Josef von Sternberg (1894–1969)
Autore di Follie in una lavanderia cinese
Sull'Autore
Sternberg was born to a middle-class Jewish family in Vienna and emigrated to the United States at the age of 17. During World War I, he produced training films for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. After the war ended, he worked in various menial positions in the film industry before becoming an mostra altro assistant director in 1921 and a director a few years later. At that time, the aristocratic von was attached to his name by a producer who thought it would add class. His directorial debut was in 1925, with the low-budget but very successful Salvation Hunters; however, Sternberg only really made a name for himself with Underworld (1926), the first of several gangster films featuring George Bancroft. These were especially remarkable for their cinematography and lighting, which revealed the influence of expressionism in their play with light and dark. Sternberg never made a color film, but he exploited the medium of black and white to create textured spaces of light and shadow, smoke and mist, and screens and veils, which were symbolically and emotionally resonant. Although critics have sometimes found his narratives thin, they have agreed that his visuals are stunning. While Sternberg was considered one of Hollywood's most important directors in his own day, he is now remembered chiefly for his seven films with Marlene Dietrich. He discovered her in a cabaret in Berlin, where he had gone to film The Blue Angel (1930), Germany's first sound production; she was cast as the provocative singer Lola-Lola, a role that made her a star. Sternberg carefully managed her screen image in the six other films that he made with her: Morocco (1930), Dishonored (1931), Shanghai Express (1932), Blonde Venus (1932), The Scarlet Empress (1934), and The Devil Is a Woman (1935). Sternberg was notoriously imperious and autocratic, with a fondness for jodhpurs and riding boots, and was thought of as something of a caricature of the Hollywood director. The role he envisioned for Dietrich was that of the femme fatale, the desirable but enigmatic and even dangerous lady who seems to symbolize the "eternal feminine" and the attraction, mystery, and threat that that image holds for men. Feminist film theorists have suggested that Sternberg's visual style, as well as Dietrich's acting style, work to expose and critique the sexism of this archetype of femininity. Sternberg's difficulties with I, Claudius I, Claudius (unfinished, 1937) damaged his reputation in Hollywood, and he worked irregularly thereafter. His last film---his favorite project---was natahan (1953), about Japanese soldiers isolated on an island at the close of World War II. Although he traveled to international film festivals and occasionally lectured in the years that followed, he never made another film. (Bowker Author Biography) mostra meno
Fonte dell'immagine: Image © ÖNB/Wien
Serie
Opere di Josef von Sternberg
Morocco and Shanghai Express: Two Films by Josef von Sternberg (Classic Film Scripts) (1973) 5 copie
Underworld [1927 film] 2 copie
Marlene Dietrich: Dishonored & Shanghai Express — Regista — 1 copia
Opere correlate
Marlene Dietrich & Josef von Sternberg at Paramount, 1930-1935 (Indicator Series 130-135) (2019) — Collaboratore — 1 copia
John Wayne: War (Sands of Iwo Jima / Back to Bataan / Flying Tigers / Jet Pilot) — Regista — 1 copia
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Nome canonico
- von Sternberg, Josef
- Altri nomi
- Sternberg, Jonas (birth)
- Data di nascita
- 1894-05-29
- Data di morte
- 1969-12-22
- Luogo di sepoltura
- Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, Los Angeles, California, USA
- Sesso
- male
- Nazionalità
- Austro-Hungarian Empire (birth)
USA - Luogo di nascita
- Vienna, Austria
- Luogo di morte
- Hollywood, California, USA
- Luogo di residenza
- New York, New York, USA
- Attività lavorative
- filmmaker
film director - Relazioni
- Dietrich, Marlene (lover)
- Breve biografia
- Josef von Sternberg was born Jonas Sternberg to an Austrian Jewish family in Vienna. From age two, his childhood was spent partly in New York City. He was forced by poverty to drop out of Jamaica High School and went to work in a Manhattan retail store. By 1915, he was working at a new job cleaning and repairing movie prints. It provided an entrée to the World Film Company, based in Fort Lee, New Jersey, where the new film industry was flourishing. He served as an apprentice filmmaker from around 1916 to the early 1920s (when he added the "von" to his surname). In 1923, he moved to Hollywood, and made his directorial debut with The Salvation Hunters in 1925. It became a critical and box office hit. Underworld (1927), an early gangster film, was his first big break. With The Last Command (1928), von Sternberg began almost 10 years as one of the most celebrated film directors in the world. In 1930, both his career and his personal life were transformed by the making of The Blue Angel. Chosen by star Emil Jannings and producer Erich Pommer to make Germany's first major sound picture, von Sternberg cast the young Marlene Dietrich as Lola Lola, the sexy nightclub dancer. Their love affair became legendary and von Sternberg directed Dietrich in six more films. However, after The Devil Is a Woman (1935), von Sternberg never again had the creative control he needed. Film historians today consider von Sternberg's greatest contributions to have been to the new language of film, particularly his handling of lighting and cinematography. His autobiography, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, was published in 1973.
Utenti
Recensioni
l'Angelo azzurro 🎥 di Josef Von Sternberg
Il professor Unrat si innamora della cantante Lola-Lola che si esibisce al cabaret “L’Angelo azzurro”. Riesce a sposarla per seguirla nelle tournée, affrontando vergogna e umiliazioni. Di ritorno due anni dopo all’“Angelo azzurro”, dapprima si rifiuta di dare spettacolo di fronte agli ex allievi che affollano la sala, e poi vinto dalla gelosia tenta di strozzare Lola-Lola. (fonte: retro del dvd)
L'angelo azzurro è un film del 1930 diretto da Josef von Sternberg, tratto dal romanzo Professor Unrat di Heinrich Mann, romanzo che si segnala per la sua aspra e immediata efficacia narrativa ed espressiva e che ha suscitato l'interesse di sociologi e studiosi, oltre che degli psicoanalisti. (fonte: Wikipedia)
Un professore di liceo burbero e severo, Unrat, viene a conoscenza del fatto che i suoi studenti frequentano un locale equivoco, "l'angelo azzurro", dove si esibisce una compagnia di artisti di varietà, tra cui la conturbante e cinica ballerina Lola-Lola. Una sera il professore si reca nel locale per soprendervi i suoi studenti, ma finisce nel camerino di Lola, se ne innamora e alla fine la sposa. La donna sarà la rovina dell'uomo, che in una Germania ancora bigotta e moralista finisce per perdere posto di lavoro e dignità, accettando di fare il clown nel locale pur di starle vicino ma poi morendo di vergogna senza essere riuscito a scalfire la sua indifferenza. Nel film appare Kurt Gerron, attore e regista ebreo in seguito deportato a Terezin e poi ad Auschwitz e qui ucciso, nei panni del prestigiatore.… (altro)
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Statistiche
- Opere
- 32
- Opere correlate
- 4
- Utenti
- 454
- Popolarità
- #54,064
- Voto
- 3.3
- Recensioni
- 12
- ISBN
- 61
- Lingue
- 4