widespread literacy, the cursed archive was limited to a few banned or heretical books. The trope came into its own with the rise of popular literature when the issue of dangerous ideas disseminated through mass media became a cultural and political concern. Early examples of cursed archives centered on printed or written texts, as in H. P. Lovecraft’s imaginary Necronomicon or G. K. Chesterton’s story “The Blast of the Book” (1933). But with the explosion of media technologies, contemporary cursed archives encompass haunted websites, contagious cellphones, entrapping video games, monster-infested TV sets, and killer movies. In this collection, we want to probe the implications of the cursed archive; its connection to the issues of censorship, book-banning, and freedom of expression; the notion of “contagious” ideas; the differences and similarities between the forbidden book and the dark web; and electronic media as a pandemic. The topics we want to address include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • The history of the cursed archive (early examples of book-banning or book-burning by the Church or other religious institutions).
  • The cursed archive and the rise of mass media.
  • Demonic books in Gothic and horror literature (Lovecraft’s Necronomicon; James Blish’s Black Easter; and similar texts).
  • The cursed archive and censorship.
  • Horror at the movies (Clive Barker’s “Son of Celluloid”)
  • Haunted media (such as video games in the Ring series; Stephen King’s Cell; dating apps in Jason Arnopp’s Ghoster).
  • Social media as contagion (including use of social media in crime fiction, such as novels by Ruth Ware and Matt Wesolowski)
  • The library as a gothic space (Borges’ “The Library of Babel”; Korner-Stace Archivist Wasp, Scott Hawkins’ The Library at Mount Char)
  • Alien communications as transforming or erasing humanity (Arrival; Cixin Liu’s Three-Body Problem).
  • Gendering the cursed archive.
  • Cross-cultural examples.
  • Cursed writing, languages, symbols.
  • Cursed means of recording such as tape cassettes, video cassettes, photos, paintings, vinyl records, databases, performance, choreography, etc.

Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words to Simon Bacon (baconetti@googlemail.com) and Elana Gomel (egomel@tauex.tau.ac.il) by June 30, 2024.

Deep State Conspiracies and the Gothic

This focuses on the intersection of recent conspiracy theories and horror/folk-horror/gothic texts featuring hidden societies /corporations (John Wick/Blade/Resident Evil) or secret cabals/cults (Hereditary/Empty Man/Paranormal Activity) whose aim is control/takeover/cause the end of the world. Ideally in any media, across cultures, since 2000 but historical perspectives welcome.

If interested send a 300 word abstract by end Sept 2024 to: baconetti@gmail.com

Categories
Peplum

Peplum Ponderings: The Tartars (1961)

Plot

Oleg (Victor Mature) and his army of Vikings pay a visit to Togrul (Folco Lulli) and his Tartar men at their camp in the steppes of eastern Europe/western Russia. Initially a friendly visit with Oleg bringing gifts of pelts, it turns turbulent when Togrul asks the Viking leader to join forces and attack the Slavs, a group of peoples the Vikings are friendly with. Oleg refuses. Angered at being rebuffed, Togrul attempts to kill Oleg, and a melee breaks out between the two forces. During the skirmish, Oleg axes Togrul and commands his men to retreat back to their Viking fort. In the process, Oleg’s brother, Eric (Luciano Marin), becomes smitten with Togrul’s daughter Samia (Bella Cortez) and kidnaps her.

DVD of The Tartars from the personal collection.

With Togrul slain, his brother, Burundai (Orson Welles), becomes Khan of the Tartars. Burundai has aspirations of great conquest of the West, starting with the obliteration of the Viking fort. Meanwhile at the Viking fort, Eric becomes more smitten with Samia and makes advances on her. He is initially rebuffed, but eventually Samia gives in. Oleg, fearing a Tartar attack, sends his wife Helga (Liana Orfei) away by boat back to Viking lands. En route her boat is attacked by the Tartars and she and her handmaidens are abducted.

Sword dance sequence.

Brought back to the Tartar castle, Burundai tortures one of the maidens for information about the Viking numbers and begins to lust after Helga. That night the Tartars host a lavish party with dancers wielding scimitars and mock-battling each other. During the feast Burundai poisons Helga’s drink. Incapacitated, she is taken to the Khan’s quarters where he rapes her.

Furious at his wife’s abduction, Oleg agrees to a hostage exchange at the Tartars’ castle: Samia for Helga. The meeting does not go well for the Vikings: a drugged Helga falls from the castle parapet, fatally injuring herself, and the group of Viking warriors are then attacked by the Tartars – Burundai having no use of having Samia back. 

Because he is going against tradition and beliefs, Burundai’s advisor Ciu Lang (Arnoldo Foà) leaves him, only to be captured and beheaded by the Kahn. Meanwhile an enraged Oleg wants to execute Samia, but Eric intervenes and declares his love for her and proclaims that she is carrying his child. Oleg puts the duo before a court made of Viking leaders, each casting their votes via axe tossing. The final vote comes down to Oleg, but before he can do so the Viking settlement is attacked by the Tartars. Oleg releases Eric so they can all join in the battle. As the Vikings are greatly outnumbered, the Tartars breach their walls and storm their court yard. Oleg and Burundai battle it out one-on-one, with Oleg victorious after he drowns the Khan in the river. Oleg’s victory is short lived as a Tartar archer shoots him in the back. Oleg’s final act, as his fort is overran, is to wave goodbye to Eric and Samia as they flee from the siege on their boat.

Samia and Eric flee the overran Viking fort.

Commentary

The Tartars is a 1961 sword and sandal film directed by Richard Thorpe. A deviation from the Greco-Roman antiquity setting, The Tartars takes place in Eastern Europe in the early Medieval period. Like many low budget costume films of the period, The Tartars is multi-national in its production: filmed in Italy and Yugoslavia, helmed by an American (Thorpe), with American (Mature and Welles) and Italian (Orfei, Marin) actors, and an Italian crew. The film features many stalwarts of peplum cinema: Mature from Samson and Delilah (1949), The Robe (1953), The Egyptian (1954), and Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954); Orfei from Hercules in the Valley of Woe (1961), Damon and Pythias (1962), The Avenger (1962), Hercules, Samson and Ulysses (1963); Marin from Goliath and the Barbarians (1959), The Giants of Thessaly (1960), War Gods of Babylon (1962); Cortez from The Giant of Metropolis (1961), Vulcan Son of Jupiter (1962), The Seven Tasks of Ali Baba (1962); Foà from Barabbas (1961), Damon and Pythias, and War Gods of Babylon (these actors and actresses appear in a plethora of other historic epics, the examples here are limited for brevity’s sake). Thorpe is also no stranger to the genre having directed epics such as The Prodigal (1955) and Knights of the Round Table (1953).

Oleg and Helga embrace.

Despite being such a vanguard actor of pepla, Mature feels out of place in The Tartars. His slick backed hair is more fitting for a Roman character than a Viking and he lacks chemistry with Orfei who plays his wife Helga. His kissing scenes with her are comical rather than romantic. It is the twilight of Mature’s career and his enthusiasm may not all be there.

Burundai during the sword dance feast.

Welles, on the other hand, has dialed his over-the-topness to eleven. His character, Burundai, is realized via yellow face that borders on Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) levels of offence: Welles’ eyebrows are painted at 45 degree angles and he is constantly squinting. Despite the racist depiction, Welles owns the performance as he nails a warlord being creepy and lecherous, yet also extremely cunning. Welles must have been allowed to either improvise or rewrite his dialogue because there are many long, verbose sequences in the film that mirror what Welles was known for when doing talk show appearances.

Samia at the Viking fort.

Cortez’s Samia does not have much to work with in The Tartars. She plays the role of the damsel and is pretty much confined to the bit due the writing and lack of screen time. This is unfortunate because Cortez has a lot to offer. For example, in Vulcan Son of Jupiter (1962), she does get captured, but her character has much more agency: she talks, plans, banters, bellydances, battles the goddess Venus with a whip, and much more.

Eric forces himself onto Samia.

Samia only falls in love with Marin’s Eric because the script forces her to. There is zero chemistry between the two, after all Eric and the Vikings killed her father Togrul. Eric’s character is a product of 60s male sexism, exhibited by forcing himself onto Samia who eventually relents. If better realized, the relationship could be attributed to Stockholm Syndrome, yet The Tartars is trying to be earnest in that their romance is true.

Helga and her maidens captured by the Tartars.

The Tartars is notorious for bringing up plot points that it does not even follow through on. The movie begins with the Tartars asking the Vikings to band together to attack the Slavs. After being rebuffed, Oleg sends notice to the Slavs about the Tartars’ intention, yet nothing becomes of this. At the climatic battle at the end of the film one might expect the Slavs to show up and save the day, much like Henry the Red and his men in Army of Darkness (1992), but this never happens. Another plot point dropped is the abduction of Helga and her three handmaidens. Helga has a rescue attempt, but her three cohorts are never mentioned again and are forgotten by the Vikings.

The death of Oleg.

Despite the aforementioned criticisms, The Tartars is fascinating because it goes against every possible grain of the peplum genre. Almost all strongmen-centric pepla are lighthearted, with a Hercules-esque character performing heroics and going on adventures, beaming with optimism. The more serious toga and sandal films have the heroes/protagonists win at the movie’s end. The Tartars, however, is dour, dark, and bleak. The good guys – the Vikings – are annihilated at the film’s conclusion. Even though the main antagonist, Burundai, is slain, his men ultimately win: the Viking fort is burned, Oleg the leader killed, and only a handful of Vikings escape. 

The Tartars openly embraces both consensual and nonconsensual sex, which is fairly avant-garde for a non-exploitation film of the era. Many pepla have simile scenes for sex, such as having a belly dancing sequence stand in for intercourse. In The Tartars, Oleg leads his wife Helga to a curtained area of their house before fading to black. Later in the film, Helga is abducted, drugged and then raped by Burundai, indicated by another cut away and fade to black moment.

Samia and Eric on trial.

Mature’s Oleg is the opposite of what to expect in a heroic protagonist: he is a terrible leader for the Vikings and their downfall can be partially attributed to his incompetence. For example, at the end of the film Oleg focuses his attention on bringing his brother Eric and Samia to trial rather than develop a stratagem to deal with the Tartars. It is during the court scene that the Tartars attack, catching the Vikings not fully ready to repel them. 

Oleg and company at the prisoner exchange.

Another sequence of Oleg’s terrible leadership occurs earlier in the film during the prisoner exchange of Samia for Helga. Instead of suggesting a neutral location to rendezvous with the Tartars he agrees to meet with them right outside their castle gate, where they are, unsurprisingly, attacked and forced back to their fort. Overall, a poor leader, but it makes for an interesting portrayal of an extremely flawed character and central protagonist.

Burundai leads his men into battle against the Vikings.

While Oleg falters at being a leader, the villainous Burundai excels. At no point in the film does Burundai not hold all the cards in his hands when dealing with the Vikings. Oleg considers having Samia in captivity his ace up his sleeve, whileBurundai could care less about having her back, much to the chagrin of his advisor Ciu Lang who believes Samia is prophesied to marry a great Khan. This does lead to an interesting scenario: Ciu Lang believes Burundai to be the great next Khan and wants Samia back to marry him, but at the end of the film Samia flees with Eric, the interpretation being that Eric could be the next great Khan, or at least a great leader, though his character exhibits no traits of greatness in thenarrative.

The competency and the civilizedness of the Tartars is the opposite of what is typically showcased by villains in other pepla, especial other sword and sandal films that takes places in Eastern Europe/western Russia. Such a counter example can be found in Hercules Against the Mongols (1963), where the three sons of Genghis Khan and their men are shown to be more barbaric when compared to their disciplined counterparts in The Tartars

The steppes of Eastern Europe where the Tartars are camped.

Aside from these cases of taking the peplum genre in different directions, The Tartars does have traditional genre traits that it proficiently executes. The setting of steppes of Eastern Europe/western Russia are awesome to behold and make great backdrops for the films horse and cavalry sequences. The Tartars bring an exotic, larger than life element to the film, with their lavish ornate castle and elaborate sword dance routine that is the film’s most standout sequence. While there are no strongmen characters to bring a larger-than-life element to the film, the Vikings try their hardest to do over-the-top actions to add extra spectacle to the film, such as calibrating their catapults by firing them at each other, and the aforementioned axe throwing to denote yay or nay in the trial sequence. The battle sequences that bookend the film are spectacular with horseback riding and swarms of swordplay.

Tartar archers during the climatic battle.

If there is a takeaway from The Tartars it is that there is not much of a difference between the titular Tartars and the Vikings. Both are fairly ruthless peoples that result to kidnapping women and adhere to internal codes of conduct and prophecies. The leaders of both, Oleg and Burundai, both die at the end: Oleg from his incompetence and Burundai probably from his over confidence due to his ambition – he was going to win the battle due to his overpowering strength in numbers, so there no reason to rush into battle, except for the cinematic reason to have a one-on-one duel with Oleg. While the movie falters with its writing and casting choices, it is overall fascinating and accomplishes expanding the sword and sandal boundaries with its darker tone and subject matter. 

Categories
News

Biweekly News Roundup 2024-04-07

Personal / Website News

Fan2Fan Appearance

Honoured to be a guest on a recent episode of the Fan2Fan Podcast to talk about one of my all time favorite films, Ark of the Sun God.

Sincere thanks to Bernie and Pete for having me on to talk about this cult Euro film that borrows heavily from both Raiders of the Lost Ark and Roger Moore-era James Bond. You can listen to the episode via the embedded player below, at this link here, or through your podcast app of preference.

Ark of the Sun God Fan2Fan Podcast

And just for fun, how much do I love Ark of the Sun God? Why, I have four copies of the film, one of them autographed by Edoardo Margheriti!

My very first academic presentation was also on this film at a SW/PACA Conference way back in the late aughts.

“Dance or Dēcēdere” Citation

My essay, “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling” from A Hero Will Endure: Essays at the Twentieth Anniversary of Gladiator, has just got its first citation!

Humbled that Ksenija Ševcova has cited the essay in her essay, “Music As a Means of Resistance: Rhetorical Analysis of Three Ukrainian Wartime Songs” which can be read online here.

Scholars from the Edge of Time

March’s Scholars from the Edge of Time vidcast is online!

Michele and I continue our dive into the filmography of pepla starlet Bella Cortez and discuss her film, The Tartars. The Vidcast can be watched on YouTube here.

Emmanuelle Legacy CFP Re-opened + Bibliography

Since garnering publisher interest, I’ve re-opened the CFP for the Emmanuelle legacy book. The updated CFP can be found here.

I’ve also started annotating Emmanuelle scholarship and posting it here at my website so other scholars have a nice bibliographic resource. The bibliography and annotations can be found here and it is a major WIP.

Note: Light in the Attic is doing pre-orders for the Emmanuelle 2 soundtrack on vinyl (see image above). I’ve got my copy preordered! Here is a link to their product page. The description as follows:

This French masterpiece is the second adaptation of Emmanuelle Arsan’s novel “Madame Emmanuelle,” widely acclaimed as a global box office success. Francis Ray composed the music, and lead actress Sylvia Kristel’s appearance in Japanese commercials sparked a social sensation. The theme song, a popular French Lolita tune sung by Kristel herself, carries a melancholic yet captivating melody. The sensual jacket faithfully reproduces the original Japanese release, capturing the essence of that era.

LITA Newsletter from 2024-04-02

Miscellaneous Tidbits

By The Gods! Issue #2

PeplumTV has their second issue of By The Gods! out now!

The magazine can be readily purchased at MagCloud. If you have not checked out issue one, that is also available for purchase at this MagCloud product page link.