Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin made this short film which is inspired by an 1882 illustration by Odilon Redon that was in turn inspired by the writing of Edgar Allan Poe. It has a kind of wild sinister fantasy about it that fascinates me. I like the way Maddin builds little sets that end up looking almost like illustrations. He also does a quick visual quote of a great old French film called L’Atalante by Jean Vigo. This is a frightening and beautiful dream film.
The University of Texas has an excellent program online called The Edgar Allen Poe Digital Collection. They’ve got digital copies of Poe manuscripts, letters, early editions, books that he owned, newspaper clippings, and photos. This image shows an edition of collected poems owned by Poe in which can be seen his handwritten notes and corrections for the publisher. Look at how pissed off he was about the word ‘Raven’ consistently appearing with a lowercase ‘r.’
Halloween is coming. What better way to prepare than by reading some Poe?
Via Boing Boing