(West Germany 1983 94m) DVD1/2
Your future is all used up
p Peter Genée d Maximilian Schell w Meir Dohnal, Maximilian Schell ph Ivan Slapeta, Pavel Hispler, Harry Hauck ed Heidi Genée, Dagmar Hertz m Nicholas Economou art Heinz Eckmeie, Zbynek Hloch
Did Schell approach Dietrich to do the film or did Dietrich approach Schell? It’s an intriguing thought which could be answered either way depending whose versions you believe. Dietrich had been asked for interviews countless times and turned them down. Her contemporary Garbo, never gave one, of course, preferring to drift off into the horizon like Galadriel at the end of The Return of the King, or herself at the end of Queen Christina. Garbo retired at 36. At 36 Dietrich still had Destry Rides Again, A Foreign Affair, Witness for the Prosecution, Touch of Evil and Judgment at Nuremberg ahead of her, and endless concerts. Did she meet Schell on the set of the latter, and if so it’s intriguing to think of Schell playing an attorney and Dietrich a witness. What was Schell hoping for?
The premise was that Schell was allowed several sessions, some in English, others in German – it’s all the same to Marlene – and set questions and notes to help him ask the right questions. Some he knew wouldn’t be allowed an answer – there was a contract after all – and others he knew he’d get an evasive one. Schell inter-cuts these snippets with clips from her films, other archive footage and memorabilia.
By refusing to allow either herself or the artefacts in her flat to be seen, she was keeping the mystique intact. One gets the impression she didn’t want to be seen old, and yet she’d been in Just a Gigolo only a few years earlier, a farrago nearly as embarrassing as Mae West’s Sextette. She isn’t interested in her films, dismissive almost, referring to The Devil is a Woman as her best film simply because it is and finding the notion of thinking about and examining why as fatuous; too pointless for a well brought up practical German girl. She maintains the illusion of the old goddess by refusing to be seen, and one senses a great insecurity about her looks and the onset of age (one senses a woman very aware of her pending mortality, such as when quipping about the Honorary Oscars she refers to not inaccurately as Deathbed Awards). Yet there’s a contradiction within the enigma; we have this huge ego, yet this straight-forward, thoroughly down-to-earth sense of reality. Her attitude seems to evoke her gypsy in Touch of Evil, “what does it matter what you say about people?”, yet if that is the case then why agree to the interviews? It’s as if she’s adding to her own mystique and revelling in every moment of it.
Schell’s part in proceedings is fascinating to contemplate. In his own way, he must rather have felt like David Frost preparing for Nixon. Letting him waffle about what he wants to talk about before trying to pin him down on Watergate. Schell’s still the attorney, the one asking the questions, but is sensible enough to know he ends up holding the mirror up to himself and is as much the subject of the film as Dietrich. It’s to his great credit that, whether he minded or not, he and his editors assembled it in such a way. Listening to them in those recordings reminds me of that old Tom and Jerry cartoon Johann Mouse. The one where Tom is cat at the house of Johann Strauss and comes to realise that Jerry the mouse is almost hypnotised by his master’s playing and dances out of his hidey-hole whenever he’s tinkling the ivories. When his master is away, he tries to cajole him out by learning to play the piano himself, only for he and Jerry to becomes celebrities for their respective artistic abilities. Like Tom, this is not what Schell intended, but he goes along for the ride and allows us to do the same by proxy. And let us not forget, Jerry always won, and as Marlene’s mouse dances out her darkened apartment to give titbits of insight, Schell is torn between playing on to get more and just going along with it for its own sake. What we end up understanding in the end is not Marlene Dietrich as, though some doors are opened, the innermost sanctum remains unbreached. Yet maybe Marlene was right, who wants to know anyway? Where would be the fun in that? Mein Gott, that’d just be kitsch!
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Ah, don’t forget “Rancho Notorious”, Fish. Not only is it the strangest 50’s horse opera this side of “Johnny Guitar”– a noir-tinged, revenge-fueled proto-feminist musical western– but it’s also that once-in-a-lifetime pairing of Dietrich with the Little Dictator himself, Fritz Lang. A hard find, but even harder to pass up.
Excellent reference point Bob. Hopefully Allan will return to commenting after a short hiatus. But I’m here, and I’m listening to your always-valued insights, which rank among the best at the site. Allan is looking too, if not responding.
An intriguing piece on a film I don’t know, and one of your stronger essays as well. Not sure if you’re reading this, of course – nor should you really if you want to truly avoiding commenting; too tempting to respond.
Movie Man: You can be rest assured Allan is reading every word you write here. He tends to have mood swings, like many of us, and I’m sre there are moments he wants to respond. Give it time. He’ll be back. I agree this is one of his stronger essays on a film choice here that I’m sure will raise a few eyebrows. No complaint from me.
WOW! I would have neve seen this one coming in ten million years. Honestly, I saw this film on video-tape and thought I was the only person that ever saw it. Its a fascinating film in the fact that its not your typical interview documentary and I love this film all the more fore its bizarre quality. DIETRICH: Hmmmmm. BEST FILM? HMMMMMM. NO Question: THE SCARLETT EMPRESS
Yep Dennis, a major surprise, but not a bad one in the least.
God Dammit, forgive me for the typos people. I’m Blackberry Blogging today! My fingers are too big for the keys!
Schmulee, DO WE HAVE THIS ON DVD??? I Lose track of your inventory all the time.
I may have this. I must check.
I’m thinking that when the winter comes and everone is cooped up in their homes you and I may take a few nights in a row and file the DVD’s into a working order. Make it easier on you to keep track of what’s being added to the inventory and what section each film is in. I saw a thing at STAPLES that we can download into the computer that would work like an enormous card catalog and what you do is enter each title into it and its sorts it in by category and year. This might be extremely beneficial to you to keep track of which DVD’s are actually in the house, which ones are being added to the inventory (aka New Titles) and which ones are out on loan. Considering the collection is continuing to grow, this might be something we might wanna implement. Any who, keep your phone on I’ll call you when I’m ready to shoot over. I’m consistently amazed by how WitD is slamming out more and more great movie and culture information. This site is revving up popularity and intelligentsia day by day. AMAZING!!!!
OK, I said I wasn’t going to comment but I have logged off WitD to send this. Dennis, you surely know that Sam couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery. He has many great qualities, organisation isn’t one of them. He’s the master of supreme chaos. Twice I have completely overhauled his entire collection to make sense, and twice he has repaid the act by letting it fall into chaos again and telling me over the phone “you need to get on a plane and come and sort this out again”. That’s one thing I will NEVER do again. It took me three whole days in the basement first time round working my socks off. An elephant could make its way into his basement and he’d lose it.
So ordinarily I’d agree with you – you should see my collection if you want order as I can put my fingers on anything within 2 minutes, tape, DVD or DVDR – but Sam would never update such a program as he has no interest in that. You’d be wasting your time. Organising his DVDs is like trying to paint the Golden Gate bridge with a toothbrush, or sucking a swamp clean of goo only for our beloved Shrek Juliano to come home and muddy the damn thing up again, look for a DVD, bemoan it not being where he took it from (instead of left it) and cry “unbelievable!”
LOLOLOL!!!!!!!!! I don’t know whatn if anything, to that. I gotta say Allan, you obviously know Schmulee as well as me. I like to throw these things out to help him, because he as always helped me. However, like the futile attempts politicians make to jumpstart our economy, or the new techniques employed to stop the war on drugs, I think I’m fighting a losing battle in trying to catalogue and organize this inventory. But, ytou gotta give me credit for trying as much as I will salute you in your attempts. I know one day lucille is gonna get written up as an MIA in all of Schmulee’s clutter. Poor woman’s epitaph will read: LOST IN THE SEA OF DISORGANIZATION. This commentary you left , Allan, gave me the biggest belly laugh of the day!