Divine Decadence



















All images from Pandora's Box, 1929.

Comments

Bob Westal said…
Weird to say I've never made the connections between Louise Brooks and Liza Minelli as Sally Bowles before, if only for the hair alone. Of course, my memory of the movie is all but non-existent.

It's funny, because I know almost for a fact that I saw "Pandora's Box" during my first film class...but boy it looks more interesting to me in these photos than it struck me at the time (assuming I saw it). Why is it that I can remember the professor's comments -- who I didn't even like all that much -- talking about the movie, but I can't remember the movie!
Greg said…
Does this mean you finally got screengrab software working, or more YouTube? Hope it's the former so you have unlimited sources to work from.

Anyway, I agree with Bob, this does remind me of Cabaret.
Brian Doan said…
Hey Bob!
Yes, I think I read that when Liza was cast in CABARET, her father Vincente started sketching some costume designs for her, and said he'd kind of based them on Brooks. So the connection might be intentional, but in any case, I think that model of Weimar decadence is certainly what Sally Bowles' character draws on.
Brian Doan said…
Jonathan!
Hope today finds you well after last night's baseball. Nope, these were pulled off YouTube, as well-- eventually, I'd like to get the grabbing software to work, but this seems to work ok so far (although I suppose you're limited by the clips YT posts). It was fun to grab them-- I'd just pause, and it would sometimes land on some interesting images that (to pardon the pun) really reframed the way I saw a certain scene.
Bob Westal said…
Now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure I read some mention of Louise Brooks in the research I was doing for the Fossethon way back when. In any case, I'd be stunned if it wasn't more or less fully intentional. For such a busy guy who wasn't exactly the sort to hang out at campus film societies, Fosse was pretty aware of his world film history and did a lot of period research.

Also, I came in late on the screengrab discussion so it's likely you've already been over this before, but I use vlc, in case you've never heard of it. Works fine on my imac.

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