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THE MT VOID
01/23/26 -- Vol. 44, No. 30, Whole Number 2416
Editor: Evelyn Leeper,
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
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Topics:
Mini Reviews, Part 04 (THE SILENT STAR, NOUVELLE VAGUE,
BREATHLESS) (film reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Riddle (answer to riddle from Keith F. Lynch)
Is Listening to an Audiobook as Good as Reading?
(pointer to article)
THE PRINCESS BRIDE and PSYCHO (letter of comment
by Robert L. Mitchell)
This Week's Reading (George Orwell's essays: "Boys'
Weeklies", "The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism
and the English Genius", review of THE SWORD AND
THE SICKLE by Mulk Raj Anand) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Mini Reviews, Part 04 (film reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Terry Frost recently recommended the boxed set "The DEFA Sci-Fi
Collection", three science fiction films from the German
Democratic Republic (a.k.a. East Germany) in the 1960s and 1970s
(one co-produced with Poland). The three films are THE SILENT
STAR, IN THE DUST OF THE STARS, and EOLOMENA. I was able to find
them reasonably priced but more on that later.
A SILENT STAR is the original, uncut version. If it seems familiar
that is because a version cut down to 78 minutes, given a new
score (from classic Universal horror films, no less!), and had the
credits totally changed, and with many of the characters changed
as well, was released in the United States as FIRST SPACESHIP ON
VENUS. My copy of this version is also quite faded. I will say
that the dubbing is done very well, in that the English words seem
to match the characters mouth movements fairly well. (On the other
hand, Bill Warren thought the dubbing was terrible.)
But the original is better (in spite of the fact that I go on to
list a lot of its flaws). The restoration done by DEFA brings out
the vivid colors, which seemed to be a pan-European thing at the
time: Italian films of that era also had those intense primary
colors.
The idea that Tchen Yu is both a world-class biologist and a
world-class linguist seems unlikely. One sees an echo of this in
Andy Weir's THE MARTIAN, where Watney is both an agronomist and an
engineer. Indeed, this also showed up in written science fiction
of the ASTOUNDING/ANALOG sort, which often featured super-capable
Heinleinian characters.
Somehow the linguist manages to translate the alien language from
a single audio recording. This is not merely super-capable, but
supernatural. It simply is not possible.
While there is a lot of dialogue about universal cooperation and
peace, and a crew that is so diverse that these days it would
cream "DEI", this is really no more preachy than a lot of American
films of the time. The diversity here means a crew consisting of a
Japanese, an American, a Pole, a Soviet, an Indian, a German, a
Chinese, and an African. (Which of these is not like the other?
Right. Africa has more countries than any other continent, yet the
Black cosmonaut is described simply as "African". I suppose this
is the same as having people described as "Native Americans",
rather than by their tribe,)
There is also one woman, though her role as doctor seems mostly as
a nutritionist, i.e., tending to everyone's food. And the German
pilot is a bit of a harasser, constantly professing his love for
her even after she asks/tells him not to. (Then again, so was
Benjamin Braddock in THE GRADUATE.)
Somehow the spaceship has artificial gravity (and not by
spinning), but there is still the obligatory humorous zero-G scene
before it switches on. It is also a very roomy spaceship. Even the
space station doesn't have that much empty space in it, and it
isn't transporting its mass through space. And the spacesuits do
not look like they are pressurized for vacuum.
As for the cost, when I first looked on eBay, the listings were
for $175 for the boxed set of three films. Okay, not doing that.
Then, somewhat miraculously, I saw a set listed on Amazon for
$21.95, which I immediately grabbed. Poking around some more, I
discovered that DEFA itself was selling the DVDs for $24.95 each.
Trust me, the slipcase is not worth $100. But it gets better. It
turns out that all three films are available on Kanopy, a service
that many public libraries subscribe to. If your library
subscribes, you can see them for free (minus the extra interviews
and such, of course).
Released theatrically 31 October 1962 (United States).
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053250/reference>
What others are saying:
<
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/silent-star>
NOUVELLE VAGUE (2025): NOUVELLE VAGUE is the story of the making
of Jean-Luc Godard's BREATHLESS, but it is not a documentary
(though the black-and-white filming makes it look like one, and
also copies the black-and-white of BREATHLESS). Godard was one of
a group of famous critics at CAHIERS DU CINEMA, and the only one
left who had not directed a film. One problem is keeping all the
characters straight, even though as each is introduced, the
character's name is flashed on-screen. But many of the names will
be familiar only to serious students not just of film, but of
French film and the Nouvelle Vague in particular.
As the film starts, the "Nouvelle Vague" ("New Wave") is already
established, and Godard is scheduled to make a film with Claude
Chabrol and Francois Truffaut. (They are the names that will sell
the film.) He wants to get Jean-Paul Belmondo (who is told this
will ruin his career--spoiler: it makes it) and Jean Seberg (whose
contract has to be bought from Columbia).
He wants to film guerilla-style, with no sets, no lighting, no
make-up, no special wardrobe, not much script, no sync sound, and
in Academy ration when everyone else is doing widescreen.
(Basically, he's Ed Wood, but without all the quirky friends.)
Godard doesn't care about continuity, but wants his actress to
walk to where they are filming rather than take a taxi, because
that is what he character would do. He hides his cameraman in a
cart to be able to film on the street and get his extras for free.
And then I watched BREATHLESS, and the (nominal) editor in
NOUVELLE VAGUE was right: Godard's method of cutting was very ...
jarring. To make a specific running time, he did not cut
scenes--he cut frames out of each scene. (So if the scene was
thirty seconds long, and there was a two-second stretch with no
dialogue, he would just cut those two seconds out.) This makes
everything seem very choppy, the visual equivalent of being in a
boat on a choppy sea. People who complain about the fast cutting
brought on by MTV have clearly not seen BREATHLESS. (BREATHLESS
has about two hundred cuts in a ninety-minute movie.)
NOUVELLE VAGUE released streaming 14 November 2025 (United States).
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31688586/reference>
What others are saying:
<
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/nouvelle_vague_2025>
BREATHLESS released theatrically 07 February 1961 (United States).
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053472/reference>
What others are saying:
<
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/breathless>
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Riddle (answer to riddle from Keith F. Lynch)
Last week, Keith F. Lynch asked:
Can you name any nation whose flag contains *none* of these three
colors [red, white, and blue]? As far as I can tell, there's
currently just one. [-kfl]
Gary McGath suggested:
The best I've been able to find is the flag of Sri Lanka. The
background behind the lion is called crimson, but it looks more
like maroon to me. [-gmg]
Lawrence D'Oliveiro posted:
Looking at the region-flag codes as shown here <
https://www.deviantart.com/default-cube/art/
Region-Flags-861126407>,
I see Cocos-Keeling (yellow and green), and possibly also Sri
Lanka (green, orange, yellow and maroon as per above).
Evelyn notes:
Cocos-Keeling is not a nation, but an Australian external
territory. [-ecl]
Keith answers:
Good catch [on Cocos-Keeling]. I hadn't noticed that one. I was
thinking of Jamaica.
Also, until 2011 Libya's flag was solid green, but today it also
contains red and white. [-kfl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Is Listening to an Audiobook as Good as Reading? (pointer
to article)
The Guardian has an article on audiobooks; see link below. My
observation is that they seem to have interviewed/quoted only
people who think listening is as good as reading, or at least are
inclined toward audiobooks, e.g. Jon Watt, the chair of the Audio
Publishers Group at the Publishers Association.
Article at:
<
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jan/21/ is-listening-to-an-audiobook-as-good-as-reading>
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE PRINCESS BRIDE and PSYCHO (letter of comment by Robert
L. Mitchell)
In response to Evelyn's comments on THE PRINCESS BRIDE in the
01/16/26 issue of the MT VOID, Robert L. Mitchell writes:
[Evelyn wrote, regarding whether main characters are truly in
danger,] "have they never seen PSYCHO?" [-ecl]
Sure, but PSYCHO was marketed as a thriller. The audience
assumptions for THE PRINCESS BRIDE were different, based on the
trailers and other marketing material... [-rlm]
Evelyn agrees, but...:
Yes, but I could easily see a parody sort of film (e.g., SCARY
MOVIE) doing something like what PSYCHO did. For that matter,
TOPPER did it almost a century ago, but that was not an unexpected
death. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I'm slowly working my way through ORWELL'S ESSAYS by George Orwell
(Everyman, ISBN 978-0-375-41503-6). One I'd recommend in full is
"Boys' Weeklies" (11 March 1940) about pulp magazines.
Orwell also wrote a very long essay, "The Lion and the Unicorn:
Socialism and the English Genius" (19 February 1941) is which he
lays out a six-point plan he seems to think inevitable, and
necessary for a British victory. They are:
I. Nationalization of land, mines, railways, banks and major
industries.
II. Limitation of incomes, on such a scale that the highest
tax-free income in Britain does not exceed the lowest by
more than ten to one.
III. Reform of the educational System along democratic lines.
IV. Immediate Dominion status for India, with power to secede
when the war is over.
V. Formation of an Imperial General Council, in which the
coloured peoples are to be represented.
VI. Declaration of formal alliance with China, Abyssinia and
all other victims of the Fascist powers.
He goes on to say, "I have deliberately included in it nothing
that the simplest person could not understand and see the reason
for."
I'm not sure what his point is about Abyssinia, because Britain
entered into a formal agreement with them in 1940. They officially
joined with China in 1942.
The rest of the points seem to have gone by the wayside, and
somehow Britain and the Allies won the war anyway.
Orwell had written about India couldn't be offered "freedom", but
should be offered "equality" with the right to secede, which he
assumed they would refuse to do. Now admittedly Indian
independence did not occur for another six years, but major drives
for independence, beginning in the late 19th century and
continuing up through the Quit India Movement of 1942, would seem
to indicate that this refusal was not such a sure thing as Orwell
assumed.
In his review of THE SWORD AND THE SICKLE by Mulk Raj Anand,
(Horizon, July 1942), Orwell writes, "At present English is to a
great extent the official and business language of India: five
million Indians are literate in it and millions more speak a
debased version of it [1]; there is a huge English-language Indian
Press, and the only English magazine devoted wholly to poetry is
edited by Indians. On average, too, Indians write and even
pronounce English far better than any European race. Will this
state of affairs continue? It is inconceivable that the present
relationship between the two countries will last much longer [2]
and when it vanishes the economic inducements for learning English
will also tend to disappear [3]. Presumably, therefore, the fate
of the English language in Asia is either to fade out [4] or to
survive as a pidgin language useful for business and technical
purposes [5]. It might survive, in dialect form, as the
mother-tongue of the small Eurasian community [6], but it is
difficult to believe its has a literary future." [7]
[1] "Debased" by whose standards, one might ask. I'm sure a lot of
Britishers think Americans speak a debased form of English as
well. Then again, Orwell was writing before John McWhorter and
other tried to educate the public about languages and how they
change.
[2] So Orwell did come to realize that India was going to achieve
some level of independence.
[3] Unless Orwell is assuming that Britain and India will stop
doing any business together, I'm not sure why he thinks the
economic inducements will disappear. Lessen, perhaps, but not
vanish entirely.
[4] Needless to say, Orwell was wrong about the fate of the
English language in Asia, in part because he saw Britain as the
main promoter and user of the English language, and completely
failed to recognize that another power (e.g., the United States)
might become a driving force.
[5] Orwell seems to use "pidgin" as a derogatory term. I'm not
sure what "business and technical purposes" he was thinking of,
but most of what was being done after the war required some fairly sophisticated language.
[6] By "Eurasian" he obviously means "Anglo-Indian", and this
community has gotten much smaller over time, as people stopped
identifying themselves that way.
[7] Indian authors who write in English, such as R. K. Narayan,
Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri, Arundhati Roy, and Anita Desai,
would disagree. Within the science fiction field, we have Manjula
Padmanabhan, Samit Basu, Vandana Singh, Gautam Bhatia, Priya
Sarukkai Chabria, and S. B. Divya.
(DuckDuckGo's Search Assist is totally useless: It starts by
saying "approximately 6% of literary works in India are published
in English," then says "English is the third largest language for
publishing in India," and finally that 55% of the literary works
are in English.)
[-ecl]
===================================================================
Evelyn C. Leeper
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
Doubt is not a pleasant mental state, but certainty is
a ridiculous one.
--Voltaire
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