#44
Post
by HerrSchreck » Thu Nov 29, 2007 6:42 pm
Michael pleeeeeeeaaaaaaazzzze, take our word for it. EMPRESS bombed the way the RITE OF SPRING had chairs thrown during it's premeire, the way LA REGLE DE JEU nearly caused riots, etc. People at the time (nay, at any time) are just not ready for that kind of tongue-in-cheek stylization of the storied classes. You'll often see this picture teamed with the (to me, and I may be alone here) unbearable QUEEN CHRISTINA, which perfectly illustrates what people thought they were in for when sitting down to watch EMPRESS: a glossy luminous fairy tale in which the starving audience could escape into to drift off and sink into the iconographic portrayal of an idealized human being at the pinnacle of a fairy tale world. I'd hesitate to say that EMPRESS merely "pops" those illusions, because it does something far more sophisticated (which may be the cause of its downfall): it assumed it's audience was historically and politically sophisticated enough to fully and already understand the corruption, rottenness, incestuousness, the conspiratorial sludge of perversion, bored sex, inbred cross purposes, etc, that any of these Habsburg style crowns/lifestyles consisted of... and then took it from there with the wildest acid trip melodrama ever thrown up onto the talking screen. It almost assumed that it was a given that the entire audience was as sophisticated in their A) depth of historical understanding B) ability to put two and two together when reading ever-expurgated accounts of the inner-workings of any throne, no matter how decrepit, C) nose for sexual aroma and taste for perversion refined to a sophistication that is astronomical.... in other words, a type of ideal audience member that literally is represented by, in the case of this forum, lets say, equals maybe nine or ten people. Really, the ideal audience is von Sternberg, because he made the kind of movie he wanted to see-- which nobody was making at the time (especially given the neutering of Stroeheim), and nobody has been sophisticated enough to make since-- and the problem there is that the mans taste, his aesthetic, and his humor are very very rarified. I can't emphasize Frank Zappa as an example enough-- take some of FZ's masterpieces like THE ADVENTURES OF GREGGARY PECCARY or THE OCEAN IS THE ULTIMATE SOLUTION (the full version on SLEEP DIRT)-- this is music not just for musicians, but a small clique of musicians who (sounds snobbish but well understood all round by this time about FZ and his music) are able to process this kind of material blending the most tour de force compositions with rarified humor and social comment in the strangest most uniquely impressive end result.
Whether or not you want to classify this kind of a failure of an audience to keep up with such an advanced aesthetic (much as I love DEVIL, VENUS, BLUE ANGEL, and all the silents particularly LAST COMMAND, EMPRESS remains the purest expression of vS's art and personality at it's most perfectly distilled) as a "failure", or one of the most glorious successes in the cinema-- in that he got it made right there in the hallowed halls of Paramount in the golden age of Lubitsch Capra Wellman-- this picture, POST-code.. it makes the brain reel.
Regarding Michaels comments on DEVIL viz Marlene, it's very easy to miss what I think is the point, which gets lost under the humor, the costumes, the stylization and amazing cinematography, which is: the melancholia of an aging man trying to get his ass laid, have the company of a beautiful woman or at least one that doesnt make him feel like an ugly finished old fart whose better days are over. When watching the film with Atwill at it's quiet center, and allow yourself to see Marlene for what she is-- she's a bitch, she's fucked up, yet she IS desireable, you are supposed to want her, but she's supposed to drive you crazy enough so that when Atwill throws her a beating, your supposed to stand up and throwi your fist in the air and go YES!.
I think the film confuses some people who think they are supposed to identify w Marlene,root for her lets say, see her as iconographically cool because the film seems such a gigantic "star turn/vehicle" for her.
The chicks a CUNT! A a total bitch, man! She just is what she is, and YET the difficulty is so many people dont know how to see a character in grey (like Michael in MICHAEL in Dreyer), as theyre trained to see in black and white in films... she's still sexy as fuck, charming and spoiled and alluring and immensely fuckable-- and she knows it. She is a personification of these multiple pulls on a man who should know better, but who fights two pulls within himself, the desire to be degraded, hand himself over complete, yet needs to survive in the world with the appearance of dignity and class carte b.
It's funny, yet it's a very sad picture, in my view perhaps the saddest the vS ever made (save maybe the Jannings). It's immensely funny on the surface, devilishly clever. But as an ode to the sadnesses of age, the weaknesses of aforementioned before the manipulations and temptations of primping succulent youth, the positions one finds oneself in when trying to avoid dipping ones chips in some rampant haggard old piece of trim, it's as sad a picture as ever made. In that sense it is not cold as ice, but warm and comforting as the blues... only it's classical, not John Lee Hooker!
I'd forgotten about CHINESE LAUNDRY, dave. VS Interests me enough to where I'll hunt m up a copy-- he and Fuller interest me enough as people/artists to where autobio's by the two are no brainers (I'd already made the decision to buy the Fuller. I could watch the extras on South Street over and over and over, particularly the one made just before he died. "YOU WAVIN THE FLAG AT MEEE?"
EDIT: sorry Mike, didnt realize you'd finally seen the film. Last I had read before this spurt of activity on this thread was you asking Dave why it bombed so heavily. Glad you got to check it out finally!