Monday, November 05, 2007
True Blue
Last week I saw, for the first time, "The Blue Angel," the iconic early 1930 German talkie about a showgirl and the professor who ruins himself falling for her. It made Marlene Dietrich a star. I first learned of it at age 28, living in Argentina, as she is/was a worldwide gay icon, particularly in that movie, singing 'Falling In Love Again.'
The five parameters of movie criticism:
1. Four Words That Encapsule: "Infatuation Ruins Pompous Professor"
2. Haiku (5-7-5)
"Didactic tyrant
Falls into the trap of sex,
Pure degradation"
3. Oblique Comment: There's a parallel between the tyrannical professor and the Ted Haggards and Larry Craigs of the world. Those who are passionate about repressing other people's passion are generally in denial of their own.
4. Insight: The film, it turns out, is based on a classic 19th century German novel, 'Professor Unrat,' by Heinrich Mann, with the focus on the strict, pompous professor and his slow degradation. The professor's last name was 'Rath' and 'Unrat' means 'smells funny.' Heinrich Mann is the brother of Thomas Mann of "Death in Venice" fame... I 'read' the audiobook, in German, years before seeing the film.. It had ample flavor of time and place, which director Josef Von Sternberg translated beautifully to the screen in an economic 104 minutes.
5. Link: This film obviously predates Metacritic. But there are good articles on Wikipedia and Allmovie.
Here's a grainy "Angel" excerpt with Dietrich singing her classic:
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