G.W. Pabst, Emil Jannings, Louise Brooks ... And Quentin Tarantino
Katie-Bar-The-Door and I just got back from a Thursday afternoon matinee (which somehow sounds dirty, but isn't)—Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. I won't say too much about it here since I'll no doubt be writing about it at length ten years from now when we get to 2009 ("Isn't it already 2009?" Katie asked reasonably), but I will say Inglourious Basterds is my favorite kind of movie, one where you can use the words "Fun-Stupid" and "Cinematic Masterpiece" in the same sentence. If you're a fan of Rio Bravo, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly or North by Northwest, you know what I mean.
I mention Inglourious Basterds here because as Katie said after the show, "Quentin Tarantino has been reading your blog." Which is to say that the movie is chock full of references to G.W. Pabst, Emil Jannings, German Expressionism and an allusion to Louise Brooks ("There is no Dietrich, there is no Riefenstahl, there is only von Hammersmark!").
I saw IB shortly after you introduced me to the body of scholarly work on the indescribable Louise Brooks, and I laughed when the grand pronouncement regarding Ms. von Hammersmark rang out.
I was the only person laughing.
As you might imagine, this cracked me up even more.
It's fun how the ads make it seem like a movie about WWII and Nazis, when it's a movie about movies.
Bahn Gee-ohr-Know !
PS It's also a cineaste's wet dream; I foresee years of continued study [hey! he's alluding to the deleted scene at the farmhouse in Kelly's Heroes. . . . ! ~~ no, no, no -- it's from Lolita!]
This has nothing to do w/IB, but Mister Muleboy's comment about being the only one laughing in the theatre brought me right back to a loopy outing to see 'A Mighty Wind', during which he and Miss Chris and I were the only ones laughing when they sang, "It's blowin' you and meeeee . . . "
Named for Katie-Bar-The-Door, the Katies are "alternate Oscars"—who should have been nominated, who should have won—but really they're just an excuse to write a history of the movies from the Silent Era to the present day.
To see a list of nominees and winners by decade, as well as links to my essays about them, click the highlighted links:
Remember: There are no wrong answers, only movies you haven't seen yet.
The Silent Oscars
And don't forget to check out the Silent Oscars—my year-by-year choices for best picture, director and all four acting categories for the pre-Oscar years, 1902-1927.
Look at me—Joe College, with a touch of arthritis. Are my eyes really brown? Uh, no, they're green. Would we have the nerve to dive into the icy water and save a person from drowning? That's a key question. I, of course, can't swim, so I never have to face it. Say, haven't you anything better to do than to keep popping in here early every morning and asking a lot of fool questions?
3 comments:
I saw IB shortly after you introduced me to the body of scholarly work on the indescribable Louise Brooks, and I laughed when the grand pronouncement regarding Ms. von Hammersmark rang out.
I was the only person laughing.
As you might imagine, this cracked me up even more.
It's fun how the ads make it seem like a movie about WWII and Nazis, when it's a movie about movies.
Bahn Gee-ohr-Know !
PS
It's also a cineaste's wet dream; I foresee years of continued study [hey! he's alluding to the deleted scene at the farmhouse in Kelly's Heroes. . . . ! ~~ no, no, no -- it's from Lolita!]
This has nothing to do w/IB, but Mister Muleboy's comment about being the only one laughing in the theatre brought me right back to a loopy outing to see 'A Mighty Wind', during which he and Miss Chris and I were the only ones laughing when they sang, "It's blowin' you and meeeee . . . "
PS I don't mean to be a pest. . .
I don't mean to be a bigger pest than normal, but
you're really shy about two, maybe three
photos of Louise Brooks
in this entry.
Aesthetic judgments aside, you really need those photos.
Every post should have at least one.
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