Berlinale documentaries reflect the power of film

A new documentary, apparently, includes Louise Brooks. In Berlin, a showcase of documentary films at this year's Berlinale illustrates the medium's potential to reclaim the past and envision the future. One of those documentaries is Weimar Touch, which looks at the work of G.W. Pabst and others and the influence they had on film making around the world. That's according to the Deutsche Welle website, which goes on to state:

There are very few cities in the world so inextricably tied to the history, seduction and cathartic power of filmmaking than Berlin.

Late 19th-century film pioneers Max and Emil Skladanowsky invented the Bioscop movie projector here in 1895. Some of the most iconic movie stars of all time, Louise Brooks, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Asta Nielsen, once padded around the studios in Weissensee, Woltorsdorf and Babelsberg.

Here is where Walter Ruttmann directed "Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis" - based on Dziga Vertov's theory of "Kino-Pravda" ("film truth") that reality can best be represented through cinematic "artificialities." In semi-documentary style, the silent film with a musical score portrays the life of a city.

Ruttmann was not alone in creating masterpieces either. The likes of Fritz Lang, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and Georg Wilhelm Pabst made their mark in the Golden Age of German cinema during the 1920s as well. And great thinkers such as Walter Benjamin and Siegfried Kracauer grappled with the meaning of these new mechanical, magical, moving images.

And then history took a catastrophic turn - with a Nazi dictatorship that took German cinema into its grip as well.

G.W. Pabst (second from the right) and others associated with Pandora's Box (1929). This picture was taken in 1928, not long after Brooks arrival in Berlin. At first, Pabst envisioned Lulu without bangs or a bob.

Philo Vance Murder Case Collection

First the good news. The Warner Bros. Archive Collection has released the Philo Vance Murder Case Collection, a 2-disc, 6-film collection featuring the famous suave dilettante detective. Philo Vance was the creation of writer S.S. van Dine, who authored a series of bestselling novels which were turned into popular films. The set includes The Bishop Murder Case (1930), The Kennel Murder Case (1933), The Dragon Murder Case (1934), The Casino Murder Case (1935), The Garden Murder Case (1936), and Calling Philo Vance (1940).

The bad news is that the set does NOT include the first film in the series, The Canary Murder Case (1929), which features William Powell as Philo Vance and Louise Brooks as the Canary. Not only did The Canary Murder Case start it all, cinematically speaking, it is also one of the better films in the series.

Why Warner Bros. Archive chose not to include The Canary Murder Case isn't known. That film was released by Paramount Pictures, as was The Greene Murder Case (1929), the second film in the series. The films included in the Philo Vance Murder Collection were released by Warner Bros., M.G.M, and First National. So, maybe it is a matter of rights. Other Philo Vance films are also absent from the collection. Most notable among them is the zany Gracie Allen Murder Case (1939), starring Grace Allen and Warren William.

Despite the set's incompleteness, I think it is worth checking out, especially if you enjoy period detective films like The Thin Man (which also starred William Powell) or original Perry Mason film series. Wikipedia has an informative page on the various Philo Vance books and films. Here is a brief clip from The Canary Murder Case.

Louise Brooks - vintage Italian postcard

This vintage Italian postcard depicts Louise Brooks, the silent film star who is undergoing something of a revival of late in that European country. See some of the posts from earlier this week about the screenings of Brooks films take place this month in Italy.

Louise Brooks - Angola product card

Wow, take a look at this tobacco product card picturing Louise Brooks. It was issued in Angola (then a Portuguese colony in the south of Africa) in the late 1920s or early 1930s.

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

Coming this April, Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald (St. Martin's Press), by Therese Anne Fowler. I haven't yet seen the book, but here is some additional information about the book from its publisher.

When beautiful, reckless Southern belle Zelda Sayre meets F. Scott Fitzgerald at a country club dance in 1918, she is seventeen years old and he is a young army lieutenant stationed in Alabama. Before long, the “ungettable” Zelda has fallen for him despite his unsuitability: Scott isn’t wealthy or prominent or even a Southerner, and keeps insisting, absurdly, that his writing will bring him both fortune and fame. Her father is deeply unimpressed. But after Scott sells his first novel, This Side of Paradise, to Scribner’s, Zelda optimistically boards a train north, to marry him in the vestry of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and take the rest as it comes.

What comes, here at the dawn of the Jazz Age, is unimagined attention and success and celebrity that will make Scott and Zelda legends in their own time. Everyone wants to meet the dashing young author of the scandalous novel—and his witty, perhaps even more scandalous wife. Zelda bobs her hair, adopts daring new fashions, and revels in this wild new world. Each place they go becomes a playground: New York City, Long Island, Hollywood, Paris, and the French Riviera—where they join the endless party of the glamorous, sometimes doomed Lost Generation that includes Ernest Hemingway, Sara and Gerald Murphy, and Gertrude Stein.

Everything seems new and possible. Troubles, at first, seem to fade like morning mist. But not even Jay Gatsby’s parties go on forever. Who is Zelda, other than the wife of a famous—sometimes infamous—husband? How can she forge her own identity while fighting her demons and Scott’s, too? With brilliant insight and imagination, Therese Anne Fowler brings us Zelda’s irresistible story as she herself might have told it. 

Laura Moriarty's The Chaperone

Laura Moriarty's The Chaperone is scheduled for release in paperback in the United States on June 4, 2013. Happily, the paperback cover is very similar to the hardcover edition. The Chaperone is also in development as a film, with a script by Julian Fellowes of Downton Abbey fame. If you haven't read this rather fine novel, we recommended it.

In the mean time, if you are looking to read the book in German, check out the German edition, Das Schmetterlingsmädchen (The Butterfly Girl), which is available as both a print book and ebook. It too has a pretty appealing cover.

Here is some of the considerable praise the book has received since its publication last year.

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"The Chaperone is the enthralling story of two women . . . and how their unlikely relationship changed their lives. . . . In this layered and inventive story, Moriarty raises profound questions about family, sexuality, history, and whether it is luck or will—or a sturdy combination of the two—that makes for a wonderful life."—O, The Oprah Magazine

"In her new novel, The Chaperone, Laura Morirty treats this golden age with an evocative look at the early life of silent-film icon Louise Brooks, who in 1922 leaves Wichita, Kansas, for New York City in the company of 36-year-old chaperone, Cora Carlisle. . . . A mesmerizing take on women in this pivotal era."—Vogue

"With her shiny black bob and milky skin, Louise Brooks epitomized silent-film glamour. But in Laura Moriarty's engaging new novel The Chaperone, Brooks is just a hyper-precocious and bratty 15-year-old, and our protagonist, 36-year-old Cora Carlisle, has the not-easy mission of keeping the teenager virtuous while on a trip from their native Kansas to New York City. After a battle of wills, there's a sudden change of destiny for both women, with surprising and poignant results."—Entertainment Weekly

"Throughout The Chaperone, her fourth and best novel, Laura Moriarty mines first-rate fiction from the tension between a corrupting coastal media and the ideal of heart-of-America morality. . . . . Brooks's may be the novel's marquee name, but the story's heart is Cora's. With much sharpness but great empathy, Moriarty lays bare the settled mindset of this stolid, somewhat fearful woman—and the new experiences that shake that mindset up."—San Francisco Weekly

"Film star Louise Brooks was a legend in her time, but the real lead of The Chaperone is Cora Carlise, Brooks' 36-year-old chaperone for her first visit to New York City in 1922. As Cora struggles to tame Louise's free spirit, she finds herself moving past the safety of her own personal boundaries. In this fictional account of Cora and Louise's off-and-on relationship, Laura Moriarty writes with grace and compassion about life's infinite possibilities for change and, ultimately, happiness."—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“When silent film star Louise Brooks was a sexually provocative and headstrong 15-year-old from Kansas, she traveled with a chaperone to new York City to attend dance school.  In this fascinating historical novel, her minder, Cora, struggles to keep her charge within the bounds of propriety but finds herself questioning the confines of her own life. Thorough Cora the world of early 20th-century America comes alive, and her personal triumphs become cause for celebration.”—People

"Captivating and wise . . . In The Chaperone, Moriarty gives us a historically detailed and nuanced portrayal of the social upheaval that spilled into every corner of American life by 1922. . . . [An] inventive and lovely Jazz Age story."—Washington Post

"#1 Summer 2012 novel."—The Christian Science Monitor

"A fun romp."—Good Housekeeping

"Devour it."—Marie Claire

"The novel is captivating, and the last lines about Cora (you might think I’m giving everything away, but I’m not giving anything away—the story rolls through changes in terrain so subtle that it’s like a train from Wichita to New York and back) capsulate it all, revealing the richness of the saga.”—The Daily Beast

"The Chaperone," an enchanting, luminous new novel by Laura Moriarty, fictionalizes the tale of the very real caretaker who accompanied a 15-year-old Louise Brooks on the first leg of her journey to silent-movie stardom. . . . Moriarty is a lovely writer, warm and wise."—Cleveland Plain Dealer

"It is [Louise Brooks's] endearing and surprising companion Cora Carlisle—a sharply drawn creating—who is the heart and soul of this stirring story.”—Family Circle

"Captivating and wise."—Newsday

“While Louise lends The Chaperone a dose of fire, the novel’s heart is its heroine, who has a tougher time swimming in the seas of early-20th-century America than her ward does. As the story carries on, Moriarty’s greatest strength proves to be her ability to seamlessly weave together Cora’s present, future and colorful past.”—Time Out

“Set to be the hit of the beach read season.”—Matchbook

“The challenges of historical fiction are plentiful—how to freely imagine a person who really lived, how to impart modern sensibility to a bygone era, how to do your research without exactly showing your research. And yet, when this feat is achieved artfully (we’re talking Loving Frank or Arthur and George artfully), it can transport a reader to another time and place. Laura Moriarty’s new novel,The Chaperone, falls into this category.”—Bookpage

“It’s impossible not to be completely drawn in by The Chaperone. Laura Moriarty has delivered the richest and realest possible heroine in Cora Carlisle, a Wichita housewife who has her mind and heart blown wide open, and steps—with uncommon courage—into the fullness of her life. What a beautiful book. I loved every page.”—Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife

“What a charming, mesmerizing, transporting novel! The characters are so fully realized that I felt I was right there alongside them. A beautiful clarity marks both the style and structure of The Chaperone.”—Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab's Wife and Adam & Eve

“The Chaperone is the best kind of historical fiction, transporting you to another time and place, but even more importantly delivering a poignant story about people so real, you'll miss and remember them long after you close the book.”—Jenna Blum, author of Those Who Save Us and The Stormchasers

Louise Brooks shines again this month in Italy

A couple of posts prior I wrote that a four film mini festival of Louise Brooks films taking place in Rome at the House of Cinema at the Villa Borghese in Italy. Now comes word that another of Brooks' films will be shown in Italy, this time on February 22 in Milan at the Fondazione Cineteca Italiana. That film is the silent version of Miss Europa (Prix de Beaute). Musical accompaniment will be provided by Antonio Zambrini. Here is the Italian website description:

Miss Europa (Prix de Beauté) – Copia restaurata

R.: Augusto Genina
Sc.: René Clair, Georg W. Pabst
Int.: Louise Brooks, Georges Charlia, Jean Bradin, Augusto Bandini, André Nicolle, Yves Glad, Gaston Jacquet.
Francia, 1930, b/n, 109’, muto.

Sinossi

Louise Brooks nei panni di una semplice impiegata, Lucienne, che si ritrova proiettata nel dorato mondo dello spettacolo dopo essere stata eletta Miss Europa. Il suo fidanzato è all’oscuro di tutto, ma all’inizio Lucienne resiste alle lusinghe della notorietà, si sposa e accetta di dedicarsi alla casa. Solo che quella vita è troppo dura, e un giorno Lucienne se ne va, torna dal principe che l’aveva corteggiata e grazie al suo aiuto inizia una carriera cinematografica. Il marito, disperato, non smetterà di cercarla e quando alla fine la ritroverà tutto finirà in tragedia.
Accompagnamento dal vivo al pianoforte di Antonio Zambrini.