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Posts tagged ‘film’

December 14, 2010 | An Auteurist History of Film

Fascism on the March

Posted by Charles Silver, Curator, Department of Film

Triumph of the Will. 1935. Germany. Produced, directed, and edited by Leni Riefenstahl

These notes accompany the Fascism on the March program on December 15, 16, and 17 in Theater 3.

It was inevitable that the movies, as the most popular and influential medium of propaganda in history, would respond on many levels as the relative calm produced by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles gave way to the madness that arose out of the worldwide Depression. The Hollywood studios, which were somewhat dependent on the European market, approached the political and economic issues very gingerly. Even Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), released only four months before the invasion of Poland, tiptoed around anti-Semitism. By then the handwriting on the wall should have been evident to everyone, but 18 months later, Charles Chaplin was under pressure not to release The Great Dictator.

December 9, 2010 | Film, Modern Women

Candid Thoughts on Lillian Gish

Posted by Jenny He, Curatorial Assistant, Film

The Whales of August. 1987. USA. Directed by Lindsay Anderson

Much has been written about Lillian Gish over the course of her 75-year career, and as the Museum’s retrospective of the actress’s films nears a close (concluding with a screening of the Museum’s newly preserved print of Orphans of the Storm on Monday, December 13), I would like to pay particular attention to the writings of three of Gish’s friends, colleagues, and critics—Anita Loos, Andrew Sarris, and Mike Kaplan—who offered the kind of personal insights that aren’t often evident among all of the written discussion of her career.

December 7, 2010 | An Auteurist History of Film

Marcel Pagnol’s Cesar

Posted by Charles Silver, Curator, Department of Film

These notes accompany screenings of Marcel Pagnol’s Cesar on December 8, 9, and 10 in Theater 3.

Although Marcel Pagnol (1895–1974) directed 18 films, his identity as a cinema auteur is a little hard to pin down. Some of his best work was done in filmed adaptations of his stage plays, several of which were directed by others. He had a hand in writing all of the movies he directed, but he also wrote screenplays for others. To top it off, he was also a producer with his own studio.

November 30, 2010 | An Auteurist History of Film

Charles Chaplin’s Modern Times

Posted by Charles Silver, Curator, Department of Film

Modern Times. 1936. USA. Produced, written, directed, edited, and scored by Charles Chaplin

These notes accompany screenings of Charles Chaplin’s Modern Times on November 30 and December 1 and 2 in Theater 3.

If City Lights represents Charles Chaplin (1889–1977) at his romantic zenith, Modern Times most admirably displays his prescient satirical gifts. The relationship he began in the early 1930s with Paulette Goddard, which culminated in a secret marriage in China, began to relieve his obsessive loneliness and self-absorption. This, together with extensive travels through Europe and Asia, caused him to turn outward and consider problems beyond the personal.

November 23, 2010 | Film

Eternally Grateful: Lillian Gish

Posted by Jenny He, Curatorial Assistant, Film

Lillian Gish MoMA retrospective reception

The Museum of Modern Art's Lillian Gish retrospective reception, September 18, 1980. From left: Sir John Gielgud, Helen Hayes, Nedda Harrington Logan, Lillian Gish, Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Irene Worth. Photo: MoMA Department of Film archives

The inspiration for MoMA’s upcoming Lillian Gish retrospective came about during the planning of the publication Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art. When I was asked to write an essay on a film artist for the book, actress Lillian Gish quickly came to mind. Not only is she integral to the history of film, but also to the history of film collecting at MoMA. She was an early champion of the Department of Film’s preservation efforts, and she was instrumental in getting her frequent collaborator D. W. Griffith to give his films to the Museum.

November 23, 2010 | An Auteurist History of Film

William Cameron Menzies’s Things to Come

Posted by Charles Silver, Curator, Department of Film

Things to Come. 1936. Great Britain. Directed by William Cameron Menzies

These notes accompany screenings of William Cameron Menzies’s Things to Come on November 24 and 26 in Theater 3.

I can’t deny that there may be a slight “guilty pleasures” element in my choice of Things to Come as part of this series. William Cameron Menzies (1896–1957), however, was a towering figure in the history of film, if not as a director, then as an art director. I would argue that he crossed the line into auteurism, even while working for major directors like Walsh, Dwan, Lubitsch, Borzage, Griffith, Hawks, and Hitchcock.

November 16, 2010 | An Auteurist History of Film

Josef von Sternberg’s The Devil Is a Woman

Posted by Charles Silver, Curator, Department of Film

The Devil Is a Woman. 1935. USA. Directed by Josef von Sternberg

These notes accompany screenings of Josef von Sternberg’s The Devil Is a Woman on November 17, 18, and 19 in Theater 3.

Josef von Sternberg (1894–1969) has already been represented in this series by The Docks of New York (1928) and Morocco (1930). After The Blue Angel and Morocco, Sternberg went on to make five more semi-autobiographical films with his star and lover, Marlene Dietrich. In my judgment, the best of these were Shanghai Express, The Scarlet Empress, and the confessional The Devil Is a Woman. The films starring his “discovery,” Dietrich, are the centerpiece of the director’s career and represent perhaps the highest point achieved in cinema’s early sound era.

November 12, 2010 | Film, Modern Women

Barbara Hammer on Feminist Film

Posted by Alexandra Schwartz, Curator of Contemporary Art, Montclair Art Museum and co-editor of Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art

One of the key experimental filmmakers of her generation, Barbara Hammer (American, b. 1939) is renowned for creating the earliest and most extensive body of avant-garde films on lesbian life and sexuality. In this fascinating video interview, she talks about her career as a filmmaker and the development of feminist and queer filmmaking over the last thirty years.

November 9, 2010 | An Auteurist History of Film

King Vidor and Pare Lorentz Confront the Great Depression

Posted by Charles Silver, Curator, Department of Film

Our Daily Bread. 1934. USA. Directed by King Vidor

These notes accompany the Great Depression program on November 10, 11, and 12 in Theater 3.

What goes around comes around. I first wrote about King Vidor’s Our Daily Bread in October 1972 (as part MoMA’s massive Vidor retrospective), exactly 38 years after film’s release. Now, another 38 years later, another economic crisis is upon us, and I essentially agree with my earlier assessment of the film. It is still naïve, simplistic, and awkward, but it remains extremely lovely in its innocence.

November 2, 2010 | An Auteurist History of Film

The Films of Alessandro Blasetti

Posted by Charles Silver, Curator, Department of Film

1860 (I Mille di Garibaldi). 1933. Italy. Directed by Alessandro Blasetti

These notes accompany the Alessandro Blasetti program on November 3, 5, and 5 in Theater 3.

Alessandro Blasetti (1900–1987), a law school graduate and failed movie extra, started out as a film critic and participant in what might be viewed as a forerunner of the French Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) of the 1950s and 1960s: the Augustus cooperative. Blasetti and his circle were rebelling against an Italian cinema dominated by costume epics and melodramas, the kinds of films that had made Rome one of the premiere movie capitals of the world before World War I.

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