Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Friedrich --

I caught up with "The Wolf Man" last night, which I'd never seen. Do you know it? It isn't all that good, and as I watched it I drifted in and out of drowsiness. Though it has some terrific scares, a wonderful dry-ice expressionist forest, and fab Wolf Man makeup.

Watching the film in a state of semi-bored drowsiness was perfect. I wasn't sure from moment to moment when I was watching the movie and when I'd moved into that pre-sleep state where your awareness has just let go its grip on the external world. An ideal experience of the movies as a, as some have described them, "waking dream."

Are you as amazed as I am how poetic and operatic some of the early pulp movies are? I can't understand why composers and directors don't want to make operas of them. Moving, archetypal, mythopoetic stuff. Plus great monsters.

But maybe the movies themselves are the operas -- ie., maybe they don't need expansion.

Best,

Michael