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A bronze man still can
Jul. 27th, 2009 08:48 amYesterday's highlight was a late breakfast with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
e_compass_rosa and her sister at Roxy's. After that I worked in the garden a bit, mostly watering to counteract the heat wave. Supposed to get up into the mid-90s this week, which is freaking hot for Seattle. I did a little bit of writing, and went down to the Pacific Inn to watch the Mariners get shelled (for the third time in a row!) by Cleveland. (Hey, E., the Pacific Inn is still kind of a dive bar. Oh well, too late now.) Chatted with Nate the bartender about his upcoming trip to Brussels, Amsterdam, and London, and mine to Montreal. Five days to lift off.
I watched a bunch of movies on DVD this weekend, including two silents by Cecil B. DeMille. Carmen (1915) is an adaptation of the Prosper Mérimée novel that Bizet's opera is also based on. DeMille's film is wonderful piece of romantic-tragic exotica. It was apparently a star vehicle for Geraldine Farrar, who was a famous opera singer of the day, and she's very good in the femme fatale title role, as is Wallace Reid as her victim, Don Jose. Wonderfully over-the-top ending, beautifully shot. The whole film is a visual delight, in fact. The DVD also included Charlie Chaplin's spoof of the film, Burlesque on Carmen, which he made for Essanay. Chaplin's character is called Darn Hosiery. Great physical humor, although at times it seemed like less a spoof than a re-enactment. I need to catch up with Chaplin's work from this era, which is when he made his name, but before he congealed into a Genius.
The other DeMille movie on the disk was The Cheat, also from 1915. This is a bizarre morality tale about a spendthrift upper class woman (Fannie Ward) who gets into debt to a suave and secretly sadistic Burmese ivory mogul (Sessue Hayakawa), who literally puts his brand upon her breast. The lurid branding scene shows that DeMille was already playing with exploitation elements at this early stage of his career, and the climax of the film is notable for something of a race riot in a courtroom, vividly constructed and executed. I followed this one up with the 1931 talkie remake, filmed by George Abbott with Tallulah Bankhead as the high society tramp and Irving Pichel in the Hayakawa role, which has been transformed into that of a white adventurer returning from the jungle. This version is kind of a dud compared to the DeMille, although the morality being promulgated here is bizarre either way. It hinges around the husband being a saint and the idiot wife being transformed by his kindness and self-sacrifice. It's a bit masochistic all the way around.
Still, I continue to be impressed by the DeMille of the Teens. I'm not sure what all still survives, although because he was such a big name, more of his films have survived than some of the others of the era. Much like Chaplin, I suppose.
e_compass_rosa and her sister at Roxy's. After that I worked in the garden a bit, mostly watering to counteract the heat wave. Supposed to get up into the mid-90s this week, which is freaking hot for Seattle. I did a little bit of writing, and went down to the Pacific Inn to watch the Mariners get shelled (for the third time in a row!) by Cleveland. (Hey, E., the Pacific Inn is still kind of a dive bar. Oh well, too late now.) Chatted with Nate the bartender about his upcoming trip to Brussels, Amsterdam, and London, and mine to Montreal. Five days to lift off.I watched a bunch of movies on DVD this weekend, including two silents by Cecil B. DeMille. Carmen (1915) is an adaptation of the Prosper Mérimée novel that Bizet's opera is also based on. DeMille's film is wonderful piece of romantic-tragic exotica. It was apparently a star vehicle for Geraldine Farrar, who was a famous opera singer of the day, and she's very good in the femme fatale title role, as is Wallace Reid as her victim, Don Jose. Wonderfully over-the-top ending, beautifully shot. The whole film is a visual delight, in fact. The DVD also included Charlie Chaplin's spoof of the film, Burlesque on Carmen, which he made for Essanay. Chaplin's character is called Darn Hosiery. Great physical humor, although at times it seemed like less a spoof than a re-enactment. I need to catch up with Chaplin's work from this era, which is when he made his name, but before he congealed into a Genius.
The other DeMille movie on the disk was The Cheat, also from 1915. This is a bizarre morality tale about a spendthrift upper class woman (Fannie Ward) who gets into debt to a suave and secretly sadistic Burmese ivory mogul (Sessue Hayakawa), who literally puts his brand upon her breast. The lurid branding scene shows that DeMille was already playing with exploitation elements at this early stage of his career, and the climax of the film is notable for something of a race riot in a courtroom, vividly constructed and executed. I followed this one up with the 1931 talkie remake, filmed by George Abbott with Tallulah Bankhead as the high society tramp and Irving Pichel in the Hayakawa role, which has been transformed into that of a white adventurer returning from the jungle. This version is kind of a dud compared to the DeMille, although the morality being promulgated here is bizarre either way. It hinges around the husband being a saint and the idiot wife being transformed by his kindness and self-sacrifice. It's a bit masochistic all the way around.
Still, I continue to be impressed by the DeMille of the Teens. I'm not sure what all still survives, although because he was such a big name, more of his films have survived than some of the others of the era. Much like Chaplin, I suppose.
