Two Filmmakers Died Yesterday

Filmmakers Blake Edwards and Jean Rollin are dead as of yesterday. Bums me out.

Blake Edwards made Breakfast at Tiffany's in 1961, the Pink Panther films, Victor/Victoria and my favorite of his movies - "10", among many other things. He was a comic genius most of the time, whether he was writing, producing or directing, but also had a tremendous versatility, making dramatically different movies like The Days of Wine and Roses and Experiment in Terror (both 1962). He was married to Mary Poppins for goodness sakes, so he must've been doing something right.

Jean Rollin was considered the first French horror filmmaker. His debut film The Rape of the Vampire caused a literal riot when an irate audience - not knowing whether they were seeing art, horror, or crap - threw objects at the screen, tearing it down. He made several other films revolving around vampires throughout the 1970s including a personal fave called Requiem for a Vampire, The Nude Vampire, and Shiver of the Vampires. He also made a little movie called The Living Dead Girl, which is now well-known due to the Rob Zombie homage song of the same name. Night of the Hunted is good, too, and totally worth checking out. It's about people losing their memory and personalities after a radiation leak and is actually probably his most well done and accessible movie. His films overall were different, delirious, artsy, colorful, slow, ponderous, and completely insane with rampant nudity and blood, and it's a shame he won't be making any more.

So much creative energy, and now it's gone. Consider me bummed.

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