When people think of the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, the name “Roger Corman” likely does not immediately come to mind. But, filmography aside, one would be stretched to find a man who has done more to bring great talent to American audiences.
Among those who have gotten their start working for Corman are directors Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, Francis Ford Coppola and actor Jack Nicholson. Corman’s record as a film distributor is equally astounding. He was responsible for bringing films by Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini to American audiences.
Corman was also one of the first independent directors in America, producing products for a seedy cinema underworld that consisted of the drive-ins and urban grind houses of the 1950s and 1960s. His work as a director is interesting for just this reason. Working as cheaply as possible, but also trying to make films good enough to keep people in their seats, Corman utilized every resource available to him within his budget.
In this sense, his 1959 horror comedy “A Bucket of Blood” can be taken as an exercise in economic filmmaking. The sets are minimal without being fake-looking. The lighting and other technical aspects of the film are all stripped down, and there is not a hint of extravagance during the film’s short 66 minutes. The camera work in particular is so devoid of stylistic flourishes that its lack of style becomes a style in itself, stripping the movie to its bare essence. Moving along with this economic analysis, the film works best on all the levels that don’t cost much money, i.e. scripting and acting.
In short, the film is about Walter Paisley — played by the great character actor Dick Miller, in his most substantial lead role to date — who is a busboy at a Greenwich Village coffeehouse. He idolizes the poets and artists who hang around the shop and tries to make it as a sculptor. But his attempts are in vain; at one point he attempts to force the clay into being a bust by begging it into shape (“Be a nose!”).
His luck improves when, after accidentally killing his landlady’s cat, he has a sudden burst of inspiration. Spreading clay over the cat’s body, he passes it off as an original piece of art, titled “Dead Cat,” which is an immediate success among his beatnik friends. Eventually, after a similar and more severe accident, Walter presents his next sculpture: “Murdered Man.”
At this point the film moves into something bordering on brilliance. While at first it comes off as a light satire of beatnik culture, it soon becomes more vicious and profound. As Walter’s sculptures become more grotesque, his popularity rises. Soon his murders are more willful as he tries to keep from being forgotten by the artistic elite, passed up for the next big thing.
It is rare that a low-budget exploitation film deals with the questions of morality in art. Does an artist have the right to bypass morality if his work is truly great? Are artists the only ones worth remembering? Is life only meaningful if one is creating? If so, is murder-based art a legitimate creation and hence an affirmation of one’s life?
This is not standard fare for a drive-in shocker, and what keeps it from getting bogged down in the artistic implications of the subject matter is the hilarious manner in which it is presented. The caricatures of the beatniks that inhabit the apartments and coffeehouses of the film are wonderful mockeries of members from any artistic scene.
Julian Burton is especially outrageous as the poet Maxwell Brock. His dialogue has to be heard to be believed (personal favorite: “Hands of genius have been carrying away your cups of frustration!”) The other coffeehouse customers work in the same manner. Sniveling, self-aggrandizing and pretentiously cool, Walter becomes only the latest, and most extreme, member of a group so full of itself that it believes art to be more important than life.
Corman’s whole career could be seen as one that deals with this battle against artistic pretension. His films played for popular tastes without pandering to them, and while his consistency was poor, he always tried to make the movies he wanted to make. While they often fit into popular genres, they would also often transcend those genres, becoming something more subtle and inspired.
While high-priced Hollywood products are the standard fare of the day, modern filmmakers could take a lesson from Corman. Big ideas don’t need big budgets. Maybe just a sense of humor.