@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society 01/23/26 -- Vol. 44, No. 30, Whole Number 2416
Table of Contents
Mini Reviews, Part 04 (THE SILENT STAR, NOUVELLE VAGUE, BREATHLESS) (film reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper):
Terry Frost recently recommended the boxed set "The DEFA Sci-Fi Collection", three science fiction films from the German Democratic Republic (a.k.a. East Germany) in the 1960s and 1970s (one co-produced with Poland). The three films are THE SILENT STAR, IN THE DUST OF THE STARS, and EOLOMENA. I was able to find them reasonably priced but more on that later.
A SILENT STAR is the original, uncut version. If it seems familiar that is because a version cut down to 78 minutes, given a new score (from classic Universal horror films, no less!), and had the credits totally changed, and with many of the characters changed as well, was released in the United States as FIRST SPACESHIP ON VENUS. My copy of this version is also quite faded. I will say that the dubbing is done very well, in that the English words seem to match the characters mouth movements fairly well. (On the other hand, Bill Warren thought the dubbing was terrible.)
But the original is better (in spite of the fact that I go on to list a lot of its flaws). The restoration done by DEFA brings out the vivid colors, which seemed to be a pan-European thing at the time: Italian films of that era also had those intense primary colors.
The idea that Tchen Yu is both a world-class biologist and a world-class linguist seems unlikely. One sees an echo of this in Andy Weir's THE MARTIAN, where Watney is both an agronomist and an engineer. Indeed, this also showed up in written science fiction of the ASTOUNDING/ANALOG sort, which often featured super-capable Heinleinian characters.
Somehow the linguist manages to translate the alien language from a single audio recording. This is not merely super-capable, but supernatural. It simply is not possible.
While there is a lot of dialogue about universal cooperation and peace, and a crew that is so diverse that these days it would cream "DEI", this is really no more preachy than a lot of American films of the time. The diversity here means a crew consisting of a Japanese, an American, a Pole, a Soviet, an Indian, a German, a Chinese, and an African. (Which of these is not like the other? Right. Africa has more countries than any other continent, yet the Black cosmonaut is described simply as "African". I suppose this is the same as having people described as "Native Americans", rather than by their tribe,)
There is also one woman, though her role as doctor seems mostly as a nutritionist, i.e., tending to everyone's food. And the German pilot is a bit of a harasser, constantly professing his love for her even after she asks/tells him not to. (Then again, so was Benjamin Braddock in THE GRADUATE.)
Somehow the spaceship has artificial gravity (and not by spinning), but there is still the obligatory humorous zero-G scene before it switches on. It is also a very roomy spaceship. Even the space station doesn't have that much empty space in it, and it isn't transporting its mass through space. And the spacesuits do not look like they are pressurized for vacuum.
As for the cost, when I first looked on eBay, the listings were for $175 for the boxed set of three films. Okay, not doing that. Then, somewhat miraculously, I saw a set listed on Amazon for $21.95, which I immediately grabbed. Poking around some more, I discovered that DEFA itself was selling the DVDs for $24.95 each. Trust me, the slipcase is not worth $100. But it gets better. It turns out that all three films are available on Kanopy, a service that many public libraries subscribe to. If your library subscribes, you can see them for free (minus the extra interviews and such, of course).
Released theatrically 31 October 1962 (United States).
Film Credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053250/reference
What others are saying: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/silent-star
NOUVELLE VAGUE (2025): NOUVELLE VAGUE is the story of the making of Jean-Luc Godard's BREATHLESS, but it is not a documentary (though the black-and-white filming makes it look like one, and also copies the black-and-white of BREATHLESS). Godard was one of a group of famous critics at CAHIERS DU CINEMA, and the only one left who had not directed a film. One problem is keeping all the characters straight, even though as each is introduced, the character's name is flashed on-screen. But many of the names will be familiar only to serious students not just of film, but of French film and the Nouvelle Vague in particular.
As the film starts, the "Nouvelle Vague" ("New Wave") is already established, and Godard is scheduled to make a film with Claude Chabrol and Francois Truffaut. (They are the names that will sell the film.) He wants to get Jean-Paul Belmondo (who is told this will ruin his career--spoiler: it makes it) and Jean Seberg (whose contract has to be bought from Columbia).
He wants to film guerilla-style, with no sets, no lighting, no make-up, no special wardrobe, not much script, no sync sound, and in Academy ration when everyone else is doing widescreen. (Basically, he's Ed Wood, but without all the quirky friends.)
Godard doesn't care about continuity, but wants his actress to walk to where they are filming rather than take a taxi, because that is what he character would do. He hides his cameraman in a cart to be able to film on the street and get his extras for free.
And then I watched BREATHLESS, and the (nominal) editor in NOUVELLE VAGUE was right: Godard's method of cutting was very ... jarring. To make a specific running time, he did not cut scenes--he cut frames out of each scene. (So if the scene was thirty seconds long, and there was a two-second stretch with no dialogue, he would just cut those two seconds out.) This makes everything seem very choppy, the visual equivalent of being in a boat on a choppy sea. People who complain about the fast cutting brought on by MTV have clearly not seen BREATHLESS. (BREATHLESS has about two hundred cuts in a ninety-minute movie.)
NOUVELLE VAGUE released streaming 14 November 2025 (United States).
Film Credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31688586/reference
What others are saying: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/nouvelle_vague_2025
BREATHLESS released theatrically 07 February 1961 (United States).
Film Credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053472/reference
What others are saying: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/breathless
[-ecl]
Riddle (answer to riddle from Keith F. Lynch):
Last week, Keith F. Lynch asked:
Can you name any nation whose flag contains *none* of these three colors [red, white, and blue]? As far as I can tell, there's currently just one. [-kfl]
Gary McGath suggested:
The best I've been able to find is the flag of Sri Lanka. The background behind the lion is called crimson, but it looks more like maroon to me. [-gmg]
Lawrence D'Oliveiro posted:
Looking at the region-flag codes as shown here https://www.deviantart.com/default-cube/art/Region-Flags-861126407, I see Cocos-Keeling (yellow and green), and possibly also Sri Lanka (green, orange, yellow and maroon as per above).
Evelyn notes:
Cocos-Keeling is not a nation, but an Australian external territory. [-ecl]
Keith answers:
Good catch [on Cocos-Keeling]. I hadn't noticed that one. I was thinking of Jamaica.
Also, until 2011 Libya's flag was solid green, but today it also contains red and white. [-kfl]
Is Listening to an Audiobook as Good as Reading? (pointer to article):
The Guardian has an article on audiobooks; see link below. My observation is that they seem to have interviewed/quoted only people who think listening is as good as reading, or at least are inclined toward audiobooks, e.g. Jon Watt, the chair of the Audio Publishers Group at the Publishers Association.
Article at:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jan/21/is-listening-to-an-audiobook-as-good-as-reading
[-ecl]
THE PRINCESS BRIDE and PSYCHO (letter of comment by Robert L. Mitchell):
In response to Evelyn's comments on THE PRINCESS BRIDE in the 01/16/26 issue of the MT VOID, Robert L. Mitchell writes:
[Evelyn wrote, regarding whether main characters are truly in danger,] "have they never seen PSYCHO?" [-ecl]
Sure, but PSYCHO was marketed as a thriller. The audience assumptions for THE PRINCESS BRIDE were different, based on the trailers and other marketing material... [-rlm]
Evelyn agrees, but...:
Yes, but I could easily see a parody sort of film (e.g., SCARY MOVIE) doing something like what PSYCHO did. For that matter, TOPPER did it almost a century ago, but that was not an unexpected death. [-ecl]
This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper):
I'm slowly working my way through ORWELL'S ESSAYS by George Orwell (Everyman, ISBN 978-0-375-41503-6). One I'd recommend in full is "Boys' Weeklies" (11 March 1940) about pulp magazines.
Orwell also wrote a very long essay, "The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius" (19 February 1941) is which he lays out a six-point plan he seems to think inevitable, and necessary for a British victory. They are:
He goes on to say, "I have deliberately included in it nothing that the simplest person could not understand and see the reason for."
I'm not sure what his point is about Abyssinia, because Britain entered into a formal agreement with them in 1940. They officially joined with China in 1942.
The rest of the points seem to have gone by the wayside, and somehow Britain and the Allies won the war anyway.
Orwell had written about India couldn't be offered "freedom", but should be offered "equality" with the right to secede, which he assumed they would refuse to do. Now admittedly Indian independence did not occur for another six years, but major drives for independence, beginning in the late 19th century and continuing up through the Quit India Movement of 1942, would seem to indicate that this refusal was not such a sure thing as Orwell assumed.
In his review of THE SWORD AND THE SICKLE by Mulk Raj Anand, (Horizon, July 1942), Orwell writes, "At present English is to a great extent the official and business language of India: five million Indians are literate in it and millions more speak a debased version of it [1]; there is a huge English-language Indian Press, and the only English magazine devoted wholly to poetry is edited by Indians. On average, too, Indians write and even pronounce English far better than any European race. Will this state of affairs continue? It is inconceivable that the present relationship between the two countries will last much longer [2] and when it vanishes the economic inducements for learning English will also tend to disappear [3]. Presumably, therefore, the fate of the English language in Asia is either to fade out [4] or to survive as a pidgin language useful for business and technical purposes [5]. It might survive, in dialect form, as the mother-tongue of the small Eurasian community [6], but it is difficult to believe its has a literary future." [7]
[1] "Debased" by whose standards, one might ask. I'm sure a lot of Britishers think Americans speak a debased form of English as well. Then again, Orwell was writing before John McWhorter and other tried to educate the public about languages and how they change.
[2] So Orwell did come to realize that India was going to achieve some level of independence.
[3] Unless Orwell is assuming that Britain and India will stop doing any business together, I'm not sure why he thinks the economic inducements will disappear. Lessen, perhaps, but not vanish entirely.
[4] Needless to say, Orwell was wrong about the fate of the English language in Asia, in part because he saw Britain as the main promoter and user of the English language, and completely failed to recognize that another power (e.g., the United States) might become a driving force.
[5] Orwell seems to use "pidgin" as a derogatory term. I'm not sure what "business and technical purposes" he was thinking of, but most of what was being done after the war required some fairly sophisticated language.
[6] By "Eurasian" he obviously means "Anglo-Indian", and this community has gotten much smaller over time, as people stopped identifying themselves that way.
[7] Indian authors who write in English, such as R. K. Narayan, Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri, Arundhati Roy, and Anita Desai, would disagree. Within the science fiction field, we have Manjula Padmanabhan, Samit Basu, Vandana Singh, Gautam Bhatia, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, and S. B. Divya.
(DuckDuckGo's Search Assist is totally useless: It starts by saying "approximately 6% of literary works in India are published in English," then says "English is the third largest language for publishing in India," and finally that 55% of the literary works are in English.)
[-ecl]
Evelyn C. Leeper
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
Quote of the Week:
Doubt is not a pleasant mental state, but certainty is
a ridiculous one.
--Voltaire
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