Since this material is used sparingly, it blends in well enough with the film’s theme of violence against the individual. First there is footage of the Holocaust and of the victims of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Finally, Levy also edits black-and-white documentary footage into his film. There are several kinds of such images: there is a scene of a female stripper, combined with images from a slaughterhouse where a cow is being disembowelled, but also recurring shots of Max running hysterically through the streets of London and, most remarkably, still shots of Max’s shaking figure in a black space that are direct references to Francis Bacon’s paintings of melting figures in impersonal boxes. Herostratus is edited according to a cyclical pattern: the narrative scenes are regularly punctured by a series of allegorical images that express Max’s malaise and are edited into the film in short flashes of sometimes less than a second. Max’s mounting hysteria and anxiety are translated into the style of the film. ![]() So, in a sense, the film ends where it started: with Max entrapped. By the end of the film, he has not managed to free himself. Wielding the axe, he runs through London like a madman. The film opens with an extended sequence in which he thrashes his living space and runs off with a tape-player and an axe. It is made clear right from the start that Max is on the edge of a complete breakdown. ![]() If frustrated, this desire leads to anxiety, neurosis, schizophrenia and, ultimately, suicide. Herostratus is a film about the desire to escape from the trap of social institutions, especially in a capitalist society. Max runs away, disappearing again into the jungle of the city from which he emerged. A struggle ensues and the man falls to his death. On the fatal day of his suicide, Max climbs to the top of a building, but his suicide attempt is stopped by a man who happens to be working on the roof. During his stay there Max falls in love with Farson’s assistant Clio (Gabriella Licudi) and shares his first sexual experience with her. Meanwhile he allows Max to spend his last few days in the studio where he films his commercials and organises photo-sessions. But he sets up the media circus anyway because any exposure is better than no exposure. Farson certainly does not believe Max will go through with the suicide. But the cynics of this world are no fools and are quite impervious to romantic posturing. In fact, Herostratus retells the story of the eponymous young man in Ancient Greece who allegedly burnt down the temple of Artemis at Ephesus in an attempt to achieve immortal fame. The idea of seeking fame at all costs was hardly new in the sixties either. This is an obvious and desperately misguided attempt by Max to make the world take note of his existence, and a striking prefiguration of the current obsession with fame pursued through all kinds of reality-television, where fame is indeed restricted to a very brief Warholian fifteen minutes. He decides to kill himself but approaches Farson (Peter Stephens), a successful advertiser, to turn his suicide into a media event. He is poor, unemployed and feels inadequate and unnoticed. A young man, Max (Michael Gothard), is sick of the feeling of entrapment he experiences in society. ![]() The plot of Herostratus is deceptively simple. However, the film was well received by a generation of young filmmakers who were profoundly influenced by it and took up many of its innovations, substantiating Amnon Buchbinder’s claim (in the booklet accompanying the dvd) that Herostratus must ‘rank among the most influential of unknown films’. When it was finished, his work was barely seen, except at festival screenings and in exhibitions. Subsequently, it took Levy two years to find funding for and complete the editing of the film. Herostratus was filmed over an eight-month period from August 1964 through May 1965. In fact, the appearance of the film on dvd marks its first commercial release ever, which gives one a fair idea of the film’s obscurity. Herostratus, which was released in 1967 to very limited audiences, is one of its unsung masterpieces. Although far less well-known than its American counterpart, the British underground film has a rich and varied history. Sometimes good things just happen, as with the BFI’s recent decision to release Don Levy’s (1932-1987) impossible-to-see classic Herostratus (1967) on dvd, with some of Levy’s most remarkable shorts thrown in as bonus features.
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