Here's something I watched just because it was short — 43 minutes — and I was clicking idly about in my streaming service — Criterion — which said "Federico Fellini’s loose adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s 'Never Bet the Devil Your Head' stars Terence Stamp as an alcoholic actor who suffers from disturbing visions":
I'd never heard of this film or that Poe story. The film is so short because it was part of a set of 3 adaptations of Poe, packaged as "Spirits of the Dead," which Wikipedia says "received a mixed critical reception, with the Fellini segment widely regarded as the best of the three."
I'm not sure that the film has much to do with Poe's "Never Bet the Devil Your Head," which seems to be all about the problem of taking statements literally. There are some points of connection, but the Poe story does not have a surreal awards ceremony — "The Golden She-Wolves" — or a 1964 Ferrari 330 LMB Fantuzzi. The point of Fellini's story seems to be... well, his is less of a story with a moral... I'll just say it's: Life is hell when you're a hopeless drunk.
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2 comments:
Robert writes:
"Does the movie show Dammit's headless body sold off by the undertaker to pay for funeral expenses? Obviously, the resulting dogmeat had either gotten rotten (after a wait to receive payment) or was preserved by formaldehyde embalming fluid - which in either case would likely kill dogs if consumed.
"Quoth the Raven “Nevermore” perhaps, in noting that Edgar Allen Poe was himself an alcoholic as was his Toby Dammit character. Logic be damned, Dammit! - just as long as the short story title is catchy. A talking Raven and a real conversation with the Devil are seemingly necessary diversions for Poe's dark story telling."
Fellini ends the story before the disposal of the body.
Gerda writes:
The Poe story about not betting the devil your head seems to be a pretty dense story.
There are strong suggestions that Toby Dammit is a dog, and the narrator is an imaginative young boy who is the dog's owner. Throughout the story, Toby acts like a dog. He frisks around on the bridge, he gnaws a pack of cards when six months old, and at the end, his body is "sold for dog's meat".
https://www.eapoe.org/pstudies/ps1960/p1969302.htm
Poe then builds on this animal imagery an elaborate critique of Transcendentalism.
So the whole thing is pretty dense. Or, you can see it as just a lazy mish-mosh with a bunch of puns thrown in.
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