Schalcken the Painter

“Rest to the wakeful, sleep to the sleepwalkers”

Atmosphere so thick you could choke, blocking so tight it could cut off your blood supply, set design so perfect you could reach out and pluck one of the many accoutrements from the screen. Each frame a faithful ode to the golden age paintings, each progression of the story a further sinking into the inky black of negative space Schalcken doused his later paintings in. There’s moments in this, in the penumbra of the diffuse candlelight, where your mind inserts more than is there. Other times, as with Vanderhausen’s funereal arrival, the film inserts what your mind doesn’t want to comprehend. A deeply oppressive atmosphere couples with a deeply suffocating presence upon Vanderhausen’s entrance and refuses to leave; a dormant evil that perches on your shoulder and refuses to be shook loose, claws sinking ever deeper into your bloodless flesh. Even during its finale, the images are seared onto your brain à la the apparition in The Signalman. Our Devil, metallic and otherworldly, rising from his slumber and breaking the mind of our protagonist, deals one final blow to Schalcken and the audience. A visual breakdown of the almost fetishistic order we’ve had in the hour prior, a denouement that chills me more than I care to admit. 

And that’s not even getting to the structure or narration. Another time, another rewatch. I knew this was special on first viewing but I’m pretty assured in my view that this is a masterpiece. It’s a metatextual work the likes of which only Omnibus would have the balls to make at the time, or indeed since. It belongs with LGC’s pieces (he was even put up to direct this thing in very early workshopping) and that’s truly the highest compliment I can give something.

“Rest to the wakeful, sleep to the sleepwalkers”

Atmosphere so thick you could choke, blocking so tight it could cut off your blood supply, set design so perfect you could reach out and pluck one of the many accoutrements from the screen. Each frame a faithful ode to the golden age paintings, each progression of the story a further sinking into the inky black of negative space Schalcken doused his later paintings in. There’s moments in this, in the penumbra of the diffuse candlelight, where your mind inserts more than is there. Other times, as with Vanderhausen’s funereal arrival, the film inserts what your mind doesn’t want to comprehend. A deeply oppressive atmosphere couples with a deeply suffocating presence upon Vanderhausen’s entrance and refuses to leave; a dormant evil that perches on your shoulder and refuses to be shook loose, claws sinking ever deeper into your bloodless flesh. Even during its finale, the images are seared onto your brain à la the apparition in The Signalman. Our Devil, metallic and otherworldly, rising from his slumber and breaking the mind of our protagonist, deals one final blow to Schalcken and the audience. A visual breakdown of the almost fetishistic order we’ve had in the hour prior, a denouement that chills me more than I care to admit. 

And that’s not even getting to the structure or narration. Another time, another rewatch. I knew this was special on first viewing but I’m pretty assured in my view that this is a masterpiece. It’s a metatextual work the likes of which only Omnibus would have the balls to make at the time, or indeed since. It belongs with LGC’s pieces (he was even put up to direct this thing in very early workshopping) and that’s truly the highest compliment I can give something.

Omnibus really were the God’s of television. 

Another case of the limitations of television offering up a close-quarters vignette of invention against the odds. All you need to unnerve is fantastic lighting and a director with a passion. 

This is an impressionistic slice of gothic intimacy that, were it not for the narrator’s cool aloofness, would threaten to drown in its own sickly candlelight. John Justin’s (a Ken Russell regular) imposing Vanderhausen ties this film together, a presence that weighs heavy even when he’s far from view. Schalcken’s works are unfamiliar to me, but that “coquettish” smile in his paintings now casts a queasiness.

Omnibus really were the God’s of television. 

Another case of the limitations of television offering up a close-quarters vignette of invention against the odds. All you need to unnerve is fantastic lighting and a director with a passion. 

This is an impressionistic slice of gothic intimacy that, were it not for the narrator’s cool aloofness, would threaten to drown in its own sickly candlelight. John Justin’s (a Ken Russell regular) imposing Vanderhausen ties this film together, a presence that weighs heavy even when he’s far from view. Schalcken’s works are unfamiliar to me, but that “coquettish” smile in his paintings now casts a queasiness.