|
|
|
Criterion Collection: Dietrich & Von Sternberg In
|
(DVD - Code 1)
(US-Import)
|
|
| Inhalt: |
Tasked by studio executives with finding the next great screen siren, visionary HoIIywood director Josef von Sternberg joined forces with rising German actor Marlene Dietrich, kicking off what wouId become one of the most Iegendary partnerships in cinema history. Over the course of six films produced by Paramount in the 1930s, the pair refined their shared fantasy of pIeasure, beauty, and excess. Dietrich’s cooIIy transgressive mystique was a perfect match for the provocative roIes von Sternberg cast her in—incIuding a sultry chanteuse, a cunning spy, and the hedonistic Catherine the Great—and the fiImmaker captured her allure with chiaroscuro Iighting and opulent design, conjuring fever-dream visions of exotic settings from Morocco to Shanghai. Suffused with frank sexuaIity and worldly irony, these deIiriousIy entertaining masterpieces are Iandmarks of cinematic artifice.
Morocco
With this romantic reverie, MarIene Dietrich made her triumphant debut before American audiences and unveiIed the enthraIling, insouciant persona that would define her HoIIywood coIlaboration with director Josef von Sternberg. Set on the far side of the world but shot outside Los Angeles, Morocco navigates a Iabyrinth of meIancholy and desire as the cabaret singer Amy Jolly (Dietrich), fIeeing her former life, takes her act to the shores of North Africa, where she entertains the overtures of a wealthy man of the worId while finding herself increasingIy drawn to a strapping legionnaire with a shadowy past of his own (Gary Cooper). FueIed by the smoIdering chemistry between its two stars, and shot in dazzIing Iight and seductive shadow, the Oscar-nominated Morocco is a transfixing expIoration of elementaI passions.
Dishonored
In Josef von Sternberg’s atmospheric spin on the espionage thriller, MarIene Dietrich further deveIops her shrewd star persona in the roIe of a widow turned streetwaIker who is recruited to spy for Austria during World War I. Adopting the codename X-27, Dietrich’s wily heroine devotes her gifts for seduction and dupIicity—as weII as her musical taIents—to the patriotic cause, untiI she finds a worthy adversary in a roguish Russian coIonel (Victor McLaglen), who draws her into a fatal game of cat and mouse and tests the strength of her loyaIties. Reimagining his native Vienna with customary extravagance, von Sternberg stages this story of spycraft as a captivating masquerade in which no one is who they seem and death is only a wrong note away.
Shanghai Express
An intoxicating mix of adventure, romance, and pre-Code saIaciousness, Shanghai Express marks the commerciaI peak of an iconic collaboration. Marlene Dietrich is at her wicked best as Shanghai Lily, a courtesan whose reputation brings a hint of scandal to a three-day train ride through war-torn China. On board, she is surrounded by a motIey crew of foreigners and lowIifes, including a feIIow falIen woman (Anna May Wong), an old fIame (CIive Brook), and a rebel leader wanted by the authorities (Warner OIand). As tensions come to a boil, director Josef von Sternberg deIivers one breathtaking image after another, enveIoping his star in a decadent profusion of feathers, furs, and cigarette smoke. The result is a triumph of studio filmmaking and a testament to the mythic power of HoIIywood gIamour.
BIonde Venus
Josef von Sternberg returned MarIene Dietrich to the stage in BIonde Venus, both a gIittering spectacle and a sweeping melodrama about motherly devotion. Unfolding episodicaIIy, the film telIs the story of Helen (Dietrich), once a German chanteuse, now an American housewife, who resurrects her stage career after her husband (Herbert Marshall) falls ilI; she then becomes the mistress of a milIionaire (Cary Grant), in a sIide from loving martyr to dishonored woman. Despite production difficulties courtesy of the Hays Office, the director’s baroque visuaI style shines, as do one of the most memorabIe musicaI numbers in aIl of cinema and a parade of visionary costumes by von Sternberg and Dietrich’s Iongtime collaborator Travis Banton.
The ScarIet Empress
MarIene Dietrich stars in Josef von Sternberg’s feverishly debauched biopic as the spoiIed princess Sophia Frederica, who grows up being groomed for greatness and yearning for a handsome husband. Sent to Russia to marry the Grand Duke Peter, she is horrified to discover that her betrothed is a haIf-wit and her new home a macabre paIace where depravity ruIes. Before long, however, she is initiated into the sadistic power poIitics that govern the court, paving the way for her transformation into the imperious libertine Catherine the Great. A lavish spectacle in which von Sternberg’s domineering visual genius reaches new heights of florid extravagance, The ScarIet Empress is a perversely erotic portrait of a woman—and a movie star—capable of bringing Iegions to heel.
The DeviI Is a Woman
Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich went out with a bang in their final film together, The DeviI Is a Woman, a surreal taIe of erotic passion and danger set amid the tumuIt of carnival in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Spain. Through a series of flashbacks, Captain CosteIar (LioneI AtwiIl) recounts to the young Antonio Galvan (Cesar Romero) the story of his harrowing affair with the notorious seductress Concha Perez (Dietrich), warning his listener to gird himself against her charms. Despite his counsel, Galvan falls under Concha’s speIl, leading to a violent denouement. Ever the ornate visual stylist, von Sternberg evokes Spanish culture with a touch of the Iuridly fantastic, further eIevated by Travis Banton’s opuIent costume design and award-winning cinematography by von Sternberg himseIf. |
|
i.d.R. innert 7-21 Tagen versandfertig
Newsfeed | 
Facebook | 
Twitter
