This movie SUCKS but, THAT IS THE WHOLE IDEA :)
Faces of Death is a childhood memory that I'll never forget.
Customers reviewing The Original Faces of Death: 30th Anniversary DVD Edition [1]
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Introduction
Looking back at the origins of mondo movies, we are reminded how Mondo cane (1962) and its directors Gualtiero Jacopetti, Franco Prosperi and Paolo Cavara were repeatedly described with terms like ‘sadistic’, ‘gruesome’, ‘sickening’, ‘disgusting’, ‘distasteful’ and ‘shocking’. Personal attacks were mostly directed at Jacopetti and a long time passed before another director, Ruggero Deodato, became more hated by the press than the ‘father’ of mondo. The label ‘immoral’ was often used in reference to Mondo cane's faked reality and fabricated truth [2], while other reviewers employed ‘extradiegetic’ reasons to explain the documentary’s sickness; according to some film critics, Jacopetti developed his peculiar taste for the gruesome after being involved in a tragic car accident with his lover, the actress Belinda Lee, who died in the crash; he was also severely injured and it was argued that he poured all of his scorn for life into the film [3] (gossip played a big part in accounts of the filmmaker, who was considered both a ‘playboy’ and a ‘fascist’). Reviewers like Roberto Nepoti noted that Jacopetti had a manic-depressive view of life: he was fascinated by death, the decay of the body, mutilation, deformity and teratology and Mondo cane is filled with catacombs, cities of the dead and cemeteries. These concerns influenced the subsequent mondo movies, and not only Jacopetti's films. According to Nepoti, for twenty years the Italian exploitation documentary dealt with the ritual of death, alternating between its obscene reproduction and its simulation [4]. |
Electrical extinction: an ‘execution’ controversy from Faces of Death
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Much has been written about the origins and influence of Mondo [5]. It is a (sub)genre that mixes journalistic reportage with a taste for the sensational that echoes Alessandro Blasetti’s erotic cinematic tour of Europe Europa di notte (1959); and this mix results in a kind of exotic-folkloristic travelogue whose roots can also be traced back to an impure etnography inspired by documentaries such as Magia verde (1953, Gian Gaspare Napolitano), Lost Continent (Continente perduto, 1955, Enrico Gras, Giorgio Moser, Leonardo Bonzi) and Empire in the Sun (L'impero del sole, 1956, Enrico Gras) [6]. However, among all the weird and bizarre tales from the most distant parts of the world, from Mondo cane on, death became the dominant presence. And it posed several problems.
It has been widely stressed that in the 20th Century, death virtually disappeared from the public space, undergoing a process of repression that was similar to what happened to sex during the Victorian Age; according to some historicists, death was domesticated [7]. So public expressions of death consequently became problematic, expecially in the arts, and in the audio visual media in particular.[8] What seems to be clear is that mondo movies, with their mix of fake and actual footage and of manipulated scenes and fabricated reality, made things even more complicated, moving freely from a proclaimed humanitarian impulse to pure exploitation. Yet, if the goal of a film is purely to generate profit, then ethical questions cease to be a matter of concern for the filmmaker. This is where the enduring success of the Faces of Death series (1978-1996, John Alan Schwartz) comes in, sandwiched between the conflicting claims of earlier mondo films and later documentaries based around death scenes like Executions (1995, David Herman, Arun Kumar, David Monaghan), which, at least according to the directors, was realized to raise awareness about capital punishment.[9]
Carnage centre-stage: the international marketing of Faces of Death
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Mondo and the Macabre
Even if Faces of Death was not the first mondo film to present itself as a documentary centered exclusively on death,[10] it was the most controversial. If, in the mondo’s early years, death was a presence among a number of oddities and curiosities from all around the world, it later moved centre stage and the exotic was substituted by the morbid; while some films kept on investigating the bizarre and the weird, others began to focus solely on death. Faces of Death was on the front line of this later tendency, soon followed by titles such as Des Morts (1979, Jean-Pol Ferbus, Dominique Garny, Thierry Zéno). As noted by David Kerekes and David Slater, “Faces of Death triggered the death trip documentary and a new mondo dawning was about to choke the audience on viscera not vice.”[11] Ultimately, the series marked the end of the classic mondo period, before “the mondo film lurched into formless perversion and degradation.”[12] It was a turning point that opened the doors to the gruesome and gory days when True Gore (1987, M. Dixon Causey), the Traces of Death series (1993-2000) and Faces of Gore (1999, Todd Tjersland) tried to turn a profit from the niche of gore lovers searching for ‘the real thing’. Society has not yet come to terms with the representation of death, and probably never will. Even after the mondo frenzy, which lasted for four decades, has passed, it remains difficult to deal with more recent documentaries on death and dying such as The Bridge (2006, Eric Steel), The Suicide Tourist (2007, John Zaritsky), or with interactive web-docs like Thanatorama. Yet Faces of Death was a peculiar project: financed by Japanese investors for distribution in the Far East, it came back to the Western world in which it was conceived, and entered the VHS market. While in Great Britain the series became embroiled in the ‘Video Nasties’ scandal, one of the most notorious instances of moral panic in the history of the media, in the US it was caught up in the broader hysteria regarding the ultimate taboo of death. As the Decatur Herald reported, people wanted to see death on screen, and Faces of Death was there to provide it: |
[…] Stephani Cox, owner of Captain Video in Decatur, said the films have been checked out steadily since the store purchased them about two months ago. ‘They’re very popular. They do better than the middle of the pack.’
She said some customers find parts of the film upsetting or ‘really gross,’ but many have said they found them interesting and informative. Some people have wanted to see one or both the films more than once.[13]
Psychiatrists wondered about the motivations and potential effects of viewing such films: as reported by the press, Dr. Dale Sunderland said that Faces of Death Part II “is mostly educational for people of all ages. […] I didn't see it as titillating at all. Even the war scenes were fairly positive in that they teach people the realities of war. […] You learn about whats going on in the world – you see what's real. You're not watching violence for violence's sake.” On the other hand, Dr. Thomas Radecki stated that, “Faces of Death offers a morbid focus on human and animal death under the guise of scientific inquiry. […] Early pornographic films were made the same way to make them more acceptable – so people could justify watching it in their minds.”[14]
In Great Britain, children were described as being particularly drawn to sensational material and thus easy victims of evil ‘video pushers’. Even after the Nasties hype was over, video rentals owner still were addressed by the tabloids as “Mr. Nasty”:
He plays the fool to attract a crowd of impressionable children [...] then sells them stomach-churning videos of REAL-LIFE death, gore and mutilation.
The kids, sucked into believing that anything Halloran does is fun, part with their pocket-money and rush home with films that could warp them forever.
His biggest seller is a video called Faces of Death […] ‘Kids are the best customers’, said ex-squaddie Halloran with a sinister chuckle. ‘Adults don’t want them. A customer is a customer. The kids may be robbing their mums so they can pay them, but that's not my problem.’
‘As far as I'm concerned, if kids are old enough to be walking around with a tenner, they’re old enough to be buying a video off me.’[15]
According to the reporters, America also seemed to be under siege and people went crazy about death on video:
[…] there is a new craze in movies sold as videotapes. These are movies with no plot and only one theme: violent death. […] They are without question the latest pornography of violence. They promise the ultimate vicarious visualization for a society satiated with portraials of sex and violence. […] Waleed B. Ali of Oak Forest, Ill., distributes two of the most popular of the genre, Faces of Death and Faces of Death II. He says those two films, without advertising use the hottest items in video rentals in Southern California. Their sales are increasing across the nation.
‘I think the reason for the creation of this program’ Ali said, ‘is that it is an extension of the nightly news. Americans have become hardened to death and murder.’[16]
There is nothing new about this, since the release of particularly controversial films often provokes moral and media panics and the consequent interest of law; as is well known, Jacopetti was even accused of having delayed a human execution to get the best light exposure and was thus obliged to defend himself and his crew while Deodato had to prove that nobody was killed in the jungle during the shooting of Cannibal Holocaust (1980) – although animals were a different matter. The producers of the Guinea Pig series had to release a ‘making of’ (Mêkingu obu 'Ginî piggu', 1986, Jyunko Okamoto) to demonstrate that no one was dismembered while shooting Flowers of Flesh and Blood (Ginî piggu 2: Chiniku no hana, 1985, Hideshi Hino) and that everything occurring on the screen was staged with special effects. Faces of Death’s ‘behind the scenes’ documentary Fact or Fiction? released in 1999 was intended to reinforce the mythology surrounding the film, rather than to counter legal issues. In fact, this “Banned in 48 countries” flick with a budget of $450,000 grossed over $60 million; it is one of those rare, phenomenal hits, shot with a relatively small amount of money, that scale the box office charts;[17]And in this case, the success came despite theatrical failure; according to Kerekes and Slater:
Faces of Death was a flop at the U.S. box office. Made in 1979 for the Japanese market, following its phenomenal success there (where it is alleged to have outgrossed Star Wars), Aquarius picked the film up for distribution in the United States and released theatrically in 1981. But its unyielding view of human suffering proved too daunting even for the ‘grindhouse’ crowds, and the film fared not nearly as well as it did in the Orient. When released on video, however, Faces of Death proved an altogether different story. Rental figures for the documentary quickly established it be one of the top video hits in America.[18]
Contoversies and Cults
Since death (real or supposed) is newsworthy, the series took advantage of the media frenzy that generated a consistent buzz around the film, but also avoided the most serious problems with the authorities, such as those that dogged Snuff (1976, Michael and Roberta Findlay) and Cannibal Holocaust, whose theatrical runs were ended on the desks of Police officers or in the courtroom. Although videocasettes were frequently confiscated during the ‘Video Nasties’ hysteria, this did not really curtail the films’ circulations as copies were so easy to make. The newspapers also lacked an easy scapegoat since no visible and recognizable director like Jacopetti was attached to the film. Ever since the 1960s, in fact, mondo movies had had two different kinds of director and ‘host’: the ‘invisible’ and the ‘(in)famous’. The former were the anonymous curators of compilations assembled in the editing room, or fabricated personae hiding behind pseudonyms like Conan Le Cilaire (John Alan Schwartz), the mysterious mastermind of Faces of Death. The latter were notorious filmmakers like Jacopetti, Cavara and Prosperi or the Castiglioni brothers, or hosts like Anton LaVey who were odd enough to handle the backfire of harsh reviews and personal attacks and occasionally even to profit from it (particularly fitting in the case of an occultist like LaVey).
The series also led its critics to focus on the films’ audience: according to the critics, all those (mostly male) gore lovers that were attracted by the ‘pornography of death’; people searching for the forbidden who, when the Mondo declined, turned to television to satisfy their ‘thirst of blood’:
À son apogée, le mondo attire dans les salles de cinéma une clientèle composée particulièrement de spectateurs mâles dont le principal intérêt est de voir des scènes choquantes constamment imprégnées par le thème de l'interdit. Ces mêmes spectateurs sont également prêts à accepter le fabriqué et l'artificiel du moment que le produit final réussit à émoustiller les sens [...] Aujourd'hui, il serait quasiment impossible de produire ou de réaliser des film de ce type pour le grand écran [...] Le sensationnel se retrouve de nos jours dans les émissions de télévision telles que The Jerry Springer Show, Santé et société, 60 Minutes, Les Grandes Reportages et même la série National Geographic. Des club vidéos (et pas nécessairement spécialisés) offrent del collections de vidéos montrant le plus graves accidents de la circulation, les exécutions capitales les plus horribles, et il existerait même des snuff movies...[19]
Mondo movies weren't easy to deal with from a critical perspective either. They threatened categories and boundaries: reviewing Mondo cane n. 2, Ugo Casiraghi clearly said that there was indeed a subgenre, but only for directors like Jacopetti, since it was hard to find anyone else sharing their taste for sadism, perversion and obscenity. History would clearly prove him wrong, but this is not the point: in explaining his thoughts on the film Casiraghi was right to state that this kind of cinema was more a document than a documentary, a document about its authors rather than the world; not an objective view, but a subjective one: “The world still has some hope, filmmakers much less.”[20]Jacopetti himself admitted that, “[...] documentary is a personal and subjective expression and we cannot expect from it the whole truth. It will express a certain truth, it will reflect a slice of life, throw a beam of light on one aspect of the truth [...] The documentary, by its very nature, cannot be totally objective.”[21] With Mondo documentary, was changing, embracing the possibility of falshood; this was among the reasons why these films were so threatening. As Mark Goodall writes, they do not fit easily into categories and, being ‘transgressive’ works of art, they have no proper status in the history of film.[22] Their preoccupation with death seems to be another issue. In her overview of ‘offensive films’, Mikita Brottman relates mondo to the body, death and sites of private consumption, ideally placing these hybrid documentaries on the top of the ‘cinema vomitif’ ranking:
Mondo is generally considered to be the most offensive kind of film because, essentially, it makes the violent death of the human body into a private leisure pursuit [...] Films like Death Scenes and Faces of Death are quite clearly not made for public cinema release, but for viewing in the privacy of one’s own home. Like many other leisure-time activities, home video can be conceived as a carnivalized site, in that engagement in the activity demands a special, ‘sacred’ time in the flow of secular (‘working’ time and a temporary suspension in the flow of secular time [...] Where mondo goes beyond the potential of other kinds of offensive films is in its unique, all-encompassing, non-narrative presentations of a carnivalesque procession of bodily deformities and perversions.[23]
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Fabricated Thrills Discussing Faces of Death, Brottman notes that the fascinating aspect about the series is the negotiation between genuine (undramatic and unsensational) and fabricated sequences. The films feature a mix of real footage featuring scenes of war, nature documentaries, previous mondo movies, news reports, merged together with ‘real’ events apparently shot by local television stations, amateurs and CCTV cameras. Brottman is right to stress the varied origins of such material, but she underestimates the impact of the fabricated sequences. For it is those very same scenes that soon attracted a cult following: the fake execution by electric chair and the restaurant supposedly serving monkey brains. It is also precisely because, as Brottman notes, the genuine scenes are so poorly realised that the staged ones are so vividly impressive. Real death, it turns out, is not captivating at all; rather, it is chaotic, confused, sinister, dirty, lurid and ultimately anti-cinematic. Adopting Julia Kristeva’s category of the ‘abject’, Brottman defines mondo as something “discreditable and contradictory, refusing to fit into any existing cultural category”[24], which mimicks the language of footage featuring real death and setting scenes as if they had been accidentally captured on camera: |
Mock moments of annihilation: Faces of Death
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Certain tropes, images, and incidental details have henceforth come to represent semiotic designations of ‘autenticity’ in all subsequently prefabricated ‘live’ footage, from the initially out-of-focus visuals and shaky handheld camera to the predictable and final hand-placed-over-the lens and well-rehearsed mantra of all self-respecting professional ‘amateur’ video footage, ‘Get that goddamn camera out of here!’[25]
Society at large was not prepared for a massive exposure to death on screen, since, as described above, it was retreating from the real life experience of death; yet mondo, and built-on-death franchises like Faces of Death in particular, had a peculiar impact because of the daring way these images were combined, as Time reports:
[Mondo cane] draws its scenes, documentary style, from every available source of contemporary bestiality and human foible, and comments on them by shocking juxtaposition. It is filmed in all-too-living color. Fast pace, sophisticated commentary and occasional hilarity mitigate its lack of taste, but most of the film is openly calculated to raise eyebrows as well as gorges. If there is a message, is that people are no damn good.[26]
Yet, there was also a more specific audience with particular feelings about death on screen. Indeed, while some reviews emphasized the fact that the viewer had to have a strong stomach to sit through a bad film that philosophizes about death such as Faces of Death, [27] others suggested that, however terrified or shocked and revolted they might be, people should not ignore films dealing with our last, common enemy: death and its mysteries.[28] Moreover, besides being violent, cruel, nasty, provocatory and unbearable, Faces of Death could also reveal an unexpected side: “it was a cry of alarm within our society, where respect for life and the individual is nothing more than an obsolete theory. A vision which leaves a bitter taste of ashes, but has the merit of making us think about the meaning of life.”[29] This is a quite common paradox: people watching extreme scenes (no matter if real or fictional) do not necessarily enjoy them in the conventional sense, but nevertheless, more often than not, once the film has finished feel a sense of relief and begin to look at life with a more positive attitude.In describing this phenomenon Eric G. Wilson provides a distinction between ‘morose voyeurism’ and ‘morbid curiosity’, where the latter is “an eager, open-minded interest in the macabre – disease or destruction or death – as a special invitation to think about life’s meanings. For this kind of curiosity to yield meditative fruit, the imagination must be active.”[30] According to Wilson, morbid curiosity is a spiritual desire, a hunger to penetrate the deepest mysteries of life, a sort of empathetic imagination that helps one to deal with dangerous fears and desires: instead of merely reducing the gruesome to a commodity, such scenes help the viewer to grasp what it is essential in life and what it is not.
Wilson’s suggestions confirms Mikita Brottman’s remarks about those mondo movies directly addressing death:
There is a case to be made that the frisson of horror evoked by a road accident or a local murder is, essentially, both existential and life-affirming. The popularity of films like Faces of Death – like the renown of the Roman games and public executions – must lie, at least to some extent, in the archetypal folkloric connections between violent death and bodily regeneration […] By allowing death to seem ridiculous and therefore less ‘venerated’, the mondo movie can access the very nature of what it means to be human. Offensive films are a kind of carnivalesque theater for the cultural expression of violence and misrule, which serves the purpose of symbolic as well as performative disorder. This disorder seems to be instintual in nature, containing a level of aggression and violence that seems to bespeak the libidinal associations between the horrific and the farcical, between laughter and bloodshed.[31]
The appeal of mondo movies is therefore complex, depending on a mix of factors that cannot be reduced to the mere thrill of exploitation. As is often the case with cult films, the Faces of Death series left a strong legacy of fans, partly comprised of those who saw the films when they were children in the 1980s and who still recall the experience of watching such forbidden fruit. According to Matt Hills, “fan accounts of horror and pleasure have tended to centre on self-mythologized ‘first encounters’ between fan and genre, as well as on how ‘being an horror fan’ shifts its experiential meaning between childhood and adulthood.”[32] Faces of Death is no exception and writings on the films often include short biographical reminiscences and accounts of belonging to a sense of fan culture. For example, the following comments,[33] part of the customer reviews of The Original Faces of Death: 30th Anniversary DVD Edition, show a deep understanding of the historical perspective under which the films, “a must have for gorehounds”, have to be read, stressing first of all the cleverly fabricated operation of mixing different materials, blurring the languages of filmmaking:
I think it is important to view this film completely within the context of when it was made. This hardly seems shocking in 2009 and we also now know much of it was faked. However, the way in which it was faked is pure genious. The way they were able to match film stocks, exposure and shooting style for each individual scene is really quite remarkable. Sure, you can tell now that some of the famous scenes are not real, but it is still hard to tell which shots are original and which are recreated within each individual scene.
(J. A. Miller)
[…] the film is now a cultural artifact and it's most definitely worth seeing, provided you're a fan of horror movies, exploitation films, or bizarre fringe relics.
(Steward Willons, Illinois)
Watching Faces of Death was a sort of ritual to be experienced with friends in private spaces, reclaiming the freedom to view material typically perceived as being far removed from common entertainment. As Matt Hills argues, when texts are proihibited or considered taboo, fans transgress imposed cultural limits and experience additional pleasure from this crossing of boundaries [34]:
[…] When I was a kid, this is the forbidden movie I would swap between friends. Maybe it was forbidden because no one had seen anything like this before or maybe it was because it really was forbidden to watch actual deaths executed in front of a live camera. Either way, a movie that once had my friends and I sneaking to watch it has now become an international Halloween cult classic [...] For over 25 years Faces of Death has remained the first true godfather of the now common Shockumentary genre. When I was a kid in the early 80's the last thing you wanted was to get caught watching or found to be in possession of this kind of movie, which at the time and for many, many years to come, would be blamed as responsible for teen suicides and grizzly cult murders for anyone brazen enough to commit to a fan following. Oh. but there was a fan following, a huge one in fact, and one that I was not openly admitting I was a part of for more than two decades.
Pagansadog (Mid-West USA)
[…] First of all, I am a female. Not only guys look for stuff like this. I, too, watched this, as a young, naive girl. Huddled up with girls at a slumber party […] thinking of the WORST thing we could watch. It is a classic, cult or otherwise. A reminder of a time when freedoms were celebrated, not policed. When individuality stood for something. At time, when we were not berated or ostracized for quirky (or outlandish) interests.
(RKO Mom “Dillymommy”)
A buzz was created as the series circulated among a peer group and ‘newbies’ were recruited to the cult:
[…] Faces of Death the most forbidden film of the 80s youth. I was in 5th grade when I saw this for the first time. Often this film was talked about on the playground,bragging to one another about eating and watching it. Making up details that weren't even in the movie to other kids which had yet to see it. They would tell their parents. (VeryFineCrapVideos)
And it is this same buzz that now creates attention for such recent products as Made in Italy,[35] the mock-documentary from Italian production company Bad House Films that explicitly recalls the mondo tradition and reclaims it for the Internet age.
I wish to offer my sincere thanks to Dr Alex Marlow-Mann, Acting Director of B: Film - The Birmingham Centre for Film Studies for all of his assistance with previous drafts of this paper.
Footnotes
[1] Customers’ reviews as reported on Amazon’s product page: https://www.amazon.com/Original-Faces-Death-30th-Anniversary/dp/B001BBAVPQ/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1345738641&sr=1-2&keywords=faces+of+death Last access: August 23th, 2012.
[2] See for example Morando Morandini’s comment on the newspaper Stasera, March 31st, 1962, stating that in Mondo cane almost everything is immoral, from the way lenses are used to the commentary and the soundtrack: it is immoral because it tends to falsify reality.
Except when otherwise noted, excerpts from Italian or international newspapers and magazines with missing titles are taken from the press review collected by the Centro S. Fedele dello Spettacolo.
[3] “Inimaginable monument d’obscenité et d’horreur, ce film a provoqué des réactions extrêmement violentes. Son auteur, Gualtiero Jacopetti, est ce play-boy italien, plus ou moins journaliste, qui tua voici quelque mois la capiteuse Belinda Lee dans un accident d’automobile en Californie. Lui-même, grièvement blessé, dut passer plusieurs mois dans une clinique. Il en sortit à demi infirme, plein d’un profond mépris pour la vie et pour toutes les valeurs morales, qui en font le prix. C’est ce mépris de l'homme et cette haine de la vie, qu’il hurle dans ce long film...”.
B., Y. (1962) “Mondo cane”, Cinéma, 67 (6), 84-85.
On Belinda Lee and Mondo cane see also Rasmussen, J. (1962) “Mon film appartient d'abord à Belinda Lee”, Cinerevue, 21, May 25th, 10-11.
[4] “[...] ad affascinarlo è soprattutto il tema della morte, accompagnata dai corollari di degradazione e disfacimento del corpo, mutilazione, deformità e teratologia in genere. Coll'avanzare del récit di Mondo cane, la rappresentazione della morte (se non ancora quella della messa-a-morte) si intensifica, in una proliferazione numerica cui non è estranea la tentazione dell'apocalisse: ‘case della morte’, estinzione di razze animali, catacombe e necropoli, cimiteri sottomarini... Per vent'anni il documentario italiano di exploitation continuerà a variare sul rituale della morte, spesso in bilico fra la sua riproduzione oscena e la sua simulazione.”
Nepoti, R. (1990) “Mondo cane mondo cannibale. Il documentario italiano di exploitation da Jacopetti agli anni Ottanta”, Segnocinema, 46, 23-25.
[5] On the topic see Goodall, M. (2006) Shockumentary Evidence. The perverse politics of the Mondo film. In Dennison, S. and Lim, S. H. (ed.) Remapping world cinema. Identity, culture and politics in film. London: Wallflower, 118-128.
[6] “[...] le documentaire exotico-folklorique qui, sans tarder, fera fortune par l'exploitation du pittoresque tapageur et de l'ethnographique trafiqué.”
Castiel, É. (1998) “Le Mondo. Rites insolites et nuits chaudes du monde”, Séquence – La revue du cinéma, Dossier, n. 197, Julliet/Août, 27.
As reported in the newspaper Il Giorno on March 31st, 1962, with Magia verde Italians started to broaden the scope of the documentary tradition, adding fictional elements according to the taste, sensibility and artistic choices of individual directors: “Furono gli italiani, con Magia Verde, ad allargare l'ambito del documentario romanzandolo un po' o molto a seconda dei gusti, della sensibilità e delle scelte dei registi.”
[7] The theme has been hotly debated since the publication of the essay by Geoffrey Gorer ‘The Pornography of Death’ in 1955, now in Gorer, G. (1965) Death, Grief and Mourning in Contemporary Britain. London: Cresset Press. On the topic see also Ariès, P. (1975) Essais sur l'histoire de la mort en Occident: du Moyen Âge à nos jours. Paris: Seuil; Vovelle, M. (1983) La Mort et l'Occident de 1300 à nos jours. Paris: Gallimard; Walter, T. (1994) The Revival of Death. New York: Routledge; Berridge, K. (2001) Vigor Mortis. London: Profile Books.
[8] On death and cinema see Bazin, A. (2009) What is Cinema? Montreal: Caboose; Rauzi, P. G., Gandini, L. (1997) La morte allo specchio. La morte secolarizzata nel cinema contemporaneo. Trento: Edizioni de L’INVITO.
[9] See Herman, D. (1995) ‘Executions’, Flesh & Blood FIVE, Sept. 64-66, and Monaghan, D. (1995) “Executions”, Metro Magazine, 104, 30-34.
[10] According to Kerekes and Slater, “the inspiration for Faces of Death seems to have come from an earlier investigation called Death: The Ultimate Mistery (1975), hosted by Cameron Mitchell”. Kerekes, D. and Slater, D. (1995) Killing for Culture. An Illustrated History of Death Film From Mondo to Snuff. London and San Francisco: Creation Books, 78; 79.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Goodall, M. (2006) Sweet & Savage. The World Through the Shockumentary Film Lens. London: Headpress, 126.
[13] Churchill, T. (1985) Deathwatch Faces of Death, Decatur Herald, Sunday, August 18th.
[14] Ivi.
[15] Jones, G. (1994) Mr. Nasty Sells Death Videos to Our Kids, News of the World, May 8th.
[16] Maynard, R. C. (1985) Death videos: latest pornography of violence, Syracuse Herald Journal, Thursday, August 1st, 15.
[17] Nowadays such films are driven by massive marketing efforts, as in the case of Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli, 2007) or The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez, 1999), now a case study in film marketing campaigns.
[18] Kerekes, D. and Slater D., cit., 78.
[19] Castiel, É. cit., 28.
[20] “[...] Il filone esiste, ma per loro. Poiché è ben difficile che altri abbiano il gusto del sadico, del perverso e dell’osceno, che è prerogativa di Jacopetti, di Prosperi e degli altri soci. […] E qui si capisce, ancor meglio che nel primo film, che questo genere di cinema non può chiamarsi documentario, bensì documento. Documento non del mondo ma degli autori stessi. Mondo cane n. 2 non è un panorama oggettivo (per fortuna) ma soggettivo: il mondo ha ancora qualche speranza, i cineasti assai meno.” L’Unità, February 8th, 1964. English is mine.
[21] Goodall, M. (2006) Sweet & Savage. Cit., 146; 148.
[22] Goodall, M. (2006) Shockumentary Evidence. Cit., 118-128.
[23] Brottman, M. (2005) Offensive Films. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 154; 157.
[24] Ibid., 150.
[25] Ibid., 149.
[26] Time, March 29, 1963.
[27] an., (1984) ‘Le facce della morte n. 2’, Segnocinema, 14, 24.
“Il dato base è l’efferatezza e la mostruosità delle morti, l’ineluttabilità della fine atroce. Il sangue lega un’immagine all’altra, mentre il commento ‘filosofeggia’ sulla vita, la morte, l’aldilà. Brutto e per robusti di stomaco.”
[28] “[...] Film témoin, mais aussi film-choc, à scandale, Face à la mort est sourtout l’une de ces productions devant lesquelles nul ne saurait rester indifférent. On peut être heurté, terrifié, bouleversé ou révolté, mais il est impossible de demeurer insensible à ce flot d'images macabre qui font défiler ces multiple visages, tous également épouventables, de notre ultime ennemie commune: la mort! [...] Car plus qu'un film sur la mort et ses mystères, Face à la mort est avant tout un réquisitoire pour le respect et le droit à la vie pour tous.”
C., K. (1983) ‘Face a la mort’, L'Écran Fantastique, 31, Février, 65.
[29] “Second volet d’un film documentaire qui fit couler beaucoup d’encre, Faces of Death II n’a rien à envier à son prédecesseur. Violent, cruel, indécent, provocateur et insoutenable, il nous convie sans pudeur ni délicatesse à un insoutenable voyage au pays de la mort [...] En effet, malgré ses détracteurs qui pourront ne voir dans ce film qu’un acte de provocation gratuit et répugnant, Faces of Death II résonne surtout comme un cri d'alarme au sein de notre société où le respect de la vie et de l’individu n'est plus qu'une théorie désuète. Une vision d’où subsiste un amer goût de cendres, mais qui a le mérite de nous faire réfléchir sur le sens de la vie.”
an., (1985) ‘Face a la mort II’, L’Écran Fantastique, 52, 80.
[30] Wilson, E. G. (2012) Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck. Why We Can't Look Away. New York: Sarah Crichton Books, 126.
[31] Brottman, M. cit., 154; 157.
[32] Hills, M. (2005) The Pleasures of Horror. London: Continuum, 73.
[33] https://www.amazon.com/Original-Faces-Death-30th-Anniversary/dp/B001BBAVPQ/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1345738641&sr=1-2&keywords=faces+of+death Last access: August 23th, 2012.
[34] Hills, M., cit., 106.
[35] www.madeinitalyfilm.com
[1] Customers’ reviews as reported on Amazon’s product page: https://www.amazon.com/Original-Faces-Death-30th-Anniversary/dp/B001BBAVPQ/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1345738641&sr=1-2&keywords=faces+of+death Last access: August 23th, 2012.
[2] See for example Morando Morandini’s comment on the newspaper Stasera, March 31st, 1962, stating that in Mondo cane almost everything is immoral, from the way lenses are used to the commentary and the soundtrack: it is immoral because it tends to falsify reality.
Except when otherwise noted, excerpts from Italian or international newspapers and magazines with missing titles are taken from the press review collected by the Centro S. Fedele dello Spettacolo.
[3] “Inimaginable monument d’obscenité et d’horreur, ce film a provoqué des réactions extrêmement violentes. Son auteur, Gualtiero Jacopetti, est ce play-boy italien, plus ou moins journaliste, qui tua voici quelque mois la capiteuse Belinda Lee dans un accident d’automobile en Californie. Lui-même, grièvement blessé, dut passer plusieurs mois dans une clinique. Il en sortit à demi infirme, plein d’un profond mépris pour la vie et pour toutes les valeurs morales, qui en font le prix. C’est ce mépris de l'homme et cette haine de la vie, qu’il hurle dans ce long film...”.
B., Y. (1962) “Mondo cane”, Cinéma, 67 (6), 84-85.
On Belinda Lee and Mondo cane see also Rasmussen, J. (1962) “Mon film appartient d'abord à Belinda Lee”, Cinerevue, 21, May 25th, 10-11.
[4] “[...] ad affascinarlo è soprattutto il tema della morte, accompagnata dai corollari di degradazione e disfacimento del corpo, mutilazione, deformità e teratologia in genere. Coll'avanzare del récit di Mondo cane, la rappresentazione della morte (se non ancora quella della messa-a-morte) si intensifica, in una proliferazione numerica cui non è estranea la tentazione dell'apocalisse: ‘case della morte’, estinzione di razze animali, catacombe e necropoli, cimiteri sottomarini... Per vent'anni il documentario italiano di exploitation continuerà a variare sul rituale della morte, spesso in bilico fra la sua riproduzione oscena e la sua simulazione.”
Nepoti, R. (1990) “Mondo cane mondo cannibale. Il documentario italiano di exploitation da Jacopetti agli anni Ottanta”, Segnocinema, 46, 23-25.
[5] On the topic see Goodall, M. (2006) Shockumentary Evidence. The perverse politics of the Mondo film. In Dennison, S. and Lim, S. H. (ed.) Remapping world cinema. Identity, culture and politics in film. London: Wallflower, 118-128.
[6] “[...] le documentaire exotico-folklorique qui, sans tarder, fera fortune par l'exploitation du pittoresque tapageur et de l'ethnographique trafiqué.”
Castiel, É. (1998) “Le Mondo. Rites insolites et nuits chaudes du monde”, Séquence – La revue du cinéma, Dossier, n. 197, Julliet/Août, 27.
As reported in the newspaper Il Giorno on March 31st, 1962, with Magia verde Italians started to broaden the scope of the documentary tradition, adding fictional elements according to the taste, sensibility and artistic choices of individual directors: “Furono gli italiani, con Magia Verde, ad allargare l'ambito del documentario romanzandolo un po' o molto a seconda dei gusti, della sensibilità e delle scelte dei registi.”
[7] The theme has been hotly debated since the publication of the essay by Geoffrey Gorer ‘The Pornography of Death’ in 1955, now in Gorer, G. (1965) Death, Grief and Mourning in Contemporary Britain. London: Cresset Press. On the topic see also Ariès, P. (1975) Essais sur l'histoire de la mort en Occident: du Moyen Âge à nos jours. Paris: Seuil; Vovelle, M. (1983) La Mort et l'Occident de 1300 à nos jours. Paris: Gallimard; Walter, T. (1994) The Revival of Death. New York: Routledge; Berridge, K. (2001) Vigor Mortis. London: Profile Books.
[8] On death and cinema see Bazin, A. (2009) What is Cinema? Montreal: Caboose; Rauzi, P. G., Gandini, L. (1997) La morte allo specchio. La morte secolarizzata nel cinema contemporaneo. Trento: Edizioni de L’INVITO.
[9] See Herman, D. (1995) ‘Executions’, Flesh & Blood FIVE, Sept. 64-66, and Monaghan, D. (1995) “Executions”, Metro Magazine, 104, 30-34.
[10] According to Kerekes and Slater, “the inspiration for Faces of Death seems to have come from an earlier investigation called Death: The Ultimate Mistery (1975), hosted by Cameron Mitchell”. Kerekes, D. and Slater, D. (1995) Killing for Culture. An Illustrated History of Death Film From Mondo to Snuff. London and San Francisco: Creation Books, 78; 79.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Goodall, M. (2006) Sweet & Savage. The World Through the Shockumentary Film Lens. London: Headpress, 126.
[13] Churchill, T. (1985) Deathwatch Faces of Death, Decatur Herald, Sunday, August 18th.
[14] Ivi.
[15] Jones, G. (1994) Mr. Nasty Sells Death Videos to Our Kids, News of the World, May 8th.
[16] Maynard, R. C. (1985) Death videos: latest pornography of violence, Syracuse Herald Journal, Thursday, August 1st, 15.
[17] Nowadays such films are driven by massive marketing efforts, as in the case of Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli, 2007) or The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez, 1999), now a case study in film marketing campaigns.
[18] Kerekes, D. and Slater D., cit., 78.
[19] Castiel, É. cit., 28.
[20] “[...] Il filone esiste, ma per loro. Poiché è ben difficile che altri abbiano il gusto del sadico, del perverso e dell’osceno, che è prerogativa di Jacopetti, di Prosperi e degli altri soci. […] E qui si capisce, ancor meglio che nel primo film, che questo genere di cinema non può chiamarsi documentario, bensì documento. Documento non del mondo ma degli autori stessi. Mondo cane n. 2 non è un panorama oggettivo (per fortuna) ma soggettivo: il mondo ha ancora qualche speranza, i cineasti assai meno.” L’Unità, February 8th, 1964. English is mine.
[21] Goodall, M. (2006) Sweet & Savage. Cit., 146; 148.
[22] Goodall, M. (2006) Shockumentary Evidence. Cit., 118-128.
[23] Brottman, M. (2005) Offensive Films. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 154; 157.
[24] Ibid., 150.
[25] Ibid., 149.
[26] Time, March 29, 1963.
[27] an., (1984) ‘Le facce della morte n. 2’, Segnocinema, 14, 24.
“Il dato base è l’efferatezza e la mostruosità delle morti, l’ineluttabilità della fine atroce. Il sangue lega un’immagine all’altra, mentre il commento ‘filosofeggia’ sulla vita, la morte, l’aldilà. Brutto e per robusti di stomaco.”
[28] “[...] Film témoin, mais aussi film-choc, à scandale, Face à la mort est sourtout l’une de ces productions devant lesquelles nul ne saurait rester indifférent. On peut être heurté, terrifié, bouleversé ou révolté, mais il est impossible de demeurer insensible à ce flot d'images macabre qui font défiler ces multiple visages, tous également épouventables, de notre ultime ennemie commune: la mort! [...] Car plus qu'un film sur la mort et ses mystères, Face à la mort est avant tout un réquisitoire pour le respect et le droit à la vie pour tous.”
C., K. (1983) ‘Face a la mort’, L'Écran Fantastique, 31, Février, 65.
[29] “Second volet d’un film documentaire qui fit couler beaucoup d’encre, Faces of Death II n’a rien à envier à son prédecesseur. Violent, cruel, indécent, provocateur et insoutenable, il nous convie sans pudeur ni délicatesse à un insoutenable voyage au pays de la mort [...] En effet, malgré ses détracteurs qui pourront ne voir dans ce film qu’un acte de provocation gratuit et répugnant, Faces of Death II résonne surtout comme un cri d'alarme au sein de notre société où le respect de la vie et de l’individu n'est plus qu'une théorie désuète. Une vision d’où subsiste un amer goût de cendres, mais qui a le mérite de nous faire réfléchir sur le sens de la vie.”
an., (1985) ‘Face a la mort II’, L’Écran Fantastique, 52, 80.
[30] Wilson, E. G. (2012) Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck. Why We Can't Look Away. New York: Sarah Crichton Books, 126.
[31] Brottman, M. cit., 154; 157.
[32] Hills, M. (2005) The Pleasures of Horror. London: Continuum, 73.
[33] https://www.amazon.com/Original-Faces-Death-30th-Anniversary/dp/B001BBAVPQ/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1345738641&sr=1-2&keywords=faces+of+death Last access: August 23th, 2012.
[34] Hills, M., cit., 106.
[35] www.madeinitalyfilm.com