Two brand new films, The Duke of Burgundy and A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence are in themselves good reasons for looking forward to Offscreen, a festival that celebrates unusual, offbeat films. But the spotlights are focused above all on a 40-year-old prototype of the kind of film that is both misunderstood and idolised: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Its director, Tobe Hooper, will be along to tell us all about it.
Taking a shower without thinking of Psycho: sure, we’ve done it hundreds of times. But picking up a chainsaw without vivid images of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre coming to mind? Still haven’t been able to do that. Time and again, that captivating closing image forces itself to the surface: Leatherface dancing around with that dangerous machine as a blazing sun rises. Time and again, the terrifying sound of that motor rings out even before I’ve got the machine started. Even though the story is flimsy and has been told a thousand times. In the wrong remote corner of redneck America, a busload of young people comes knocking on the door of a family of cannibals. The greatest ogre of all is the now iconic Leatherface: a masked psychopath who veils his face in human skin. Like Norman Bates in Psycho and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs, the character is loosely based on the serial killer Ed Gein.
The chain reaction
To mark its 40th birthday, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre has been restored. Its director, Tobe Hooper, the Offscreen festival’s guest of honour, is looking forward eagerly to presenting the revamped version in Brussels. “Anyone who has never heard of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre would think we had
Tobe Hooper: somewhere over the chainsaw
made it last year. The restoration has produced a metamorphosis. The film is now crystal-clear, so the background is much clearer and you can finally see nuances that stemmed from my perception of the truth. We haven’t lost the quality of the original, but the texture, the light, and the colours come into their own much more. The sound is now Dolby Surround 7.1, so the film gets inside your head even more. You see more, you hear better, and as a result you empathise more with the characters and get even more caught up in the emotions.”
The screening of the restored version was one of the highlights of the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in Cannes last year, where a standing ovation lasting several minutes brought tears to Tobe Hooper’s eyes. Nicolas Winding Refn didn’t stint his praise that evening: “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is the reason I started making films. I saw it when I was fourteen in Cinema Village in New York. I loved films, but back then I didn’t yet want to make any. But that day film found me. What that film did to me, I wanted to do to other people: to get inside people’s heads and cause some serious cinematic, emotional, and poetic damage.” The hip director of Pusher and Drive isn’t the only one to rate Hooper highly. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Quentin Tarantino, and, closer to home, Fabrice Du Welz are equally lyrical about him. The influential film magazine Sight & Sound sees his film as one of the 250 most important of all time, while Time and The Guardian count it as one of the 25 best horror films ever. Says Hooper, “That Nicolas Winding Refn makes really good films. In Cannes I was also lucky enough to see Fabrice Du Welz’s Alléluia and I was impressed. I remember too the praise lavished on me by Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Takashi Miike. I am very honoured to have had an influence on other film directors. It’s more than gratifying…I really don’t have any words for it.”
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre had – you don’t get to choose your successors – a huge influence on the genre that coloured the Eighties red and on the genre that marred the first decade of the new century: the slasher and torture porn. “In the 1980s there was a feast of gore films. People tried to scare the daylights out of you. If you weren’t frightened, you had at least seen a whole lot of murders. But they had less psychological and emotional impact and, to my mind, that’s indispensable if you want to enthral the viewer. First and foremost, they had to make a profit. But I refuse to be condescending about those films. There was a big public that enjoyed slashers.”
Massacring conventions
For a long time, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was dismissed as cheap horror; it came under hysterical attack from a number of journalists and was banned in several countries. Right from the start, however, it also won recognition. “It’s true that the film was shocking in the early years and that there were very strong reactions to it. But some people saw straight away that it was actually an art film. And that’s what I meant it to be. I grew up with European films. I loved Fellini, Antonioni, Truffaut, and Kubrick. A number of critics spoke highly of the artistic value of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) added the film to its collection and in 1975 I was invited to present it in Cannes during the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs. I had nothing to complain about and I still don’t. There has always been a lot of fuss about the film. It’s always been on somewhere over the last 40 years.”
The film was made on a shoestring in Texas in 1973. According to its unknown actors and the crew, made up of film students and beginners, the conditions were ghastly. Asked whether he was a rebel, Hooper answers with a decided affirmative. “The whole film was one big break with convention, both with the traditional language of film and with conventional ideas. The story was outrageous: there was nothing else like it. I deliberately explained very little. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre isn’t a straightforward narrative. The viewer isn’t bludgeoned: consciously and unconsciously, he processes the various layers of information and puts the film together himself. The notorious scene in which Leatherface hangs Pam on a meathook, for example, is all suggestion. No blood flows. But some people swear it does. The film explains nothing and apologises for nothing.”
The screening of the restored version was one of the highlights of the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in Cannes last year, where a standing ovation lasting several minutes brought tears to Tobe Hooper’s eyes. Nicolas Winding Refn didn’t stint his praise that evening: “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is the reason I started making films. I saw it when I was fourteen in Cinema Village in New York. I loved films, but back then I didn’t yet want to make any. But that day film found me. What that film did to me, I wanted to do to other people: to get inside people’s heads and cause some serious cinematic, emotional, and poetic damage.” The hip director of Pusher and Drive isn’t the only one to rate Hooper highly. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Quentin Tarantino, and, closer to home, Fabrice Du Welz are equally lyrical about him. The influential film magazine Sight & Sound sees his film as one of the 250 most important of all time, while Time and The Guardian count it as one of the 25 best horror films ever. Says Hooper, “That Nicolas Winding Refn makes really good films. In Cannes I was also lucky enough to see Fabrice Du Welz’s Alléluia and I was impressed. I remember too the praise lavished on me by Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Takashi Miike. I am very honoured to have had an influence on other film directors. It’s more than gratifying…I really don’t have any words for it.”
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre had – you don’t get to choose your successors – a huge influence on the genre that coloured the Eighties red and on the genre that marred the first decade of the new century: the slasher and torture porn. “In the 1980s there was a feast of gore films. People tried to scare the daylights out of you. If you weren’t frightened, you had at least seen a whole lot of murders. But they had less psychological and emotional impact and, to my mind, that’s indispensable if you want to enthral the viewer. First and foremost, they had to make a profit. But I refuse to be condescending about those films. There was a big public that enjoyed slashers.”
Massacring conventions
For a long time, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was dismissed as cheap horror; it came under hysterical attack from a number of journalists and was banned in several countries. Right from the start, however, it also won recognition. “It’s true that the film was shocking in the early years and that there were very strong reactions to it. But some people saw straight away that it was actually an art film. And that’s what I meant it to be. I grew up with European films. I loved Fellini, Antonioni, Truffaut, and Kubrick. A number of critics spoke highly of the artistic value of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) added the film to its collection and in 1975 I was invited to present it in Cannes during the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs. I had nothing to complain about and I still don’t. There has always been a lot of fuss about the film. It’s always been on somewhere over the last 40 years.”
The film was made on a shoestring in Texas in 1973. According to its unknown actors and the crew, made up of film students and beginners, the conditions were ghastly. Asked whether he was a rebel, Hooper answers with a decided affirmative. “The whole film was one big break with convention, both with the traditional language of film and with conventional ideas. The story was outrageous: there was nothing else like it. I deliberately explained very little. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre isn’t a straightforward narrative. The viewer isn’t bludgeoned: consciously and unconsciously, he processes the various layers of information and puts the film together himself. The notorious scene in which Leatherface hangs Pam on a meathook, for example, is all suggestion. No blood flows. But some people swear it does. The film explains nothing and apologises for nothing.”
“I deliberately set out to make something people had never seen before. I definitely wanted more realism. Hence the documentary look and the sense of cinéma vérité. I also tried to imagine how I would react if I was in the characters’ shoes. In the 1960s and 1970s you could recognise a genre film a mile away. They were treated as B-movies. With a few well-known exceptions like The Exorcist, fantasy was the order of the day. Monsters were supernatural. Godzilla, for example. I saw things differently. I showed that the monster was inside humanity. Being monstrous is a part of humanity.” It was, moreover, a challenging, interesting choice to make the baddies a family. “I had a relatively normal childhood myself, but the family was very big and sometimes I was an unwilling observer of dysfunction, with very sharp interaction between family members and excessive behaviour. That found its way – grossly intensified – into the film.”
Remakes
Hooper himself directed the much more explicit The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and also saw his characters pop up in two further sequels, a remake, a prequel, a 3-D version, a computer game, and a comic-strip series. His career has had its ups and downs. This summer we will be able to see a remake of his other big hit: Poltergeist, made with the help of Steven Spielberg. “I can’t tell you anything about the new Poltergeist. I’m not involved. I have a twofold attitude to remakes. I can understand that you would take any chance you get to make a film. But I wish everyone would handle remakes like William Friedkin. His Sorcerer is a remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Le salaire de la peur and it’s a fantastic film. Sadly, it’s an exception and lots of remakes are commissioned by the studios for the wrong reasons. Directors let themselves be convinced by the pay packet and are already thinking on the first day of the shoot about the new villa they’re going to be able to buy. You couldn’t call the end product cinema. Cinema is something different: something that enlightens and enthrals the viewer. Something of great value. I find it appalling when the medium is underrated. Do you know what I mean?” The whole Offscreen festival knows what he means.
Portrait Tobe Hooper © Sebastian Kim
Retrospective Tobe Hooper: 7 > 22/3, Cinema Nova, Cinematek & Bozar
Masterclass Tobe Hooper: 7/3, 17.30, Cinematek
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: 17/3, 20.00, Bozar
ALLIGATORS, FAIRGROUNDS, POLTERGEISTS, SPACE VAMPIRES, AND CHAINSAWS
What do you do if you’ve made the film of your life and you’re barely thirty years of age? Tobe Hooper, a film-maker to his fingertips, kept on making films after The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. A selection of five cutting-edge films from Offscreen’s retrospective.
Remakes
Hooper himself directed the much more explicit The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and also saw his characters pop up in two further sequels, a remake, a prequel, a 3-D version, a computer game, and a comic-strip series. His career has had its ups and downs. This summer we will be able to see a remake of his other big hit: Poltergeist, made with the help of Steven Spielberg. “I can’t tell you anything about the new Poltergeist. I’m not involved. I have a twofold attitude to remakes. I can understand that you would take any chance you get to make a film. But I wish everyone would handle remakes like William Friedkin. His Sorcerer is a remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Le salaire de la peur and it’s a fantastic film. Sadly, it’s an exception and lots of remakes are commissioned by the studios for the wrong reasons. Directors let themselves be convinced by the pay packet and are already thinking on the first day of the shoot about the new villa they’re going to be able to buy. You couldn’t call the end product cinema. Cinema is something different: something that enlightens and enthrals the viewer. Something of great value. I find it appalling when the medium is underrated. Do you know what I mean?” The whole Offscreen festival knows what he means.
Portrait Tobe Hooper © Sebastian Kim
Retrospective Tobe Hooper: 7 > 22/3, Cinema Nova, Cinematek & Bozar
Masterclass Tobe Hooper: 7/3, 17.30, Cinematek
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: 17/3, 20.00, Bozar
ALLIGATORS, FAIRGROUNDS, POLTERGEISTS, SPACE VAMPIRES, AND CHAINSAWS
What do you do if you’ve made the film of your life and you’re barely thirty years of age? Tobe Hooper, a film-maker to his fingertips, kept on making films after The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. A selection of five cutting-edge films from Offscreen’s retrospective.
Eaten Alive (1977)
“My name is Buck, and I’m ready to fuck!” Don’t go getting the idea that Quentin Tarantino made up that one-liner from Kill Bill himself. It is the opening line of Eaten Alive, Hooper’s sinister and highly bizarre film about a hotel boss in the swamps of Louisiana who feeds his alligator with travellers who have lost their way.
“My name is Buck, and I’m ready to fuck!” Don’t go getting the idea that Quentin Tarantino made up that one-liner from Kill Bill himself. It is the opening line of Eaten Alive, Hooper’s sinister and highly bizarre film about a hotel boss in the swamps of Louisiana who feeds his alligator with travellers who have lost their way.
The Funhouse (1981)
Four teenagers spend the night in the haunted house at a fairground. Little do they know that a deformed, misunderstood individual with murderous tendencies is on the loose. This slasher flopped at the time, but viewers have since learned to appreciate the colourful, sinister fairground atmosphere.
Four teenagers spend the night in the haunted house at a fairground. Little do they know that a deformed, misunderstood individual with murderous tendencies is on the loose. This slasher flopped at the time, but viewers have since learned to appreciate the colourful, sinister fairground atmosphere.
Poltergeist (1982)
Poltergeists terrorise young Carol Anne and her family via the TV set. What do you get when Hooper and Steven Spielberg join forces? An Eighties hit that is a bit too soft for horror fans and a bit too gruesome for families.
Poltergeists terrorise young Carol Anne and her family via the TV set. What do you get when Hooper and Steven Spielberg join forces? An Eighties hit that is a bit too soft for horror fans and a bit too gruesome for families.
Lifeforce (1985)
Impressed by Scarlett Johansson in Under the Skin? Mathilda May was there before her. Twenty years ago, she played a naked space vampire in what is reputed to be an exceptionally weird, stylised mix of horror and SF.
Impressed by Scarlett Johansson in Under the Skin? Mathilda May was there before her. Twenty years ago, she played a naked space vampire in what is reputed to be an exceptionally weird, stylised mix of horror and SF.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)
Dennis Hopper once, unfairly, said that this sequel was the worst film of his career. He plays a mad Texas Ranger looking for his brother’s murderers. Instead of serving up more of the same, Hooper undercuts the terror with large doses of black humour.
OFFSCREEN FILM FESTIVAL • 4 > 22/3, Cinéma Nova, Cinematek, Bozar & Cinema Rits, www.offscreen.be
Dennis Hopper once, unfairly, said that this sequel was the worst film of his career. He plays a mad Texas Ranger looking for his brother’s murderers. Instead of serving up more of the same, Hooper undercuts the terror with large doses of black humour.
OFFSCREEN FILM FESTIVAL • 4 > 22/3, Cinéma Nova, Cinematek, Bozar & Cinema Rits, www.offscreen.be
Read more about: Events & Festivals , Film
Fijn dat je wil reageren. Wie reageert, gaat akkoord met onze huisregels. Hoe reageren via Disqus? Een woordje uitleg.