Cigarette Burns

A small, quick work, and a profoundly sad, painful work. Too "clever", yes. Gory, yes. A film in which a man feeds his own intestines into a projector, so blunt an image and expression yet it holds incredible potency. Carpenter here expresses what he's been trying to say in interviews: cinema's beaten him. He can barely face it anymore. The studios, the nature of film itself, he's just tired. A film in which cinephiles are psychotics (one thinks amusedly of Truffaut's saying) and directors are referred to as "terrorists" (this is a tremendous kick in the ass for the likes of Haneke and Noe). 

Those Carpenter endings. Always culminations, always coming after the moment you and the characters realize that, no, you cannot turn away from any of it. It encircles and consumes. A director whose whole career has been devoted to delineating evil eventually arrives at making film that evil. It is tragic to watch a grandmaster fall to his knees, but at least he did it with integrity and brilliance. 

Rack Focus & 2.35:1: Memoirs of an Invisible Man - John Carpenter, 1992

Carpenter crafted and exacted a flawless mise-en-scène by about the time of The Fog (not to discount the brilliance of Assault on Precinct 13). Like John McTiernan, he is a master of the old/tested/worn-out/forgotten cinematic technique, evidenced here by a modestly but brilliantly deployed rack focus that warps his trademark 2.35:1 frame while effortlessly integrating special effects, a moment of disorientation, balance, craft. Carpenter and McTiernan are those most rare of Hollywood artists, directors who can wield what is overused/worn-out, and integrate it into their mise-en-scène in a way that makes it feel born anew.