109, 930-935 Dietrich & von Sternberg in Hollywood

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Michael
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#26 Post by Michael » Tue Nov 27, 2007 9:33 am

Let me drop some thoughts before diving into the rest of the fantastic Glamour Collection and CC's Scarlet Empress this week (Devil is a Woman and Scarlet remain unseen by me).

I first saw Blonde Venus years ago because it was my friend's #1 favorite movie. The film struck me like a thunderbolt..I'm not exaggerating, a thunderbolt nearly hit me a few inches away from me as I was cycling through the storm in the lightning capital of the world and turned frighteningly blind for a few minutes. Well Venus pulverized me that much. And it did the same to me twice over the last weekend with the disc from the Glamour Collection.

The plot itself appears kind of ridiculous - the ups and downs of a German cabaret singer/housewife who decides to prostitute to make the quick buck to support her husband and so forth. But you're not watching Venus for the story. You're watching it for Marlene and Sternberg's specacular, weird, gorgeous style.

One of my favorite shots is when Marlene sits with the cop at a Spanish dive, her hat covering her face partially as she smokes, her eyes dreamy and far away, which has NOTHING to do with what's going on in the scene. You're watching how Sternberg frames her, how he lights the mysterious glow behind her icy veneer - and that is MORE than enough. This reminds me what the film is all about. Marlene on the top of the world through Sternberg's eyes. And nothing else.
Here's a thought.. do you think the kids who are posting these days would enjoy these movies? There used to be the problem of "camp" I suppose,(thanks Sontag and Kael) but I think that's over.
I can't imagine why the kids wouldn't enjoy Blonde Venus. It's very fast moving and fun. With great style oozing from every corner. With a fantastically bizarre emotional core. Even more staggering than, dare I say, Fassbinder. Intellectually it doesn't demand much. And finally Marlene, her raw power is still amazing and fresh today.

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#27 Post by David Ehrenstein » Tue Nov 27, 2007 12:22 pm

"One of my favorite shots is when Marlene sits with the cop at a Spanish dive, her hat covering her face partially as she smokes, her eyes dreamy and far away, which has NOTHING to do with what's going on in the scene. You're watching how Sternberg frames her, how he lights the mysterious glow behind her icy veneer - and that is MORE than enough. This reminds me what the film is all about. Marlene on the top of the world through Sternberg's eyes. And nothing else."
BINGO!

This is the essence of Sternberg. He gives you a sound dramatic feature but always shifts the emphasis towards he visual in a way that was the norm for silent cinema. Dietrich always seems to be contemplating something other than her character and the script, and we are consistently encourage to view her as a free-floating visual phenomenon. I love the look on her face as she takes the gorilla outfit off in the legendary "Hot Voodoo" number.

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HerrSchreck
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#28 Post by HerrSchreck » Tue Nov 27, 2007 12:58 pm

You're also watching these in a great order as these "lesser" (yeah right... well yeah maybe on the visual plane of Sternbergian cinematographic illusion and meticulously crafted raw power) Sternbergs wouldn't be dimmed by the luminescence of DEVIL and SCARLETT (and SHANGHAI whenever and however you get to it).

But Ehrenstein is right to commend your eye in picking up on the Sternbergian "essence". Nobody could mythologize like Sternberg, and nobody was more mythologically-ready than Marlene. The way someone has a certain undefineable something we call charisma whosis, walks into a room and Takes It Over... Sternberg knew how to translate this power, amp it up with incredible mood and a cinematic tapestry that is about as sophisticated as can be (dwarved perhaps only by the meticulousness of Murnau of FAUST)... he could raise a candle flicker or a piece of silk fluttering or a door opening to the most acute of portents, lavish as Beethoven, and these are simple mindless animate objects poofed up with his direction.

But breathing all that power and mystery into a pair of eyes and cinematic star power like Marlene (who never gleamed as she did with von with anybody else, despite her gifts... even Welles had to vamp on him w her turn in TOUCH OF EVIL) you're enetring a fucking realm where the sense of Kool, humor, and high art are just exalted beyond belief. T ome he's the Frank Zappa of film-- which is the highest praise possible, meaning that his sense and concept were so naturally advanced in every facet of his art that he will never be caught up with. He will be eternally aspired to, but nobody will ever come close. He's so sophisticated that you can't even tell when he's being imitated (well, maybe sound-era Mizoguchi, maybe even late silent/early Ozu, but these are guesses.. hunches gleaned from dave hare in the case of Mizo) because his methods and aesthetic are so lofty and so deeply individual beyond the obvious roots in Germanic silent pictorialism... in other words easy to aspire to but impossible to duplicate owing to the huge amounts of extremely mysterious motivation and astounding intuition about the camera, lenses, lights, filters, and star power all in combo.

As for his mise en scene moving humans around and handling dialog, as in the above mentioned scene, you're talking about a guy whose whole mode of handling his actors is synoymous with John Alton's precept of cinematography, which was "It's not what you light, it's what you don't light," except in JVS's mise en scene in sum, the maxim turns into "It's not what your actors say, it's what they don't say." (not to say his handling of dialog was not hgih and freaky art in itself). Take the moment in SCARLETT EMPRESS where the idiot prince's mistress reveals (before the prince and his toys) to Catherine the fact of her naked ambition and her surety of her own ascension to power... watch Marlene's long, mysterious but terrifically dangerous half-smile, as she swaggers to the big wooden door and brings it open... you keep expecting her to say something, a perfect fricking zinger to blast this bitch into a pile of her own shit, laugh at her at least-- but the koolness of the film and JVS is too cool for that, and the scene plays out more delicious than you can believe as M simply moseys on out looking her arch enemy up and down without the slightest hint of worry in the world, too far above her to show a single ruffled feather. Then fwooom as she flows out the door and whips it shut behind her. If there is a sound era scene ratcheting a confrontation that is directed better, I'm all ears...

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Matt
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#29 Post by Matt » Tue Nov 27, 2007 2:28 pm

I may be responding to an imaginary comment here (I could have sworn I read someone saying something about how Sternberg was disappointed in this film or thought it was a mess or something): Sternberg thought that because the film's script was virtually shredded by the Hays office. Lea Jacobs has a section on the whole ordeal in her rather dry but still good book on censorship and "fallen woman" films.

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zedz
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#30 Post by zedz » Tue Nov 27, 2007 4:28 pm

I think the above discussion sort of gets at why Blonde Venus is my favourite Sternberg / Dietrich film: the visual extravagance / eloquence is such a gift on top of an 'ordinary' American melodrama, whereas it's less surprising and radical, though just as exquisite, in the more exotic settings of the other films. And the gorilla-suit entrance is hard to beat in any context. With the head off, I reckon this is Marlene at her sexiest, hugely amused at herself and at the audience for lapping it all up.

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Michael
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#31 Post by Michael » Wed Nov 28, 2007 8:54 am

Watched Devil is a Woman last night...twice in a row. Another deliciously bizarre treat. I loved it. At first I got pulled into the story - the fabulous carnival opening starting with the helium balloons lifting a child up away in the sky, the jilted lover's flashbacks and so forth. Comparing to Blonde Venus, Marlene was somewhat different, she was animated, almost like a wind-up toy with no emotions. Venus is filled with maternal feelings, the love for her little boy. At one point I had to pause the film to gather my emotions and that scene was Marlene holding her little boy singing to him in German in the pile of hay. Maybe it was the closeness, the warmth that I never got from my own mother overwhelmed me.. I don't know but all I know that I was immeasurably affected by that scene.

Devil is an ice cube that can't melt. No sense in trying to water her down. The end left me in a "what the fuck" desperation as the carriage slowly trekked up a country road. Once again, like Blonde Venus, I was reminded that the whole film is The Marlene Show created by no one but Sternberg. Each Sternberg / Dietrich production (I still need to see Scarlet Empress and Shanghai Express) can be seen cinematically as a cabaret show. Like a drag show, you don't go see it for the music or songs, you see it for the woman and nothing more. (Just look at Marlene's costumes! :shock: ) But Sternberg tailors everything - every fucking detail so staggeringly beautiful and artistic - that turn his films into dreams so faraway from the rest. For those of you who haven't experienced Sternberg yet, don't be like me.. wait halfway through life and then discover the gold mine. The sooner the better and you can get fucking rich overnight.

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HerrSchreck
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#32 Post by HerrSchreck » Wed Nov 28, 2007 2:16 pm

zedz wrote:I think the above discussion sort of gets at why Blonde Venus is my favourite Sternberg / Dietrich film: the visual extravagance / eloquence is such a gift on top of an 'ordinary' American melodrama, whereas it's less surprising and radical, though just as exquisite, in the more exotic settings of the other films. And the gorilla-suit entrance is hard to beat in any context. With the head off, I reckon this is Marlene at her sexiest, hugely amused at herself and at the audience for lapping it all up.
That's a killer of a point, z! YES YES YES! In the phantasmagoria of say BLUE ANGEL, DEVIL, SHANGHAI (to some degree), EMPRESS, the expectation after the first few minutes is clearly that "anything goes" in those shimmering hyperexotic cinematic worlds. (The fact that JVS keeps you in a state of ecstacy throughout without ever overplaying his hand is testament to the hugeness of his skill).

But the banality of the "hearth & home" aspect to VENUS (and the ratcheted-down tone of the cinematography... at least in terms of the acid-trip chiaroscuro and ten thousand streamers palm fronds candles ship ropes fishermans nets drying etc etc interrupting the visual plane between the lens (back in darkness) and the actors, VENUS is less extreme.

But the easing up of the avant-ness on the visual plane (and lack of Exotic PLace) make the advanced decadence of the script, tons of badass innuendo (who understood cinematic "cool" better than JVS?, not to mention sexual gesture and innuendo) that much more livid.. as the surroundings register at first like some Mamoulian, or other Paramount or Universal pre-code melodrama (with some seriously Warner chatter) doing all the usual sex/menage riffing. But just a few minutes into the story proper and we're firmly in JVS-ville.

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Michael
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#33 Post by Michael » Wed Nov 28, 2007 3:17 pm

I loved how Concha kept her door revolving only to hot young bullfighters. Come to think of it now what could be better men than those for Concha as long as she keeps a sugar daddy on the side.

Again, great great film. Always always beautiful and fascinating to look at.

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#34 Post by David Ehrenstein » Wed Nov 28, 2007 3:30 pm

And The Devil is a Woman was her favorite of all their films. She thought she looked her best in it. And Sternberg himself was DP.

Love the scene where Atwill is going on and on about his love for her as she stares into a mirror fingering a spit curl, finally saying "Just a moment and I'll give you a kiss."

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HerrSchreck
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#35 Post by HerrSchreck » Wed Nov 28, 2007 10:37 pm

or like the moment in VENUS where the private douche catches up to Marlene in the cathouse and sez to her,

"But you don't look like the other girls in here.." and she replies

"Give me time."

Maybe Hare or DE or z can answer this, as I'm not a JVS scholar but have always wondered something very VERy basic:

The Dietrich cycle. Was the run of films for Paramount laying down the paradigm of her as badass cabaret singer which was repeated thru the first few films-- was this repetition (which of course JVS & MD pulled off brilliantly w huge differentiation & cinematic - literary variety, even before moving to EMPRESS & DEVIL) an attempt by Paramount to capitalize on a "success formula" that worked (in other words von sitting in a smoke filled boardroom w execs pounding fists on table "give us BLUE ANGEL again, that's all we want)... or was it something he wanted to do?

I don't want to jump to the conclusion that just because the results were so sublime this is all the result of Sternberg doing what he wanted, and that he & MD were paired exclusively because he wanted to expand his art through the malleable illusions lurking within Marlene.

In other words, during this stretch, did he express a desire to break from Marlene or was this precisely what he wanted? I know nothing of the politics of his residency at Paramount (I read very little published material about cinema) so this is a big blank for me.
Last edited by HerrSchreck on Wed Nov 28, 2007 10:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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#36 Post by HerrSchreck » Wed Nov 28, 2007 10:41 pm

Dave read above.. we posted at the same time then I added text to mine right after yours went in...

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#37 Post by David Ehrenstein » Thu Nov 29, 2007 12:24 am

Oh but I LOVE Gene Tierney in Shanghai Gesture

Victor Mature looking both ways before he covers her with his cape and moves in for the smooch is one of THE great camp moments of all time.

VonS and Dietrich had a great run together at Paramount. That they got away with what they did for so long is still breathtaking.

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Michael
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#38 Post by Michael » Thu Nov 29, 2007 8:53 am

Devil is still very new to me (seen only twice within a day). I'm trying to to get the gist of Marlene's performing style. I have no problem with her Venus performance - truly magnificent and ethereal. But as Concha, I was hoping for the same but she turned out a wildly different performance that still leaves me chewing. As Concha, she is very animated, moving constantly almost like a windup toy - kind of disorientating esp. after seeing her performing so beautifully and naturally in Blue Angel and Blonde Venus. My hubby thought maybe she was simply dizzy but I think it's more than that - it's all put out as a front, an illusion to "bait" her men. I don't know. What do you think?

HerrSchreck has expressed so amazingly of Scarlet Empress . davidhare, what is your take on this film? Any particular reason why it was a box office disaster?
Last edited by Michael on Thu Nov 29, 2007 12:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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#39 Post by David Ehrenstein » Thu Nov 29, 2007 10:03 am

According to Andrew Sarris, Phyllis Brooks was a gilrfriend of George Jean Nathan's. She's quite marvelous and Sternberg doesn't skimp on glamorizing her -- or Ona Munson. Or one of the waiters who Rex Evans takes a fancy to, either.

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Matt
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#40 Post by Matt » Thu Nov 29, 2007 6:17 pm

davidhare wrote:Could anyone possibly make it even now?
I had a small glimmer of hope that Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette would approach its subject similarly, but Coppola made the mistake of trying to put in some substance and toning down the style.

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Michael
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#41 Post by Michael » Thu Nov 29, 2007 6:17 pm

davidhare, thanks so much. Now I can understand better after having finished watching Empress no more than 5 minutes ago. I need to let it stew tonight. Pretty heavy stuff style-wise. Too much to absorb in every frame. Marlene is unbearably beautiful in that particular film, much more than Devil.

Of all the Sternberg Dietrich films I've seen this past week - The Blue Angel, Morocco, Blonde Venus, The Scarlet Empress and The Devil is a Woman, it's too early to say for sure but I think Empress is becoming my favorite, tailing Blue Angel a bit. How come there is not much love for Blue Angel here? I think Dietrich is utterly stunning in that film.

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#42 Post by David Ehrenstein » Thu Nov 29, 2007 6:22 pm

She is, but her image doesn't truly ripen and blossom until she comes to America with Von. It's first full flowering is in Shanghai Express. By the time they got to The Scarlet Empress and The Devil is a Woman they were sneaking it past goal poasts that even the goalies didn't see.

Simply not possible today. Dietrich and Sternberg were comets that pass our way but once.

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Matt
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#43 Post by Matt » Thu Nov 29, 2007 6:22 pm

Michael wrote:How come there is not much love for Blue Angel here? I think Dietrich is utterly stunning in that film.
You almost answered your own question there. Dietrich is stunning, but she's not the main focus of the film. Everything else besides her is just kind of stiff, and Emil Jannings' performance is a little embarrassing. Granted, it's an early sound film and they were mostly stiff, but Sternberg's collaboration with (or mastery of?) Dietrich is still just developing here. It doesn't seem, to me, to come into full flower until Shanghai Express.

EDIT: Didn't intentionally mean to parrot DE here. Check the post time, we were in sync!

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HerrSchreck
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#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!

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Michael
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#45 Post by Michael » Thu Nov 29, 2007 7:36 pm

Matt wrote:You almost answered your own question there. Dietrich is stunning, but she's not the main focus of the film. Everything else besides her is just kind of stiff, and Emil Jannings' performance is a little embarrassing. Granted, it's an early sound film and they were mostly stiff, but Sternberg's collaboration with (or mastery of?) Dietrich is still just developing here. [/b].
After The Last Laugh and The Last Command, I expected that kind of performance from Jannings in Blue Angel and to watch him losing his sanity in the last third was unbearably frightening. There is no clown more disturbing than him in all cinema, is there? Please don't give me It. And of course every scene with Dietrich carries the film .. I love that exit shot of her sitting on the chair singing by herself, really really a lot. Simple as it is, very hard to shake off.

I saved Empress for last. None of the films prepared me for the bursting style that kept choking me all the way through. In my opinion, Dietrich never looks this ravishing in Empress. I just can't get over that shot of her face hazy through nets as she twirled diamonds.

And I LOVE that giddy look on her face as she took over the throne in her white ringleader costume. I have a strong gut feeling that Empress is going to lead the Sternberg Dietrich world for me.

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#46 Post by Danny Burk » Thu Nov 29, 2007 8:17 pm

Michael wrote:And I LOVE that giddy look on her face as she took over the throne in her white ringleader costume. I have a strong gut feeling that Empress is going to lead the Sternberg Dietrich world for me.
Glad you finally got to view these, Michael. Much as I love them all, EMPRESS is likewise my favorite, with DEVIL a close second. Not much that I can add in terms of comments...the others here have summed them up SO well. My least favorite of the Paramounts is DISHONORED; not that it wouldn't be outstanding in another crowd, but in the company of the other five, it definitely takes a back seat.

Marlene's favorite was DEVIL, and reportedly the only film of which she had her own print. She regarded it as the film in which she was most beautiful. At least we can be thankful that none of these films are lost...as terrible as is the loss of LENA SMITH and DRAG NET, it would be an unimaginable horror if all we could do were look at stills of the VS/Dietrich titles. I feel for those who don't "get" JvS; they're missing so much.

I don't think anyone's mentioned the musical backgrounds of these films; they add so much to EMPRESS and DEVIL. And suitably so, since they're really silents with dialogue.

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#47 Post by HerrSchreck » Thu Nov 29, 2007 8:27 pm

I'd also like to throw in a cheer for BLUE ANGEL. In terms of Marlene, sure she's not the fully developed kinetogram that she is in the later films. But the film feels, since von's style is not as polished and sophisticated yet, like a real howling naked cry from the gut about the pain of falling in love and the torture that it causes the soul in its best and worst moments. LIke the song HEROES by Bowie... hafta have been there to understand it ("You, you can be mean; and I-- I'll drink all the time," sung cheerfully but with a quiver-- PERFECT!). Marlene was never the key to it's brilliance for me. It seems to be remembered for her, but that's a sin imho. von could have made it just as well without her, and it would have been another brilliant pic in the string of brilliant pics fore and aft. He had come into his own far before Marlene, and she needed him far more than he did her... he MADE her, as we all know already, and he had already been blowing jaws off skulls via masterworks before she crossed his path.

And of course the Caligari=esque rooftops, Germanic/Kammerspiel stimmung of melancholy, the decrepit leaning tenements jutting up through the haze of foghorns and rat infested docks. It's heaven to watch, very sincerely felt and without any of the self-reflexivity of the later, grand masterpieces.

For some reason, in terms of gut, I always felt this film to be a grandfather to TAXi DRIVER. The disintegration, puritanism, extreme emotional states, plus disintegration via low sex (and the sense of the young brilliant director putting a very therapeutic scream of agony out there in his pic for all the world to hear) felt very related when I first saw the Sternberg years ago, and still do. DRIVER was the first film I equated it with then, and still do now. In terms of a puritanical man suffering because of a gagged set of balls, they sing the same painful song.

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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#48 Post by jsteffe » Thu Oct 30, 2008 2:06 pm

I just saw a new 35mm print of the film last night, here in Atlanta. What an amazing thing to see on the big screen! The production design is overwhelming, one of the great accomplishments in the history of cinema, period. Dietrich's performance comes across wonderfully, especially her expressive, wordless glances. The audience really picked up on the humor in the script, too. And yes, the film works as a serious examination of the relationship between power and sexuality.

After seeing this print, to my untrained eyes the Criterion DVD is too contrasty--there should be some contrast, but perhaps not so much. And the MPEG2 compression doesn't handle the grain inherent to the film very well. The French disc perhaps looks better, but appears to have been softened/filtered to smooth out the grain.

This film is crying out for a new high-def transfer. Pretty please, Criterion?

I'm hoping that the long wait for SHANGHAI EXPRESS will be paid off with a superior transfer of what are no doubt problematic elements.

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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#49 Post by HerrSchreck » Thu Oct 30, 2008 2:22 pm

It really is a treat to see this on the big screen-- I had the good fortune of seeing the film initially on the big screen. There is so much detail, so many layers of composition within the frame.. candles, layers of gauze, etc. Seeing it on the big screen is almost obligatory for fans of sternberg.

So yes, the CC is definitely a problemmatic print.. the french release is imperfect as well, being heavily cropped.

The European release of Shanghai isn't bad at all-- at least as good as Morocco, Blonde Venus, etc. Certainly better than the CC Empress. The only thing wrong with it, as Hare points out, is the cut where the French military officer explains the reasons for his censure.

Whether prints exist with this in tact is unknown to me.. though the fact that Uni just released the censored version probably indicates the reason CC is holding off releasing the film via the existing digibeta, which I'm sure Uni would let them have. They're probably scouring archives to find a complete original print.

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Re: 109 The Scarlet Empress

#50 Post by jsteffe » Thu Oct 30, 2008 7:26 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:It really is a treat to see this on the big screen-- I had the good fortune of seeing the film initially on the big screen. There is so much detail, so many layers of composition within the frame.. candles, layers of gauze, etc. Seeing it on the big screen is almost obligatory for fans of sternberg.
And not just fans of Sternberg! It's a masterpiece, period. Anyone serious about film needs to make a pilgrimage to see it on the big screen. Lucky you, getting acquainted with the film in this way.
Whether prints exist with this in tact is unknown to me.. though the fact that Uni just released the censored version probably indicates the reason CC is holding off releasing the film via the existing digibeta, which I'm sure Uni would let them have. They're probably scouring archives to find a complete original print.
I have the old laserdisc of SHANGHAI EXPRESS, so I'm willing to wait for whatever Criterion puts out.

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