Halloween's delights

Last year, Disney Hall held a screening of Phantom of the Opera, the 1927 silent film, accompanied by the Disney Hall organ, on Halloween. It was wonderful. It had been restored, with some Technicolor bits thrown in. Apparently some of the original had been filmed in Technicolor, and the Phantom's red cape shines brightly on the screen. The movie itself was riveting enough, I rarely watched the octopus-masquerading-as-human who was playing the organ.

This year, they held another silent-with-organ movie on Halloween, the 1922(?) version of Nosferatu. It did not survive the test of time as well as Phantom. It was filled with what are now seriously funny cliches, such as having the bad-guy rise from his coffin as if he was laying on a board. One could only tell day scenes from night scenes by the action and/or dress of the actors. The bad guy, Nosferatu, however, would still make a good villian today - not at all the dashing Dracula one normally thinks of.

The conversation on the drive home was "what will they do next year?" One I'd like to see, but not until Halloween falls on a Satuday, is Metropolis. Why a Saturday, you ask? Because Metropolis is quite long, and if shown on a Saturday, could start earlier and have an intermission, without running into "We've got work tomorrow," at least for most of us. Several silent shorts, one of which was a 20-minute Frankenstein, would also be fun.

Halloween - another harvest festival

This is the third and last pagan harvest festival. The moon is waning, two days short of new. Not what one normally thinks of when "harvest festival" comes around. The "Harvest Moon" actually comes in September, this year September 17th. The full moon in October is called the "Blood Moon" or "Hunter's Moon".

Halloween as practiced in the United States is an amalgam of practices. The name, Halloween, is derived from Hallow's eve, or the day before All Hallows Day, the day Roman Catholics, and later, other Christian groups, celebrate all saints, specified and unspecified. The Irish brought their Celtic-derived observance of seasonal change and festival of the dead. Pagans celebrate "samhain," and in true Celtic fashion, it has a pronunciation totally at odds with its current spelling: "sow-in," rhymes with "cow-in." It comes from the Gaelic "sam," which means summer; "fuin" means "end." So, "Samhain" means "end of the warm season." Contrary to many web sites, there is and has never been a god of death or a sun god with that name.

Many believe the door between this world and the next is thinner at this time. This has resulted in beliefs ranging from evil spirits roaming the earth in search of bodies to take or souls to steal. Others believe this is the time to contact those who have gone before, looking for guidance or just to pay their respects.