Seeing the remake of Halloween put me in a John Carpenter mood, so I watched The Fog again on DVD. Sure, the plot turns kind of silly, but that doesn't matter; Carpenter's already done his job, creating and sustaining a mood, not only of fear and dread but a kind of quiet melancholy. He really is a great filmmaker, and I wish he could get work these days doing something besides collecting paychecks for the rights to redo his work.
Seemingly unrelated to my musings on Carpenter--or is it?--I had a dream last night about my late, much beloved cat Pinback. (I say "cat" for easy identification purposes, since Pinback was, of course, a strange visitor from another world, only assuming the form of an earthly cat.) In the dream, Pinback sat on my chest and hissed at me everytime she felt me breathe, which was something she actually did pretty much every day. When I woke up, Delmar--who strongly resembles Pinback in both appearance and attitude--sat beside me, glaring menacingly.
As I got out of bed and proceded with my day, and since a day off means an excuse to kill a whole day visiting favorite web sites, I found myself at The Onion's AV Club, which featured a review of a new album by the band...Pinback! At another site, a read a review of a DVD reissue of Return Of The Living Dead, directed by Dan O'Bannon, who co-wrote John Carpenter's Dark Star and co-starred in it as...Pinback!
Dark Star is a wonderful movie, Carpenter's first feature, expanded from a student film he and O'Bannon made. One could argue O'Bannon is as much the auteur here as Carpenter--the film strongly influenced Alien, which O'Bannon wrote--but it already shows Carpenter's affinity for blue-collar heroes over their heads, who must overcome their own ennui before they can take any kind of action.
Through the years, Carpenter has always shown an affection for beer-guzzling regular joes, and there's never a hint of condecension in his work. (They Live might be a goofy alien invasion movie starring a pro wrestler--not that there's anything wrong with that--but it also is the only action movie I can think of with homeless construction workers as its heroes.) This attitude is reflected in Carpenter's stylistic approach, which is always simple, straightforward. Stylish, yes, but never showy. Clearly, he considers himself a bit of a working-class filmmaker--a craftsman, not an artiste.
In any event, here's the opening credits to Dark Star, complete with a Carpenter-penned theme song. Like the movie itself, the song, with its drawled vocals and exaggerated twang, seems jokey at first. But as you listen to its instantly catchy melody and wistful lyrics, you realize it's more sad than funny. Much like Dark Star itself.
