Post by Monophylos on Apr 17, 2013 21:29:28 GMT -5
I was originally going to put this in the Rifftrax forum since these ruminations were prompted by watching a Rifftrax, but really it's just film talk so probably it belongs here rather.
Mike Nelson calls Plan 9 from Outer Space the "Citizen Kane of bad movies" at the start of the Rifftrax for Ed Wood's magnum opus. It's a funny remark and you can read it a couple different ways but it's occurred to me that it might be truer than you might think.
"Citizen Kane" and "Plan 9" are both shorthand for "best movie" and "worst movie", that much is obvious, especially since both of them have actually been explicitly labeled "best" and "worst". But it's also true that both movies have been regarded as pretenders to the throne, vaunted more out of habit or convention than because they're really the best or worst. Hell, you could probably start a decent-sized war among film buffs simply by asserting that Citizen Kane is the best Orson Welles movie, much less the best movie of all time, because of all the people who want to demonstrate their superior appreciation of film by arguing for The Magnificent Ambersons or Touch of Evil or even Mr. Arkadin. And I'm sure that arguments about whether Plan 9 from Outer Space is even the worst Ed Wood movie, much less the worst movie ever made, are just as fierce.
I got to thinking, though, as to why Plan 9 seems like a good target for the "worst" label. I think we can all agree that it's by far the least entertaining movie ever made; in fact it's rather fun to watch. Bill Warren in Keep Watching the Skies! thought that Plan 9 was at the very least the cheapest looking English-language film he'd ever seen outside of poverty-row porno movies, but arguably Manos, The Hands of Fate looks much cheaper. In other measures, Plan 9 falls short of the worst.
Possibly you can say the same sort of things about Citizen Kane. Possibly other movies are more entertaining, more emotionally moving, more lavishly produced, and so on. I love Citizen Kane but I can't honestly say that it's at the top of any of those lists. Yet I still think it's somehow fitting to call it the best movie (and not Vertigo, as much as I love that movie too) because I've never seen any other movie that exercises all the cinematic arts so enthusiastically. Orson Welles famously said that making a movie was like playing with the world's biggest model train set and he played with every single bit of it. It's all there--an innovative narrative structure, scintillating dialogue, great acting both subtle and dramatic, sharp editing, clever use of sound, you name it, Kane has got it. You can make compelling arguments that this or that movie does any number of these things better than Citizen Kane but I have a hard time thinking of any movie that hits all the notes like Kane does.
I think it's possible to argue much the same thing about Plan 9 from Outer Space, and maybe even for much the same reason if you accept the thesis (debatable maybe) that Ed Wood approached movie-making with the Wellesian spirit of wanting to play with all the toys. Name a movie-making failure and it's probably in Plan 9. I think that contrasts with a lot of bad movies that are bad in a kind of monotonous way but Plan 9 is bad in almost every way conceivable. Narrative structure? A complete mess, partly because it's not even all one story but rather a bunch of pieces, so you've got bits of a zombie story rattling around with bits of a sci-fi movie with a bit of vampire movie thrown in there as well. Dialogue? Ambitious but rubbish. Acting? Bad in every way you can imagine, ranging from flat and wooden (Carl Anthony) to overripe ham (Dudley Manlove). Camerawork? This is Ed "One Take" Wood we're talking about here. Run down the list of the elements of film and you'll find hardly a one that Ed Wood didn't mess up somehow.
One reason I adore Citizen Kane is that you can watch it nine times and still catch some fresh detail on the tenth. But I can say much the same about Plan 9. I can't remember how many times I'd seen the movie before noticing something only when I went to see the Rifftrax "live" riffing a while back: in the scene where Col. Edwards is conferring with his C.O. and listening to Eros's voice recording, there's a U.S. map on the wall behind that is plainly a Santa Fe Railway map. You can see the distinctive cross-shaped logo with the words "Santa Fe" in the lower left corner. At some point when filming this scene, Wood must have realized how obvious this logo was, because in later shots the "Santa Fe" is taped over. Not the whole logo, which is still very plain; just the words in the logo. And the tape is obviously crooked, too. "How do you do it Ed Wood?"
So Plan 9 from Outer Space might not be the worst movie ever, but I think it's a kind of exemplar of bad movie-making in general in the way that Citizen Kane is maybe not the best movie but a symbol rather of movie-making at its best. If there's any other movie I can think of that might challenge Plan 9 in this it's probably The Beast of Yucca Flats. There's something comprehensively and completely bad about Beast of Yucca Flats but in a different direction than Wood took Plan 9. I get the idea from Plan 9 that Wood wanted to do things right but failed, but I get the idea from Beast that Francis never wanted to do anything right in the first place. Wood wants to play by the rules but can't because he has no money and no talent; Francis wants to rip the rule-book to shreds if it gets in his way. So you get a movie that violates almost every standard of film-making. Francis wants a titty shot? Just throw it in there even though it fits nowhere in the story. Other film-makers usually deal with the problem of sound recording by dubbing the voices and effects in later; even Hal Warren knew to obey that rule. Francis is more daring: he jettisons the very notion of diegetic sound altogether, so that not a single voice or sound-effect in the movie matches an on-screen action. Dialogue? No need, so the film is almost pure voice-over. So the badness of Beast of Yucca Flats complements the badness of Plan 9 from Outer Space in a way; if Plan 9 is a good movie gone bad in every imaginable way, Beast is almost an anti-movie.
Anyway, this is what happens when I'm stuck at home with a cough and a fever. (The fever might explain this post's length.)
Mike Nelson calls Plan 9 from Outer Space the "Citizen Kane of bad movies" at the start of the Rifftrax for Ed Wood's magnum opus. It's a funny remark and you can read it a couple different ways but it's occurred to me that it might be truer than you might think.
"Citizen Kane" and "Plan 9" are both shorthand for "best movie" and "worst movie", that much is obvious, especially since both of them have actually been explicitly labeled "best" and "worst". But it's also true that both movies have been regarded as pretenders to the throne, vaunted more out of habit or convention than because they're really the best or worst. Hell, you could probably start a decent-sized war among film buffs simply by asserting that Citizen Kane is the best Orson Welles movie, much less the best movie of all time, because of all the people who want to demonstrate their superior appreciation of film by arguing for The Magnificent Ambersons or Touch of Evil or even Mr. Arkadin. And I'm sure that arguments about whether Plan 9 from Outer Space is even the worst Ed Wood movie, much less the worst movie ever made, are just as fierce.
I got to thinking, though, as to why Plan 9 seems like a good target for the "worst" label. I think we can all agree that it's by far the least entertaining movie ever made; in fact it's rather fun to watch. Bill Warren in Keep Watching the Skies! thought that Plan 9 was at the very least the cheapest looking English-language film he'd ever seen outside of poverty-row porno movies, but arguably Manos, The Hands of Fate looks much cheaper. In other measures, Plan 9 falls short of the worst.
Possibly you can say the same sort of things about Citizen Kane. Possibly other movies are more entertaining, more emotionally moving, more lavishly produced, and so on. I love Citizen Kane but I can't honestly say that it's at the top of any of those lists. Yet I still think it's somehow fitting to call it the best movie (and not Vertigo, as much as I love that movie too) because I've never seen any other movie that exercises all the cinematic arts so enthusiastically. Orson Welles famously said that making a movie was like playing with the world's biggest model train set and he played with every single bit of it. It's all there--an innovative narrative structure, scintillating dialogue, great acting both subtle and dramatic, sharp editing, clever use of sound, you name it, Kane has got it. You can make compelling arguments that this or that movie does any number of these things better than Citizen Kane but I have a hard time thinking of any movie that hits all the notes like Kane does.
I think it's possible to argue much the same thing about Plan 9 from Outer Space, and maybe even for much the same reason if you accept the thesis (debatable maybe) that Ed Wood approached movie-making with the Wellesian spirit of wanting to play with all the toys. Name a movie-making failure and it's probably in Plan 9. I think that contrasts with a lot of bad movies that are bad in a kind of monotonous way but Plan 9 is bad in almost every way conceivable. Narrative structure? A complete mess, partly because it's not even all one story but rather a bunch of pieces, so you've got bits of a zombie story rattling around with bits of a sci-fi movie with a bit of vampire movie thrown in there as well. Dialogue? Ambitious but rubbish. Acting? Bad in every way you can imagine, ranging from flat and wooden (Carl Anthony) to overripe ham (Dudley Manlove). Camerawork? This is Ed "One Take" Wood we're talking about here. Run down the list of the elements of film and you'll find hardly a one that Ed Wood didn't mess up somehow.
One reason I adore Citizen Kane is that you can watch it nine times and still catch some fresh detail on the tenth. But I can say much the same about Plan 9. I can't remember how many times I'd seen the movie before noticing something only when I went to see the Rifftrax "live" riffing a while back: in the scene where Col. Edwards is conferring with his C.O. and listening to Eros's voice recording, there's a U.S. map on the wall behind that is plainly a Santa Fe Railway map. You can see the distinctive cross-shaped logo with the words "Santa Fe" in the lower left corner. At some point when filming this scene, Wood must have realized how obvious this logo was, because in later shots the "Santa Fe" is taped over. Not the whole logo, which is still very plain; just the words in the logo. And the tape is obviously crooked, too. "How do you do it Ed Wood?"
So Plan 9 from Outer Space might not be the worst movie ever, but I think it's a kind of exemplar of bad movie-making in general in the way that Citizen Kane is maybe not the best movie but a symbol rather of movie-making at its best. If there's any other movie I can think of that might challenge Plan 9 in this it's probably The Beast of Yucca Flats. There's something comprehensively and completely bad about Beast of Yucca Flats but in a different direction than Wood took Plan 9. I get the idea from Plan 9 that Wood wanted to do things right but failed, but I get the idea from Beast that Francis never wanted to do anything right in the first place. Wood wants to play by the rules but can't because he has no money and no talent; Francis wants to rip the rule-book to shreds if it gets in his way. So you get a movie that violates almost every standard of film-making. Francis wants a titty shot? Just throw it in there even though it fits nowhere in the story. Other film-makers usually deal with the problem of sound recording by dubbing the voices and effects in later; even Hal Warren knew to obey that rule. Francis is more daring: he jettisons the very notion of diegetic sound altogether, so that not a single voice or sound-effect in the movie matches an on-screen action. Dialogue? No need, so the film is almost pure voice-over. So the badness of Beast of Yucca Flats complements the badness of Plan 9 from Outer Space in a way; if Plan 9 is a good movie gone bad in every imaginable way, Beast is almost an anti-movie.
Anyway, this is what happens when I'm stuck at home with a cough and a fever. (The fever might explain this post's length.)
