Archival Spaces 395 White Russians in Hollywood Uploaded 20 March 2026 A still photograph from Joseph von Sternberg’s The Last Command (1928) perfectly captures the mixture of reality and fantasy, of historical truth and aesthetic expression that is so much a part of Hollywood cinema and its White Russian colony: Standing in a World WarContinue reading “395: Far From the Revolution”
Tag Archives: Hollywood
390: United States Information Agency
Archival Spaces 390 My Short Government Career Uploaded 9 January 2026 In the Fall of 1987, I received a call from David Paul, a producer at the United States Information Agency, asking if I could compile for them a list of German Academy Award winners. No problem. He followed up with a letter a monthContinue reading “390: United States Information Agency”
389: Saul Bass & Oscar
Archival Spaces 389: Saul Bass wins an Academy Award Uploaded 26 December 2025 Ten years ago, in 2015, I published Saul Bass: Anatomy of Film Design, a University of Kentucky Press book, a French edition arriving seven years later. Not many people know that George Lucas worked for Saul and accompanied him to the 41stContinue reading “389: Saul Bass & Oscar”
385: Tod Browning
Archival Spaces 385: Dark Carnival. The Secret World of Tod Browning Uploaded 31 October 2025 Beginning with D.W. Griffith, but certainly after the Supreme Court’s decision in Mutual Film Corp. v. Industrial Commission of Ohio (1915), American film directors and studios were obsessively and aggressively optimistic in their depiction of an American imaginary. In thatContinue reading “385: Tod Browning”
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