“Our message is, ‘Death is good.’”  So spoke legendary horror producer Val Lewton to a theater owner who complained that his films had no "messages" for his audiences…

Delivered in an effectively downbeat voice-over by actor Elias Koteas, this is one of the many compelling moments in Val Lewton:  The Man in the Shadows.  This masterful and insightful documentary, which aired last night on Turner Classic Movies, derives much of its power by emulating the evocative and thoughtful work of its subject, the one-of-a-kind RKO producer.  The final shot of the doc, from a terrific sequence in The Leopard Man (1943), shows a young woman entering an area of mysterious darkness and uses it as a visual metaphor for the journey that Lewton and his admirers have also taken.  Then we fade to black and, as the credits roll, we continue to hear ambient sounds, such as the wind, ever so faintly and without the closing music one would expect.  It’s rare that a nonfiction film can achieve the same kind of sublime effects as the topic it’s covering, but this Martin Scorsese-produced ode to the man behind Cat People (1942) and so many other classics comes close on many occasions.

For long stretches in the many clips it presents from Lewton’s films, The Man in the Shadows sits on its hands.  There’s no narration, allowing the viewer to experience the raw and sensual power of the images directly; and when there is commentary, it is dead-on in terms of capturing what makes any given sequence work, drawing attention to the cinematography, sound effects, and of course the acting and direction.  Making the careful distinction between horror and terror (i.e., the former is marked by revulsion, the latter, tension), The Man in the Shadows is the kind of thing that a horror fan can show to a non-horror fan and say, “See, this is what it’s all about.  This is why I’m into this stuff.”  Indeed, this is pretty much what happened in my household while the program aired.

But analyzing how Lewton and his creative team produced moods that are singular in the history of the horror film is not the only thing that the The Man in the Shadows accomplishes.  It also provides context—social, cultural, historical, and artistic—that helps viewers fully appreciate Lewton’s legacy while never getting too far away from the films themselves and making us restless.  To clarify the lasting value of these remarkable movies, the filmmakers assembled what, for me, is a kind of dream team of talking heads.  I was most happily surprised to see my favorite living horror director, Kiysohi Kurosawa, discuss Lewton’s impact on him as a moviegoer and, by implication, as an artist.  With Kurosawa’s translated words appearing in white subtitles over the black-and-white clips, the effect is haunting in how it points to the universal power of the moving image to transport and thrill.  Two other key commentators are Glen Gabbard, who holds forth on Freud’s Death Instinct in a way that for once makes the theory seem relevant rather than glib, and Geoffrey O’Brien, whose insights into American pop culture are generally second-to-none.

But not everyone is as enthusiastic as I am.  For example, there’s Dennis Seuling, the long-time film critic of The Villadom Times, an expert on vintage horror, and a Val Lewton fan for decades.  Seuling, who also taught genre film for many years, offers the following comments on Val Lewton:  The Man in the Shadows:

“I was terribly disappointed by the documentary… First, the narration by, of all people, Martin Scorsese, was sleep-inducing.  I know Scorsese is a champion of filmmakers and great films of the past, but an actor with some life in his voice would have helped a lot.  Second, the presentation of the clips absolutely failed to show why Lewton's films are so special.  The clips shown were far too brief.  Lewton and his directors worked very hard to build atmosphere and create suspense.  That the sequences of the walk through the Central Park transverse (Cat People), the creepy journey through the sugar cane fields (I Walked With a Zombie), or the girl approaching and walking under the railroad trestle (The Leopard Man) were not shown in their entirety defies logic.  They represent superior examples of filmmaking.  As shown, they look OK, but not nearly as great as they do when shown in their complete form.  This would have added just a few minutes.  In the effort of the documentary to include every Lewton film, the true key to the success of his pictures was diminished.  I’m usually one who likes brief running times, but adding ten minutes to this documentary would have made it far better.  There is wonderful dialogue in Bedlam—witty, sinister, sometimes even campy (before the term existed).  Instead of focusing on this, and showing how Karloff masterfully delivers that dialogue, we saw him only briefly glowering.  The biographical background info was interesting, but the artistry of the Lewton films never came across the way it should have.” 

Such thoughtful remarks show that this film was perhaps not really intended for Lewton’s core group of followers.  Moreover, they indicate the problem that any documentary made on a cultural figure of a certain stature faces—the issue of knowing which audience to address.  That is, should a ninety-minute doc on the Beatles spend a lot of time showing performance footage of the full-length songs—since the music is what made the band so special after all—or just assume that those watching it are familiar with the music or can navigate to it themselves if not?  That is, is there something wrong about showing only ten seconds of, say, “Yesterday” before spending a full minute delving into how McCartney penned the song?  There's no right answer here, just as there's no pleasing everyone.

I agree that seeing a bit more of Karloff in Bedlam (1946), which boasts one of his very finest performances, would have been nice, but I think I understand the doc’s strategy in this regard.  First off, we already see a decent portion of Karloff speaking in its coverage of The Body Snatcher (1945… and my favorite Lewton).  And besides, there have been so many films and TV shows made about Karloff over the years that the producers probably didn’t want him hijacking the spotlight from Lewton—it’s not as if folks are unfamiliar with this particular actor’s towering talent.  Still, that's no satisfaction, I know, for a critic and fan such as Mr. Seuling, whose point about the benefits of adding just a few minutes to the running time is well taken.