Aria - Last Expressions (1987, 1995) / Poem: "Ariel" by Sylvia Plath

From the compilation album Gothik (1995), this song marks the first ever collaboration between Spahn Ranch's Rob Morton and Matt Green. Originally recorded in 1987, the instrumental is quite stirring, dreamy, and suspenseful enough to appear in any Gothic film. The 90's were an interesting period in alternative rock, and I found a lot of great talent and musicianship was to be found not only in techno and ambient rock, but also in Gothic rock, dark wave, industrial, and other related forms.

This song was made to order for the ghostly horse scenes starring Jane Fonda as the cruel Contessa Frederique de Metzengerstein in the first of three short films from Spirits Of The Dead (Histoires extraordinaires), 1968. All three are based on Edgar Allan Poe short stories. This one, the first, is entitled "Metzengerstein" and was directed by Roger Vadim. Louis Malle directed "William Wilson," the second short, and Federico Fellini directed "Toby Dammit," based loosely on Never Wager The Devil Your Head. So obsessed was I over Fellini's contribution, I overlooked just how good the Malle and Vadim shorts also were. "Metzengerstein" starring Jane Fonda is utterly suspenseful, even frightful, as we move further along into it, not allowing ourselves to be overly distracted by the sexual material. It becomes a tale of a woman haunted by death, guilt, and love ... a strong and willful soul obsessed with a mysterious horse and the spirit of her dead cousin who inhabits it. Ultimately she is consumed by her suicidal obsession to share her cousin's fate, racing to her destiny on the ghastly steed who is both he and the fire that awaits.

Oddly enough, though penned by Poe, the ending has something in common with another tale of obsession and a horse: the poem Ariel written by Sylvia Plath in 1962. In the latter part of the video, the poem's verses appear in each scene. The poem itself however is filled with complex metaphors, so there is obviously more than one meaning to the words and action. Yet, at the end, Vadim allows us to see the same "red eye, the cauldron of morning" as appears at the conclusion of Plath's poem. Whether this is a happy accident is doubtful, not with the dominating presence of the horse in both the Poe story and the Plath poem. One might almost wonder if she read "Metzengerstein" at some time in her life and that its ending left a strong, subliminal impression.