you’ll see a crammed picture, every piece in it doing something. Graffiti, toys, masks, light fixtures, bowls of things: the sets are alive.”

 

“Paramount, which signed her [Marlene Dietrich] in a tizzy after viewing a rough cut of The Blue Angel, was the only studio that actually liked weird directors; von Sternberg was the champ of weird. Stop the projector during a medium shot in any of his films and you’ll see a crammed picture, every piece in it doing something. Graffiti, toys, masks, light fixtures, bowls of things: the sets are alive.”

/ From Movie Star: A Look at the Women Who Made Hollywood by Ethan Mordden, 1983 /

「派拉蒙在看過《藍天使》的粗剪版後欣喜若狂地簽下了她（瑪琳·黛德麗），它是唯一一家真正喜歡怪異導演的電影公司；馮·斯騰伯格是怪異冠軍。在他的任何一部電影的中景鏡頭中停止投影儀，你都會看到一張擁擠的畫面，其中的每個部分都在做一些事情。塗鴉、玩具、面具、燈具、碗裡的東西：佈景都是活的。 / 摘自伊桑莫登 (Ethan Mordden) 的《電影明星：看看創造好萊塢的女性》，1983 年 /

如果說富有遠見的導演約瑟夫馮斯騰伯格（Jonas Sternberg，1894年5月29日- 1969年12月22日- 55年前的今天去世）是電影界的達文西，那麼德國魅力女主角瑪琳·黛德麗就是他的蒙娜麗莎。兩人在1930 年至1935 年間共同製作的七部電影都是黑暗、色情、詼諧和崇高的藝術作品/惡之花，他們在其中磨練了黛德麗複雜、性感和貓科動物的形象，並將真正的歐陸式頹廢氣息帶入了好萊塢主流。一旦迪特里希和斯騰伯格的個人和職業關係破裂，他的事業就急劇下滑（斯騰伯格的“藝術氣質”燒毀了很多橋樑！）但我喜歡他後來的後迪特里希電影《上海姿態》（1941）、《澳門》（1952）和阿納塔漢（1953）。 （我首先承認，我沒有看過他早期的無聲電影）。導演斯滕伯格和繆斯迪特里希之間激烈而富有成效的創意結合可以說為米開朗基羅·安東尼奧尼和莫妮卡·維蒂、雷納·沃納·法斯賓德和漢娜·許古拉、約翰·卡索維茨和吉娜·羅蘭茲、佩德羅·阿爾莫多瓦和卡門·莫拉（或佩內洛普·克魯茲）等人創造了一個模板——約翰·沃特斯和神聖！圖為：一切開始的地方－史騰伯格和迪特里希在製作他們的第一次合作《藍色天使》（1930）時。

If visionary director Josef von Sternberg (Jonas Sternberg, 29 May 1894 - 22 December 1969 – died 55 years ago today) was the Leonardo da Vinci of cinema, then German glamourpuss leading lady Marlene Dietrich was his Mona Lisa. The seven films the duo made together between 1930 and 1935 were dark, erotic, witty and sublime works of art / fleurs du mal in which they honed Dietrich's complex, sultry and feline persona and brought a whiff of genuine Continental decadence to mainstream Hollywood. Once Dietrich and Sternberg’s personal and professional relationship imploded his career went into a steep decline (Sternberg’s “artistic temperament” burnt a lot of bridges!) but I love his later post-Dietrich films The Shanghai Gesture (1941), Macao (1952) and Anatahan (1953). (I’m the first to admit, I haven’t seen any of his earlier silent movies). The intense and fruitful creative union between auteur Sternberg and muse Dietrich arguably created a template for the likes of Michelangelo Antonioni and Monica Vitti, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Hanna Schygulla, John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands, Pedro Almodovar and Carmen Maura (or Penelope Cruz) – and John Waters and Divine! Pictured: where it all began – Sternberg and Dietrich during production of their first collaboration together, The Blue Angel (1930).