Originally posted by The Old Man:
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Originally posted by wine+art:
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Originally posted by KSC02:
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Originally posted by VinT:
I can't help but wonder how spectacular Marc's artistic life might have been had it not been cut tragically short while fighting in WWI.
Another prolific artist of the period of Expressionism, who died at the young age of 28, was
Egon Schiele. Well worth acquainting yourself with this artist (and his work) if you have not already (IMHO).
Well, if we are talking German Expressionism, I must mention Kirchner, Macke, Nolde, Beckman, Dix and Grosz as well.
German Expressionism had a major impact on cinema as well. I'm thinking Old Man is having a slow day, so I will wait to see if he will post on this topic before jumping in.
First, the Rifkind Center at LACMA has a remarkable collection of German Expressionism highlighted by over 7,000 works on paper. In film my favorite two works, and certainly the most famous, are
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and
Nosferatu. Both are typical of the great German silent era with their sharp off-kilter sets and high contrast lighting. Hitchcock was always a fan of the director of the later work--F. W. Murnau. Interesting that Murnau also directed the extremely sad
The Last Laugh with the great Emil Jennings.
Now I must riff: Emil Jennings other well known movie is
The Blue Angel co-staring Marlene Dietrich. Dietrich was already 29 when she became a star in her first talking movie. She'd already appeared in 19 (!) silent movies. In this film she sang, for the first time, her signature song,
Falling In Love Again. The film was directed by Josef Von Sternberg who became Dietrich's mentor in Hollywood and they made six more films together.
Sternberg commissioned one of the two great Austrian born, immigrants to Los Angeles architects--Richard Neutra (whose Lovell city house is in
L.A. Confidential) to build the Von Sternberg House in 1935. An apocryphal story that Neutra told was that the bathroom doors were not to have locks to prevent high-strung actors and actresses of the day from locking themselves in and committing suicide. Later Ayn Rand lived there and it later it was knocked down, for a development in 1972.
Let's continue the connections: Neutra, when he lived in the old country, worked for the architect Erich Mendelsohn of Germany. In the early twenties Mendelsohn designed
Einstein Tower a solar telescope observatory. Mendelsohn's work is often said to reflect German Expressionist ideals and this building his best example of that style. However that title may go to the
Second Goetheanum by Rudolf Steiner.
Back jump: Von Sternberg is buried in the tiny Westwood Memorial Cemetery behind tall office buildings on Wilshire. Marilyn Monroe is buried there as is her star from
Some Like It Hot Jack Lemmon. And nearby our beloved director of same, and many other great movies, Billy Wilder. I was visiting again Saturday and was amused by Rodney Dangerfield's tombstone with the quote, "There's goes the neighborhood."
