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Begotten (film)

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Begotten
1995 VHS cover art
Directed byE. Elias Merhige
Written byE. Elias Merhige
Produced byE. Elias Merhige
Starring
  • Brian Salzberg
  • Donna Dempsey
  • Stephen Charles Barry
CinematographyE. Elias Merhige
Edited byNoëlle Penraat
Music byEvan Albam
Production
companies
Theatreofmaterial[a]
William Markle Associates (sound)[2]
Distributed byWorld Artists Home Video
Release dates
[b]
Running time
72 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish (intertitles)
Budget$33,000 (estimated)

Begotten is a 1989 American experimental silent horror film[6] written, directed, and produced by E. Elias Merhige (credited as Edmund E. Merhige). It stars Brian Salsberg, Donna Dempsy, Stephen Charles Barry, and members of Theatreofmaterial, Merhige's theatre company. Its unconventional narrative depicts the suicide of a godlike figure and the resulting births of Mother Earth and the Son of Earth, who travel across a barren landscape. The film does not contain dialogue, relying on a visual style evoking early silent films.

The film draws on creation myths in Christian mythology, Celtic mythology and Slavic paganism, and narrative motifs and religious imagery that reoccur throughout Merhige's work. Other influences include the avant-garde artist Antonin Artaud and the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. The film's imagery was inspired by Georges Franju's Blood of the Beasts, Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, Stan Brakhage's The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Begotten was conceived as a work of experimental theatre featuring dance and live music. It became a film project after Merhige realized that it would be too expensive to produce live. It was shot on location in New York City and New Jersey over five and a half months. After it was completed, Merhige spent two years trying to find a distributor. The film debuted at the Montreal World Film Festival, and later screened at the San Francisco International Film Festival, with the film critics Tom Luddy and Peter Scarlet in attendance. Impressed by its cinematographer and visual imagery, the two brought it to the attention of the critic Susan Sontag, whose enthusiastic praise and private screening to critics and filmmakers in her own home were instrumental to its eventual release.

Although it was largely ignored by mainstream critics, and the few contemporary reviews were mixed to positive, it has since attained cult film status and influenced several avant-garde film-makers, visual artists and musicians. The film's scarcity on home video prompted fans to circulate their own bootleg copies, a phenomenon described as a "copy-cult" by the film studies scholar Ernest Mathijs.[7] Merhige directed two sequels to Begotten: 2006's Din of Celestial Birds and 2022's Polia & Blastema: A Cosmic Opera. Both are short films.

Plot

[edit]

Inside a small shack, a robed figure disembowels himself with a razor, and dies after cutting open his abdomen and removing his internal organs. A woman in white then emerges from his mutilated remains. She brings the corpse to arousal, and uses his semen to impregnate herself. Time passes, and Mother Earth, now visibly pregnant, stands beside the coffin of the man. She gives birth to a fully-matured yet malformed man and abandons him in the wilderness.

After wandering across the barren landscape, he encounters a tribe of nomads who seize him by his umbilical cord. Upon being captured, he vomits what appears to be organs, which the nomads excitedly accept as gifts. He is then led by the nomads through a rocky hillside, stopping later to throw him into a fire pit where he burns to death. He is then ressurected by his mother who comforts him before they continue together across a desert plain. The nomads later appear and attack him as his mother stands nearby in a trance-like state.

The nomads soon turn their attention to her, knocking her to the ground. They sexually assault and murder her while her son lies injured nearby. Once the nomads are satisfied, they leave and large robed figures arrive to carry away her mutilated remains. They travel to a gorge where they harvest jars of clay. The robed men then cut the mother's body into small pieces, crush her bones, and place it all into the jars. With the grisly act complete, they abduct and murder her son, repeating the same process and burying the jars into the crust of the earth. Over time, the burial site becomes lush with flowers and crops as a montage of photographs depicting the robed god is shown. In the final scene, mother and son appear, wandering through a forested path as the cycle begins again.

Cast

[edit]
  • Brian Salzberg as God Killing Himself:
A mysterious, robed entity who disembowels himself with a straight razor. He is also the father of Mother Earth and Son of Earth.
A female entity. She is the mother of Son of Earth, whom she conceived via artificial insemination.
  • Stephen Charles Barry as Son of Earth (Captioned as Flesh on Bone):
The deformed, convulsing son of Mother Earth and God Killing Himself. Barry later reprised his role in the film's sequel, Din of Celestial Birds, which was also written and directed by Merhige.[8]

Members of Merhige's theater company Theatreofmaterial – which included Adolpho Vargas, Arthur Streeter, Daniel Harkins, Erik Slavin, James Gandia, Michael Phillips, and Terry Andersen – are credited as the Nomads and Robed Figures.[2]

Production

[edit]

Development and pre-production

[edit]

The writing for Begotten was all Vision material, or whatever you want to call it, and I used those parts that scared me, or that I just couldn't understand—the parts that stuck with me for days and forced me to wonder where within me did this come from? A tableau of the unknown was important to me. Then it was a matter of arranging this material as a myth. That was important, too. It began as a personal myth and ended as a collective myth, a myth of everyone involved in making the film.[9]

Edmund Elias Merhige on the development of the film's script

Begotten was written, produced, and directed by Merhige,[4][10] who had studied at State University of New York, developing an interest in the theater after attending several performances while in Manhattan. According to Merhige, he was intrigued by the theatre performers' enactment of a highly visualized form of storytelling through dramatic movement, provoking what he described as "an otherworldly response". He was particularly fascinated by the performances of the Japanese butoh dance troupe Sankai Juku,[11] who were known for blending grotesque imagery with a transgressive dance style.[12] Attending these performances, Merhige was fascinated by the degree of personal and professional interconnectivity among its core members—knowing everything about one another and engaging in a more personal and intimate level of interaction.[11] Merhige founded Theatreofmaterial, a small experimental theatre production company based in New York City, with the intention of creating a similar group dynamic.[11][13]

The development of Begotten, according to Merhige, commenced sometime in the mid-to-late 1980s;[14] although some sources have given the start date as 1984.[15] The initial concept was described by Merhige as a dance production at the Lincoln Center, performed with a live orchestral accompaniment.[14] The concept was personal to Merhige, representing his attempt to express the thoughts and ideas he had at the time.[16] After discovering that it would cost a quarter of a million dollars to produce,[14] Merhige instead decided to make a motion picture.[14] This change in format allowed Merhige the opportunity to document the company's work, as many of its performers were transitioning outside the company to pursue other interests.[9]

Merhige developed the script with members of Theatreofmaterial, who worked as both cast and crew during production. They decided that the film should be silent,[9] and opted to abandon the traditional narrative structure of films in favour of an experimental story.[17] The latter decision came in part from Merhige's frustration with storytelling through exposition and the limitations that he believed dialogue imposed upon narration.[17] Merhige and Theatreofmaterial strove to evoke what the director called "emotions on the fringes", avoided, they felt, by most directors and performers.[9] In preparation for scriptwriting, Merhige and members from Theatreofmaterial performed ritual breathing exercises. Describing the process of "breath[ing] to the point of hysteria", Merhige states that the group followed up this by discussing these experiences, filtering these emotions into something he could replicate for the film. He then brought portions of the script to the cast members and began a process of rehearsals, followed by group discussion and reflection on the material as it took shape.[9] Merhige, a former painter and visual artist, was heavily influenced by the fine arts, with paintings by Hieronymus Bosch, Edvard Munch, and Francisco Goya having a significant impact upon him in the film's early developmental stages.[18] The philosophical concepts of Antonin Artaud and Friedrich Nietzsche, which Merhige felt had not been fully explored on film, served as further points of influence. The script's first draft was completed in six months.[14]

Over four-and-a-half months, the group developed the script's abstract ideas into more concrete, enactable scenes, committing to extensive rehearsals during this period. Merhige has said that these rehearsals were focused on group cohesion rather than precise choreography, enabling the actors to get 'in tune' with their characters.[9] Merhige further strove to imbue the film with the tribal and ritual aspects associated with alchemy and hermeticism. To achieve this, he and the cast experimented with hypnosis and meditation.[19]

Filming

[edit]

Principal photography began in the mid-to-late 1980s[14] and lasted for a period between three and five-and-a-half months.[9] Merhige assumed multiple roles during the production, including cinematography and special effects,[14][20] and used a 16 mm Arriflex camera on black-and-white reversal film.[13][14] Celia Bryant,[21] who had worked on the set of the films Greased Lightning (1977) and I, the Jury (1982), is credited as the film's costume designer.[22] Begotten was made on a budget of around thirty-three thousand dollars.[23] The cast and crew were given room and board but were paid little to nothing.[24][25] The film was funded by Merhige's grandfather, who had set Merhige up with a trust fund for medical school.[c] Additional costs were paid by Merhige from the income he received while working multiple jobs as a special effects artist.[14][24]

The opening passage depicting God disemboweling himself, while the shots of Mother Earth emerging from his remains was the first to be filmed.[24] Most of the film was shot at a construction site on the border between New York City and New Jersey, where Merhige was permitted to shoot for twenty days when construction crews were not working. Members of the construction site occasionally assisted the film crew by constructing landscapes when shots of mountains were needed.[6][14][28] Scenes involving time-lapses of sunrises and sunsets were shot by the director,[6] who spent two days in the mountains near Santa Fe or Albuquerque, while additional sequences of plants sprouting from the earth were filmed from inside a large terrarium Merhige had constructed. Merhige characterized the atmosphere during production as a powerful, almost ceremonial experience that was "life-changing" for those involved.[14] As filming concluded, Merhige had difficulties moving on from the project, describing a sense of mourning and the loss of an emotional high.[16]

Post-production

[edit]
A long shot depicting the sillouette of six figures kneeling before a seventh figure
The film's decayed aesthetic was achieved through intense processing using an optical printer. Each minute required eight to ten hours of labor to process.

Merhige intended the visuals to have a decayed look, as if the film was an artifact damaged and degraded by time and wear.[29] He was interested in crafting imagery through analog format.[16] Prior to Begotten, Merhige had worked as a special effects designer for various companies, including a brief job for a Disney television series that involved the animation technique of rotoscoping. This experience gave him the technical knowledge needed to handle the film's post-production and visual effects on his own.[14][24][30] Concepts such as audience perception and how imagery is processed, were important in crafting the film's visual style, as they challenged the viewer's interpretation of what is depicted on the screen.[31] Merhige set out his goals when creating Begotten's visual style by saying:

I wanted Begotten to look, not as if it were from the twenties, not even as if it were from the nineteenth century, but as if it were from the time of Christ, as if it were a cinematic Dead Sea Scroll that had been buried in the sands, a remnant of a culture with customs and rites that no longer apply to this culture, yet are somewhere underneath it, under the surface of what we call "reality."[32][33]

Filmic influences for Begotten's visual style identified by Merhige include The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Blood of the Beasts (1949), Seven Samurai (1954), and The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes (1971).[34] He also listed the cinematic works of Andrzej Munk, Sergei Eisenstein, and Luis Buñuel, all known for their unconventional style, as additional points of influence.[4] Other possible influences identified by critics include David Lynch's Eraserhead (1977),[35] Dimitri Kirsanoff's Ménilmontant (1926), and Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), as well as tribal art, ethnographic studies, and the paintings of Piero della Francesca.[13] Visual underminings from 1930s horror films, such as intertitles, was also commented on by David Annwn Jones, who wrote that it was utilized to express its own set of evolving visual ideas and techniques.[36]

Before and during Begotten's shooting, Merhige experimented with different types of film to achieve the look he wanted. In one experiment, he ran an unexposed negative against sandpaper to scratch its surface before shooting on the damaged reel.[14] Unsatisfied with the results, Merhige decided on an optical printer for further processing.[16] He was unable to find an optical printer priced within his budget, so he built one himself.[24][37][38] The printer was constructed in eight months[14][24][37] with spare parts from camera stores and special effects houses where he had worked.[14][24][37]

The production process was time-consuming, with each minute of footage generated by the optical printer taking between eight and ten hours to complete.[24][37] Once a test shot was sent to the laboratory for development, minuscule mistakes in calibration sometimes ruined the shot, meaning the process had to be restarted.[24] Merhige began asking laboratories if they were willing to adjust their usual development procedures to his custom specifications, but was repeatedly turned away. Eventually, he found a small studio willing to accommodate his requests: Kin-O-Lux Labs, owned by Fred Schreck.[d] Merhige quickly developed a friendship with Schreck, who allowed the director to use the laboratory to develop the footage while teaching him how to develop footage by hand.[1] At one point during the editing process, Merhige enlisted his father's input on certain scenes, stating that his father was "very open-minded" to the project.[39] Results of the "rephotography" process removed almost all of the gray midtones from the visible spectrum, leaving only extreme contrasts of black and white on the film reel.[16] Merhige used similar "rephotography" techniques for segments of his next film, Shadow of the Vampire (2001).[38][40]

Music and sound effects

[edit]

Begotten does not contain any dialogue, apart from its opening intertitles.[41] Merhige envisioned "a time that predates spoken language" in which "communication is made on a sensory level".[42][43] The soundtrack and sound effects were composed and mixed by Evan Albam, who, prior to Begotten, had not composed professionally. Merhige and Albam spent a year working on the soundtrack, crafting the right balance of visual and audio cues.[14] The music is ambient and dirge-like, and enhanced by natural sounds such as bird calls, insect noises, and the sounds of a heartbeat.[18][44] In 2016, the former March Violets band member-turned-composer Tom Ashton said that he was working with Merhige on an "audio reimagining" of Begotten's soundtrack. As of 2023, there have been no new updates on its outcome.[45]

Analysis

[edit]

Begotten has been analyzed by critics and scholars who have written on their interpretations of the film. According to the Ryerson University professor Carolyn L. Kane, the grainy and decayed visual style of Begotten is an allegory to the viewer's uncertainty. As Kane argues, the film's ambiguity intentionally invites differing interpretations from the viewer of what she described as "the hermeneutic of the image".[46] However, Merhige has said that he intentionally incorporated certain mythic and existential themes into the film.[16][47]

Death and rebirth

[edit]

Language Bearers, Photographers, Diary makers
You with your memory are dead, frozen
Lost in a present that never stops passing
Here lives the incantation of matter
A language forever.
Like a flame burning away the darkness
Life is flesh on bone convulsing above the ground.

— The opening intertitle for the film, suggesting the film's themes of life and death.[2]

Some critics have suggested that Begotten contains underlying motifs of death and rebirth.[i] According to Elaine Dutka, these potential themes might have been inspired by a near-death experience Merhige suffered at the age of nineteen,[23] which, Dutka states, had left a lasting impression on Merhige.[17]

Throughout the film, the three main characters are subjected to acts of extreme violence. The author and independent filmmaker John Kenneth Muir described these depictions of suffering, death, and rebirth as something imbued within the Son of Earth character and his journey. Muir argues that the character's mistreatment can be seen as a parallel to mankind's "painful" toil of the earth for the planting of crops, and as an allegory to the bringing forth of life through great suffering. The film's characters also represented, according to Muir, certain aspects of mankind and the earth itself, with the depictions of life, death, and renewal symbolizing the four seasons.[48] This thematic description of the film and its characters was echoed by Merhige himself, who states that the characters and events depicted in the film were metaphors for life and the struggle of mankind with itself and nature.[6]

The film studies scholar William E.B. Verrone argues that viewers are encouraged to mourn the film's characters through the agony and torment inflicted upon them. according to Verrone, the viewer is symbolically "offered salvation" in Begotten's visualization of the blossoming flowers on the characters' graves.[49] Narrative motifs symbolizing death and decay were also identified by Jason Wood, who stated that the film's "evocation of the body as the source of horror and decay" was redolent of the surrealist works by Buñuel and Lynch. Wood compared the film's grainy look and landscapes to the recurring themes of hopelessness and desolation in the works of the Russian filmmaker Aleksandr Sokurov.[50]

Religion, mythology, and the occult

[edit]
A depiction of Mother Earth, a goat and wolf breastfeeding human children
The film is known for its mythological/religious themes including the character of Mother Earth, which is loosely based on the deity of the same name and Mary, mother of Jesus.

Begotten has been highlighted by authors and critics for its incorporation of religious and mythological imagery and themes, with some commenting on possible connections to Christian mythology, Celtic mythology, Slavic paganism, and various creation myths.[4][39][51] Merhige, himself, was a believer in alchemy and hermeticism,[52][53] and has said that the film was deliberately arranged to appear as part of a mythology.[9][14] According to Film Comment's Robert DiMatteo, a "God's eye" is applied to the film's human characters, with their movement and behavior comparable to insects; they move in "the way [that] ants move when they carry food up a hill".[13] Verrone argues that Begotten's storyline was founded on ancient mythologies, recounting the birth of a divine entity and their subsequent suffering, describing the film's premise as "a cryptic passion play about Earth's birth and torture".[54] The media scholars Penny Papageorgopoulou and Dimitris Charitos argued that Begotten's interweaved mythologies were used to establish the relation between humanity, earth, and religion. Through this mixture of myth and religion, they said, Begotten represented mankind's mistreatment of the Earth. While human in representation, Papageorgopoulou and Charitos state that the film's characters were given a set of "inhuman" characteristics in reference to the Genesis creation narrative and Egyptian mythology.[55]

The film's opening sequence has been the focus of some publications, who have written on its symbolic qualities. Marc Savlov described the plot as an allegory of the death and rebirth of god,[56] with similarities to creation mythologies depicting the death and dismemberment of a primordial being, whose violent act brings forth the creation of the universe.[57] The art historian Herbert S. Lindenberger suggested that the film's narrative is a reworking of early writings on creation mythology published by social anthropologist and folklorist Sir James Frazer, who intended to shock his readers with what Lindenberger described as "the savagery of their ancestors". Motifs which include the concepts of the "buried god", and the Mother Earth characters, were, as Lindenberger wrote, symbolic mirrors to Christianity with allusions to Christ and his resurrection, and Mary, mother of Jesus.[58] In his review of the film, Richard Corliss argued that the film 'enacts a biblical narrative through the lens of Druidism',[42][59] with the stories of Genesis, Nativity, and Christ's torture/death retold in a ritualistic fashion that was both steeped in Christianity and Druidism.[49][59][60] Ernest Mathijs and Jamie Sexton have argued that the film "makes perhaps the most serious attempt to visualize elements of Dionysian orgiastic cultism in combination with Gnostic and pagan myths".[61]

Its narrative correlation to early creationism was further written upon by Ted Knighton, who described Begotten as the representation of the very act of creation itself. Stating that many of its thematic elements, such as the sound and visual aspects, were an invitation for viewers to participate in 'putting the pieces together' for the film's narrative.[62] On the film's narrative structure, Scott MacDonald states the allegorical plot represented many of the popular attitudes towards the origins of life and religion at the time of its release,[6] and told in the transgressive style of Viennese Actionism.[11]

Release

[edit]

Distribution

[edit]

Once editing for Begotten was completed, Merhige spent two years trying to find a distributor willing to release it.[14] Merhige screened the film to possible distributors but most refused as it did not fit into a specific genre, making it difficult to market.[31] He said that at first "everyone laughed at me, saying 'We don't know what this is...'"[60] Merhige took it to several museums; only two showed interest, but he turned both down as he felt that they were not the right choice. As a result, he became very protective of the film, and after only screened it to people he felt he could trust.[31]

Through these private screenings, film critics Tom Luddy and Peter Scarlet became fascinated by its visual style.[13] Although uncertain how it might be received, they put together several screenings at the San Francisco International Film Festival followed by a showing for the critic Susan Sontag.[1][63] Sontag held a private screening at her home and became one of Begotten's leading advocates, and was instrumental setting up its eventual theatrical release.[14] Sontag took a copy to the Berlin Film Festival where she informally screened it to interested cinéastes, describing it as a masterpiece.[64] During one of her screenings, it was supposedly viewed by director Werner Herzog, whom Merhige said was "very supportive of the film".[14]

Theatrical screenings

[edit]
The exterior of a cinema
The US premiere of Begotten occurred at the 1990 San Francisco International Film Festival, where it was screened at the Japantown Kabuki 8 multiplex (pictured in 2005).[65]

Unable to find a distributor, Begotten did not attain either wide or limited theatrical release. However, it became a popular underground film, as a film released outside of conventional commercial channels, especially one with subversive or transgressive content.[66][67] Lacking a standard theatrical release, Merhige booked one-off screenings at various film festivals and art museums.[68]

The earliest public screening took place at the Goethe-Institut in Montreal on October 24, 1989, as part of the Montreal World Film Festival.[69][70][71] It had three screenings from May 5–7 at the 1990 San Francisco International Film Festival,[65] marking its premiere in the United States.[13] It also premiered later that year in New York at the Museum of Modern Art,[ii] on October 22 with Merhige introducing the film, followed by a post-screening discussion with the audience.[75] On March 22, 1991, it was screened in New Mexico's Center for Contemporary Arts, with Merhige in attendance.[76] New York City's Film Forum also screened the film on June 5, 1991.[44][73][74] It was exhibited at the Stadtkino Theater in Vienna in 1992, as a part of a retrospective of American independent cinema titled "Unknown Territories",[77] and at the Berlin Film Festival in the early to mid – 1990s.[14] Its final screenings that decade were in 1996 at "The Alternative Screen: A Forum for Independent Film Exhibition & Beyond",[78] and American Cinematheque's "Alternate Screen" series.[79]

Since the mid-2010s, Begotten has appeared at multiple film festivals. The first took place in October 2014 at Brooklyn's Spectacle Theater as a part of its annual "Spectober" film event.[80][81] The film appeared at the third annual horror film festival SpectreFest on October 28, 2015, along with its spiritual sequel Din of Celestial Birds, which was followed by an onstage discussion with Merhige.[82][83] The film was shown at the Music Box Theatre in Midtown Manhattan on September 25, 2016, during its 25th Anniversary celebration, where it was screened from Merhige's personal 16mm print. It was presented as a double-feature alongside the director's other film Shadow of the Vampire, and followed by a Q&A with Merhige.[84] The film was later screened at the Short Film Festival in London on January 8, 2017, where it was shown again in its original 16mm format, accompanied by a live music score from the film.[85] It was screened on October 17, 2019, at the Rice Media Center, as part of a celebration of "Low-Fi" Analog film series.[86] It had its more recent screening on March 29, 2022, at Cinemateca Portuguesa in Lisbon.[87]

Home media and bootlegs

[edit]
Topside of a VHS tape
Begotten was released on VHS in 1995. The film is currently out of print, though widely bootlegged.

Begotten received a limited home media distribution after its theatrical release;[61] copies of the film are currently out of print and difficult to acquire on secondhand markets.[42] Merhige had not intended the film to be released on home video, initially stating that he disliked the concept of home video. He eventually changed his mind and felt that the original soundtrack mix—the sound of with which he had not been happy with—, could be enhanced through the medium.[34] The film was briefly released on VHS[14][88] in 1995 by World Artists Home Video.[iii] It was given a limited DVD release by World Artists on February 20, 2001,[93] and included a souvenir booklet, the original theatrical trailer, rare and never-before-seen movie stills, and production photos.[94][95] World Artists' DVD release of the film was listed by Film Comment's Gavin Smith as the ninth of his "Top 10 DVD Picks".[96]

Due to the film's scarcity on home media, fans began to circulate copies via bootleg copies and digital piracy.[97] These unlicensed copies helped the film to gain more exposure, and soon overtook legal means of distribution in volume.[98][99] The film is typically encountered via ambiguously legal methods, a situation which—according to Mathijs and Sexton—fostered a "copy-cult" that enhanced its cult status.[7] The film was banned in Singapore due to its graphic and disturbing content.[56]

On July 29 2016, Merhige announced that the film would be released on Blu-ray in the fall of that year[100] but the deal fell through. A second announcement,[63][84] scheduled for a 25th-anniversary screening alongside Shadow of the Vampire at Music Box Theatre in Midtown Manhattan, also fell through.[84] As of 2023, Begotten is still awaiting an optical restoration and upscaling from its original 16mm format.[101]

Reception

[edit]
A woman sitting
Susan Sontag (pictured in 1979) was one of the main advocates for Begotten and helped ensure the film's release.

Begotten has received little to no attention from film critics, with most mainstream reviewers ignoring the film entirely.[42] Merhige was initially afraid that audiences might misunderstand certain parts, or the entire film altogether, "When I finished the film, I felt sure it would be misunderstood and consigned to the underground again. I see it as a very serious, very beautiful work of art, but when it was first finished, I was always thinking, 'What if everybody just laughs? What if they don't see anything in it?' There is always that possibility."[31] Reactions to the film upon its release were extremely polarized, but Merhige has stated that he remains grateful for starting his career with the film.[102]

Limited reviews of the film were mixed to positive, with some critics praising the film's unique visual style and resonating themes, while commenting on its graphic violence.[8] Susan Sontag—one of the leading advocates for the film—praised it, referring to it as "a metaphysical splatter film"[17] and "one of the 10 most important films of modern times".[103] In his 1991 review, Joe Kane of the New York Daily News praised the film's minimalist soundtrack, visuals, and its subversion of traditional narrative structure.[44] Newsday's Jon Anderson awarded it his highest score of four stars, lauding what he felt was its deconstruction of the barriers of dream and reality, bestowing additional acclaim towards its exploration of the human condition through its unconventional style.[104] Marc Savlov from the Austin Chronicle called the film "Experimental, haunting, dreamlike, and intentionally confounding", further writing on the film's grainy visuals, and horrific imagery as having an influence on the VHS sequences in The Ring series, and the works of Guy Maddin.[56] In their annual publication of The Video Movie Guide, the authors Mick Martin and Marsha Porter rated Begotten their highest score of four stars, praising its uniqueness, while commenting that viewers would either 'love or hate it'.[105]

The Courier commented that the film "goes beyond convention" in its storytelling.[106] Jackson Hole News described the film as 'an accurate portrayal of the religious attitudes and ideas of the Dark Ages'.[107] Jonathan Rosenbaum at the Chicago Reader called it a "remarkable if extremely upsetting" film, applauding the originality of its visuals, but cautioned that its graphic violence was not for the squeamish or the faint of heart.[15] The Christian Science Monitor's, David Sterritt compared it favorably to Samuel Beckett's novel How It Is in regards to its symbolism and narrative structure. Sterritt also commented that the film's claustrophobic atmosphere, and dark narrative were hard to stomach but equally entrancing overall.[108]

Although some critics were favorable towards its visuals and narrative themes, others have criticized these same elements, in addition to its brutal violence and running time.[109] Awarding it two and a half out of a possible four stars, John Kenneth Muir felt its narrative was better suited as a short subject rather than a feature film, despite its admittedly powerful imagery and originality.[109] Echoing this sentiment, the Polish journalist Bartłomiej Paszylk thought the first half was compelling and genuinely frightening, but further commented that its narrative could have been accomplished at a much shorter length.[110] Its graphic violence and visuals were criticized by Janet Maslin of The New York Times, who described it as "too grotesque" to engage its audience, regardless of its unique narrative.[4]

Legacy

[edit]

Since the start of the 21st century, Begotten has gained more exposure through its availability online through various streaming platforms such as YouTube helping it receive a wider audience.[28] It has gradually developed a cult following[23][111][112] and is considered by some to be the director's masterpiece.[42][102][113] As one critic wrote, Begotten "earned its reputation as an endlessly provocative and mystifying experience always centuries ahead of the rest of American cinema".[114] In his 2014 book Disorders of Magnitude: A Survey of Dark Fantasy, the author Jason V. Brock wrote that Begotten was his seventh favorite work of radio, film, or television production.[115] It was listed in the 2011 book 100 Cult Films by Ernest Mathijs and Xavier Mendik[42] over Mendik's objections, as he felt that its following was too small to merit inclusion. However, it ultimately made it in because, to Mathijs, the film's following represented "the real sectarian cult; it's a very small committed group of people. It's like a secret handshake that goes worldwide. If you've seen Begotten, you're in that cult."[116] Over the years, several sources have erroneously reported Time as ranking Begotten in its top-ten list of either 1990 or 1991, but the film was not included in either year.[e]

Though initially mixed in his response to the film, Muir has since called Begotten "one of the most disturbing films ever made".[118] Natalia Keogan of Paste described the film as one of the best and the most unsettling avante-garde films.[28] Several publications selected it as one of the most disturbing films of all time, including Highsnobiety (2016),[119] Entertainment Weekly (2017),[103] Screen Rant (2019),[120] NME (2023),[121] Similarly, Begotten has been ranked in several top film lists, including number four by Joblo.com (2012),[122] and Nylon (2017);[123] number twenty by GamesRadar+ in 2018;[124] and number twenty-three by Complex Magazine in 2021.[125] Publications such as Collider and MovieWeb have placed it in their top avant-garde/experimental films,[126][127] with the later describing it as an 'unforgettable experiment in horror'.[127] In 2024, MovieWeb included it in a list of "The 40 Scariest Movies of All Time".[128]

The film helped provide a foundation for Merhige to continue his filmmaking career.[14] A decade after Begotten's release, Merhige directed Shadow of the Vampire.[129] Nicolas Cage, a co-producer of Shadow of the Vampire, advocated hiring Merhige to direct the project based on his positive impression of Begotten.[iv]

Merhige was later hired by the singer Marilyn Manson to direct music videos for his songs "Antichrist Superstar" and "Cryptorchid", the latter utilizing imagery incorporated from Begotten.[114][132][133][134] Manson was a huge admirer of Begotten,[1][110] having the album's art designer P. R. Brown watch the film for inspiration while developing cover art for the album.[134] When preparing to adapt the album into a music video, Manson personally contacted Merhige to ask him if he was willing to direct the music video for his song "Cryptorchid".[110] Manson has stated that Begotten was played on a loop during the entire recording for his album Antichrist Superstar.[60][135] The music video for "Cryptorchid" premiered at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 1997 where it won a Golden Gate Certificate of Merit Award.[1][136][137] It was subsequently barred from release by Interscope Records, whom Manson claimed were "appalled by it" due to its fascist iconography, namely the Nuremberg rallies and images of a Ku Klux Klan lynching. "Antichrist Superstar" was also beset with troubles and remained unreleased until it was leaked on YouTube in 2010.[133][137]

Influence

[edit]

Begotten has influenced several avant-garde and experimental films, and is cited by several artists as inspiration.[114][120] Michael Pope's 2001 experimental film Neovoxer has been compared to Begotten as it contains a similar visual style and "impressionistic mythology".[113] According to Panos Cosmatos, the flashback sequences in his 2010 film Beyond the Black Rainbow were directly inspired by Begotten. When interviewed by CHUD.com's Joshua Miller, Cosmatos said that he wanted the flashback sequences to "have the look and feel of an artifact that was in the process of deterioration", and that Begotten's visual style was the perfect look for these sequences.[138] Kyle Turner from Mubi.com described the 2015 experimental film Ville Marie as being very similar to Merhige's film in terms of cinematic style and use of reverse-exposure.[139]

Some scenes in Can Evrenol's 2015 surrealist horror film Baskin were compared to Begotten.[140] James Quinn's 2017 experimental horror film Flesh of the Void was described by several critics as being similar to Merhige's film in style and narrative.[141] However, Quinn himself stated, in an interview with Nightmare on Film Street, that he felt his film did not fall into the same category.[142] Certain scenes from Blake Williams' 2018 avant-garde science fiction film Prototype were compared to Begotten by Glenn Kenny of The New York Times.[143] Jimmy Joe Roche's 2018 experimental short film, Skin of Man, was also said to have been influenced by Begotten.[144]

The film's influence has also extended to musicians. As the scholar Andrew M. Whelan wrote, cult and underground films such as Begotten often share the same thematic style as power electronics, a form of noise music noted for its lack of conventional rhythm, often inviting strong reactions from both listeners and critics in a manner the reminiscent of Merhige's film.[145] In 1997, Swedish heavy metal band Katatonia released their third album Sounds of Decay, which featured a screenshot of Begotten as its front cover artwork. In an interview with webzine Chronicles of Chaos, band member Jonas Renkse recalled the idea behind the inclusion of the image came out a conversation with a member of the record label Avantgarde Music.[146] In the promotional video for their 2001 song "Sterile Nails and Thunderbowels", the Swedish black metal band Silencer used clips from Begotten interspersed with their own original footage.[147] The American music artist Zola Jesus listed the film as a major inspiration for her 2017 music album Okovi, stating in an interview with ARTnews that during the development of the album, she played the film on loop in order to help with Okovi's audio and visual aesthetic.[148] For their experimental musical composition Frankenstein Bemshi! at the 2018 Rochester Fringe Festival, the performers Dave Esposito and G. E. Schwartz mixed portions of Begotten with the 1910 film Frankenstein, accompanied by live guitar music, electronic soundscapes, spoken narration, and with poetry added as text to the movie's image.[149] The heavy metal magazine Decibel compared the music video for the Texas gothic rock band Sword Collector's single "Inherit the Scepter" to Begotten and Ari Aster's 2019 folk horror film Midsommar.[150]

Sequels

[edit]

Begotten is the first in a trilogy of films described by Merhige and media outlets as The Begotten Cycle, a series of short film sequels delving into different aspects of creation mythology and mysticism.[151][152][153]

Din of Celestial Birds

[edit]

The first sequel is Din of Celestial Birds, a 14-minute short film.[42] As with Begotten, Merhige was the writer, director, and producer. It was funded by the Q6 production group, a collective of philosophers and artists. Merhige's principal inspiration came from silent films such as Jean Cocteau's Blood of a Poet (1930), Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), and the works of Auguste and Louis Lumière.[8] Merhige intended to depict "creation in its simplest and purest form".[8] Focusing on the theory of evolution as opposed to religion and mythology,[154] it opens with an intertitle that reads: "Hello and welcome ... do not be afraid ... be comforted ... remember ... our origin...", followed by images depicting the Big Bang. Then, after a hyper-accelerated trip through the evolution of life and the Earth, it culminates in the birth of an embryonic pseudo-humanoid named the Son of Light (Stephen Charles Barry) who reaches towards the sky as the scene fades to a shot of the Earth. Din of Celestial Birds premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on September 6, 2006.[155] It was later screened on Turner Classic Movies on September 15th.[8] The film was also screened at the European Media Art Festival in 2009 as a part of that year's theme, "The Future Lasts Longer Than The Past".[156] It was later screened alongside its predecessor at the SpectreFest Film Festival in 2015.[82]

Polia & Blastema: A Cosmic Opera

[edit]

Merhige's trilogy later concluded with the 40-minute short film Polia & Blastema: A Cosmic Opera, alternately titled Polia & Blastema: A Metaphysical Fable, marking the director's first operatic effort.[101][157] The film is a collaborative effort between Merhige, fellow director David Wexler and the musician Gavin Gamboa,[158] through the production companies Century Guild Creative, Strangeloop Studios, and The Teaching Machine. Inspiration for the film came from the short-lived transgressive art movement Viennese Actionism, in addition to philosopher Eugene Thacker's notions of supernatural horror and dissolution known as "[a] world-without-us".[159] Production for the film began in mid-2016, after a successful Kickstarter campaign.[160]

Described as "a gnostic creation myth" in promotional material for its premiere screening, the film incorporates several different genres, including fantasy and science fiction in the series' typically grainy, black-and-white visual style.[158] The story follows two otherworldly beings (Nina McNeely, and Jasmine Albuquerque) who believe themselves to be a single entity separated by unknown circumstances, as they journey through a desolate and hellish landscape. Through their quest across space and time, they discover more about themselves and are finally reunited. Embracing, the two beings 'become one' as they devour each other in ritualistic ecstasy, merging in an act that transforms them into a new deity.[53][161]

It premiered at the Opera Philadelphia's Opera on Film Festival on September 30, 2022.[161][162][163] It was later screened at Offscreen Film Festival, as a part of their The Screen of the Sky series, in the Brussels Planetarium, alongside Begotten and Din of Celestial Birds, on March 26, 2023.[164] The entire "Begotten Cycle" was screened at the 2023 L'Etrange Festival in Paris, beginning on September 9 and concluding on September 17.[152][165] On November 4th, Polia & Blastema made its official premiere in the United Kingdom at the Leeds International Film Festival, where it was screened alongside the entire trilogy followed by a Q & A with Merhige.[166] At the end on the year, on December 16, 2023, it was screened at the 17th Annual Film Mutations Film Festival in Croatia, with the previous entries in the series.[101][167]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]

Footnotes

[edit]
  1. ^ Attributed to multiple references:[1][13][19][23]
  2. ^ Attributed to multiple references:[72][71][73][74]
  3. ^ Attributed to multiple references:[89][90][91][92]
  4. ^ Attributed to multiple references:[14][40][130][131]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ Alternately worded as Theatre of Material.[1]
  2. ^ Several media outlets have alternately reported the 1990 and 1991 film festival screenings as its first release.[3][4][5]
  3. ^ A total of approximately $20,000.[24][26] adjusted for inflation to $48,000 in 2024.[27]
  4. ^ No relation to famed German actor Max Schreck, the subject of Merhige's later film Shadow of the Vampire.[1]
  5. ^ Fangoria, Filmmaker, and author Bartłomiej Paszylk claimed that Time listed Begotten among the best films of 1990.[1][16][117] Los Angeles Times and the film's DVD packaging claimed it had been listed in 1991.[23][94]

Citations

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Stephens 2000.
  2. ^ a b c Merhige 1989.
  3. ^ Geritz 2006.
  4. ^ a b c d e Maslin 1991.
  5. ^ Sterritt 2000, p. 35.
  6. ^ a b c d e MacDonald 1998, p. 290.
  7. ^ a b Mathijs & Sexton 2011, pp. 35, 140.
  8. ^ a b c d e Turner Classic Movies 2006.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h MacDonald 1998, p. 286.
  10. ^ Lentz 1994, p. 308.
  11. ^ a b c d MacDonald 1998, p. 285.
  12. ^ Perron 2013, pp. 120–121.
  13. ^ a b c d e f g DiMatteo 1991, p. 2.
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Essman 2009.
  15. ^ a b Rosenbaum 1995.
  16. ^ a b c d e f g Beahm 2013, p. 32.
  17. ^ a b c d Dutka 2004b, p. 67.
  18. ^ a b Hart 1992, p. 39.
  19. ^ a b Ferrier 2023.
  20. ^ Quigley 2007, p. 325.
  21. ^ Willis 2000, p. 160.
  22. ^ Stockley 1999, p. 371.
  23. ^ a b c d e Dutka 2004a, p. 51.
  24. ^ a b c d e f g h i j MacDonald 1998, p. 287.
  25. ^ Edwards 2007, p. 20.
  26. ^ Malcolm 1994, p. 43.
  27. ^ Consumer Price Index 2024.
  28. ^ a b c Keogan 2021.
  29. ^ Seibold 2022.
  30. ^ Hanson 2010, p. 188.
  31. ^ a b c d MacDonald 1998, p. 291.
  32. ^ MacDonald 1998, p. 288.
  33. ^ Verrone 2012, p. 155.
  34. ^ a b MacDonald 1998, p. 292.
  35. ^ Snyder 2011.
  36. ^ Jones 2018, p. 138.
  37. ^ a b c d Hoberman 2003, p. 91.
  38. ^ a b Kaufman 2001.
  39. ^ a b MovieMaker 2007.
  40. ^ a b Atkinson 2000, p. 28.
  41. ^ Mathijs 2017, p. 20.
  42. ^ a b c d e f g Mathijs 2017, pp. 20–21.
  43. ^ Mathijs & Sexton 2011, p. 163.
  44. ^ a b c Kane 1991, p. 39.
  45. ^ Ashton 2016.
  46. ^ Kane 2019, p. 197.
  47. ^ MacDonald 1998, p. 289.
  48. ^ Muir 2011, p. 141.
  49. ^ a b Verrone 2012, p. 157.
  50. ^ Wood 2002, p. 374.
  51. ^ Stephanou 2019, p. 79.
  52. ^ Riefe 2020.
  53. ^ a b Riefe 2021.
  54. ^ Verrone 2012, p. 154.
  55. ^ Papageorgopoulou & Charitos 2021, pp. 110–111.
  56. ^ a b c Savlov 2009.
  57. ^ Leonard & McClure 2003, pp. 32–33.
  58. ^ Aldama & Lindenberger 2016, p. 165.
  59. ^ a b Corliss 1991, p. 69.
  60. ^ a b c Beahm 2013, p. 33.
  61. ^ a b Mathijs & Sexton 2011, p. 140.
  62. ^ Knighton 2021.
  63. ^ a b Nicolay 2016.
  64. ^ Simon 2001.
  65. ^ a b San Francisco Examiner 1990, pp. 20–21.
  66. ^ Hall 2004, p. 236.
  67. ^ Mathijs & Sexton 2011, pp. 162–163.
  68. ^ Zahedi 2001.
  69. ^ Griffin 1989a, p. 64.
  70. ^ Griffin 1989b, p. 16.
  71. ^ a b Uricchio 1994, p. 26.
  72. ^ Dubner 1990, p. 158.
  73. ^ a b Hoberman 2003, p. 90.
  74. ^ a b Prince 2002, p. 437.
  75. ^ Museum of Modern Art 1990.
  76. ^ Bowman 1991, p. 41.
  77. ^ MacDonald 1998, p. 284.
  78. ^ LA Weekly 1996, p. 84.
  79. ^ Thomas 1996, p. 75.
  80. ^ Spectacle Theatre 2014.
  81. ^ Disser 2014.
  82. ^ a b Busch 2015.
  83. ^ Moore 2015.
  84. ^ a b c DO312 2016.
  85. ^ MothClub 2017.
  86. ^ Rouner 2019.
  87. ^ Cinemateca Portuguesa 2022.
  88. ^ Bleiler 2003, p. 50.
  89. ^ Hartl 1995, p. 80.
  90. ^ Hall 1995.
  91. ^ Hart 1995, p. 80.
  92. ^ Cornell 1995, p. 85.
  93. ^ Beifuss 2001, p. 80.
  94. ^ a b World Artists 2001.
  95. ^ Henkel 2000.
  96. ^ Smith 2001, p. 78.
  97. ^ Mathijs & Sexton 2011, pp. 34–35, 140.
  98. ^ Mathijs 2017, p. 21.
  99. ^ Mathijs & Sexton 2011, p. 35.
  100. ^ Merhige 2016.
  101. ^ a b c Filmskemutacije 2023.
  102. ^ a b Chaw 2015.
  103. ^ a b Heigl 2017.
  104. ^ Anderson 1991, pp. 63, 66.
  105. ^ Martin & Porter 1997, p. 79.
  106. ^ Parker 1999, p. 44.
  107. ^ Swift 1995, p. 74.
  108. ^ Sterritt 1990, p. 11.
  109. ^ a b Muir 2011, p. 142.
  110. ^ a b c Paszylk 2009, p. 191.
  111. ^ Pendreigh 2000.
  112. ^ Newman 2002, p. 175.
  113. ^ a b James River Film Festival 2015.
  114. ^ a b c Gadre 2021.
  115. ^ Brock 2014, p. 300.
  116. ^ Lederman 2011.
  117. ^ Paszylk 2009, p. 190.
  118. ^ Muir 2023, p. 92.
  119. ^ Gibson 2016.
  120. ^ a b Wojnar 2019.
  121. ^ Bradshaw 2023.
  122. ^ Maidy 2012.
  123. ^ Manders 2017.
  124. ^ Houghton 2018.
  125. ^ Barone, Serafino & Pimentel 2018.
  126. ^ Graves 2023.
  127. ^ a b Furzan 2022.
  128. ^ MovieWeb 2024.
  129. ^ Tucker 2001, p. 103.
  130. ^ Mottram 2014.
  131. ^ Massaccesi 2015, p. 113.
  132. ^ Vari 2001, p. 43.
  133. ^ a b Preira 2011.
  134. ^ a b Bennett 2019.
  135. ^ Beckermann 2001, p. 185.
  136. ^ San Francisco Film Festival 2017.
  137. ^ a b Barkan 2015.
  138. ^ Miller 2012.
  139. ^ Turner 2014.
  140. ^ FilmStage 2016.
  141. ^ Romero 2018.
  142. ^ Derington 2017.
  143. ^ Kenny 2018.
  144. ^ Champs Elsees Film Festival 2019.
  145. ^ Whelan 2015, p. 71.
  146. ^ Chronicles of Chaos 2001.
  147. ^ Garcia 2014.
  148. ^ Jesus 2016.
  149. ^ Lubitow 2018.
  150. ^ Frasier 2020.
  151. ^ Martell 2023.
  152. ^ a b L'Etrange Festival 2023.
  153. ^ British Board of Film Classification 2023.
  154. ^ Clermont Ferrand ISFF Staff 2009, p. 189.
  155. ^ Telluride 2022.
  156. ^ Rotert 2009, p. 139.
  157. ^ Goldbart 2023.
  158. ^ a b WRTI 2022.
  159. ^ Strangeloop Studios 2023.
  160. ^ Merhige 2013.
  161. ^ a b Operaphilia 2023.
  162. ^ Brzoznowski 2023.
  163. ^ Waleson 2022.
  164. ^ Offscreen 2023.
  165. ^ Forum des Images 2023.
  166. ^ LIFF 2023.
  167. ^ Art Kino 2023.

Works cited

[edit]

Bibliography

[edit]

Media publications

[edit]

<ref name="">Derington, Anthony (September 1, 2017). "Interview: Flesh of the Void's James Quinn". Nightmare on Film Street. Archived from the original on October 14, 2019. Retrieved October 14, 2019.

Merhige, E. Elias [@eeliasmerhige] (August 8, 2016). "Chicago and Denver announced!". Archived from the original on August 21, 2020. Retrieved August 21, 2020 – via Instagram.

[edit]

Begotten

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Sequels

[edit]
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