OneBigTorrent.org

The Devil And Daniel Webster (Dieterle, 1941) [+Extras]-aNaRCHo

Category: Misc
Description:
****CRITERION UPGRADE WITH COMMENTARY AND EXTRAS**** The Devil And Daniel Webster (aka All That Money Can Buy) ;;(Dieterle, 1941)[+Extras]-aNaRCHo Jabez Stone is a hard-working farmer trying to make an honest living, but a streak of bad luck tempts him to do the unthinkable: bargain with the Devil himself. For seven years of good fortune, Stone promises “Mr. Scratch” his soul when the contract ends. When the troubled farmer begins to realize the error of his choice, he enlists the aid of the one man who might save him: the legendary orator and politician Daniel Webster. Directed with stylish flair by William Dieterle, The Devil and Daniel Webster brings the classic short story by Stephen Vincent Benét to life with inspired visuals, an unforgettable Oscar-winning score by Bernard Herrmann, and a truly diabolical performance from Walter Huston. The Devil and Daniel Webster: The Devil Gets The Best Lines By Tom Piazza (2003) Director William Dieterle’s 1941 film adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benét’s short story, “The Devil and Daniel Webster‚” is a melodramatic fever dream, a hallucinatory tour de force in which marvelous, evocative effects and extraordinary performances combine onscreen in ways both sophisticated and sometimes charmingly not. Out of this mix comes a fascinating allegory, filmed on the eve of World War II, of a society gone mad with materialism, a premonition of the opportunities and dangers awaiting the United States as it recovered from the Great Depression. Benét’s original short story, which generations of high-school students will undoubtedly remember making their way through, is an amalgam of Nathaniel Hawthornesque brooding and patriotic folklore. Unlike Hawthorne, however, Benét doesn’t seem to really believe in evil as the story’s astonishingly sentimental ending shows. William Dieterle arrived in the U.S. from Germany at the beginning of the 1930s after an early career spent mainly as an actor. Probably his best and best-known film is the 1939 version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Charles Laughton. His approach to The Devil and Daniel Webster (originally titled All That Money Can Buy in this version) delivers a much fuller and more disturbing narrative than Benét’s. Certainly Dieterle and screenwriters Dan Totheroh and Benét manage to bring alive characters who are little more than stick figures in Benét’s original. In fact, the film is a minor classic if for no other reason than Walter Huston’s brilliant performance as Mr. Scratch. It would have been easy to overplay this role, but Huston stops just short; in his hands the Devil is a raffish sensualist—cigar and rum fancier, pie thief, barroom habitué, and even multi-instrumentalist (he is seen beating the bass drum in a patriotic parade and playing fiddle at a barn dance). Some of the best writing is reserved for Scratch, as when, having concluded the initial deal with Jabez Stone and obviously satisfied with himself, he pauses outside the barn, turns to Jabez, and says, “What a beautiful sunset.” With twinkling eyes and unctuous charm that can turn to sullen and vindictive withdrawal at the first sign of resistance, then back again, Huston manages to make Scratch both appealing and unsympathetic—no small art. The other great performance here is Edward Arnold’s as Daniel Webster: senator, lawyer, and, for the purposes of this story, populist hero—a kind of doppelgänger, it turns out, for the Devil—both charming, both great persuaders. Arnold’s Webster is serious but fond of a joke, patrician but a man of the people, courtly with the ladies but able to deliver a stern face-to-face-tongue lashing to Stone. He also has a bit of a drinking problem, and it is clearly implied that some of his sympathy for the Stone family comes from his own experience with temptation. In the scenes in which Webster and Scratch are onscreen together, a clear and believable affinity is apparent between them. There is much here in Dieterle’s direction that is deft, interesting, and deliberate—especially the leitmotif use of light and shadow (Joseph August’s camera work is fine throughout). Simone Simon, who the next year starred in Val Lewton’s Cat People, is truly creepy as the seductive Belle. A manifestation of the Devil, she materializes out of nowhere to step in as housekeeper, nursemaid, and eventually mistress to Stone. As does Scratch, she first appears to Stone backlit, with a weird, muffled glass-harmonica sounding in deep echo behind their dialogue. Bernard Herrmann’s Oscar-winning musical score contains many terrific moments, especially during the barn dance scene—in which Scratch presides over an accelerating and increasingly discordant fiddle tune—and also the macabre, whirling dance of the guests at the mansion party. This latter scene, by the way, would find an echo in one of the great oddball cult classics of the 1960s, Carnival of Souls, when the ghostly figures of the dead dance in an abandoned beach pavilion. The Devil and Daniel Webster contains numerous traces of the leftist and populist politics of the 1930s, but the film is ultimately morally and politically ambiguous. Its implied moral equation seems is: that neighborliness, and mutual aid—community—as exemplified by the grange, are good. The Devil, being bad, undercuts community by encouraging people to indulge their individual appetites at the expense of group values. So the question of personal choice is a question of community health as well, and one cannot secede from the social contract without doing immense damage to all the other souls around one. However, the designation of Daniel Webster to argue Stone’s case brings with it some deep and unintentional irony. The Webster of history was a renowned orator, lawyer, U.S. senator from Massachusetts, and secretary of state under Presidents Benjamin Harrison and Millard Fillmore. He was also, in the years before the Civil War, a famous and effective advocate of maintaining the Union at any cost. In the film, Webster constantly advances America— the idea of America—as the incarnation of the highest good. In his closing argument, he even goes so far as to conflate Stone’s situation with that of America itself. “Don’t,” he exhorts the gang of cutthroats in the jury box, “let this country go to the Devil!” Don’t, in other words, allow the forces of self-interest to coerce a permanent rupture in the social contract. The historical Daniel Webster had the same notion, and it led him straight into the heart of the immense paradox facing the country at the time: If keeping the Union together was to be the overriding goal, then the South’s adamant refusal to give up slavery had to be accommodated. Webster, who made antislavery and populist speeches early in his career, ultimately argued vigorously for the biggest and most notorious Devil’s bargains conceivable—the Missouri Compromise and, above all, the Fugitive Slave Act. It is odd to hear Daniel Webster arguing at the film’s end that a man is not a piece of property (to be claimed by the Devil), while his historical alter ego ended his argument with slavery by actively upholding and enforcing the “property” rights of slave owners. So the largest moral question in American history is present in the story and the film only by its absence. Instead, it seems that all that is required to dissipate evil is a good closing argument from Daniel Webster and a renewal of faith in the grange. There is a moment, though, present in both the story and the film, in which we are brought frustratingly close to a real engagement of the question. Just before the trial, Webster calls the Devil a “foreign prince,” and Scratch takes umbrage, claiming an American lineage to beat Webster’s own. “When the first wrong was done to the first Indian,” he says, twinkling, “I was there. When the first slaver put out for the Congo, I stood on her deck.” But nothing is made of this minor speech (which Benét cribbed from Hawthorne’s short Devil story “Young Goodman Brown”), and we are quickly hustled into the jury box to listen to Webster’s eloquence. Had it faced this troubling fact just a bit more, this minor film classic might have been truly major. Instead, the Forces of Good win all too easily. And, as he has since Paradise Lost, the Devil gets the best lines. EXTRAS: - Commentary as Second Audio Track - The Devil And Daniel Webster - Here Is A Man Cut Comparison AVI - Stephen Vincent Benet's The Devil And Daniel Webster Read By Alec Baldwin MP3 - The Devil And Daniel Webster Recorded By The Colombia Workshop Aug 6, 1938 MP3 - Daniel Webster And The Sea Serpent Recorded By The Colombia Workshop Aug 1, 1937 MP3 PLEASE SEED AND ENJOY!!!
Seeders: 5
Leeches: 4

Fire on the Mountain: A Gathering of Shamans

Category: Documentary
Description:
Fire on the Mountain: A Gathering of Shamans A film by David Cherniack Productions in association with Global Vision Corporation and Mystic Fire Video * This video can be purchased online from http://www.mysticfire.com/ They also have many different videos of a similar nature to this one as well as Joseph Campbell's "The Power of Myth" series * ** To find out more about Global Vision and the film they are currently producing (that is "an impressionistic musical feature film conceived as a Collective Self-Portrait of Humankind and the Biosphere - a concept without precedent in art or motion picture history"), please visit: http://www.global-vision.org/ ** Width x Height: 720 x 480 .WMV Duration: 1:46:03 Bit rate - audio format: 911kbps - .WMV Size: 688mb INTRODUCTION (from Fire on the Mountain webpage: http://www.global-vision.org/karma.html ) Fire on the Mountain: A Gathering of Shamans is a documentary about the connection between consciouness and nature, as embodied in the spiritual traditions of Indigenous Peoples, whose ecological metaphors of the sacred are so relevant to the modern world. We shot the project in 1997 at an historic 10-day gathering of shamans from five continents, who travelled to Karma Ling, a Tibetan Buddhist retreat centre in the Val Saint Hugon in Savoy, in the French Alps, to discuss their concerns with H.H. the Dalai Lama and high-level representatives of the world's religions. This documentary embodies the wish of these Indigenous People - all traditional wisdom-keepers, shamans and medicine-women - who requested us to communicate their message to the world. The film was co-executive produced by Michael O'Callaghan, President of Global Vision Corporation in London, and Sheldon Rochlin, President of Mystic Fire Video in New York. It was produced and directed by the award-winning filmmaker David Cherniack in Toronto, Canada. A producer at the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) since 1980, his many documentaries include "Heart of Tibet: An Intimate Portrait of the Dalai Lama", and "Four Noble Truths" (narrated by Richard Gere). The video can be purchased by online mailorder from Mystic Fire Video at www.mysticfire.com . HOW THIS PROJECT CAME ABOUT The Karma Ling retreat centre in the French Alps The project began when Lama Denys Teundroup, the spiritual director of Karma Ling and Honorary President of the European Buddhist Union was travelling in Ecuador to give some Buddhist teachings. It was there that the author and poet Alexis Naranjo invited him to join him on a trip into the jungle to visit the Shuar. Along with their kinsfolk, the Ashuar (collectively known to outsiders as "Jivaros") they inhabit the sacred waterfalls where the Andes plunge thousands of feet into the green depths of the Amazon rainforest. The Shuar are famous as the proud tribal people who, when gold-greedy Conquistadors built a town there in the sixteenth century, killed every last Spaniard in combat, except the Governor who expired after having been made to gulp a drink wich they prepared especially for him: a goblet of the precious metal he craved so much, in liquid form! The Shuar have enjoyed the traditional lifestyle since then, until Big Oil recently began prospecting in their jungle sanctuary. It was in the rainforest that Lama Denys met Don Hilario Chiriap, a Shuar shaman and a spokesperson of his people. The two men soon became fast friends. While comparing their spiritual beliefs, Lama Denys was impressed by the profound reverence for nature - implicit in the Shuar cosmology - and its similarity to the Buddhist regard for the welfare of all sentient beings. Like most Indigenous Peoples, the Shuar worldview does not feature a split between the creator and the creation, spirit and matter, or mind and nature. Because the whole of nature is sacred in their way of seeing, their position on the front lines of tropical deforestation is also a spiritual stance. Don Hilario voiced his concern about the impact of deforestation and oil and mineral exploration on the rainforest, and expressed his wish for an international gathering where Indigenous shamans, traditional wisdom-keepers and medicine men and women from around the world could meet each other, and then present their united message to high level representatives of the world's organised religions, so as to challenge the latter to take up the environmental cause on spiritual grounds. Don Hilario's hope is to enroll the South American Christian Churches on the side of Indigenous People and the rainforest. Lama Denys agreed, quickly realising that because the spiritual traditions of Indigenous Peoples are so intimately related to the places where they live, their holistic and ecological vision of the universe - transmitted down through the generations from very ancient times - has tremendous inspirational value for the development of the new way of thinking which is so urgently needed to correct the social and environmental imbalance which now threaten our planet. He sent out the first invitations six months later for an Interfaith Gathering "to explore the common themes of peace, compassion, and solidarity which underlie the world's faiths, and to draw attention to the endangered spiritual traditions of Indigenous Peoples, whose holistic ecological wisdom and social insights have so much to offer the modern world." One of the first to accept the invitation was H.H. the Dalai Lama, who is very keen to promote interfaith dialogue. He expressed this at Assisi in 1986, in the Dordogne in 1991, and at Lourdes in 1993: "From my personal experience, I believe such a gathering should have two major objectives. The first is that the world's principal traditions consider how to participate in the improvement of the world and of Humankind as a whole, by promoting fundamental human values such as compassion and ethics. The second objective is that each of these major traditions consider how to contribute to the preservation of different ancient traditions which are working for the well-being and survival of their own communities." Karma Ling itself also has a long tradition of interfaith dialogue, going back to its roots in Tibet in the 19th century. The brochure for the Gathering stated the following: "The 21 st century will be one of dialogue. The monotheistic religions descended from Abraham, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, together with Hinduism and Buddhism, now communicate with each other through a deepening interfaith dialogue that is actively engaged in the development of peace and the promotion of universal values. If these religious traditions, through some of their representatives - in their differences, oppositions, or rivalries - become factors of war, then their dialogue in respect of the difference of each one, is on the contrary the true source of a profound peace." The gathering - offically held as part of the United Nations Decade of Indigenous Peoples (1995 - 2004) - was scheduled for April 26th to May 2, 1997. With only three weeks to go, Lama Denys asked Global Vision if we would like to produce a documentary about the event. This was extremely short notice, but because of the historic nature of the project and of the Dalai Lama's personal involvement, we were able to secure a distribution deal with Mystic Fire Video, and raise the funds for David Cherniack - one of the world's leading documentary filmmakers, to fly to Karma Ling along with a three-camera crew from Canada and New York, in time for the gathering. We shot 60 hours of footage at Karma Ling, and more footage on location afterewards with the Mohawks in Canada. THE INTERFAITH GATHERING AT KARMA LING We shot the film at Karma Ling during the Interfaith Gathering, which was organised by Val Saint Hugon - Dalai Lama France 97, in co-operation with the Tibetan Buddhist Federation (Dachang Rime Congregation) and the Karma Ling Institute. Karma Ling is located in what is left of a former Carthusian monastery, in an isolated side valley above the Val d'Is?e. The Indigenous shamans and wisdom-keepers spent ten days of interfaith dialogue, religious ceremonies, and ancient shamanic rituals never before seen by the public. The gathering took place in the private and intimate setting of a beautiful circular tent with an opening at the top to allow for a bonfire. The ceremonies included Buddhist and B? rituals from Tibet, a tree blessing by a shaman from Tuva and a healing ceremony by a woman shaman from the Buryat Republic in Siberia, a Voudoun ceremony from Benin (Africa), shamanic rituals by a Shuar (Jivaro) shaman from the Amazon rainforest, prayer rituals by the elder wisdom-keeper of the endangered Rendille nomads of Kenya, a night-time celebration where a Purupecha medicine man of the Native American Church performed the Ceremony of the Four Colours, and other ceremonies performed by representatives of the North American Tlingit, Onondaga, Apache, Mohawk and Cherokee tribes. This private part of the gathering was followed on May 1st. by a public event where H.H. the Dalai Lama and the shamans shared their conclusions with high-level representatives of the world's organised religions, in front of an audience of five thousand people who had spent the previous four days listening to the Dalai Lama's teachings on the Four Noble Truths. The official photographer was Henri Cartier-Bresson. During the gathering the Indigenous representatives formed the United Traditions Organisation which has since posted its own web site at www.unitedtraditions.org currently only available in French. A book about the Interfaith Gathering, Le Cercle des Anciens by Patrice Van Eersel and Alain Grosrey, has been published in French by Albin Michel. (ISBN: 2-226-10021-0). PARTICIPANTS There were 40 representatives of various faiths and traditions, approximately half of whom were from Indigenous cultures. The latter were accompanied by intepreters and anthropologists to help translate and explain their traditions and rituals. Each of the principal delegates performed a sacred ritual or ceremony which we were invited to film. A. INDIGENOUS TRADITIONS: ASIA Lopoeun Trinley Nyima Rimpoche Chief Instructor, Menri Monastery (B? tradition), Dolangi, Himachal Pradesh, India. Yeche Namgyal Nyima Rimpoche Official translator of B? manuscripts, Menri Monastery, Dolangi, Himachal Pradesh, India. Bernard Freon A B? specialist, official representative of Menri Monastery in France. NORTH AMERICA: Aurelio Diaz Tekpankalli Purepecha, Spiritual Chief of the Native American Church of Itzachilatlan. President of the Condor and Eagle Confederation. Chief Jeffrey Hubbel Onondaga Nation. Grandmother Anna Haala Tlingit Nation. President of the Alaska Native Cultural Heritage Association. Sparky Shooting Star Cherokee Nation. Morgan Eagle Bear Apache Nation. Grandmother Sarah Smith Mohawk Nation. SOUTH AMERICA: Hilario Chiriap Shuar shaman of the Upper Amazon tropical rainforest, from Ecuador. Alexis Naranjo Interpreter. Ecuadorian author and poet. Shuar expert. Phillippe Descola Ethnologist. Student of Levi-Strauss. Spent three years living with the Shuar. Director of Studies at the ?ole des Hautes ?udes et Sciences Sociales (Paris). Author, "Les Lances du Cr?uscule". AUSTRALIA: Dick Leichlener President of the Papunya Council. Tim Johnson Translator, conceptual artist. EUROPE: Fallyk Kantchyyr-Ool President, Tuva Society of Shamans. Albert Kouvezine Harmonic chord singer. Ekaterina Krynkina Interpreter from the Republic of Tuva. Nadia Stepanova Shaman from the Buryat Republic. President, Siberian Shamans Association AFRICA: Monte Wambile Of royal lineage, faith-keeper of the Rendille camel-herding pastoralists in the Kaisut Desert in Kenya, said to be the "Holders of the Stick of God". Orotare Wambile Interpreter for Monte Wambile. Mrs. Roumeguere-Eberhard Honorary Research Director, Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Paris. Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society. Majeobaje African Chief in 1996. Initiated into the Tsonga girls in Khomba and with the Venda Princesses at Domba in South Africa. Rendille specialist. Daagbo Hounoun Houna Supreme Chief of the Voudon tradition, from Benin. Christian Hounoun Assistant to Daagbo Hounoun Houna. B. WORLD FAITHS CATHOLIC CHURCH: Father Baudin Member of the General Secretariat of the Episcopal Conference, Representing Monsignor Bille, President of the Episcopal Conference. Father de B?hune Secretary General of the Commission on Inter-Religious Monastic Dialogue, Consultant to the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, the Vatican. PROTESTANT CHURCH: Pastor Hans Ucko Executive Secretary of the Bureau of Inter-religious relations, World Council of Churches. Representing Pastor Konrad Raiser, President, World Council of Churches. Pastor Jacky Argaud. ORTHODOX CHURCH: Monsignor Damaskinas Father Leloup. JUDAISM: Because the gathering took place during the Jewish feast of Passover, no representative attend. However, a message of solidarity was read by Professor Marco Diani. ISLAM: His Excellency Sheikh Boubakeur Rector of the Muslim Institute of the Mosque of Paris, France. Sheikh Bentounes Master of the Al Alawi Brotherhood and heir of an uninterrupted line of Sufi Masters. Faouzi Skali Professor, ?ole Nationale Superieure, Fez, Morocco. Doctor of Anthropology, Ethnology and Religious Science, University of Paris. HINDUISM: Sri Ashoke Chaterjee Disciple of Satya Charan Lahiri, who asked him to transmit the Sadhana of Kriya Yoga. Successor of Swami Brahmananda. BUDDHISM: H.H. the XIVth. Dalai Lama Nobel Peace Laurate. Spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism. Lama Denys Teundroup President, the European Buddhist Union. Spiritual Director, Karma Ling Institute, Val Saint Hugon, France.
Seeders: 1
Leeches: 3