Spirits of the Dead (1968) in the PNW

Details: Written by: Mortado; Category: The 1960s in Northwest Cinemas

This is a collection of media from the initial runs of "Spirits of the Dead" (1968) in the Pacific Northwest. "The Oblong Box" (1969) was the second feature at most locations.

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Spirits of the Dead (1968)
“Spirits of the Dead” is a rare cinematic intersection of literary Gothicism and late‑1960s European modernism, bringing together three major directors—Roger Vadim, Louis Malle, and Federico Fellini—to reinterpret Edgar Allan Poe through their own sensibilities. The result is a triptych that feels less like a unified anthology and more like a shifting prism, refracting Poe’s obsessions with identity, decadence, and psychological collapse into three distinct cinematic languages.

Vadim’s contribution leans into lush, aristocratic excess, treating Poe’s world as a feverish pageant of desire and doom. Malle’s segment is colder and more disciplined, using moral conflict and doubling to explore the fragility of self‑control beneath the veneer of European civility. Fellini, unsurprisingly, pushes the material into surreal, carnivalesque territory, transforming Poe’s dread into a nightmarish satire of celebrity, spiritual emptiness, and the grotesque rituals of modern life.

Across all three, the film becomes a study in how atmosphere can be sculpted—through color, performance, and rhythm—into a kind of cinematic séance. Though uneven by design, the anthology’s power lies in its contrasts: each director channels Poe not by literal adaptation but by capturing the emotional textures of his work, creating a film that feels like drifting through three different nightmares, each shaped by the anxieties and artistic impulses of its maker.

Directors: Federico Fellini, Louis Malle, Roger Vadim
Writers: Louis Malle, Roger Vadim, Pascal Cousin
Stars: Jane Fonda, Brigitte Bardot, Alain Delon

August 26, 1969 ad (Seattle)