Back in 1981, cinematic madman Andrzej Zulawski released the controversial, award-bedecked lunacy, Possession. A film that defies conventional structure – like most of the auteur’s work – Possession is a Cold War-set psychological and political thriller involving the vivid disintegration of a marriage, doppelgangers, questionable parenting, and sex with a mollusk monster.
The Wexner Center for the Arts brings this brilliant WTF horror to moviegoers this Thursday, September 1 at 7pm.
Wildly imaginative and destined to leave viewers percolating with questions, Possession is being screened – luckily for us all – with an introduction and post-film Q&A by co-writer Frederic Tuten.
You can join the writer at 4pm the same day for a conversation with Richard Fletcher, an associate professor in Ohio State’s Department of Classics.
“Tuten’s a raconteur,” says Fletcher. “He’s had such amazing encounters with incredible people. Zulawski is one of them and the story of this film is one of them.”
Their 4pm event, Fiction between Art and Life, promises to be an engaging chat.
“The audience at the Wexner will see a man that has done so many more things than Possession,” says Fletcher. “Frederic is a storyteller. His anecdote about Jean Luc Godard is one of my favorite things. I’m not going to spoil it. I’ll get him to tell that at the event because it’s kind of too exciting.”
Fletcher, who works with Tuten’s literary archive, which is partially housed in Ohio State’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, has questions about what specifically Tuten may have contributed to the Possession screenplay.
“I can’t really tell you what is Frederic and what is Zulawski,” he says. “I may ask him to sit beside me during the screening so I can ask, ‘Is that you? Did you write that?’”
Based on Tuten’s novels, though, Fletcher has some thoughts.
“I think the doppelganger element is pretty interesting,” he says, noting that he sees similar themes in many of Tuten’s novels.
“He wrote a novel called The Green Hour and the main character is really Frederic, as far as I can tell,” he says. “I think the doppelganger element you can kind of align with Frederic’s fiction. And the fact that Possession is set the end of the Cold War, in Berlin – that kind of says something about Frederic’s leftist politics.”
Fletcher did get to talk with Tuten about Possession prior to this interview, and shares one intriguing piece of intel.
“Frederic kind of imagined that we wouldn’t really see the monster,” he says of Possession’s villain-of-sorts. “And in the script, it’s not like the monster is fully fledged. He was on set and someone said, ‘Oh, we’re going to pick up the monster.’ So he was very surprised. The monster is one of those things about the film that stays with you.”
Indeed.
Join Fletcher and Frederic Tuten at 4pm this Thursday, September 1 for Fiction between Art and Literature: Frederic Tuten in Conversation. The event is free.
Stay for the 7pm screening of Possession. Tickets are $6 for members, seniors and students, $8 for the general public.
Read more from Hope at MADDWOLF and listen to her weekly horror movie podcast, FRIGHT CLUB.
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