May 23 - June 6
THE POWER OF DESIRE: THE DECADENT VISIONS OF JOSEF VON STERNBERG
The zenith of Viennese-born Josef von Sternberg’s (1894-1969) career as a director had well & truly ended before auteurism gained popularity in the 1950s, however his oeuvre had long demonstrated that a film could be seen as the complete creative vision of an individual in total control of all elements of production.
Working in a star-driven industry, Sternberg was inevitably overshadowed – for many, anyway – by the actress he inaugurated as an icon: Marlene Dietrich. From The Blue Angel to the brazenly excessive & absurd The Devil is a Woman (1935), Sternberg found in Dietrich a particularly ambiguous image of femininity that was deeply desirable & simultaneously threatening. Indeed, Sternberg’s genius lay in his uncanny ability to breathe life into a string of very real characters, to illuminate them honestly, reveal their humanity & desires tenderly & with remarkable honesty in an era characterised by oppressive social conformity. Sternberg was a visionary filmmaker whose real interest was in the transcendental potential of the medium itself, & his films persist as lush, baroque – even camp – examples of a man searching for – & finding – the sublime through his lens.
This season of imported 35mm prints features many of the core works in Sternberg’s filmography including the 3 central & defining films made in collaboration with Dietrich: The Blue Angel, Shanghai Express, & the mind-boggling The Scarlet Empress. It also casts a light on the key works of the director’s late silent cinema: his visionary debut, The Salvation Hunters, The Last Command, & the beautifully evocative The Docks of New York.
May 23
7:00 – THE SCARLET EMPRESS
Josef von Sternberg (1934) 104 mins PG
Sternberg’s greatest & most astonishing film is a pictorially brilliant homage to the imperious stardom & luminosity of Marlene Dietrich. Literally over-spilling its frame with rich, baroque detail, Sternberg’s opulent & decadent film creates an extraordinarily heightened portrait of the world of Catherine the Great. A bracing mélange of precisely detailed artefacts, art history, myth, the anachronistic, & salacious tales of Catherine’s sexual prowess & ruthless pursuit of power, it features some of the greatest set-pieces of 1930s Hollywood. With John Lodge, Louise Dresser & a demented Sam Jaffe.
35mm preservation print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
Cteq Annotation:
‘Beyond Camp or the Politics of Persona: Josef von Sternberg’s The Scarlet Empress‘ by Peter Kemp
8:55 – THE DOCKS OF NEW YORK
Josef von Sternberg (1928) 96 mins
Featuring spectacular footage of the Hudson River, shot by the great Harold Rosson, Sternberg created this masterpiece out of the seedy underside of the great metropolis. Sternberg then spends most of the film inside & around a dingy saloon, moving from the docks into the shadows that plague the tenebrous interiors. Considerably darker than many of the other key works of late silent cinema, the film approaches human nature & desire as something that, as a mere fact of life, cannot be trusted. With George Bancroft & Betty Compson. Scripted by Jules Furthman.
35mm preservation print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
Cteq Annotation:
‘The Docks of New York‘ by William “Bill” Blick
May 30
7:00 – SHANGHAI EXPRESS
Josef von Sternberg (1932) 80 mins PG
Marlene Dietrich is the indelible Shanghai Lily, a woman of uncertain repute riding on a train with her ex-lover before a cruel warlord, Warner Oland, intercedes. Probably Sternberg’s most fondly & widely remembered work, this Hollywood-bound opus presents a cruelly seductive fantasy of China to rival Capra’s The Bitter Tea of General Yen. Astutely combines Lee Garmes’ bravura, smoke-filled cinematography with Jules Furthman’s exquisitely etched script. Features one of Anna May Wong’s most striking performances.
35mm preservation print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
CTEQ Annotation:
‘Shanghai Express‘ by Wheeler Winston Dixon
8:30 – THE SALVATION HUNTERS
Josef von Sternberg (1925) 72 mins
Traces of the decorative excess that marks Sternberg’s later work can be glimpsed in his evocative use of veils, nets & billboards to layer the locations & sets in this unlikely, striking low-budget debut. This Poverty Row saga of a boy & girl who rescue an orphan & try to leave the “mud” behind them owes a debt to Erich von Stroheim’s Greed. Directed with dignity & perception, this film ensured Sternberg’s discovery by Chaplin, Fairbanks & Pickford.
35mm preservation print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
9:55 – THE EPIC THAT NEVER WAS
Bill Duncalf (1965) 66 mins
This Dirk Bogarde-narrated account & partial reconstruction of Sternberg’s failed 1937 attempt to film Robert Graves’ I, Claudius is a fascinating account of one of the great “lost” works of film history. With glimpses of Charles Laughton’s extraordinary performance, & Merle Oberon’s more troubled role, this is a unique archive of one of cinema’s notorious abandoned projects.
Print courtesy of the National Film & Sound Archive of Australia.
June 6
7:00 – THE BLUE ANGEL
Josef von Sternberg (1930) 109 mins PG
The film that made Marlene Dietrich’s international career is based on Heinrich Mann’s relentless, unforgiving novel about the destruction of a puritanical schoolteacher (Emil Jannings) who falls for the irresistible allure of a nightclub singer. Sternberg’s first collaboration with Dietrich parallels the discovery & rise of a new star with the descent of Jannings, a waning star from the silent era. Features a classic music score, including Dietrich’s unforgettable rendition of Friedrich Holländer’s “Falling in Love Again”.
35mm print courtesy of the British Film Institute.
9:00 – THE LAST COMMAND
Josef von Sternberg (1928) 88 mins
Emil Jannings, deservedly winning the first ever Oscar for Best Actor, plays a down-&-out Hollywood extra who is hired by an ex-revolutionary Russian filmmaker to play a major part in a production. But this is no ordinary act of casting, for the role he is required to play is in fact his own self – an exiled tsarist general. What follows is a complex but brilliantly executed tale of mortification, history & eventual downfall. Sternberg’s directorial flair & satirical touch incited Jannings to recommend the director for The Blue Angel.
CTEQ Annotations:
‘The Last Command: Josef von Sternberg’s Life and Death of a Russian Extra‘ by Shari Kizirian
Preceded by
The Town
Josef von Sternberg (1943) 12 mins.
Sternberg’s surprisingly earnest & heartfelt wartime documentary of life in Madison, Indiana.
Prints courtesy of the National Film & Sound Archive of Australia.
Backdrops:
Josef Von Sternberg
SHANGHAI EXPRESS
THE DOCKS OF NEW YORK
THE LAST COMMAND
SHANGHAI EXPRESS
THE BLUE ANGEL
THE BLUE ANGEL