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For a good precursor to a really bad horror movie, check out…

Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring (1960) is an odd little movie that started a bigger chain than anybody could have expected. It was initially a small production based on a Swedish folk ballad called ‘Tore’s Daughter at Vange.’ The ballad is about a girl who awakes and gets ready for church in her father’s farm  (her father being the Tore of the title). She puts on her royal robes and goes riding off to church.

She rides around a giant tree,

now three herdsman she does see.

They say to her, “Come be our wife,

or thou shalt forfeit thy young life.”

“Do not lay a hand on me,

“Or my father’s wrath you’ll see.”

“For they kinsmen care not we,

We’ll kill them all as well as thee.”

These herdsman do proceed to rape and kill Karin, then hide her body under a tree, from which a spring mysteriously begins to sprout. They ride in to town and  arrive at her father’s farm, where he and his wife give them shelter and accomodation. When the herdsman offer the mother the golden robe that Karin was wearing as a gift, she realizes why her daughter has not returned. She informs her husband and so he does the only logical thing: kills them all with his knife, only reluctantly killing the youngest one; the ‘little brother.’ Being a man of faith, he feels guilty for his deed and decides to build a church of stone in atonement.

The Virgin Spring won an Academy Award for best foreign film in 1961 and stirred some controversy over its (by 1960’s standards) graphic rape scene. But today, it is known only as one of Bergman’s minor films, even among his devotees. Bergman himself would later dismiss it as a “cheap Kurosawa imitation.”

Fast forward forty-nine years and we have a teen-slasher/horror flick being released in theaters with roughly the same story, and not by coincidence. The Last House on the Left is a remake of Wes Craven’s original Last House on the Left from 1972, which was a remake of The Virgin Spring. There are numerous changes in both Last House films: there are two girls, not one; the religious significance of the original story is gone; the stories are set in the present. But the twisted ‘family’ of killers carries over, the ambiguous character of the Little brother carries over; the rape carries over. Craven’s film also became quite controversial for its over-the-top violence. But it is unlikely that this new Last House on the Left will cause any major contoversy or even be memorable at all. In fact, it is likely that the makers of the new film did not even realize the geneology of their own film. It was made as a simple attempt to cash-in, without having to come up with anything new. We’ve all heard that story from Hollywood before.

Still though, the lineage is there, and it is interesting in and of itself. The Virgin Spring can be found in Snell Library, containing a full version of ‘Tore’s Daughter at Vange.’ There’s half of the story for you.

Henning Mankell Update: PBS’s Wallander

PBS Mystery Series: Wallander

 

The new series coming to PBS’s Masterpiece Mystery Series is one that I was initially skeptical about: the work of a Swedish mystery writer (Henning Makell) being filmed in English, in Sweden, starring British actor Kenneth Branagh. As strange a concoction as this might seem—at least to people who have read any of the Kurt Wallander books—it must be said that it’s also a strategic move on the part of PBS. There are no Swedish actors who have big enough names to attract a real American (or English) audience to this program, so from a commercial standpoint, it is best to go for a well-established actor like Branagh. Also, if the dialogue were in Swedish, well, then it would have to be subtitled, most people who watch T.V aren’t used to that, it might cost a lot of money… So I’ve decided, due to these purely practical considerations, that I have no qualm with this particular miniseries. After all, Branagh is a great actor and as long as the spirit of Mankell’s books are retained, then the miniseries should work out well.

I wrote a separate blog post about Henning Mankell’s book Firewall, which is an immensely entertaining read, last fall. That book and his children’s story Secrets in the Fire are both available in the Snell fiction stacks. It seems that the PBS miniseries will be lumping a few Wallander books together in one series, and whether Firewall will be one of them or not, I do not know. But it should be interesting regardless

From dusty stacks to celluloid-Revolutionary Road & Benjamin Button

My first encounter with the novel Revolutionary Road was through Barbara Ehrenreich’s smart volume The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight From Commitment (available at the Snell Library, HQ1090 .E36 1983). Ehrenreich’s elegant examination of a variety of historical sources and works of fiction, spins her interpretation of the changing role of man in American society from the baby boomer generation to present day. Chief among Ehrenreich’s sources is the novel Revolutionary Road. Currently on hold at the library (PS3575.A83 R4x 1971), this 1961 book is now a film nominated for several Academy Awards. In the summer months, I will be looking up Revolutionary Road, which Kurt Vonnegut referred to as,”the Great Gatsby of my time… one of the best books by a member of my generation.” Speaking of The Great Gatsby PS3511.I9 G7 1996 (a book which I inhaled in one night it was THAT good), imagine my surprise last December to discover that the film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, also in the running for a slew of Academy Awards, was based on a short story of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It speaks to the power of the writing medium that a 15-page story can be turned into film 166 minutes in length. Fitzgerald’s Button as well as his other great writings, can be found in the library under Jazz Age Stories PS3511.I9 A6 1998

A Good Beginner’s Resource for Evidence-Based Practice

I just finished reading an article on evidence based practice by audiologist Robyn M. Cox*, which cited an excellent book How to Read a Paper: the basics of evidence based medicine by Trisha Greenlaugh, in the Snell Library R118.6 .G74 1997. Greenlaugh’s book is an excellent resource for any student seeking to work in medical or therapeutic settings. The term Evidence-Based Practice has become quite popular in the past two decades for a variety of disciplines such as psychology, occupational therapy, medicine, etc. It is an approach to practice that requires the practitioner to read and critically analyze the latest research papers, expert opinions and clinical studies. Informed by new knowledge,the practioner assesses how their current standards of care may be altered to fit a particular patient’s needs. In other words, there are four courses of action: see the patient, do the reading, analyze the new information, incorporate what is useful into practice. Seem like a lot? Well Greenlaugh breaks it down in simple steps. Her book employs suggestions on streamlined, strategized search efforts, as well as successful implementation of new information into practice. Greenlaugh also gives an easy-to-follow crash course on basic statistics analysis, how to evaluate drug trials and reviews and checklists to streamline a clinician’s quest for useful information. So its not as daunting a process as you might think. Check out Greenlaugh’s book if you are interested in learning more about how to implement evidence-based practice in your future disciplines. * Cox, Robyn M., Waiting for Evidence-Based Practice for your Hearing Aid Fittings? It’s Here! The Hearing Journal. Aug 2004. vol 57. n8. 10-17.

Vacation Reading: Firewall

Firewall by Henning Mankell

By Damon Griffin

A good mystery book can be hard to find. There are so many of them, lining the shelves of bookstores in their colorful, trashy paperback designs, it can seem impossible to figure out which ones are worth your time and which are simply trashy paperbacks. The Swedish writer Henning Mankell is, in a way, no exception: his books are also sleekly color-coded, sometimes taking up most of a shelf in the Mystery section, with names such as The Fifth Woman, One Step Behind and Faceless Killers.

But his book Firewall, at least, certainly is a page-turner. Firewall begins with a man leaving his apartment to use an ATM down the street when he suddenly falls over and dies. The following chapters then follow Kurt Wallander, the recurring protagonist of Mankell’s novels, who is a police investigator in Malmo, Sweden. He is nearing fifty and is one of the top officers in the police department; he is also divorced, curmudgeonly and alone. When a taxi driver is murdered by two teenage girls, he is assigned to lead an investigation into the murder. At least one startling development happens every chapter; first, Wallander gets word of the man from Chapter One, who apparently died of a heart attack; then he begins to realize that he could not have died ‘naturally’ and that his death is intrinsically related to the Taxi drivers’ murder. Then, half of the Swedish county of Scania is caught in an electrical blackout. Then, one of the girls who murdered the Taxi driver is found dead, in a most gruesome way that happened to cause the blackout. Then, there is an attempt on Wallander’s life.

It is not unusual for a mystery novel to juxtapose the twists and turns of the mystery itself with the personal life of the detective or police officer at the center of the story. In between bouts of police procedural in Firewall, we follow Wallander as he places a singles ad in the classified section of a newspaper, speaks with his working, twenty-something daughter on the phone, meets up with an old friend who is about to move away and copes with a scandal that involves a photograph of him slapping one of the girls who committed the taxi driver murder. But the book employs a similar technique of shifting to various viewpoints as the story progresses; this is done infrequently and that is precisely why the technique is so startling and interesting. Mostly, we follow Wallander and hear his thoughts, but a chapter might end homing in on a character who is a complete stranger, allowing us to realize that they are one of the criminals Wallander is trying to catch. A chapter might also start in another country entirely; focusing on another character who we come to understand is the ultimate puppet master in the whole mystery, and spending an entire chapter on him. Mankell only makes the criminals seem ominous, elusive and cold when we are following the police force in its’ investigation, but when the focus occasionally shifts to the bad guys perspective, they are always portrayed as just as human as Kurt Wallander, and perhaps possessed by a similar mental thought process when working, even if they know considerably more than he does.

Firewall is a frequently silly book as well. There are logical inconsistencies, implausibilities and some dialogue that is so functional to the plot that it sounds awkward in a realistic sense. I suspect that this is not simply a translation problem. But Firewall is still one of the more fast-paced and delightful mysteries that I’ve come across recently and Mankell truly has the form nailed down.