Skip to main content

Featured

Ann Dvorak's Big Future

Two Little Girls with Big Futures! "The passage of time has been very kind to Three on a Match and Ann Dvorak, as the film now is considered a quintessential pre-Code classic, complete with sex, drugs, booze, skin, kidnapping, suicide, and magnified nose-hair plucking. For modern audiences aware of the ultra-sanitized scenarios that would plague American films for decades once the Production Code was aggressively enforced, Three on a Match stands out as a delightfully shocking and racy example of early 1930s Hollywood. Ann is only mildly effective as the society wife but comes to dominate the film once her downfall begins, and the train wreck that is Vivian Revere is mesmerizing. Any pent-up nervous energy Ann may have had in real life is unleashed through Vivian and she isn’t afraid to look like hell to bring this character to life. In one scene, as she waits for Blondell to exit a beauty parlor in order to hit her up for cash, Ann appears emaciated with dark circles under her ey...
Post a Comment
Read more

Benjamin Christensen's Häxan

"Benjamin Christensen provoked his contemporaries and set himself in opposition to the filmmaking practices of his time. He had a strong belief in himself and worked consciously with film as a new art form. He considered the director as the author of the film and stated that "like any other artist he should reveal his own individuality in his own work." Thus Christensen can be regarded as one of the first auteurs of the cinema. Carl Dreyer characterized Christensen as "a man who knew exactly what he wanted and who pursued his goal with uncompromising stubbornness." Christensen's main work is Häxan , an ambitious and unique film and a pioneering achievement in both the documentary and the fiction film. In this film Christensen combined his rationalistic ideas with his passionate temperament."


"Christensen was always an isolated director in the Danish film world, and after Häxan he left Denmark. He made an insignificant film in Germany and was seen in Dreyer's Michael as the master. He got an offer from Hollywood and made six films there. He used his talent for the strange and peculiar Seven Footprints to Satan , a witty horror comedy. Christensen returned to Denmark in the 1930s and in 1939 he was hired by Nordisk Films Kompagni. Again Christensen showed himself to be a controversial filmmaker. Determined to break the trivial pattern of Danish cinema at that time, he made three films which dealt with topical problems arising from conflicts between generations. One film depicted children from divorce-ridden homes, another was about abortion. Christensen's last film was a spy thriller set against an international setting. It was a total failure, and Christensen left film production. For the rest of his life he lived in splendid isolation as manager of a small and insignificant cinema in the suburbs of Copenhagen."

Text by Ib Monty, sourced from: http://www.filmreference.com/Directors-Bu-Co/Christensen-Benjamin.html#ixzz6qiiMBfnY

Film score from video above also available on Bandcamp:


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts