Showing posts with label Berlin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Berlin. Show all posts

Thursday, March 16, 2023

Exhibiting Louise Brooks Around the World

Louise Brooks is a 20th century icon, and a magnet for meaning. Just recently, I became aware of two exhibits which make use of Louise Brooks' name and likeness. 

One of them, "Weimar Female: Women and Gender Diversity in Modern Cinema (1918 – 1933)," runs March 29 to November 12, 2023 at the Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum for Film and Television, Berlin in Germany. More on the exhibition can be found HERE, though for more Louise Brooks you should also check out the Deutsche Kinemathek homepage.

According to the Deutsche Kinemathek website, "The exhibition is dedicated to gender diversity and women in the cinema of the Weimar Republic. Gender reversal, self-determination and homosexuality were themes in the film, but the most popular was the "New Woman": To this day, her type stands for modernity and breaking out of convention, he lives on in series like Babylon Berlin  or  Eldorado  KaDeWe . But who were the real New Women? After the First World War, they confidently took advantage of the professional opportunities, also in the up-and-coming film industry. Their stories are told with numerous exhibits and film examples." 

On Instagram, I also came across this stunning image promoting the exhibit. It depicts Alice Roberts and Louise Brooks in what can only be described as large format! From what I gather, around 150 additional exhibits were brought together exclusively for the Frankfurt presentation of the exhibit. I would love to hear from anyone who is able to check out either exhibit.


And the next day, elsewhere on the continent, Louise Brooks is once again the poster girl for an educational event in Spain. I also found this image and announcement on Instagram. The description states, "Literature and cinema once again go hand in hand where the same language is intertwined. A review of the narrative and visual history where the protagonists are women, including the career of Alice Guy-Blaché, Mary Pickford, Dorothy Azner, María Falconetti and Louise Brooks. Luis Romero Siluto will recreate a dreamlike atmosphere that will make us remember great moments of the genre. An unmissable date for great lovers of the seventh art. To register, contact the email: culturapilar@santacruzdelapalma.es or the contact telephone number: 922 42 00 07 (Department of Culture)."


THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2023. Further unauthorized use prohibited.

Saturday, March 4, 2023

New Louise Brooks graphic novel forthcoming - Dark Star: Louise Brooks in Berlin

Louise Brooks has been the subject of a number of comic strips and graphic novels over the years, from the long running Dixie Dugan / Show Girl strip beginning in the 1920s to Valentina in the 1960s and Louise Brooks Detective in 2015. There have been others. The latest is Shane Filer's Dark Star: Louise Brooks in Berlin, which is due out later this year. 

Here is some info from the author's press release.

LOUISE BROOKS BIOGRAPHY/COMIC: DARK STAR

A new graphic novel featuring iconic silent film star Louise Brooks is set to launch on Kickstarter in April/May. "Dark Star: Louise Brooks in Berlin" is written by Shane Filer and illustrated by Aulia Rachmatulloh.

This four-issue series takes readers on a wild ride through the life of one of the most enigmatic figures of the 20th century, Louise Brooks. Set in 1920s Berlin, Louise drifts through a single night, seeking a mysterious gift and encountering the city's present and future inhabitants. Through flashbacks of her past and flash-forwards into the unknown, Louise confronts herself and the demons that have haunted her throughout her life.

This is not a biography, nor is it entirely fiction, rather a darkly re-imagined biographical fairy tale. "Artists use lies to tell the truth," Alan Moore famously wrote, and "Dark Star" aims to do just that.

Shane Filer, the writer behind "Dark Star," previously published a novel (Exit) and wrote scripts for the long-running UK comic "Commando." One of his issues in this most male dominated comic, featured a very rare female heroine based visually upon Louise Brooks and brought to life by veteran Spanish comic book artist Carlos Pino.

Filer aims to tell compelling stories that resonate with readers, taking inspiration from comic classics like "Love and Rockets," "Maus," and "Concrete," along with influential comic book writers like Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, authors like Haruki Murakami, Milan Kundera, and filmmakers like David Lynch, and Michelangelo Antonioni.

Illustrator Aulia Rachmatulloh, a talented Indonesian animator and artist, brings the story to life with beautiful, detailed artwork that fits the era. Art assistance is provided by artists Alessandro Saccotelli and Samuele Giannicola.

Don't miss out on the opportunity to explore the life of the iconic Louise Brooks in this unique graphic novel series. Support "Dark Star: Louise Brooks in Berlin" on Kickstarter, coming this April/May.

For more information, sign up to the project's newsletter.

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2023. Further unauthorized use prohibited.

Saturday, February 18, 2023

Louise Brooks and Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis

Thanks to Simon Werrett for tipping me off to the forthcoming screenings of Walther Ruttman's Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (1927) in Berlin! Curiously, posters for the event feature Louise Brooks. And what's more, those very posters are, according to Simon, "peppered" throughout Berlin's underground stations. More information about this pair of screenings (one on February 22, and the other on March 26) can be found HERE.

Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (also sometimes called Berlin: Symphony of a City) is an exceptional film. It is a thrilling non-fiction, poetic film, an example of the "city symphony" film genre. According to its Wikipedia entry, "it portrays the life of a city, mainly through visual impressions in a semi-documentary style, without the narrative content of more mainstream films, though the sequencing of events can imply a kind of loose theme or impression of the city's daily life." If you haven't seen the film, you must. I wish I could make it to Berlin, not only to snatch one of those posters, but to see this magnificent film on the big screen with live music IN BERLIN.


Here is information about the event both in German and in English:

Berlin – Die Sinfonie der Großstadt Live begleitet vom Babylon Orchester Berlin unter Leitung von George Morton (Sa, 11.2.)

So klingt #Berlin ! #TheSoundofBerlin
Walter Ruttmann's classic is a fascinating journey through time in the roaring twenties from Berlin.
… accompanied by #edmundmeisel‘s stirring original music!

Berlin – Die Sinfonie der Großstadt, D 1927, R: Walther Ruttmann, 65 Min., ohne Dialog/No dialog!

Berlin, eine Stadt erwacht aus dem Schlaf und wird zur Legende, 1927, fünf Jahre vor dem Ende der Weimarer Republik. Elektrisierend!
Eine Stadt vor ihrem Untergang.

Ein Kaleidoskop von Eindrücken, die ein lebendiges Bild der Viermillionen-Metropole vermitteln: von der ersten Morgendämmerung, wenn die ersten Pendlerzüge einlaufen bis in die späte Nacht, wenn sich die Lichtreklamen der Kinos und Tanzpaläste auf dem regennassen Asphalt spiegeln.

Hektik und Beschaulichkeit, Armut und Reichtum, Angestellte, Flaneure, und immer wieder Busse, Straßenbahnen, Lastwagen, U-Bahnen, Züge, Autos, Fahrräder, Fußgängerströme als Pulsgeber des groß-städtischen Rhythmus: Walter Ruttmanns Klassiker ist eine faszinierende Zeitreise in die #goldenezwanziger

ENGLISH
A daily routine in Berlin's life, filmed in the late 1920s.

Berlin, a city awakens from sleep and becomes a legend, in 1927, five years before the end of the Weimar Republic. Electrifying! A city before its downfall.

A kaleidoscope of impressions that convey a vivid picture of the four million metropolis: from the first dawn, when the first commuter trains arrive, until late at night, when the neon signs of the cinemas and dance palaces are reflected on the rain-soaked asphalt.

Hustle and bustle and tranquility, poverty and wealth, employees, strollers, and again and again buses, trams, trucks, subways, trains, cars, bicycles, pedestrian streams as the pulse generator of the urban rhythm: Walter Ruttmann's classic is a fascinating journey through time in the roaring twenties from Berlin.

 

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2023. Further unauthorized use prohibited.

Tuesday, January 19, 2021

Louise Brooks, a Berlin caricature and an historical nexus

Late last year, I ran a short series of blogs highlighting some of the new and unusual material I have come across while researching Louise Brooks' life and career. This was research conducted over the internet during the stay-at-home doldrums of the 2020 pandemic lock-down. My research has continued into 2021, as have stay-at-home orders. Thanks to longtime Louise Brooks Society supporter Tim Moore, I have recently come across a handful of new and unusual items which I wish to share. This second post continues a short series of blogs highlighting such material.

In the early 1930s, a well-connected American (related to the Vanderbilt family) named Erskine Gwynne wrote a column called "The Cavalcade" for the Paris-based European edition of the New York Herald (later known as the International Herald Tribune). It covered things of interest to Americans not only on the continent, but also back in the States. The Paris-born Gwynne, no doubt a man about town, was also the publisher of a monthly magazine titled The Boulevadier, as well as the creator of a famed Jazz Age cocktail also called "The Boulevadier." He was also the author of self-published novel, Paris Pandemonium, a 1936 title whose pre-publication blurbs vowed that the city’s “loosely moraled married women and their gigolos will be faithfully etched,” but was panned for delivering “only rudimentary devilishness.”

Erskine Gwynne
 
What brought Gwynne to my attention was his New York Herald column from September 2, 1933. It mentions Louise Brooks, and "the Eskimo." Gwynne's column begins this way: "BERLIN --- This city certainly has changed. It is difficult for anyone who has been here scores of times, but always on a flying visit, to judge. But every German I see, and invisible ones around me too, whisper "'Don't you think Berlin has changed?' The Nazi uniforms, of course, are there. . . . "

Gwynne's look-around-Berlin column continues. "What I like about the Eden Hotel is that facing it is the aquarium. On its walls are sculpted various kinds of unpleasant monsters, dinosaur, etc., and they are the first thing I see in the morning on getting up. I fear more and more that the day will come when I'll wake up to find them crawling around all over my bed. Then it'll be 'Quick, Watson, the needle'.  There are also funny things on the wall inside the hotel bar. Jimmy, the barman, has a gallery of important customers caricatured. Several years ago one Carl Wijk, better known as the Eskimo, was in Berlin. His face figured prominently in Jimmy's collection with Noel Coward and Louise Brooks. The last two mentioned are still there. The Eskimo has been thawed out."

Of course, the Eden Hotel is known in Louise Brooks lore as the place where the twenty-year old actress stayed for five weeks while filming Pandora's Box in late 1928. Brooks even mentioned the famed hotel in Lulu in Hollywood, writing "Sex was the business of the town. At the Eden Hotel, where I lived, the cafe bar was lined with higher priced trollops. The economy girls walked the street outside...." But wow, I hadn't known there was a caricature of Brooks hanging in the Eden, not to mention still hanging four years after she had made her last film in Germany. I WONDER WHAT THAT CARICATURE LOOKED LIKE, AND WHERE IT IS TODAY?

Brooks arriving at the Eden Hotel in 1928, greeted by a bell-hop wearing a Eden Hotel cap.

What also surprised me was mention of "the Eskimo." In Louise Brooks lore, he is a somewhat mysterious figure, a hanger-on who Brooks met in Paris after making Pandora's Box. He also hung around Brooks while she was making Diary of a Lost Girl, and later, was with her when she returned to Paris between films. In his biography of Brooks, Barry Paris tentatively identifies him thus, "He was half-Swedish and half-English.... His real name appears to have been Karl von Bieck, and he was supposedly an impoverished baron." I wonder, could the Eskimo referenced in Gwynne's column be the same mentioned in the Paris book? They are both associated with the Eden Hotel and Brooks, and their first names are similarly Carl / Karl, though spelled differently.

I haven't been able to learn much about Carl Wijk, except that there was a Baron named Carl Wijk who in July 1931 married Catherine (or "Kitty") Kresge, daughter of S. S. Kresge and heiress to the 5 and 10 cent store fortune. In articles from the time, Carl Wijk is described as both a "naturalized British subject" and as the "eldest son of Lady Reginald Barnes of Devonshire, England." Reportage from the time also suggests that Carl Wijk and Kitty Kresge met through her sister Ruth, who was friends with the famed Jazz Age illustrator Ralph Barton, who killed himself in May of 1931.

Is Carl Wijk the same person as Karl von Bieck? Might their identities have been conflated? I don't know. (In Richard Leacock's filmed interview with Brooks, she identifies the Eskimo simply as Baron Beek, never spelling out the name). Here is a picture of Brooks at Joe Zelli's famous Parisian nightclub. The person sitting close to the right of her might be the Eskimo, as he is a young man and blonde. The man sitting on the far right is Joe Zelli. The man to the far left is unknown.

Brooks at Joe Zelli's in Paris, October 1929

Back to Erskine Gwynne. I don't know that Gwynne and Brooks ever met, but it is possible as both were likely in Paris at the same time. Brooks was a popular figure in Paris in 1929 and 1930 -- both as a personality and a film star; and Gwynne was certainly aware of her in the years before he penned the above mentioned column. (Gwynne seems to have known just about "everybody." His wife was fashionable, and was once photographed by  Hoyningen-Huene for Vogue. Gwynne himself shows up in pictures from the time with likes of Jack Pickford and Marilyn Miller, among others, each of whom also knew Brooks. He also seems to have known Leon Erroll, Brooks' Louie the 14th co-star. And too, Gwynne was the brother of Alice "Kiki" Gwynne, a rich, charismatic beauty and famed American socialite and the alleged mother of a child born out of wedlock to Prince George, Duke of Kent, fourth son of King George V. She also reportedly had affairs with the likes of film star Rudolph Valentino and writer Evelyn Waugh.)

As mentioned earlier, Gwynne was the publisher of a monthly Paris-based magazine titled The Boulevadier, which ran from 1927 to 1932. It is described as a Parisian New Yorker type magazine. In its day, it had a small reputation, and was read on occasion by the likes of Janet Flanner and other American expatriates. According to the New Yorker article referenced below, it "did not leave much of a legacy, other than commissioning a few illustrations by Alexander Calder and—par for the course for vanity magazines run by Americans in Europe—once or twice publishing Hemingway." Nevertheless, I hope to track down copies to see if Louise Brooks was ever mentioned. This vintage advertisement for Gwynne's magazine certainly has the air of liquor about it.


As also mentioned, Gwynne was the creator of a still popular Jazz Age cocktail called "The Boulevadier." If you look it up on the internet, you'll come across a surprising number of references, articles, blogs, and webpages about the drink. In 2019, the New Yorker named it the perfect Thanksgiving cocktail. Did Louise Brooks ever drink one? Who knows. She preferred gin, later in life, and the picture of her celebrating at Zelli's shows her table stocked with champagne. 

The Boulevardier’s origins trace back, at least on paper, to the 1927 book Barflies and Cocktails by Harry McElhone, the raconteur proprietor of Harry’s New York Bar in Paris. Harry's was a celebrated drinking establishment, one favored by socialites and expats including Ernest Hemingway. Here is the way the recipe for the drink as it is given in McElhone's book (which is pictured below). 


The Boulevardier that has come down to us today has remained pretty much the same. It still uses Bourbon, and features an equal parts combination of the whiskey alongside Campari and sweet vermouth. (An alternate recipe can be found at the bottom of the New Yorker article referenced above.)

30ml Bourbon
30ml Campari
30ml sweet vermouth
Orange or lemon twist garnish

Stir the ingredients together over ice, then strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with your choice of an orange or lemon twist, expressing the peel over the glass.

Friday, January 15, 2021

Nazi hatred of Charlie Chaplin, along with mention of a Louise Brooks film

Late last year, I ran a short series of blogs highlighting some of the new and unusual material I have come across while researching Louise Brooks' life and career. This was research conducted over the internet during the stay-at-home doldrums of the 2020 pandemic lock-down. My research has continued into 2021, as have the stay-at-home orders. Thanks to longtime Louise Brooks Society supporter Tim Moore, I have recently come across a handful of new and unusual items which I wish to share. This post kicks off another short series of blogs highlighting that material.

In the past, the UK newspaper Daily Telegraph ran a regular feature called "London Day by Day," featuring short news bits about and related to life in the English capitol. In August of 1934, it ran a piece on the English-born actor Charlie Chaplin, followed by a piece on the German actor Fritz Kortner (Brooks' co-star in Pandora's Box), who was then a recent emigrant to England. These two piece reveal the tenor of the times.

Chaplin’s movies were banned in Germany because of the actor’s suspected Jewish heritage. Though Nazi hatred of Chaplin is well known, their deep contempt for the widely loved comedian is still surprising, even shocking, after all these years - especially when one reads the Nazi description of Chaplin as "A nasty little Jew, not yet hanged." This clipping, it is worth noting, came 6 years before Chaplin satirized Hitler in The Great Dictator (1940).

Also surprising to me is the mention of Pandora's Box (a silent film) having shown in Berlin in 1934, some five years after it was first released - that is, four to five years into the sound era and a year after the Nazis assumed power. What also surprised me is the description of Pandora's Box as a "distinctly Liberalistic, if not Marxist" film. (It is unclear to me if that is the attitude of the Nazis, or the newspaper.) The clipping also mentions that Pandora's Box was one of the last films shown at the Camera theatre before it was closed by the Nazis, implying that this "world famous pocket cinema" was shuttered because of the films it showed.

The director behind Pandora's Box, the Austrian-born G. W. Pabst, was known as a left-of-center film-maker, and a number of his films contain subtle and not-so-subtle critiques of German society. (Pabst's critical attitude toward German society is also apparent in the other film he made with Brooks, Diary of a Lost Girl). Despite, or perhaps in addition to Pabst's leftist politics, what likely got the Camera theatre shuttered was the fact that Brooks' co-star in Pandora's Box, Fritz Kortner, was Jewish. (No doubt, Kortner left Germany in 1934 because the Nazis prohibited Jewish individuals from working in the film industry. Also exiled because of the Nazi ban were members of Syd Kay's Fellows, the small jazz band seen playing at Lulu's wedding in Pandora's Box.)

Fritz Kortner looms over Louise Brooks in Pandora's Box. A Menorah  sits on the shelf to the left.

I don't know much of anything about Die Kamera theater, now demolished, except for what can be found on its Cinema Treasures page. Built in 1928, the theater
was badly damaged by Allied bombs during World War II. It was not reopened, and later the Russian Embassy was built at its site. If any reader of this blog knows more, I would certainly be interested to learn what I might about its existence in the early 1930s. I would also be especially interested in obtaining any vintage newspaper advertisements from the time, especially for Pandora's Box. I wonder which German newspaper might have carried them?

Cinema Treasures has a couple of image of this historic theater, one an interior view, and another 1936 image of an exterior, street view. (That image, the image shown below, is a cropped from this Wikipedia image.) Its name, Kamera, can be seen behind the lamp pole above the door in the middle of the image. Another image of the theater, dating from 1934, and with Nazi flags hanging from the building exterior, can be found HERE.

For more on a 1933 screening of Pandora's Box, see this earlier LBS blog, "Amazing letter from Theodor Adorno to Alban Berg," in which the famous philosopher recounts seeing the film in a letter to the famed composer.

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Two Louise Brooks films to screen in Berlin this weekend

Two Louise Brooks films will be shown in Germany this coming weekend at the New Babylon Berlin GmbH (located at Rosa-Luxembourg-Str. 30, 10178 in Berlin, Germany).


Pandora's Box will be shown twice on Friday, with live musical accompaniment. More information can be found HERE.
 D 1929. R: Georg Wilhelm Pabst mit Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, Franz Lederer, 110 Min
Fr, 30.8. 19:15 Live an der Orgel Anna Vavilkina, Eintritt Frei / gratis!
FR 6.09. 17:15 Live an der Orgel Fedor Stroganov, Eintritt gratis!
Das junge, attraktive Showgirl Lulu ist die Geliebte des prominenten Chefredakteurs Schön. Seiner sozialen Stellung entsprechend, möchte er eine Frau aus seinen Kreisen heiraten und sich von Lulu trennen. Durch einen Skandal platzt die Hochzeit. Schön heiratet stattdessen Lulu, stirbt aber schon in der Hochzeitsnacht durch eine Kugel. Lulu wird wegen Mordes angeklagt, entkommt aber aus dem Gerichtssaal und setzt ihre Affäre mit dem Sohn des Verstorbenen fort. Ihre Flucht vor der Polizei führt sie ins Ausland. Damit beginnt Lulus eigentliche Odyssee… Freie Adaption des gleichnamigen Theaterstücks von Frank Wedekind und seines Bühnendramas „Erdgeist“ mit Louise Brooks als Lulu. Einer der ersten Filme, die lesbische Liebe bzw. Bisexualität offen zeigten.
D 1929. R: Georg Wilhelm Pabst with Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, Franz Lederer, 110 min

Fri, 30.8. 19:15 Live at the organ Anna Vavilkina, Admission Free / Free!
FR 6.09. 17:15 Live at the organ Fedor Stroganov, admission free!

The young, attractive showgirl Lulu is the mistress of the prominent editor-in-chief Schön. According to his social position, he wants to marry a woman from his circles and to separate from Lulu. Due to a scandal, the wedding is bursting. Schön marries Lulu instead, but dies on the wedding night by a bullet. Lulu is charged with murder, but escapes from the courtroom and continues her affair with the son of the deceased. Her escape from the police leads her abroad. This is the beginning of Lulus' actual odyssey ... Free adaptation of the eponymous play by Frank Wedekind and his stage drama "Erdgeist" with Louise Brooks as Lulu. One of the first films to show lesbian love or bisexuality.



Diary of a Lost Girl will be shown twice on Saturday, also with live musical accompaniment. More information can be found HERE.

D 1929. R: Georg Wilhelm Pabst mit Louise Brooks, Fritz Rasp, Valeska Gert, 104 Min
Sa, 31.08. 20:00 Live am Klavier Ekkehard Wölk, Eintritt gratis!
Sa, 07.09. 20:15 An der Orgel Live Fedor Stroganov, Eintritt gratis!
Die junge Apothekerstocher Thymian wird vom Angestellten ihres Vaters verführt und wird nach der Geburt ihres Kindes in ein Heim gesteckt, wo sie unter der Strenge der sadistischen Erzieher zu leiden hat. Sie flüchtet und landet im Bordell einer Großstadt.

D 1929. R: Georg Wilhelm Pabst with Louise Brooks, Fritz Rasp, Valeska Gert, 104 min

Sat, 31.08. 20:00 live on the piano Ekkehard Wölk, admission free!
Sat, 07.09. 20:15 At the organ live Fedor Stroganov, admission free!

The young apothecary Thymian is seduced by the employee of her father and is put after the birth of her child in a home, where she has to suffer from the severity of the sadistic educators. She flees and ends up in the brothel of a big city.

Saturday, April 6, 2019

TODAY: Pandora's Box with Louise Brooks screens in Berlin Babylon location


The Metropolis Orchester Berlin in Berlin, Germany will screen the sensational 1929 Louise Brooks' film Pandora's Box at the Theater im Delphi (Gustav-Adolf-Str. 2) on April 6, 2019. This special cinema concert screening will feature live musical accompaniment as well as an introduction by actress Fritzi Haberlandt, who will talk about her relationship with the role of Lulu. Here is your opportunity to see a classic silent film in the city where it was made, as well as one of the shooting locations for the popular television series Berlin Babylon. More information as well as ticket availability about this event can be found HERE.


A few days ago,  Der Tagesspiegel ran a piece on this special event. That piece can be found HERE. [Unfortunately, their lead image is from another Louise Brooks film, Diary of a Lost Girl. This German publication is not alone in running the wrong film stills, as it is a mistake other publications and venues have repeated.]


According to the event promoters, "BABYLON BERLIN actress Fritzi Haberlandt and the Metropolis Orchestra Berlin present the cinematic masterpiece by GEORG WILHELM PABST. Immerse yourself in a typical Berlin cinema evening in the year 1929!

1929 - a legendary year: The Golden Twenties come to an end and at the same time reach their peak before the world economic crisis comes abruptly. In this last great year of German silent film, known as "The Year Babylon", the former silent movie theater Delphi is opened at the Caligariplatz. In 1929, Louise Brooks becomes the first American actress to star in a German film production: THE BOX OF PANDORA by GW Pabst. Brooks embodies the role of Lulu completely and becomes an icon.

Under the direction of Burkhard Götze, the METROPOLIS ORCHESTRA BERLIN presents the masterpiece in authentic style of a cinema concert of the time, with the great score of Peer Raaben. Original flair is provided by BOHÈME SAUVAGE. The audience is invited to dress and decorate in the style of the time. In addition, you can take time travel to the locations of BABYLON BERLIN before the cinema concert."

Partner: Bohème Sauvage, Zeitreisen, European Film Philharmonic , German Cinematheque


Want to learn more about Louise Brooks and her role as Lulu in Pandora's Box? Visit the Louise Brooks Society website as well as its Pandora's Box filmography page.

Saturday, March 30, 2019

Pandora's Box starring Louise Brooks screens in Berlin, Babylon on April 6th

The Metropolis Orchester Berlin in Berlin, Germany will screen the sensational 1929 Louise Brooks' film Pandora's Box at the Theater im Delphi (Gustav-Adolf-Str. 2) on Saturday April 6, 2019. This special cinema concert screening will feature live musical accompaniment as well as an introduction by actress Fritzi Haberlandt, who will talk about her relationship with the role of Lulu. Here is your opportunity to see a classic silent film in the city where it was made, as well as one of the shooting locations for the popular television series Berlin Babylon. More information as well as ticket availability about this event can be found HERE.



According to the event promoters, "BABYLON BERLIN actress Fritzi Haberlandt and the Metropolis Orchestra Berlin present the cinematic masterpiece by GEORG WILHELM PABST. Immerse yourself in a typical Berlin cinema evening in the year 1929!

1929 - a legendary year: The Golden Twenties come to an end and at the same time reach their peak before the world economic crisis comes abruptly. In this last great year of German silent film, known as "The Year Babylon", the former silent movie theater Delphi is opened at the Caligariplatz. In 1929, Louise Brooks becomes the first American actress to star in a German film production: THE BOX OF PANDORA by GW Pabst. Brooks embodies the role of Lulu completely and becomes an icon.

Under the direction of Burkhard Götze, the METROPOLIS ORCHESTRA BERLIN presents the masterpiece in authentic style of a cinema concert of the time, with the great score of Peer Raaben. Original flair is provided by BOHÈME SAUVAGE. The audience is invited to dress and decorate in the style of the time. In addition, you can take time travel to the locations of BABYLON BERLIN before the cinema concert."

Partner: Bohème Sauvage, Zeitreisen, European Film Philharmonic , German Cinematheque



Want to learn more about Louise Brooks and her role as Lulu in Pandora's Box? Visit the Louise Brooks Society website as well as its Pandora's Box filmography page.

Monday, June 16, 2014

Berlin - Metropolis of Vice (video documentary) NSFW

Louise Brooks speaks about such things in her memoirs and in filmed interviews shot later in her life. . . . Here is Berlin - Metropolis of Vice, an excellent NSFW video documentary.




Monday, April 29, 2013

1920s Berlin cabaret uncovered

I wonder if Louise Brooks ever visited the Berlin cabaret mentioned in this December 2012 BBC story and video? Check it out at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20656929 (Thank to Bryan McCarthy for pointing out this news story.)

And for fun, here is a video tour around Berlin in 1929, the same year she was there making Pandora's Box and The Diary of a Lost Girl for G.W. Pabst.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Berlinale documentaries reflect the power of film

A new documentary, apparently, includes Louise Brooks. In Berlin, a showcase of documentary films at this year's Berlinale illustrates the medium's potential to reclaim the past and envision the future. One of those documentaries is Weimar Touch, which looks at the work of G.W. Pabst and others and the influence they had on film making around the world. That's according to the Deutsche Welle website, which goes on to state:
There are very few cities in the world so inextricably tied to the history, seduction and cathartic power of filmmaking than Berlin.

Late 19th-century film pioneers Max and Emil Skladanowsky invented the Bioscop movie projector here in 1895. Some of the most iconic movie stars of all time, Louise Brooks, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Asta Nielsen, once padded around the studios in Weissensee, Woltorsdorf and Babelsberg.

Here is where Walter Ruttmann directed "Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis" - based on Dziga Vertov's theory of "Kino-Pravda" ("film truth") that reality can best be represented through cinematic "artificialities." In semi-documentary style, the silent film with a musical score portrays the life of a city.

Ruttmann was not alone in creating masterpieces either. The likes of Fritz Lang, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and Georg Wilhelm Pabst made their mark in the Golden Age of German cinema during the 1920s as well. And great thinkers such as Walter Benjamin and Siegfried Kracauer grappled with the meaning of these new mechanical, magical, moving images.

And then history took a catastrophic turn - with a Nazi dictatorship that took German cinema into its grip as well.
G.W. Pabst (second from the right) and others associated with Pandora's Box (1929). This picture was taken in 1928, not long after Brooks arrival in Berlin. At first, Pabst envisioned Lulu without bangs or a bob.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Love em and Leave em in Berlin

Love em and Leave em will be shown in Berlin on Sunday, February 18th. (Apparently, the film had also been shown on February 9th.) These screenings are part of the Berlinale International Film Festival, which is running a series called "City Girls" devoted to movies from the 1910's and 1920's. The series features films staring the likes of Louise Brooks, Greta Garbo and Clara Bow. For more about the series, check out Jess Smee's informative article, "Girls in the City," in the current issue of Spiegel International. More information about the festival and the series can also be found on the Berlinale website, including the festival program which includes two pages (in pdf format) devoted to our Miss Brooks. It's worth checking out.

Tuesday, December 7, 2004

Wicked Joys in Weimar Berlin


Interesting article in today's Guardian about life in Berlin during the Weimar period. The article can be found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1360663,00.html
This passage struck me as especially noteworthy."Among much else that marks Weimar Berlin out as a quintessentially modern metropolis was its cultural bustle and its critical media. During the 1920s the city's publishing industry burgeoned and, books apart, produced some 150 daily and weekly papers - right and leftwing, highbrow and popular." That could mean there is a lot more coverage of Louise Brooks and the making of Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl then I might have suspected. Oh, what wicked joys await me.
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