There are obscure treasures and there are holy grails. Of the latter, none is more mythic than the original 131-minute cut of Orson Welles’s The Magnificent Ambersons, believed by many to be lost somewhere in Brazil. All others arguably belong to Erich von Stroheim. Born in Vienna in 1885 into a Jewish household, von Stroheim is mostly remembered for playing evil Germans in films like Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion. Cinephiles, though, know him as the unluckiest auteur in the history of cinema.
Intended to run anywhere between six and 10 hours, many of von Stroheim’s films, from Greed to the Gloria Swanson vehicle Queen Kelly, were severely bastardized by studio heads upon their release. In this context, the iris shot that opens 1922’s Foolish Wives feels especially poignant. This is no ordinary “fade into” effect, but an entrancing reinforcement of the sinister, insular, and constrictive nature of the film’s milieu.
Intended to run anywhere between six and 10 hours, many of von Stroheim’s films, from Greed to the Gloria Swanson vehicle Queen Kelly, were severely bastardized by studio heads upon their release. In this context, the iris shot that opens 1922’s Foolish Wives feels especially poignant. This is no ordinary “fade into” effect, but an entrancing reinforcement of the sinister, insular, and constrictive nature of the film’s milieu.
- 6/27/2023
- by Ed Gonzalez
- Slant Magazine
Mubi's double bill Renoir, Beginnings and Endings is showing September 15 - October 15, 2020 in the United States.Above: NanaJean Renoir, one of the greatest French filmmakers, if not the greatest, was a passionate raconteur. Not only did he write his expansionist memoir, My Life and My Films (1974), and rendered some of his life in prose in his late novels, but, according to his biographer, Pascal Merigeau, he also had a prodigious talent for molding fact into myth.Renoir’s dramatic story begins with his second feature, Nana (1927). Renoir adapted the tale about a striving actress from Émile Zola’s novel, to launch the career of his wife, Catherine Hessling. Hessling dreamed of Hollywood, as eventually did Renoir. Some ten years later, he moved to Los Angeles, where he lived till his death, in 1979. The film’s Nana plays hussies but dreams of a tragic role. When a theater director humiliates her,...
- 9/11/2020
- MUBI
Hollywood has never been a forgiving place for artists, least of all directors.
D.W. Griffith, who pretty much invented film grammar, couldn't rebound from the disaster of 1916's Intolerance. He died in 1948, impoverished and alcoholic, occasionally visited by his adoring muse, Lillian Gish, but unable to land a gig even as a second-unit director on Gone With the Wind, for which David O. Selznick briefly considered him, only to think better of the idea.
Griffith's onetime assistant, Erich von Stroheim, fared little better. The silent-era master, responsible for 1922's Foolish Wives and 1925's Greed, was relegated to ...
D.W. Griffith, who pretty much invented film grammar, couldn't rebound from the disaster of 1916's Intolerance. He died in 1948, impoverished and alcoholic, occasionally visited by his adoring muse, Lillian Gish, but unable to land a gig even as a second-unit director on Gone With the Wind, for which David O. Selznick briefly considered him, only to think better of the idea.
Griffith's onetime assistant, Erich von Stroheim, fared little better. The silent-era master, responsible for 1922's Foolish Wives and 1925's Greed, was relegated to ...
Hollywood has never been a forgiving place for artists, least of all directors.
D.W. Griffith, who pretty much invented film grammar, couldn't rebound from the disaster of 1916's Intolerance. He died in 1948, impoverished and alcoholic, occasionally visited by his adoring muse, Lillian Gish, but unable to land a gig even as a second-unit director on Gone With the Wind, for which David O. Selznick briefly considered him, only to think better of the idea.
Griffith's onetime assistant, Erich von Stroheim, fared little better. The silent-era master, responsible for 1922's Foolish Wives and 1925's Greed, was relegated to ...
D.W. Griffith, who pretty much invented film grammar, couldn't rebound from the disaster of 1916's Intolerance. He died in 1948, impoverished and alcoholic, occasionally visited by his adoring muse, Lillian Gish, but unable to land a gig even as a second-unit director on Gone With the Wind, for which David O. Selznick briefly considered him, only to think better of the idea.
Griffith's onetime assistant, Erich von Stroheim, fared little better. The silent-era master, responsible for 1922's Foolish Wives and 1925's Greed, was relegated to ...
The Ninth Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — co-presented by Cinema St. Louis and the Webster University Film Series starts this Friday, March 10th. — The Classic French Film Festival celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s cinematic legacy. The featured films span the decades from the 1920s through the mid-1990s, offering a revealing overview of French cinema.
All films are screened at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood).
The fest is annually highlighted by significant restorations, which this year includes films by two New Wave masters: Jacques Rivette’s first feature, “Paris Belongs to Us,” and François Truffaut’s cinephilic love letter, “Day for Night.” The fest also provides one of the few opportunities available in St. Louis to see films projected the old-school, time-honored way, with both Alain Resnais’ “Last Year at Marienbad” and Robert Bresson’s “Au hasard Balthazar” screening from 35mm prints. Even more traditional,...
All films are screened at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood).
The fest is annually highlighted by significant restorations, which this year includes films by two New Wave masters: Jacques Rivette’s first feature, “Paris Belongs to Us,” and François Truffaut’s cinephilic love letter, “Day for Night.” The fest also provides one of the few opportunities available in St. Louis to see films projected the old-school, time-honored way, with both Alain Resnais’ “Last Year at Marienbad” and Robert Bresson’s “Au hasard Balthazar” screening from 35mm prints. Even more traditional,...
- 3/6/2017
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The Ninth Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — co-presented by Cinema St. Louis and the Webster University Film Series — celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s cinematic legacy. The featured films span the decades from the 1920s through the mid-1990s, offering a revealing overview of French cinema.
The fest is annually highlighted by significant restorations, which this year includes films by two New Wave masters: Jacques Rivette’s first feature, “Paris Belongs to Us,” and François Truffaut’s cinephilic love letter, “Day for Night.” The fest also provides one of the few opportunities available in St. Louis to see films projected the old-school, time-honored way, with both Alain Resnais’ “Last Year at Marienbad” and Robert Bresson’s “Au hasard Balthazar” screening from 35mm prints. Even more traditional, we also offer a silent film with live music, and audiences are sure to delight in the Poor People of Paris...
The fest is annually highlighted by significant restorations, which this year includes films by two New Wave masters: Jacques Rivette’s first feature, “Paris Belongs to Us,” and François Truffaut’s cinephilic love letter, “Day for Night.” The fest also provides one of the few opportunities available in St. Louis to see films projected the old-school, time-honored way, with both Alain Resnais’ “Last Year at Marienbad” and Robert Bresson’s “Au hasard Balthazar” screening from 35mm prints. Even more traditional, we also offer a silent film with live music, and audiences are sure to delight in the Poor People of Paris...
- 1/31/2017
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Rod Taylor dead at 84: Actor best known for 'The Time Machine' and 'The Birds' Rod Taylor, best remembered for the early 1960s movies The Time Machine and The Birds, and for his supporting role as Winston Churchill in Quentin Tarantino's international hit Inglourious Basterds, has died. Taylor suffered a heart attack at his Los Angeles home earlier this morning (January 8, 2015). Born on January 11, 1930, in Sydney, he would have turned 85 on Sunday. Based on H.G. Wells' classic 1895 sci-fi novel, The Time Machine stars Rod Taylor as a H. George Wells, an inventor who comes up with an intricate chair that allows him to travel across time. (In the novel, the Victorian protagonist is referred to simply as the "Time Traveller.") After experiencing World War I and World War II, Wells decides to fast forward to the distant future, ultimately arriving at a place where humankind has been split...
- 1/9/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Translators introduction: This article by Mireille Latil Le Dantec, the first of two parts, was originally published in issue 40 of Cinématographe, September 1978. The previous issue of the magazine had included a dossier on "La qualité française" and a book of a never-shot script by Jean Grémillon (Le Printemps de la Liberté or The Spring of Freedom) had recently been published. The time was ripe for a re-evaluation of Grémillon's films and a resuscitation of his undervalued career. As this re-evaluation appears to still be happening nearly 40 years later—Grémillon's films have only recently seen DVD releases and a 35mm retrospective begins this week at Museum of the Moving Image in Queens—this article and its follow-up gives us an important view of a French perspective on Grémillon's work by a very perceptive critic doing the initial heavy-lifting in bringing the proper attention to the filmmaker's work.
Filmmaker maudit?...
Filmmaker maudit?...
- 11/30/2014
- by Ted Fendt
- MUBI
Erich von Stroheim was one-of-a-kind: a serious filmmaker who also became a distinctive, and indelible, screen personality. He’s probably best known today for his role as Gloria Swanson’s faithful servant in Billy Wilder’s 'Sunset Blvd.' While learning about directing as an assistant to D.W. Griffith in the teens, he established himself as a stereotyped “evil Hun” in World War One movies. Universal’s Carl Laemmle gave him a chance to realize his own vision on screen in 'Blind Husbands' (1919) and launched his star-crossed career as a writer-director. Laemmle may have complained about the enormous cost of the lavish 'Foolish Wives' (1922), with its eye-popping Monte Carlo set, but he used...
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- 8/28/2014
- by Leonard Maltin
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
The top stories of the week from Toh! Awards: Oscar Predictions 2014 Update Ellen DeGeneres Returns to Host the Oscars Festivals: Ben Stiller's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" Joins Oscar Race as Nyff Centerpiece Gala Toronto International Film Festival Documentary Line-up Led by Morris vs. Rumsfeld, "Tim's Vermeer," the Man Behind "Dog Day Afternoon" News: 10 Filmmakers' Top 10 Films Lists: Scorsese, Kubrick, Allen, Tarantino, Nolan and More Academy Governors Choose Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the First African-American AMPAS President Paramount Makes Moves Toward the Digital Future Spike Lee's Essential Film List (Video) Toh's Top Ten from July: Batman-Superman Bad Idea, Best Films of 2013 So Far, Comic-Con's Kick-Ass Women and More Tom Rothman to Revive TriStar Label Reviews: 'Elysium' Review and Round-Up Hollywood Whipping Boy Von Stroheim's Decadent "Foolish Wives" Was First Million Dollar Movie Review and Roundup: "2 Guns" Tries to Breathe Life Into Old Formula Review and...
- 8/2/2013
- by TOH!
- Thompson on Hollywood
Orson Welles is often held up as the most abused child in the history of Hollywood, but Erich von Stroheim was easily his equal as whipping boy: Beginning with “Foolish Wives” -- Hollywood’s first “million-dollar movie,” for which von Stroheim recreated Monte Carlo on the back lot of Universal – the former assistant to D.W. Griffith lost one duel after another to the hedge-clippers of Hollywood. On “Greed” alone, he was probably relieved of more footage than Welles ever shot in his life. The loss to cinema history has been mourned since the ‘20s. The good news: On Tuesday [July30] “Foolish Wives” -- mastered in HD from an archival 35mm print of the 1972 AFI Arthur Lennig restoration -- comes to Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Classics. It features the original 1922 Sigmund Romberg score, performed by Rodney Sauer, as well as “The Man You Loved to Hate,” Patrick Montgomery's feature-length documentary profile of von Stroheim,...
- 7/27/2013
- by John Anderson
- Thompson on Hollywood
Elizabeth Taylor is Cleopatra. (From mptvimages.com.)The great film flops, Stuart Klawans writes in Film Follies, "string together one spectacular sequence after another, rarely troubling the audience with the demands of logic or inner development." But not all flops are that good: some are merely commercial misjudgments, others spectacularly unwise expressions of unfettered ego. Ishtar—the doomed Warren Beatty project that Peter Biskind writes about in the current issue—is the latter, a movie whose audience and appreciation has lifted it from undeniable fiasco to cult favorite. Here are ten other highlights of a history of hubris, sprinkled with moments of salvageable genius. Nana (1934) When Erich von Stroheim's Foolish Wives (1922) went grossly over budget, Universal duly advertised it as "The first million-dollar film" and hoped for the best. When Samuel Goldwyn's attempt to launch Russian actress Anna Sten as the new Greta Garbo—in Nana—had to...
- 1/13/2010
- Vanity Fair
Arnold Schwarzenegger has earned a spot in the halls of Washington, but not because of his political career.
Instead, the former actor's turn as a robot from the future was enshrined in the Library of Congress as the National Film Registry announced Tuesday that "The Terminator" is among the 25 films that have been selected for preservation in the Registry in 2008.
Under the terms of the National Film Preservation Act, each year the Librarian of Congress names 25 films to the Registry that are "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant. The choices aren't necessarily considered the best American films; they are chosen by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington on the advice of the Film Preservation Board and the library's motion picture staff because the selections possess "enduring significance to American culture."
James Cameron's 1984 "Terminator," in which the future governor of California's cyborg utters the classic line, "I'll be back," was cited for "blending an ingenious,...
Instead, the former actor's turn as a robot from the future was enshrined in the Library of Congress as the National Film Registry announced Tuesday that "The Terminator" is among the 25 films that have been selected for preservation in the Registry in 2008.
Under the terms of the National Film Preservation Act, each year the Librarian of Congress names 25 films to the Registry that are "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant. The choices aren't necessarily considered the best American films; they are chosen by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington on the advice of the Film Preservation Board and the library's motion picture staff because the selections possess "enduring significance to American culture."
James Cameron's 1984 "Terminator," in which the future governor of California's cyborg utters the classic line, "I'll be back," was cited for "blending an ingenious,...
- 12/30/2008
- by By Gregg Kilday
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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