New G.W. Pabst DVD Blu-ray set features Louise Brooks

A new 16 disc set featuring the films of the Austrian-born German director G.W. Pabst has been released in France. And what's more, this gorgeous looking box set features Louise Brooks on the cover.

The set, released by Tamasa Diffusion and titled G.W. Pabst-Le Mystère d'une Âme, features 12 of the acclaimed director's best films, including Joyless Street (1925) and The Loves of Jeanne Ney (1927) as well as The White Hell of Pitz Palu (1929), The Three Penny Opera (1931), and Kameradschaft (1931). And of course, there is also Pandora's Box (1929) and The Diary of a Lost Girl (1929). The set, which runs 1289 minutes, focuses on Pabst's early efforts, but regrettably omits Secrets of a Soul (1926). Likewise, it includes Don Quixote (1933), but omits L'Atlantide (1932).

The set proclaims: "witnesses of his mastery of staging and his permanent inventiveness." The more than three and one-half hours of bonus material scattered over the various discs includes short documentary presentations, alternative versions, archival material and more. A bonus disc includes the 60 minute documentary Looking for Lulu. Also included is a 132 page book, Imaginary correspondence with Georg Wilhelm Pabst, written by Pierre Eisenreich.

I haven't yet seen this recently released set, but hope to acquire a copy soon. I need to save up my Euros! As of now, G.W. Pabst-Le Mystère d'une Âme seems only to be available via amazon France or directly (and at a better price) from its distributor, Tamasa.

Louise Brooks Frank Martin signed etching for sale

Besides Herbert Bayer's photomontage "Profil en Face" (1929), one of the most significant works of fine art to depict Louise Brooks is Frank Martin's 1974 etching of the actress. A copy has just come up for sale HERE.

Frank Martin (1921-2005) created this limited edition signed etching on copper in the early 1970s (which is somewhat early in the timeline of Brooks' post WWII rediscovery). It was published by Christie's Contemporary Art in 1974. 

According to the sellers' website, "Frank Martin was a printmaker, illustrator and teacher, born in Dulwich, southeast London. He read history at Oxford University and then studied at St Martin’s School of Art. After army service in World War 2 he gradually established himself as a freelance artist, although he taught at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts from 1953-1980. He illustrated many books, including Charles Lamb’s Essays, 1963 and William Hazlitt’s Essays, 1964. From 1966 he turned his attention to a long series of prints of Hollywood actresses of the silent film era.

Originally a Ziegfeld Follies Girl, Louise Brooks made films in Hollywood in the late 1920s. Her high reputation as an actress rests on her performance as Lulu in Pandora's Box, made in Germany in 1928."

This print, which originates from an antique dealer in Yorkshire, is number 26 of 110. Antique's Atlas is asking $2161.50 or £1650.00, or €1958.55. I am not sure if the latter price is still current as the UK has left the European Union. (The Louise Brooks Society does not own a copy of this work of art: if anyone wanted to purchase it and donate it to the author of this blog, that would be splendid.) 

Personally, I very much like the artist's rendering of Brooks almost somber face, as well as the Cubist-like background, the latter of which suggests Brooks' modernity. My only criticism is the artist's handling of Brooks' breasts, which I think are too full, somewhat evoking the curved lines of the background.

Louise Brooks screening and booksigning at the Egyptian Theater in Los Angeles

The 29th of the month is turning out to be a special day for Pandora's Box and fans of the film's star, Louise Brooks.

Earlier today, on January 29th, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) screened the 1929 film as part of it's month long "Roaring Twenties on Film" celebration of flappers and all things Jazz Age. (Read Jay Carr's essay on the film HERE.)

And .... one month from today, on Leap Day February 29th, the American Cinematheque and Los Angeles Philharmonic have teamed up to show the film at the Egyptian theater in Los Angeles. Live musical accompaniment will be provided by composer and jazz pianist Cathlene Pineda along with trumpeter Stephanie Richards and guitarist Jeff Parker. Information and tickets made be found HERE.

But wait, there's more.... I have just been asked to sign copies of my Louise Brooks books at the Egyptian theater screening. I will have copies of Louise Brooks the Persistent Star on hand, as well as Beggars of Life: A Companion to the 1928 Film and Now We're in the Air: A Companion to the Once Lost Film. I will also have a few last copies of the "Louise Brooks edition" of The Diary of a  Lost Girl, a book which I edited and wrote the introduction to and brought back into print ten years ago. The famed Larry Edmunds bookshop will be handling sales. (This event marks my first book signing in Hollywood in a number of years - I signed books at Cinecon a few years ago. I hope to see everyone there!)

The American Cinematheque is screening a 35mm print courtesy of the George Eastman Museum, whose preservation was funded by Hugh M. Hefner. If you live in Los Angeles and have never seen Pandora's Box on the BIG screen, let this be your chance to do so.

About Pandora's Box, the American Cinematheque staes: "As Henri Langlois once thundered, “There is no Garbo! There is no Dietrich! There is only Louise Brooks!” Here she proves it with one of the wildest performances of the silent era, as the dancer-turned-hooker Lulu who attracts men like moths to a candle. Politicians, titans of industry and the aristocracy are all part of the milieu Lulu inhabits as the story begins; her eventual descent to a criminal underworld underlines the fragility of German society between the wars. The combination of Brooks and director G.W. Pabst (“It was sexual hatred that engrossed his whole being with its flaming reality,” she once said) is still astonishing."

New Book on German Cinema features Louise Brooks

A book on German cinema has recently been published in Italy which features Louise Brooks. Cinema tedesco: i film (or German Cinema: the films) edited by Leonardo Quaresima, was published at the beginning of 2019, but just came to my attention when I received a message from one of the contributors, Giuliana Disanto. She wrote, "I'd like to inform you about a publication of my essay, "Il vaso di Pandora di Georg Wilhelm Pabst. Dalla parola alla visione," or "Pandora's Box by Georg Wilhelm Pabst. From word to vision." Disanto, who teaches at the University of Salento, added that her 21 page essay interest to the members of the Louise Brooks Society. She is right. More information about the book is available (in Italian) HERE.

According to the publisher in Italian: "Lungo l’arco della sua traiettoria, il cinema tedesco ha avuto a più riprese grandissimo rilievo, esercitando anche un ruolo di punta sul piano internazionale. Il volume ripercorre questa storia attraverso una selezione dei film che ne sono stati protagonisti: dalla stagione del “cinema d’autore” degli anni Dieci, in cui il nuovo mezzo si avvalse della collaborazione dei più noti protagonisti della scena letteraria e teatrale dell’epoca, al periodo weimariano, caratterizzato dalle invenzioni del cinema espressionista e dalla messa a punto di un complesso, raffinato sistema linguistico; dalla fase che accompagna gli anni del nazismo, in cui si fa portavoce delle parole d’ordine del regime, ma anche delle sue, ancor oggi dibattute, contraddizioni, al periodo apparentemente più provinciale dell’immediato dopoguerra, oggetto peraltro di riletture e riconsiderazioni in anni recenti; dall’exploit del Neuer Deutscher Film, che riporta il cinema tedesco a una posizione preminente nel contesto europeo, alla situazione degli ultimi decenni, orientata verso gli standard del racconto internazionale, ma non senza varchi verso modelli autoriali e sintesi tra questi due ambiti."

According to the publisher in English: "Over the course of its trajectory, German cinema has been important on several occasions, exercising a leading role on the international level. This volume traces this story through a selection of the star films: from the "auteur cinema" of the 1910s, in which the new medium made use of the collaboration of the best known protagonists of the literary and theatrical scene of the time, to the Weimar period, characterized by the invention of expressionist cinema and the development of a complex, refined linguistic system; from the phase accompanying the years of Nazism, in which it spoke the slogans of the regime, but also of its still debated contradictions, to the apparently more provincial period of the immediate post-war period, the subject of re-readings and reconsiderations in recent years; from the exploit of Neuer Deutscher Film, which brings German cinema back to a pre-eminent position in the European context, to the situation of the last decades, oriented towards the standards of international narrative, but not without gaps towards authorial models and synthesis between these two areas." The book includes essays by Paolo Bertetto, Francesco Bono, Lorella Bosco, Sonia Campanini, Simone Costagli, Giulia A. Disanto, Luisella Farinotti, Antioco Floris, Matteo Galli, Massimo Locatelli, Francesco Pitassio, Leonardo Lent, Luigi Reitani, Giovanni Spagnoletti, Domenico Spinosa, and Anita Trivelli.

Leonardo Quaresima, the editor, is Senior Professor at the University of Udine. In Germany, he curated, in particular, the revised and expanded edition of From Caligari to Hitler by Kracauer (2004), the Italian edition of The Visible Man by Balázs (2008), and the writings of Joseph Roth on cinema (2015). His other publications are focussed on Leni Riefenstahl (1985), Edgar Reitz (1988), Walter Ruttmann (1994).

Cinema tedesco: i film is available on amazon in Italy, France, Germany, England and elsewhere including either as a print book or as an ebook. I just ordered the ebook / kindle version from amazon in the United States.

The Ukraine, Louise Brooks, Pandora's Box

I have learned a lot watching the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump on television, least of which is the pronunciation of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. It is pronounced Keeeve, not Key-ev.

In the course of my ongoing research into the world-wide presentation of Brooks' films, I have found that that they were shown in the Ukraine, which in the silent and early sound era was unwillingly part of Russia (aka the former Soviet Union dba the U.S.S.R.) The results of my research will be published in Around the World with Louise Brooks, which will be released later this year.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to access search results on the sole Ukrainian newspaper archive I have come across, LIBRARIA Ukrainian Online Periodicals Archive. (Search results are only available to institutions, not individuals.) The one and only intriguing piece I found is this half-page article on Buchse de Pandora published in Vorwärts, a German-language newspaper from Chernivtsi in what is now western Ukraine. (UPDATE: In the 1920s, Chernivtsi was part of Romania.) As the Ukrainian database noted above won't let me see anything more than a thumbnail image, I have enlarged it and posted it below. Can any readers of this blog access the above mentioned database and clip this page? I emailed the archive earlier but never heard back.

Otherwise, I have found one other clipping which details when and where the actress' films were shown in the Ukraine. Below is an advertisement for a showing of Pandora's Box (known as Puszka Pandory or Dzieje Kokoty Lulu) published in May, 1929 in Chwila, a Polish-language Zionist daily from Lwów, a city in what is now western Ukraine, around 70 kilometers from the border with Poland. (UPDATE: In the 1920s, Lwów was part of Poland.)

Certainly, there is more to be found ....as I have a number of clippings from nearby nations such as Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Russia. Below, for example, is an ad from the English-language Moscow Daily News.

Louise Brooks at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1977 and 1980

I concluded my previous post concerning a book about avant-garde women of the 1920s by posting a picture of Herbert Bayer's extraordinary 1929 photomontage, "Profil en face." I thought it appropriate to show the use of Louise Brooks' image within modernism, specially the work of an artist associated with the Bauhaus.

Herbert Bayer's "Profil en face" (1929)

After finishing the blog, I thought to spend a bit of time web surfing and followed a link someone had just posted to Facebook and checked out an article on one of my favorite websites, Open Culture. The 2016 article, Every Exhibition Held at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Presented in a New Web Site: 1929 to Present, detailed a digital exhibition archive which presents various materials such as installation photos, checklists, brochures, and catalogs related to every show mounted at the famed New York City museum.

Skipping through MoMA's remarkable exhibition history, I came across a show called "Herbert Bayer: Photographic Works." I have always liked this artist, and checked out the supporting materials. Guess what I found? Bayer's little-known photomontage was included in the exhibit, and there was Louise Brooks' image (or at least half her profile) hanging in the Museum of Modern Art in New York between October 31, 1977 and January 29, 1978.

Some of Bayer's most iconic images - photograph by Katherine Keller

I was excited. And though I already own two other books on Bayer's work, I tracked down a second-hand copy of the out-of-print catalog for this particular show and ordered it. Hopefully, it might contain some information on Bayer's use of Brooks' image.

I continued my tour of MoMA's exhibition history and came across another show which included not one, but two images of Brooks. This exhibit, "Hollywood Portrait: Photographers, 1921–1941" ran December 5, 1980 to February 28, 1981.  It included the famed pearl portrait taken by Eugene Robert Richee, as well as another publicity portrait of Brooks in men's clothing taken around the time she made Beggars of Life.

Hollywood photography at its best - photograph by Mali Olatunji

This particular exhibit, one of a number of nifty film related exhibits mounted by MoMA, was put on at the height of the Brooks' revival prior to her death. The pearl portrait is third from the left.

More great Hollywood photography - photograph by Mali Olatunji

The Beggars of Life publicity portrait of Brooks is sixth from the left. And below is a larger view of the image.

I find it very interesting that Brooks' image was included in exhibits at NY MoMA. I hadn't known they were ... but more than that, it shows Brooks herself to be part and parcel of 20th century modernism, and not just a cult figure within the realm of film history. That is fascinating!