Happy Birthday, Erich von Stroheim! Born today in 1885 as Erich Oswald Hans Carl Maria von Stroheim, this this Austrian-American actor, screenwriter, producer and director was most noted as a film star and avant-garde, visionary director of the silent era.
On November 26, 1909, Stroheim emigrated to America. On arrival at Ellis Island, he claimed to be Count Erich Oswald Hans Carl Maria von Stroheim und Nordenwall, the son of Austrian nobility like the characters he would go on to play in his films.
However, he first found work as a traveling salesman – work which took him to San Francisco, California and then Hollywood.
By 1914, Stroheim was working in Hollywood. He began working in movies as a stuntman, and then in bit-parts and as a consultant on German culture and fashion.
Stroheim began working with D. W. Griffith, taking an uncredited role as a Pharisee. This was in Griffith's epic 1916 American silent black and white drama film 'Intolerance'.
Six years later, Stroheim wrote, co-produced, directed and starred in the first film of which he is best known.
This was the 1922 American silent black and white erotic drama film 'Foolish Wives'. The film had also been co-produced by German-born film producer Carl Laemmle, the founder of Universal Pictures.
The silent classic follows Count Sergius Karamzin - Capt. 3rd Hussars Imper. Russian Army (Stroheim), a con artist who pretends to be a count in order to charm and swindle naïve women for money.
Karamzin lives in Monte Carlo, Monaco, with his cousins, "princesses" Olga Petchnikoff (Maude George) and Vera Petchkinoff (Mae Busch), who are in on his scams.
When Karamzin meets American diplomat Andrew Hughes (Rudolph Christians), the count immediately takes aim at his wife, Helen Hughes (Miss DuPont). However, Karamzin soon finds that he has double-crossed too many women.
When released in 1922, 'Foolish Wives' was the most expensive film made at that time, and billed by Universal Studios as the "first million-dollar movie" to come out of Hollywood.
Originally, von Stroheim intended the film to run anywhere between six and ten hours, and be shown over two evenings, but Universal executives opposed this idea. The studio bosses later cut the film drastically before the release date.
The film and the fulsome media coverage that added to its “sensational notoriety”, elevated von Stroheim into the ranks of preeminent directors of the early 1920s. His genuine talent was fully acknowledged among critics and the public, marking him as an heir to Griffith.
Two years later, Stroheim wrote, co-produced and directed the second and final film of which he is best known. This was the 1924 American silent black and white drama film 'Greed'.
The film was based on American journalist and novelist Frank Norris' 1899 Gothic psychological fiction novel McTeague.
When housewife Trina McTeague (ZaSu Pitts) wins the $5,000 lottery, her comfortable life with her dentist husband, John (Gibson Gowland), is slowly destroyed, in part by her own increasing paranoia and in part by the machinations of a villainous friend, Marcus (Jean Hersholt).
Stroheim shot the film based on location in and around San Francisco; an extravagance unheard of in the 1920s. His original version, since lost, ran for nearly ten hours.
'Greed' was one of the few films of its time to be shot entirely on location, with Stroheim shooting approximately eighty-five hours of footage before editing.
Two months alone were spent shooting in Death Valley for the film's final sequence, and many of the cast and crew became ill.
Stroheim used sophisticated filming techniques such as deep focus cinematography and montage editing. He considered 'Greed' to be a Greek Tragedy.
This is portrayed as when environment and heredity controlled the characters' fates and reduced them to primitive bêtes humaines (human beasts); a naturalist concept in the vein of French novelist, playwright, and journalist Émile Zola.
During editing, the production company merged into Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer, putting American film producer Irving Thalberg in charge of post-production. Thalberg had fired Stroheim a few years earlier at Universal Pictures.
Originally almost eight hours long, 'Greed' was edited against Stroheim's wishes to about two-and-a-half hours.
Only twelve people saw the full-length forty-two-reel version, now lost; some of them called it the greatest film ever made.
Stroheim later called 'Greed' his most fully realized work and was hurt both professionally and personally by the studio's re-editing of it.
The uncut version of 'Greed' has been called the "holy grail" for film archivists, amid repeated false claims of the discovery of the missing footage. Upon its initial release, however, the film was a critical and financial failure.
In the late 1930s, Stroheim co-starred in the role of which he is best known. This was as German aviator and aristocrat
Le captaine von Rauffenstein in Jean Renoir's 1937 French black and white war/drama film 'La Grande Illusion' ('The Grand Illusion').
Today, the film is regarded by critics and film historians as one of the masterpieces of French cinema and also among the greatest films ever made.
After clashes with Hollywood studio bosses over budget and workers' rights issues, Stroheim was banned for life as a director and subsequently became a well-respected character actor, particularly in French cinema.
Nonetheless, for his early innovations as a director, Stroheim is still celebrated as one of the first of the auteur directors. He helped introduce more sophisticated plots and noirish sexual and psychological undercurrents into cinema.
Both Billy Wilder and Czech-born American talent agent and producer Paul Kohner claimed that Stroheim spoke with a decidedly lower-class Austrian accent. When living, Stroheim claimed in published remarks to have "forgotten" his native tongue.
However, in 'The Grand Illusion', Stroheim speaks German with what seems to be an American accent. Similarly, in his French-speaking roles, von Stroheim speaks with a noticeable American accent.
Jean Renoir even wrote in his memoirs: "Stroheim spoke hardly any German. He had to study his lines like a schoolboy learning a foreign language."
After appearing in Wilder's 1950 American black and white noir/drama film 'Sunset Boulevard' as Nora Desmond's (Gloria Swanson) devoted butler Max von Mayerling, Stroheim moved to France where he spent the last part of his life.
Finally, during the 1950s, 'Greed' began to be regarded as one of the greatest films ever made; filmmakers and scholars have noted its influence on subsequent films.
There, his silent film work was much admired by artists in the French film industry.
In France he acted in films, wrote several novels that were published in French, and worked on various unrealized film projects. He was awarded the French Legion of Honour shortly before his death.
In 1956, Stroheim began to suffer severe back pain that was diagnosed as prostate cancer. He eventually became paralyzed and was carried to his drawing room to receive the Legion of Honor award from an official delegation.
The following year, Stroheim passed at his chateau from prostate cancer in Maurepas, Seine-et-Oise, France on May 12, 1957. He was 71. Storheim was accompanied by his longtime lover, French film actress Denise Vernac.
Beloved by Parisian Neo-Surrealists known as Letterists, he was honored by Letterist Maurice Lemaître with a seventy-minute 1979 film titled Erich von Stroheim.
The trademarks in Stroheim's films included frequently played high-ranking officers in the German and/or Prussian military--although, contrary to his frequent claims, he never served in the army of any country.
He wrote screenplays and won recognition as an actor, notably for roles as sadistic, monocled Prussian officers.
Stroheim frequently included shots of janitors or cleaning personel in films he directed in order to add realism and demystify the location.
He also Frequently played high-ranking officers in the German and/or Prussian military--although, contrary to his frequent claims, he never served in the army of any country.
Stroheim's other trademarks often included exploring the nature of human cruelty and greed and the loss of innocence, juxtapositions of sacred and profane imagery in films he directed, often wore a monocle and speaking in a thick Austrian accent.
In 1991, 'Greed' was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
In 1999, Turner Entertainment created a four-hour version that used existing stills of cut scenes to reconstruct 'Greed'.
In 2008, 'Foolish Wives' was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Stroheim is one of the most critically respected motion-picture directors of the 20th century, best known for the uncompromising realism and accuracy of detail in his films.
Nicknamed The Man You Love to Hate, Stroheim had been active from 1914–1955.
#borntoact
#borntodirect
#amsaw
@librarycongress
@wrnermedia
@Criterion
@tcm
@nytimes
@Britannica
@getFANDOM
No comments:
Post a Comment