Friday 18 February 2011

Strange Love of Martha Ivers
(1946)

RATING:80%
FORMAT:DVD - 1st-Generation



VHS-quality transfer of a faded print that still manages to thrill with its melodramatic intensity.

A tale of guilt and redemption and the unresolved secrets of the past that still have their affect in the present. As so often in Hollywood, when the movies are female-centered, the men have feet of clay and marry women with stronger wills than their own - that, or more money than they could earn on their own.

The performances, from all concerned, are excellent and help raise this above the usual melodramatic cliché. Excellent characterization from a sometimes meandering noir screenplay shows off Barbara STANWYCK to the same great effect she displayed in Double Indemnity.

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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.