klaranovaks

[klaranovaks]

Babylon Berlin recaps

For anyone in this little fandom craving deep dive discussions of our glorious show, Emily VanDerWerff from Vox (along with a variety of awesome guest critics) has been recapping Babylon Berlin on her newsletter for the past several weeks. She’s made it through all of S1/2 so far, and should start S3 next week. This show has not gotten nearly enough coverage in English-language press, so the discussions in these recaps -- historical, narrative, character, fandom, and so on -- have been a real treat!

She starts here:

https://emilyvdw.substack.com/p/babylon-berlin-episode-1-and-episode

[klaranovaks]

THE CURSE OF QUON GWON (1917) dir. Marion E. Wong “The first feature film made with an all-Chinese American cast and an all-Chinese American company, The Curse of Quon Gwon was written and directed by Marion E. Wong at her own Mandarin Film Company, based in Oakland, California. Offering an important counterpoint to racist depictions of Asian characters in other films of the period, the film explores western influence on traditional Chinese society and amongst Chinese American communities, suggesting Wong’s keen awareness of early twentieth-century transnational identity, as film scholar Jenny Kwok Wah Lau has observed. Marion, who was in her early twenties at the time, also played the film’s villainess. Nearly all the actors in the movie are family members and friends. The leading role of the heroine was played by Marion’s sister-in-law, Violet Wong. Family members were also involved in other aspects of the film’s production, including costumes and finance. Produced in 1916-1917, The Curse of Quon Gwon is the earliest example of Chinese American independent film known to exist today.”

[klaranovaks]

Greta Garbo and Antonio Moreno 'The Temptress' 1926 photo by B.Longworth

[klaranovaks]

a cute guy with a tough girl

[klaranovaks]

Ava Gardner by Milton H. Greene for a Look magazine story on What is Sex Appeal. New York, 1954

[klaranovaks]

One Touch of Venus (1948)

[klaranovaks]

[klaranovaks]

Françoise Fabian in a still from Maigret voit rouge (1963)

[klaranovaks]

Rest in peace, Dorothy Malone (30 January 1924 – 19 January 2018)

She is best known for her appearance as a bespectacled bookstore clerk in The Big Sleep (1946) with Humphrey Bogart and for her Oscar-winning performance in Douglas Sirk’s Written on the Wind (1956), but she toiled away in movies and television for 52 years, from an uncredited role in Convicted Woman in 1940 to a featured role in the 1992 hit Basic Instinct.

[klaranovaks]

Sylvia Sidney, 1930s

[klaranovaks]

A photo by Bert Stern for Vogue, 1962

[klaranovaks]

Kaze no naka no mendori (1948)

[klaranovaks]

Yvonne Rainer and Bill Davis in “Love,” the final section of “Play” in Terrain (1963), Yvonne Rainer. Judson Memorial Church, New York, 1963. Photo: Al Giese. The Getty Research Institute, 2006.

[klaranovaks]

The black satin gown Rita Hayworth wore for the famous one glove strip tease scene in Gilda. It was made by french designer Jean Louis in 1946

[klaranovaks]

Dorothy Lamour photographed in ₁₉₃₄.

[klaranovaks]

La musica, Marguerite Duras, Paul Seban, 1967.

[klaranovaks]

“I want the spectator to have a physical experience, for him or her to feel time. Films are generally made to literally and metaphorically pass the time. But I want you to experience the time of a character. I don’t want you to just go through an emotional experience, but also another kind of experience, like with music, that is unique because it is purely physical.” Remembering the fearless filmmaking pioneer Chantal Akerman, 1950 - 2015.