Saturday, May 30, 2009

"That's nothing from this world."

video

13 comments:

Ryan Kelly said...

Definitely Herzog's best.

Greg said...

Ryan, I'm disappointed in you. This is so clearly the work of Ophüls I can't believe you missed it.

Ryan Kelly said...

Greg, you're obviously delirious from all the pills you've been popping lately. "That's nothing from this world" represents a perfect articulation of Herzog's traditional take on an outsider perspective, and how he makes OUR world feel ALIEN to us.

I will not let you propagate lies, especially on the internet, of all places, where truth reigns supreme.

Flickhead said...

FYI, I believe the circular device over the co-pilot's head is a printer's wheel, used to determine color values for ink mixing. I worked in the business for thirty-plus years, but even by the 1970s these were relatively obsolete, replaced by ink books. It's not to be confused with the printer's enlargement and reduction wheel, however... just so you know...

Greg said...

Holy Mackeral.

Arbogast said...

Did Wood write "fifteen before" because "a quarter to" is copyrighted?

Greg said...

No, he wrote it because he operated on a level of genius that few of us can understand.

By the way, "you got me that time mac" is delivered with such a sense of grace in inflection that I stand in awe of it.

Arbogast said...

You know what exchange always kills me? Going from memory, but...

"Was that a flying saucer?"
"Yeah... or its counterpart."

What the hell does "its counterpart" mean? A flying butter dish? A flying gravy boat?

Greg said...

No that's the line. The only thing you left out is at the end of Paula's question where she says, "A flying saucer? You mean the kind from up there?" and then Jeff says the counterpart line.

I love her "the kind from up there" question. No Paula, I was referring to the flying saucers found in major household appliances, like washing machines. That's the flying saucer I'm talking about.

t-h-r-e-e said...

OMG! OMG! OMG!

Greg said...

Exactly. Times 3.

Arbogast said...

It's precisely this kind of dialogue that makes Ed Wood's films truly immortal. Can you imagine if Plan 9 were remade today. Imagine all the fucks and shits. ("Yeah, or it's muthafuckin' counterpart.") Every time somebody said "fuck" in Diary of the Dead I sighed, because they used so much coarser language to make something that was so much less frightening than what Romero had done 40 years earlier without uttering a single curse.

Greg said...

I call myself an old school curser and my kids are new school cursers.

By my definition an old school curser uses profanity for special emphasis. So for instance, on The Invisible Edge, I've only used it on a few posts. The most recent one was the disgruntled transplanted Bostoner in Vermont. It seemed more appropriate and funny for him to use it in a Courier and Ives setting.

New school cursers use "fuck" the way you and I use "um" or "like." It's an audible filler of silent space. I hate it because it removes the wonderful emphatic power those words can have and, conversely, makes it too easy to forget how wonderful language can be WITHOUT them.

New school sucks!