{"id":4013,"date":"2018-09-21T04:20:02","date_gmt":"2018-09-21T03:20:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/events\/?p=4013"},"modified":"2019-02-28T16:44:08","modified_gmt":"2019-02-28T15:44:08","slug":"witches-and-witchfinders-sorcery-and-counterculture-in-the-films-of-michael-reeves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/events\/2018\/09\/witches-and-witchfinders-sorcery-and-counterculture-in-the-films-of-michael-reeves\/","title":{"rendered":"Witches and Witchfinders: Sorcery and counterculture in the films of Michael Reeves"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\nWitches and Witchfinders: Sorcery and counterculture in the films of Michael Reeves<\/B>

\nLecturer: Virginie Sélavy

\nDates: 17 October 2018

\nTime: 7pm – 10pm

\nVenue: Horse Hospital, London

\nFees: \u00a38 advance\/\u00a310 on the door

\nTickets are on sale via www.wegottickets.com<\/A>

\nHorse Hospital website<\/A>\n<\/p>\n

To mark the 50th anniversary of the release of Witchfinder General<\/em>, Electric Sheep founder Virginie Sélavy explores the sorcery theme that runs through director Michael Reeves\u2019s work.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Best known for his savage tale of religious persecution Witchfinder General<\/em> (1968), director Michael Reeves only completed three feature films in his short life. Despite this, he remains a hugely influential figure of 1960s British cinema, and a singular voice in the countercultural context of the time. Through his three films, Reeves offered a unique and contrary take on the dominant themes of the period, notably freedom and rebellion, which he strikingly framed, in all three cases, within stories of sorcery.<\/p>\n

Indebted to Mario Bava\u2019s Black Sunday<\/em> (1960) and sharing its female star, Barbara Steele, Reeves\u2019s first feature film, Revenge of the Blood Beast <\/em>(1966), drops a hip young English couple into an Eastern European backwater steeped in legend and superstition. His following film, The Sorcerers<\/em> (1967), locates witchery in contemporary London and connects it with the nascent psychedelic scene. With its tale of a young couple tormented by a spiteful witch hunter, Witchfinder General<\/em> is no less permeated by contemporary concerns with generational conflict, oppressive authority and individual revolt, despite the fact that it is set in the 17th century.<\/p>\n

To mark the 50th anniversary of the release of Witchfinder General<\/em>, this talk will examine the sorcery theme that runs through Reeves\u2019s work in relation to key countercultural ideas and place it in the context of other witch films of the period. It will show that under the cool, liberated, thrill-seeking, free-love, anti-authoritarian surface of the 1960s Reeves sees the dark side of the cultural revolution and reveals mankind\u2019s eternal propensity for violence.<\/p>\n

———————————————————————————————<\/p>\n

Virginie Sélavy is the founder and editor of Electric Sheep<\/em>, the online magazine for transgressive cinema. She was the co-director of the London branch of The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies from January 2015 to December 2017. She has edited the collection of essays The End: An Electric Sheep Anthology<\/em>, and has written about Jean Rollin, Michael Powell and Victorian London on film. Her work has appeared in various publications, including Sight & Sound<\/em>, Cineaste<\/em> and Monstrum<\/em>. She regularly gives talks and runs courses on topics ranging from women exploitation directors to Surrealism and May 68. She is currently working on a book on Sado-Masochism in cinema.<\/p>\n

For more information visit the Horse Hospital website<\/A><\/b>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To mark the 50th anniversary of the release of Witchfinder General<\/em>, Virginie Sélavy explores the sorcery theme that runs through the director\u2019s work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4014,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[417,577],"tags":[606],"class_list":["post-4013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-electric-sheeps-friends-and-contributors","category-talks","tag-michael-reeve"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/events\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Witchfinder.jpg","wps_subtitle":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMSoh-12J","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3899,"url":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/events\/2018\/12\/close-up-film-course-surrealism-in-cinema-from-luis-buuel-to-david-lynch\/","url_meta":{"origin":4013,"position":0},"title":"Close-Up Film Course: Surrealism in Cinema from Luis Bu\u00f1uel to David Lynch","author":"Pam Jahn","date":"December 24, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Virginie S\u00e9lavy explores the influence of Surrealism on cinema in a new and expanded five-week film course running from 26 February - 26 March 2019 at London's Close-Up Film Centre.","rel":"","context":"In "Electric Sheep friends"","block_context":{"text":"Electric Sheep friends","link":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/events\/category\/electric-sheeps-friends-and-contributors\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/events\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Surrealism.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/events\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Surrealism.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/events\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Surrealism.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/events\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Surrealism.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":903,"url":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/events\/2011\/06\/end-of-the-wicked-end-of-the-road\/","url_meta":{"origin":4013,"position":1},"title":"End of the Wicked, End of the Road","author":"Virginie Selavy","date":"June 13, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"On Friday 17 June on Resonance FM, Jason Wood will discuss the endings of road movies and Nicola Woodham will talk about End of the Wicked, a Nollywood film about child witches.","rel":"","context":"In "Check it out"","block_context":{"text":"Check it out","link":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/events\/category\/check-it-out\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/events\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/review_events_resonance_kings-of-the-road-594x416.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/events\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/review_events_resonance_kings-of-the-road-594x416.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/events\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/review_events_resonance_kings-of-the-road-594x416.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1215,"url":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/events\/2013\/02\/the-keep-and-nazisploitation\/","url_meta":{"origin":4013,"position":2},"title":"The Keep and Nazisploitation","author":"Virginie Selavy","date":"February 1, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Writer and comic artist Mark Stafford talks to Virginie S\u00e9lavy about Michael Mann\u2019s dark, atmospheric 1983 movie and the use of Nazis in exploitation and horror films. 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