346: G.W. Pabst redux

Arrchival Spaces 346 G.W. Pabst rewritten: Daniel Kehlmann’s novel, Lichtspiel Uploaded 3 May 2024 Film historians consider G.W. Pabst one of the three most accomplished German film directors of the first half of the 20th century. One of my first grad student papers concerned G.W. Pabst’s Three Penny Opera (1931), written for George Bluestone’s seminarContinue reading “346: G.W. Pabst redux”

325: Mission to Moscow

Archival Spaces 325: Mission to Moscow (1943, Michael Curtiz) Uploaded 7 July 2023 For much of cinema’s history, the U.S. government has engaged in various forms of political film propaganda. In the modern era film and video have communicated soft power, rather than the nation’s actual military might, producing public service messages, educational, and documentaryContinue reading “325: Mission to Moscow”

311: Sirk-Fassbinder-Haynes

Archival Spaces 311 Douglas Sirk’s All I Desire (1953) Uploaded 23 December 2022 For the past couple of months I have been researching and planning a lecture course for UCLA, FTV 113 Film Authors, which will focus on the careers of Douglas Sirk, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Todd Haynes. Not only have all three specializedContinue reading “311: Sirk-Fassbinder-Haynes”

304: Salka Viertel Biography

Archival Spaces 304 Donna Rifkind’s The Sun and Her Stars Uploaded 16 September 2022 I first read Salka Viertel’s autobiography, The Kindness of Strangers (1969/2019) in the late 1970s, as I was writing my first piece on German-Jewish refugees in Hollywood, “The Palm Trees Were Gently Swaying. German Refugees from Hitler in Hollywood” (1980). TheContinue reading “304: Salka Viertel Biography”