I am trying to remember the name of a movie I saw a REALLY long time ago, which I thought was titled "Freaks", but now that I am looking for it I think not.
It was a very strange, black and white film that featured (that I could see) no plot and just footage of deformed, mentally ill, and mentally challenged people in the early part of the twentieth century. It was quite disturbing, both for the content and for the titallating sort of way it was displayed.
Am I craxy, or does this actually exist? (I don't really want to watch it again as it was quite horrible, but I was having a conversation about it and realized that I didn't remember the name)
Freaks was a famous Todd...someone movie. It was set at a carnival, and did indeed feature little people, and people with deformities.
Yup. 1932, Tod Browning. Black and white. I've only ever seen clips from it.
I've seen it...it's sort of a Movement rite of passage. My people love it.
I wonder what Browning would think about that.
Freaks has a plot about the scheming wife of a little person (I think she's a trapeze artist or something) who is carrying on with the strongman. It's a fantastic movie with an ending that might be a little laughable by modern standards, but you can practically see many of the tv shows and movies it influenced.
"Freaks" is where the phrase "One of us!" came from. What freaked (pun intended!) out moviegoers of the early '30s is not that Browning set a film in the world of the circus sideshow, but that he used actual sideshow "freaks" as cast members.
See, I thought it was famous! The person to whom I was talking thought I had two heads!
I thought Browning's sympathies were most definitely with the circus folk, up to the point where he thought that we should be a bit horrified by the end, but also that we should think the unfaithful wife got what she deserved.
Yeah...that's probably what makes it beloved of the disability studies crowd.
Freaks
was recently mentioned in EW's Top 25 Controversial Movies of All Time list.
I feel like that is not quite it, though, looking at it. The one I saw had more of a documentary feeling. Perhaps I am making it up, though...
