I've tried to see how deep the rabbit hole goes in cinema, as well as political and sociological history. Cinema is actually a great textbook on many fields of psychology, philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, poetics, dramaturgy, satire and sexuality. It all boils down to narrative style. Tone, inflection, grammar. These are tools maybe best expressed in jazz.
Jess Franco - the director I've covered this past year - is maybe the most clear translator of his own demons and angels through an intelligent aesthetic of communist dualism and Buddhist transcendentalism. The guy so valued his freedom from censorship and commercialism and any cap on his spiritual, moral and intellectual growth that he made films "among the sinners" and castoffs that made up the Wild West that was European schlock cinema. I've used his ideology as a lens for the current climate. Did this man contribute or damage the craft of cinema?
Its hard to detect when he is simply exploiting or deconstructing a salacious subject or is fetishizing or morally engaging it. His films feature sadism, incest, hypnosis, slavery, torture and so many things that The Catholic Church branded him a Satanic figure, basically excommunicating the youngest star director from ever reaching Hollywood. So he made Z-grade films that mirrored the injustice, abuse and exploitation he suffered. He drew pictures of the dragons who slew his dream to be a knight. He sacrificed his Messianic image to battle the image of fascism that would someday enrapture world cinema's mainstream. Why? Because he was attuned, almost mystically, to the complexion of the human spirit. He had a sensitivity, a blues in him that brought together other ailing geniuses. In his collaborators and his deep cult fandom.
We ask was Jess Franco a free mason? His films make perfection depiction of not only Masonic themes, rites, symbols and stories like "generation", craftsmanship, surveillance, atonement and ascendancy, but also the feared Illuminati doppelganger image that is cultivated by their enigmatic reputation. Hypnosis, rape, sodomy, incest, pedophilia, libertine sadism, prostitution, murder, Satanism and a thousand other Illuminist references are made film to film by Franco. Was Jesus Franco a Luciferian? I've heard him say there is no singular God creator, but I never heard him disavow Man as God. I think Franco was cinema's most powerful and open occultist and warlock (or "wizard" if the term is too dark for you). Franco even claimed he was the inspiration for Yoda. Its a claim you want to believe isn't a lie. But what is the truth? Clearly he knew these groups secrets even if he never joined them.
Aesthetically his films are flawless for my enjoyment as a film-lover. But are his films moral? Certainly they are too scary, complex, offensive and demoralized for some. But does that make them less true? Does it make them "evil"? Art is probably evil in the eyes of Christians. But its not evil in the eyes of Christ. This was Jesus' point all along.
Franco depicts himself as a boogeyman to scare the ignorant and intrigue those who are teachable. And he makes no special boasts or pursuit of fame. The man practice the same humble social servitude promoted in Rudyard Kipling's poem If, the Masonic writer's ode to Freemason code.
It seems the aim of anti-Christian directors and artists (Masonic or anti-Masonic) is neither to create or be The AntiChrist but to eliminate need for Anti or Christ. To honor an open dialectic with truth and discovery not fixed in the static disintegration of dogma. Of course they are called Devils, so they must exist as private citizens. And if one falls and commits crime or dishonorable acts, they must face the same penalties as all men and women. Period. In a way, all directors are like a watchful society of enlightened artistic heroes and potential villains.
I'm not saying Jess Franco is a bad guy or a good guy. He's certainly a good artist. To my knowledge, he never did anything as wretched as Polanski or Woody Allen. After selling out his craft like a Jodorowsky, Lynch, Wells or Kubrick, he refused to stay down and became MORE prolific. He never lost sight of a positive moral message of secrecy while admitting its dangers, demons and disasters. He brought a message of magical thinking that shouldn't be bound by any one God. This is radical and blasphemous to most. But one must ask was he right or wrong? This is another Christian parallel Franco sets up in his career's narrative. It is his meta-trope.
He studied and challenged every ideology he could simply to raise questions about the human condition and any metaphysical realm of judgement beyond it. Like Lynch, he is obsessed with balancing the warring opinions on the very substance and texture of shared realism. He knows he can only express his worldview in a projection of theatrical dreams. His canvas is illuminated thought in the dark. How many learned spiritualism in film from Franco. Of course Franco followed many others with bigger names, but Jess was a gateway inside cheap populist mass media in a young technological age of movie-searching. It's such a Romantic notion of posthumous fame for a cinemist. He became the idealism of purity to the purely idealistic film fan. It's an important distinction from the other classes of notable filmmakers.
I find more and more to analyze in the deep texts of his small, quiet examples of film poetry. This is my favorite director, love him or hate me. He is simply the most advanced thinker for any class of directors. But now he is gone. And someone must try to fill his shadow.
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