Thursday, 11 June 2009

Shanghai Express
(1932)

Rating: 100%

Work-related image.
(http://films-muets.blogspot.co.uk)

Vicarious Intimacy

Grown up film about sexual relations, regret, anger, jealousy, passion, love and lust presented as stirring melodrama.

A mixed ethnic and national bag of characters boards the Shanghai Express traveling through the civil war torn China of the last century only to find themselves enmeshed in that very war. Solid human archetypes populate this delicious movie: World-weary fallen women, racists, sullen innamorati, loud-mouthed Americans & rude Germans.

Work-related image.
(https://www.pinterest.com)

The politics is neatly entwined with the love story and Marlene DIETRICH overwhelms the show. Not just because of her striking looks nor the fact that she is one of the greatest scene-stealers of them all nor because the camera loves her photogenicism but because the director, Josef von Sternberg, does.

As Von Sternberg’s cinematic muse, DIETRICH suggests far more about her sexuality - with her mobile face - than would have been allowed by many film censors in 1932. Von Sternberg’s camera practically makes love to her as he lovingly photographs and lights her as no other Hollywood glamor-puss ever was. This provides the audience with a vicarious sense of intimacy with her that is deeply unusual for Hollywood as well as deeply memorable.

The visual expressionism heightens the emotions on display here perfectly and beautifully: A masterpiece that shows what cinema can do at its best.

Copyright © 2015 Frank TALKER.
Permission granted to reproduce & distribute this posting in any way, shape or form - provided you mention this Blog.
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Posted by Frank TALKER™ at 11:59
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Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.



Albert Camus… (1913-60), French-Algerian writer & philosopher. The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt: New York: Vintage Books, (1984; page 182.)