About the heading: Things are Bad, but this is just the Beginning; we haven't even truly started to get into The Bad Times yet - if you're not Hispanic, Palanstinian, a foreign student or a resident alien, you might find that statement slightly laughable & naive. Being an American, that's slightly permissible, since those who aren't MAGA or MAGA adjacent/sympathetic still believe that there is still a chance to turn things around - despite the fact that we've continually squandered every chance given so far.
While America (and specifically Whyte America - because nothing of note actually happens in this country until Pissed-Off Whyte People get involved) does its Hamlet-bit trying to convince itself it still has a soul), it feels like one is just Freefalling Thru The Fuckery until things coalesce into some definite action.
While that slowly happens - I watch movies. I write. At least until I can't do either one or the other.
Or both.
I've always sort of looked down on Michael Mann's adaptation of THE KEEP despite liking a lot of the elements of the film. Mainly because I'm a fan of the novel and it was yet another lesson on Failed Hollywood Adaptations. It's comparable to Ridley Scott's LEGEND which came a few years after and sharing not only the same cinematographer, but the same primary problem - both are visually stunning but the mechanics of story & plot are sacrificed in execution and ultimately end up unsatisfying.
Taking in account that the success rate wasn't very high, to be fair - though THE SHINING, BLADE RUNNER, THE THING and DUNE have been reassessed 30-40 years after initial release, that still leaves projects like the tv miniseries of THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, GHOST STORY... only CONAN THE BARBARIAN seems to have had the luck to had continued success from time of release to current day.
(One of many missed opportunites in The Era Of Streaming is the failure to attempt more faithful takes on GHOST STORY, which is an OK film - held aloft by the presence of Old Hollywood Greats classing things up, Dick Smith makeups and mainly by naked Alice Krige - but a tepid version of the Peter Straub story and THE KEEP, both which would've benefitted from having 8 - 10 episodes to play out, IMO.)
Many reasons have been kicked around for THE KEEP's failure; a troubled production, mortally wounded by the death of their special effects supervisor early in post-production and the inablility to complete things as planned and then cut down from close to 3 hours to about half of that time and released to theaters with very little fanfare all contributed. The main reason lies in the film's conception - in an interview with Film Comment magazine during the production, Mann states that his initial starting point came after making THIEF; wanting to do something along the lines of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" To quote from that interview, "The idea of making this film within the genre of horror films appealed to me not at all."
One can certainly admire the ambition behind that, but one also has to question the wisdom of hanging all of that on a story that is firmly set within the parameters of 'horror'. For all of the name-checking of Bruno Bettelheim's "The Uses of Enchantment" and stating that the film was 'a fairy tale for adults', Michael Mann couldn't accept the fact that he was making a horror movie and that more than anything else undermines the whole film. In more snide terms, I've referred to THE KEEP as Michael Mann proving to the world that he is NOT Stanley Kubrick - Kubrick, at some level, DID know he was making a 'horror film'.
Despite that, it's gained a solid cult following; mainly due to it being the outlier in Mann's filmography and to it not being readily available, save for VHS and a laserdisc release which has been the basis for DVD bootleg releases. That changed late last year with Vinegar Syndrome's UHD/Blu-ray 4K release (the limited edition w/slipcover & booklet selling out quickly).
So, what to think of THE KEEP now? Well, it's still a stunner visually, even more so with the restoration. This time around, I'm a bit more charitable towards the film and to Mann's intentions, having had more exposure to European Cinema since the last time I saw it. In fact, I think the film would play somewhat better if it were dubbed in an Eastern European language. But that doesn't alter the film's main flaw, which wasn't helped by the truncated runtime.
It holds up a lot better than LEGEND does, mainly due to having a solid narrative at its base. I don't know the history of LEGEND's script other than it started as an 'adult fairy tale' and got softened and narratively more nebulous over time, but the lack of a solid narrative just makes the (admittedly stunning) visuals vacuous. THE KEEP flirts with this in its current version, but that may be due to different rhythms; one can argue that Mann may be being 'pretentious', but realizing that he's doing an American version of European Arthouse makes a case that a longer version, if it still exists, could possibly qualify it as a 'masterpiece' that its fans have claimed it to be.
Maybe. I don't know if I'd go quite THAT far yet...
But I'd be pleased if that turned out. Despite some harsh remarks and Michael Mann CineBro Snark, there are elements that stay in the memory - the visuals, obviously and the Tangerine Dream score, both of which converge in a sequence near the end cutting between Scott Glen's character prepping for The Final Confrontation and Ian McKellar's removing a talisman and starting to exit The Keep, which is the thing that hooked me when I finally saw this years ago.
VS gives this an overdue respectable release with great extras - there's a really informative commentary by film historian Matthew Aspery Gear along with several featurettes - the best being an interview with author F. Paul Wilson talking about the genesis of the novel and his view of the finished product; interview with Johannes Schmolling who was part of Tangerine Dream at the time speaking about their work with Mann and some light finally shed on those KEEP bootleg soundtrack releases; interviews with fx makeup head Nick Maley and vfx artist Peter Kuran; an interview with actor Michael Csrter (Molasar) and a short interview with producer Gene Kirkwood.
As great as this is, there was some disappointment that deleted scenes that've surfaced over the years didn't get included or a more extensive documentary, namely the long-in-gestation A WORLD WAR II FAIRYTALE - which will show up on Imprint's edition coming later in the year.
I guess a better comparison rather than LEGEND, would be to Lynch's DUNE - which I like better even in it's truncated theatrical cut, and is much better when longer (Spice Diver cut).
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