Bluebird

Such a beautiful landscape

I love her facial terrain...

 

A perfect present

Vivid images and words on Marilyn Monroe

Bert Stern's 1962 photos taken weeks before her death and Norman Mailer's 1973 essay on the actress are edited together in a glossy new edition by Lawrence Schiller.

 

 

Marilyn Monroe in 1962. (Bert Stern / Taschen)

 

By Liesl Bradner Special to Tribune Newspapers

December 12, 2011

The suite at the Hotel Bel-Air where Bert Stern photographed Marilyn Monroe for her famous "Last Sitting" in 1962 no longer exists. It is now part of the elegant La Prairie Spa — rather apropos, as the often difficult star was well known for making people wait while relaxing in a hot bath. In 1972, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Norman Mailer took refuge a few steps away in one of the secluded bungalow-like rooms to soak up the ambience while writing his biographical essay on the tragic celebrity.

Mailer, Monroe and Stern have been brought together by producer, director and screenwriter Lawrence Schiller in 278 grand, glossy pages for "Norman Mailer, Bert Stern: Marilyn Monroe" (published by Taschen, a limited edition signed by Stern starts at $1,000).

Mailer's original text published in 1973 has been edited here and accompanies Stern's historical photos taken just six weeks before the star's death on Aug. 5, 1962. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of her passing next year, Schiller, who photographed the skinny-dipping Monroe on the set of "Something's Got to Give," pitched the idea to publisher Benedikt Taschen, likening Mailer's words and Stern's photos as two miter gears coming together.

"I told him we could illustrate Mailer's text in a very unique way and bring out something in Bert's pictures that had been there before but not showcased properly," said Schiller at the book's lavish launch party last week at the recently renovated Hotel Bel-Air, where guests included Quincy Jones, Chris Tucker, Julie Newmar and Penelope Ann Miller.

"It feels weird," said Stern, 82, on his return to the lush, hallowed grounds. "The ghost of Marilyn coming back 50 years later." His last visit was in 2008 to photograph another troubled actress, Lindsay Lohan, for New York magazine. They re-created several of Monroe's nearly nude photos from that famous portrait sitting.

"I didn't want any clothes. I wanted things — jewelry, scarves, objects," said Stern of the Monroe session. As usual, she showed up three hours late but thinner then he had expected. The 36-year-old Monroe sipped on her favorite Dom Pérignon champagne, picked up a few scarves from off the bed and giddily danced around while Stern snapped away. "She was in a terrific mood, a lot of fun," Stern said. "She wanted to be in Vogue."

Stern sent that first set of provocative images to the editors, who thought her hair looked too messy and wanted more fashion shots, so Stern and Monroe met again. Marilyn dressed in more sophisticated evening wear including a black Dior gown and impersonated Jackie Kennedy in a brunet wig and pearls at one point. Jackie's hairdresser, Kenneth Battelle, even styled her hair appropriately.

"She got fed up with the dresses and wanted to go back to less things," recalled Stern, who didn't want a glitzy showbiz photo. An admirer of Edward Steichen's black and white portrait of Greta Garbo, he wanted something more intimate, that definitive, immortal picture.

"It was a once-in-a-lifetime event. I knew I'd never shoot her again."

Marilyn died while the Vogue layout was going to press. They edited out the fashion copy and ran an obituary for the September issue.

Considered one of the original "Mad Men," Stern got his start on Madison Avenue in the 1950s with his revolutionary "Driest of the Dry" campaign for Smirnoff vodka, inverting an Egyptian pyramid in a martini glass.

"I don't consider myself a photographer," he said. "I'm a designer with a camera."

When asked if any actress today could compare to Monroe, Stern immediately responded: "Naomi Watts. I thought she should've played Marilyn in that new movie. [Michelle Williams] was Marilyn-ish, but she didn't have that kind of freedom and naturalism that Marilyn had. She was a free spirit. She was full of ideas, sexy, funny and clever."

'Norman Mailer, Bert Stern: Marilyn Monroe'
By Norman Mailer and Bert Stern
Taschen, 278 pages, $1000

Méliès

'Hugo' revives interest in Georges Melies

The Scorsese film includes a character modeled after the early special-effects pioneer.

Georges Méliès built the first movie studio in Europe and was the first filmmaker to use production sketches and storyboards. Film historians consider him the "father of special effects" (Getty Images)

By Susan King, Los Angeles Times

November 28, 2011

Director D.W. Griffith once said of French filmmaker Georges Méliès, "I owe him everything." Charlie Chaplin described him as "the alchemist of light."

Méliès built the first movie studio in Europe and was the first filmmaker to use production sketches and storyboards. Film historians consider him the "father of special effects" — he created the first double exposure on screen, the split screen and the dissolve. Not to mention that he was one of the first filmmakers to have nudity in his films — he was French, after all.

And thanks to Martin Scorsese's critically acclaimed 3-D family film, "Hugo," contemporary audiences are being lovingly introduced to the silent film pioneer. "Hugo" is a fanciful tale about a young boy, Hugo (Asa Butterworth), who lives in the Paris train station in the early 1930s and discovers that the curmudgeonly old man (Ben Kingsley) operating a toy shop in the station is Georges Méliès. ("Hugo" took in $15.4 million from Wednesday to Sunday, playing on far fewer screens than other wide releases).

When cinema was in its infancy, Méliès made about 500 films filled with wonder, humor and outrageous effects. A trained magician who captivated audiences with his illusions at the Theatre Robert Houdin, he happened to be in the audience on Dec. 28, 1895, when the Lumière brothers premiered their Cinematographie to the public.

Within a year, he was making his own one-minute films. His best known work, 1902's "A Trip to the Moon," which features the iconic image of a rocket landing in the eye of the man in the moon, has recently been restored to its hand-colored glory.

Though audiences' tastes changed, Méliès kept making the same kind of film. In 1910, he went bankrupt and made a deal with the Pathé production company to finance his next films. If the films failed, Pathe would take possession of his house. The films did fail and by 1913, his career was over. He managed to stay in his house until 1923, when Pathé took possession. He made ends meet at the toy shop. Just as in "Hugo," he was rediscovered and given the Legion of Honor and a rent-free apartment, where he lived until his death in 1938.

The clips of Méliès' films and Scorsese's re-creations of the production of his flights of fancy hopefully will whet appetites of families to check out some of Méliès' films, which are available on DVD and on the Internet.

France's Serge Bromberg, who founded Lobster Films in 1984, is a film historian who has been tireless in his efforts to find, preserve and show vintage films. In September, Bromberg presented the restored color print of "A Trip to the Moon," a project he led, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He's worked for over a year on "The Extraordinary Voyage," a documentary on "A Trip to the Moon" chronicling its production and how the long-lost color print was discovered and restored. "The Extraordinary Voyage" will come out on DVD next year along with "A Trip to the Moon."

For those whose interest has been piqued by "Hugo," Bromberg recently shared his top six Méliès films that are must-sees for any cinephile.

"A Trip to the Moon": "When the film was made in 1902, it was the longest film ever — 15 minutes. It has the most amazing special effects. It is exactly like 'Avatar.' It was the first blockbuster in the history of cinema. It was sold all around the world."

"Vanishing Lady": "It is from 1896. It is the oldest special-effects film that survives. It is one minute long. It depicts a whimsical illusion that Méliès did at his Robert Houdin Theatre. This is really one of the most fantastic films."

"The Four Troublesome Heads": "It's from 1898, also one minute. It is a man who takes his head and puts it on the table. Then the head grows back, and he puts the second head on the table. Then the head grows back, and he puts the third head on the table. Then the head grows back and he takes a guitar and starts playing and the heads start singing. Because they don't sing right, he takes the guitar and knocks the heads away. It is absolutely stunning."

"An Impossible Balancing Feat": "It is from 1902 — one minute. He juggles with himself. It is just so amazing."

"Joan of Arc": "He made it in 1900. It's 10 minutes. It is a reconstruction of the life of Joan of Arc. It's hand-colored."

"The Merry Frolics of Satan": Two travelers get more than they bargained for when they encounter Satan the trickster in this hand-colored fantasy. The film features an inventive carriage ride through the skies drawn by a skeletal horse.

"It is from 1906. It had been a show [at the Robert Houdin], for which he did all of these wonderful tricks."

susan.king@latimes.com

R.I.P. Ken Russell

British film director Ken Russell dies at 84

The British director's daring and sometimes outrageous films often tested the patience of audiences and critics.

British film director Ken Russell with British model Twiggy during the filming of the movie "The Boy Friend" in 1971. (Associated Press)

 

LONDON—

Ken Russell, the British director whose daring and sometimes outrageous films often tested the patience of audiences and critics, has died at age 84.

Russell died in a hospital on Sunday following a series of strokes, his son Alex Verney-Elliott said Monday.

One of Russell's biggest successes came in 1969 with "Women in Love," based on the book by D.H. Lawrence, which earned Academy Award nominations for the director and for writer Larry Kramer, and an Oscar for the star, Glenda Jackson.

Music played a central role in many of Russell's films including "The Music Lovers" in 1970, and "Lisztomania" and "Tommy" in 1975.

"My father died peacefully," Verney-Elliott said. "He had had a series of strokes. He died with a smile on his face."

Russell established himself by making short films for the British Broadcasting Corp., focusing on arts and artists including profiles of the poet John Betjeman, comedian Spike Milligan and playwright Shelagh Delaney, the author of "A Taste of Honey."

"When there were no more live artists left, we turned to making somewhat longer films about dead artists such as Prokofiev," Russell once said.

"At first we were only allowed to use still photographs and newsreel footage of these subjects, but eventually we sneaked in the odd hand playing the piano (in 'Prokofiev') and the odd back walking through a door. By the time a couple of years had gone by, those boring little factual accounts of the artists had evolved into evocative films of an hour or more which used real actors to impersonate the historical figures."

Russell's darker side appeared in "Dante's Inferno" in 1967, about the poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Russell played up the differences between Rossetti's idealized view of his wife and her reality as a drug addict.

Russell was even more provocative in his 1970 film, "The Dance of the Seven Veils: A Comic Strip in Seven Episodes." It presents the composer Richard Strauss as a crypto-Nazi, and showed him conducting Rosenkavalier waltzes while SS men tortured a Jew.

November 28, 2011, 3:14 a.m.

Still so fascinating

Sheriff reopens case of actress Natalie Wood's mysterious death

November 17, 2011 |  5:09 pm

     

 

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department announced Thursday that it was reopening its case into the 1981 death of actress Natalie Wood, which has been one of Hollywood's most enduring mysteries.

Officials then ruled her drowning death while boating off Santa Catalina Island was an accident. But there has been much speculation about what happened in the boat.

"Recently sheriff’s homicide investigators were contacted by persons who stated they had additional information about the Natalie Wood Wagner drowning. Due to the additional information, Sheriff’s homicide bureau has decided to take another look at the case," the department said in a statement.

Wood and Robert Wagner first married in 1957 and divorced five years later. Both went on to marry other people -- and have children -- only to remarry in 1972.

In 1981, Wagner and Wood had invited Christopher Walken to be their guest that Thanksgiving weekend on Catalina aboard their boat the Splendour. On the evening of Nov. 29, they had dinner and drinks at Doug's Harbor Reef. They returned to the boat and continued to drink until a heated argument erupted between the two men. Wagner told The Times in 2008 that it concerned how much of one's personal life should be sacrificed in pursuit of one's career; he was upset that Walken was advocating that Wood give all to her art, even at the expense of her husband and children.

Wood left to go to the master cabin's bathroom. Wagner says he and Walken eventually calmed down and said good night. When he went to bed, he says, Wood wasn't there. It is believed that the dinghy had gotten loose and Wood came up on deck to tie it up.

"I have gone over it so many millions of times with people. Nobody heard anything."

--Richard Winton

Photo: Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood at the 1979 Hollywood Christmas Parade. Credit: Los Angeles Times; 1981 L.A. Times front page.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department announced Thursday that it was reopening its case into the 1981 death of actress Natalie Wood, which has been one of Hollywood's most enduring mysteries.

Officials then ruled her drowning death while boating off Santa Catalina Island was an accident. But there has been much speculation about what happened in the boat.

"Recently sheriff’s homicide investigators were contacted by persons who stated they had additional information about the Natalie Wood Wagner drowning. Due to the additional information, Sheriff’s homicide bureau has decided to take another look at the case," the department said in a statement.

Wood and Robert Wagner first married in 1957 and divorced five years later. Both went on to marry other people -- and have children -- only to remarry in 1972.

In 1981, Wagner and Wood had invited Christopher Walken to be their guest that Thanksgiving weekend on Catalina aboard their boat the Splendour. On the evening of Nov. 29, they had dinner and drinks at Doug's Harbor Reef. They returned to the boat and continued to drink until a heated argument erupted between the two men. Wagner told The Times in 2008 that it concerned how much of one's personal life should be sacrificed in pursuit of one's career; he was upset that Walken was advocating that Wood give all to her art, even at the expense of her husband and children.

Wood left to go to the master cabin's bathroom. Wagner says he and Walken eventually calmed down and said good night. When he went to bed, he says, Wood wasn't there. It is believed that the dinghy had gotten loose and Wood came up on deck to tie it up.

"I have gone over it so many millions of times with people. Nobody heard anything."

--Richard Winton

Photo: Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood at the 1979 Hollywood Christmas Parade. Credit: Los Angeles Times; 1981 L.A. Times front page.

Movie of the week

 

In the Deep Forest, an Unusual Bond and Untamed Beauty

By MANOHLA DARGIS

Published: November 10, 2011

Lily Rabe plays a former Forest Service worker making discoveries in the Oregon wilderness, in “Letters From the Big Man.”

In his poem “The Way West, Underground,” from his collection “Turtle Island,” Gary Snyder writes vividly of “The split-cedar/smoked salmon/cloudy days of Oregon,/ the thick fir forests.” The book’s title refers to an indigenous creation story in which North America emerged from some soil placed on the back of a turtle by a woman who fell from the sky. In some versions of the story a muskrat helps her. The woman in Christopher Munch’s lovely, delightfully idiosyncratic “Letters From the Big Man,” resplendent with its own dense forests and cloudy Oregon days, has already fallen to earth and is looking for a way back up or maybe just forward. She gets help from a sasquatch.

Antarctic Pictures

Isaac C. Singleton Jr. plays a watchful sasquatch.

That would be the Big Man (Isaac C. Singleton Jr., fantastically kitted out in fur and makeup), one of the more eccentric characters recently to hit the Big Screen. By virtue of his mythological status (um, perhaps), the Big Man is decidedly a more unusual movie presence than the woman, Sarah, though she too is unusual. A strong presence strongly played by Lily Rabe, Sarah, a former United States Forest Service employee, is the type of independent woman who, in American cinema, has moved off the threatened and onto the endangered list. Through many miles, narrative switchbacks, a drib of politics, a drab of shamanism, she and the Big Man develop a beautiful friendship.

The movie opens with Sarah packing up some belongings in an apartment and clearly leaving a man, seen with her in a photo, and a life behind. She tosses what she wants in a truck that she has adorned with primitive decorations, chucks the rest of her stuff and drives out of the city and into the woods. Mr. Munch, whose earlier films include “The Hours and Times,” handles this efficiently. But he doesn’t reveal what a splendid eye he has until he switches to some aerial shots of Sarah driving on a road that winds like a ribbon through a forest, a point of view that suggests that of an eagle — thereby introducing the idea of nonhuman perspectives — and underscores her isolation.

She isn’t alone for long, although she seems to ache, at times almost irritably, for solitude. There is a stop at a ranger station, where she borrows a kayak from an old friend, Penny (Fiona Dourif). Leaving her truck and friend behind, Sarah paddles off on a swift river, a sometimes perilous-looking voyage that signals her resolve and athleticism (and recklessness: she isn’t wearing a helmet), and shifts the movie into a sustained pastoral register.

What beauty Mr. Munch finds between the sheltering sky and rushing water. As he and his wizardly crew (including the cinematographer Rob Sweeney, expertly working in digital ) bring the vibrantly hued landscape, dappled in greens, reds and gold, alive on screen, Sarah becomes just one part of what is clearly a much bigger picture.

Sarah ditches the boat and slips into the woods with such visible confidence that it’s apparent that this is where she belongs. (Mr. Munch likes to put Ms. Rabe in short shorts, showing off strong, shapely legs that look as if they could run in an Ironwoman triathlon or snap a man in two.) Now a struggling artist, she is doing field research for her old employer in the wake of a fire. After a quiet interlude her solitude is interrupted by the two male characters who will vie for her attention for the rest of the story: a friendly hiker, Sean (Jason Butler Harner), who turns out to be an environmental activist, and a more rarefied interloper, a sasquatch, an elusive, transformative presence.

For a character in a character study, Sarah is something of a puzzle at first, and almost off-putting. When Penny hugs her goodbye, Sarah doesn’t hug back, and when she meets Sean, she shuns the usual niceties and instead asks if he has a weapon, before flashing her gun. (This doesn’t register as Freudian but prudent, especially given the drug gangs who set up shop in forests.) Later, after she leaves the woods, where she sensed a pair of eyes on her — and no wonder, sasquatch is on the watch — and moves into a secluded cabin elsewhere, she assumes a more distinct, ruggedly individualistic figure of the neo-frontierswoman, one who probably read the Transcendentalists in school and now generates her own electricity to run her laptop.

In “Walden,” Thoreau writes of a starving, exhausted man lost in the woods whose loneliness is relieved by “grotesque visions” that he takes to be real. The sasquatch in “Letters From the Big Man,” a beguiling, Buddha-like figure who occasionally enjoys a wild-thing tantrum, offers Sarah — starving, the movie suggests, like the rest of us — companionship of a type, as well as a new, moving way of being.

As the story unwinds, Mr. Munch piles on the plot, mixing in romance, American Indian mythology, environmental fights and a government conspiracy that would be narratively unsustainable if his generosity toward his characters, his seriousness and faith in his story, didn’t make it all seem perfectly reasonable. And funny: I wish, Sarah muses to the Big Man, I had a man like you. Maybe she does!

Ghosts in tinseltown

Classic Hollywood: Spooky sightings in Hollywood

Rudolph Valentino, Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift are among the screen legends with busy afterlives, 'visiting' old homes, the Roosevelt Hotel and other spots.

Does Marilyn Monroe haunt the Hollywood Roosevelt? (Matty Zimmerman / Associated Press)

 

By Susan King, Los Angeles Times

October 31, 2011

Hollywood legends never die, they just become … ghosts.

Or at least that's what some believe.

Reported ghost sightings of celebrities at their old homes or former haunts date to the silent era. That spirited chapter of Hollywood continues today on websites, in books such as "Ghosts of Hollywood" by Marla Brooks and Jeff Dwyer's "Ghost Hunter's Guide to Los Angeles," and countless paranormal investigation series on cable television, including SyFy's "Ghost Hunters" and Biography's "Celebrity Ghost Stories," which features stars talking about their close encounters of a spirited kind.

It's all become part of the lure, mystique and glamour of Hollywood. Nonbelievers may scoff, but the locations where these supposed hauntings have taken place have been quick to publicize the fact. So in the spirit of Halloween, here's a look at three of Tinseltown's most enduring "apparitions." All three died tragically young, which has fueled the stories of restless spirits.

Rudolph Valentino

The Italian-born silent heartthrob of 1921's "The Sheik" and 1926's "Son of the Sheik" died at age 31 in New York City on Aug. 23, 1926. Though his career was short-lived, his afterlife has endured for 85 years. In fact, according to Hollywood ghost lore, Valentino is one of the busiest spirits in Hollywood; even the ghost of his beloved Great Dane, Kabar, who died three years after his master, has been known to lick hands of those who pass his grave at the L.A. Pet Memorial Park in Calabasas.

Valentino supposedly haunted his Beverly Hills mansion, Falcon Lair, which was bulldozed in 2006. According to ex-wife Natacha Rambova, who maintained that she was in contact with him in the afterlife, Valentino refused to believe he was dead, so he wouldn't leave the premises, visiting the corridors, his bedroom and his stables. Veteran actor Harry Carey claimed to have come into contact with Valentino's ghost after he bought the mansion.

His ghost also supposedly has appeared at a vintage Hollywood apartment complex named Valentino Place that was the site of a speak-easy the actor frequented. Other locations where the ghost of Valentino has been "spotted" include a beach house in Oxnard that was his home during the filming of "The Sheik," a room at the Santa Maria Inn on the Central Coast and the Knickerbocker Hotel in Hollywood.

Valentino is buried in a crypt at Hollywood Forever, and his ghost supposedly has been spotted next door at Paramount, where the actor used to work. According to reports by security guards and others on the lot, Valentino "visits" the studio dressed all in white in his "Sheik" costume.

Marilyn Monroe

The sex symbol, who died tragically in 1962 at age 36 of an overdose of sleeping pills, also tends to make "appearances" in multiple locations, including frequent visits to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, where the ghost of many a star has been said to appear. Monroe's reflection has often been reported appearing in a full-length mirror that used to grace her cabana, Suite 246. The mirror is now near the elevators in the historical hotel's lower level. And fans believe that a ghost floating above her crypt at Westwood Memorial Park belongs to her.

Montgomery Clift

The four-time Oscar-nominated actor, who died in 1966 at age 45, stayed at the Hollywood Roosevelt during the production of "From Here to Eternity," the Oscar-winning best picture for 1953. He must have enjoyed the digs, because he still is staying there, according to paranormal investigators.

Clift rented Room 928 for three months in 1952 and was known to pace up and down the hallway reciting his lines and also practicing the bugle for his role as the ill-fated Pvt. Robert E. Lee Prewitt in the adaptation of James Jones' novel. Some guests say they have heard the sound of a bugle in the hallway; other visitors staying on the ninth floor have gone so far as to check out in the middle of the night, complaining of loud noises emanating from Clift's room — the really eerie thing was that no one was staying in Clift's room on those occasions.

susan.king@latimes.com

Black and White and Wordless

Film

Paying Tribute to a Silent Hollywood

By CELESTINE BOHLEN

Published: October 18, 2011

PARIS — The French movie “The Artist,” which opened in Paris last week and arrives in the United States in November, is one more hymn to Hollywood at the dawn of the age of the talkies. Everything about it is familiar: the chauffeurs in uniform, the elegant mansions and the sad tale of a handsome silent-movie star who fails to make the leap.

 

Guillaume Schiffman, AFC/Warner Bros.

Jean Dujardin, left, and Bérénice Bejo,  in Michel  Hazanavicius’s silent film ‘‘The  Artist.’’

 

Guillaume Schiffman, AFC/Warner Bros.

Jean Dujardin in "The Artist."

But there’s something very different, even startling about this film: It is black and white, and wordless (except for one exchange, spoken at the end, with a heavy French accent). There is no violence, no sex — not even a kiss.

Such old-fashioned modesty might seem like a gamble in an era of frontal nudity, 3D and surround-sound, but it is precisely this retreat into the past that has won “The Artist” acclaim — first at the Cannes film festival in May, where Jean Dujardin, who plays the lead, won best male actor; then at Telluride in Colorado, then at San Sebastian in Spain, where the film won the audience award; and now among French moviegoers.

With an assist from Harvey Weinstein, who snapped up U.S. rights to the movie for a reported seven-figure price, “The Artist” is being touted as contender for the Oscars. It would be the first silent movie to win a best picture award in 83 years.

The French press, eager for a follow-up to Marion Cotillard’s Oscar in 2008 for her portrayal of Edith Piaf, is already gushing. “The Silence Is Golden,” was the headline in the weekly magazine Paris Match.

In a recent interview by telephone, Michel Hazanavicius, the 44-year-old director, conceded that the project had been a risk, but not for him. The biggest gambler, he said, was the producer Thomas Langmann, who not only backed the film, but also concurred with the idea that it had to be shot in Hollywood and nowhere else.

“It was my intuition to make the film that I made,” said Mr. Hazanavicius, who also wrote the script. “So for me, the principal risk was that the film wouldn’t keep its promise. That’s true of any film.”

It took 35 days and €10.3 million, or $14.2 million, to film the movie, mostly at Warner Bros. Studios, which gave the director and his two French stars — Mr. Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo (Mr. Hazanavicius’s partner in real life), who plays the rising star of the talkies — a crash course in Hollywood legend. After two weeks of mouthing dialogue in French, Mr. Dujardin and Ms. Bejo switched to English, along with the rest of the cast, which includes James Cromwell as a chauffeur and John Goodman as a producer.

“The Artist” is above all an homage to the films of the silent era, and to later movies — “Sunset Boulevard” among them — that captured their glamour. Mr. Weinstein, in an article in the Hollywood Reporter, said that the movie has “restored his passion for the joy of cinema.” Elsewhere, he has described it as a “delicate flower,” not necessarily a category with box-office appeal.

Mr. Hazanavicius hopes that the lure of Hollywood will draw American audiences. “The ones who have seen it have been touched by the film,” he said, “because it talks about their history. This isn’t a European film; it is a return to a very American source.”

There is also the advantage of a silent film, which is that it presents no language barrier for non-French audiences. “It is a kind of a utopia, not having a language,” Mr. Hazanavicius said.

Film critics have had a field day spotting the cinematic references; the orchestral music by Ludovic Bource has echoes of old movie scores. But Mr. Hazanavicius said he was more intent on honoring the era’s traditions and to some extent, techniques.

“I tried to respect the films I was referring to by working within the rules of those times,” he said, “I didn't want to mock them.”

There is a love story that runs through the film, but in keeping with the guidelines of the morals-monitoring Hays Code of 1930, Mr. Dujardin and Ms. Bejo only hug, never kiss. At the end, the two movie stars come together — and the climax is a long tap-dance sequence. “The dance scenes are the love scenes,” Mr. Hazanavicius said.

Yet Mr. Hazanavicius insisted that his actors act as they always do, avoiding the stylized hamming that marked the silent era. “That would have been absurd,” he said.

Slipping back and forth between the “then” and the “now” keeps the film nimble, and accessible. The melodrama is undercut by light comic touches, including a beguiling Jack Russell terrier who bows and rolls over dead, and the splendor of old Hollywood is beautifully rendered by what the newspaper Le Monde called a “digital magic,” which combines pixels with painterly touches.

At an pre-opening screening in Paris last week, Mr. Hazanavicius and Mr. Dujardin — longtime collaborators on spy-movie spoofs — reassured the audience about the challenge of watching a full-length silent movie. “Don’t be afraid,” Mr. Hazanavicius said.

He has discovered that many find the silence seductive. “People come out of the theater talking about it,” he said. “There is something very sensual about the silence; it can say a lot of things.”

In an interview with the French paper Le Parisien, Mr. Dujardin said that the movie was “good” for people. In Mr. Hazanavicius’s view, the film echoes the romantic comedies of the 1930s, when people were looking for a refuge from the Great Depression. “Fundamentally, the story I am telling is very nice, it has no subversive message,” he said. “That function of cinema still exists.”

H.B. R.D.

September 13, 2011, 4:45 pm Happy Birthday, Roald and James

By PAMELA PAUL

RDNLRoald Dahl

Today would have been Roald Dahl’s 95th birthday had he not died at the age of 74 in 1990. This year also marks the birthday of one of his most beloved books, “James and the Giant Peach,” which was published in the United States 50 years ago. (Interestingly, it wasn’t published in Britain, Mr. Dahl’s home until six years later.)

“James and the Giant Peach,” which was adapted into an animated film in 1996 (featuring Susan Sarandon, in an especially cunning casting move, as Miss Spider), has sold over 12 million copies worldwide and been translated into 34 languages. The story of James Henry Trotter, whose parents are viciously devoured by a rhinoceros on the streets of London and who then moves in with two cruel aunts only to relocate to a giant peach, has entertained generations of children with its parable of fantasy and escape.

Mr. Dahl was intimate with the particulars of cruel childhood through personal experience, the details of which he laid out in “Boy,” his memoir of early life. The book rivals George Orwell’s celebrated essay, “Such, Such Were the Joys,” in its depiction of the arbitrary ruthlessness of English boarding school life. An episode involving the removal of his adenoids in Norway is no more pleasant.

Matters work out much more cheerfully for James Henry Trotter, who, at the end of “James and the Giant Peach,” is welcomed as a hero by the Mayor of New York. Similar satisfactions await the protagonists of Mr. Dahl’s other children’s books, even as a harsher fate is delivered to the Veruca Salts of the world.

“Oh, James, James! Could I please have just a tiny taste of your marvelous peach?” a little girl asks James at the book’s end as dozens of children gather to greet him on the streets of New York. “Of course you can!” James answered. “Everyone can have some!”

And they have.

Ode to a fan's fave

Raiders’: Damon Lindelof’s love letter to a ‘perfect movie’

Aug. 31, 2011 | 6:30 a.m.

Harrison Ford plays Indiana Jones in a scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/ij1_ia_217_r/

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Indiana Jones, played by Harrison Ford, prepares to snatch a golden idol from a South American temple in "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/ij1_ia_16_r/

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Indiana Jones flees from a giant rolling boulder used to safeguard an ancient temple in a scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/ij1_ia_454_r/

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Indiana Jones, played by Harrison Ford, confronts his lost love Marion Ravenwood, played by Karen Allen, in a scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/ij1_ia_39_r/

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Marion Ravenwood, played by Karen Allen, contemplates the sought-after headpiece to the Staff of Ra in a scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/ij1_ia_42_r/

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Indiana Jones, played by Harrison Ford, in a scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/ij1_ia_98_r/

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Indiana Jones, played by Harrison Ford, makes sure the setting sun is in precisely the right position as he prepares to uncover the location of the Ark of the Covenant in a scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/ij1_ia_101_r/

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Indiana Jones, played by Harrison Ford, in a scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/ij1_ia_104_r/

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Indiana Jones fights a Nazi-hired assassin at a street bazaar in Egypt in a scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/indy5/

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Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood in "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/indy4/

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Sallah, played by John Rhys-Davies, and Indiana Jones, played by Harrison Ford, lift the Ark of the Covenant out of its resting place in a scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/ij1_ia_128_r/

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Marion Ravenwood, played by Karen Allen, in a scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/ij1_ia_138_r/

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Karen Allen plays Marion Ravenwood in "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/indy3/

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Indiana Jones, played by Harrison Ford, carries Marion Ravenwood, played by Karen Allen, in a scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/ij1_ia_139_r/

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Indiana Jones is surprised by a venomous cobra in the forbidding Well of Souls in a scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/ij1_ia_142_r/

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Nazi Col. Dietrich, played by Wolf Kahler, left, French archeologist Renée Belloq, played by Paul Freeman, and the evil Toht, played by Ronald Lacey, examine the contents of the Ark of the Covenant in a scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/ij1_ia_193_r/

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Marion Ravenwood and Indiana Jones try to avoid the powerfully destructive forces unleashed by the Ark of the Covenant in a scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/ij1_ia_202_r/

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Harrison Ford plays Indiana Jones in a scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/ij1_ia_212_r/

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Steven Spielberg, directs Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones on the set of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/ij1_ia_278_r/

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Harrison Ford and Karen Allen pose for a publicity photo during location shooting in Tunisia for "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/ij1_ia_290_r/

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Karen Allen poses for a publicity still for "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/ij1_ia_452_r/

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Director Steven Spielberg uses a vast miniature set of the Tunisian desert to plan a complex shot for "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/ij1_ia_318_r/

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George Lucas, left, and Harrison Ford take a break from the production of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," circa 1980. (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/lfl_ia_1770_r/

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Harrison Ford, left, and George Lucas take a break from the production of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," circa 1980. (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/lfl_ia_224_r/

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Executive producer and story creator George Lucas, left, poses with director Steven Spielberg on location in Tunisia during the production of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/lfl_ia_1769_r/

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Harrison Ford watches director of photography Douglas Slocombe, director Steven Spielberg and art director Leslie Dilley set up a shot of the Chachapoyan Fertility Idol for a scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

 

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/08/31/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-damon-lindelof-indiana-jones-love-letter-free-screening-lost-star-trek-harrison-ford/indyset/

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In honor of the 30th anniversary of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” Emmy-winning writer and producer Damon Lindelof, in a guest essay for Hero Complex, describes seeing the action-adventure film for the first time when he was 8 years old. Let’s just say the movie made an impact on Lindelof, whose credits include “Lost” and the 2009 “Star Trek” reboot. Read his essay below, and enjoy photos from the set of “Raiders” and the film itself in the gallery above. Be sure to click CAPTIONS ON.

GUEST ESSAY

I remember with great clarity the last time I peed my pants.

This was not, contrary to later reports, an “accident.”  It was a decision I made of sound mind and body and one that I make no apologies for.  Despite overwhelming opportunity to release my bladder the way most civilized people do (that would be into a toilet), I made a conscious choice to do otherwise.   I offer only two points in my defense;  The first is that I was 8 years old.  The second, and much more relevant, is that I was in a movie theater watching “Raiders of the Lost Ark”  for the very first time.  And there was not a chance in hell I was missing a single second of that glorious movie.

Truth be told, I had initially resisted the idea of going to see “Raiders.”   I was much more interested in seeing “Clash of the Titans,” which opened the same day and had a Pegasus in it.  Ultimately, however, my dad argued that “Raiders” was the superior pick because it had Han Solo.  I narrowed my eyes suspiciously — “But… Han Solo is frozen in carbonite.”

“This movie happened before that.”  My dad responded.

“How could it happen before a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away?”  I reasoned.

“Because this was longer ago.”

“How much longer?”

My dad leaned down, quite serious, and whispered, “The 1930s.”

And thus, I was effectively  duped into seeing what even now, three decades later, stands as one of the most perfect movies ever made.

And here’s the thing: Although it’s easy to reduce “Raiders” to a “popcorn” movie — a piece of escapist adventure with fantastic action — very rarely is it appreciated for its pure innovative genius.  This is something people seemed to be well aware of back in 1981 (it was nominated for a best picture Oscar), but over time, the legacy of “Raiders” seems to neglect just how incredibly revolutionary it was as a film. Therefore, as a debt of gratitude (and for everything I’ve stolen from it in my own work), I feel it’s only fitting to write a long overdue love letter to one of my favorite films ever.  So without further ado…

Dear “Raiders of the Lost Ark,”

You are awesome. God, you are awesome.

I have seen you, in your entirety, more than one hundred times. I know there are folks out there that have seen you more than that, but they don’t know you like I do.

I really know you. I know what music you listen to and where your scars are. I know that you like to be kissed where it doesn’t hurt. And I’m sorry if that seems a little “creepy,” but hey, you’re into snakes and melt people’s faces off, so we’re speaking the same language, are we not?

So what, exactly, is it that I love most about you, “Raiders of the Lost Ark”? Man …  I don’t even know where to start. But let’s get past the obvious stuff that all your other admirers seem so dazzled by (the whip!!!) and talk about what truly makes you unique.

Marion Ravenwood, played by Karen Allen, contemplates the sought-after headpiece to the Staff of Ra in a scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

I could go on for pages about just the little things. Like the sound you make when Indy punches someone in the face. Or that Marion’s superpower is drinking. And don’t even get me started on the coat hanger. Where did that Nazi even get that thing? Did he special-order it? “I need somezing that vill terrify people when I take it out, but then give them a false zense of relief when I reveal it is simply somezing on vich to hang my coat.” Seriously. The best. But I know you’ve probably heard it all before and therefore, I’ll stick to the big stuff. First and foremost…

I love you because Indiana Jones is a nerd. Granted, a highly capable nerd who knows how to ride horses and fight real good, but still, at his core, Indy is an academic who’s motivated purely by his desire to find and retrieve really cool stuff so he can put it in a museum where other nerds can appreciate it. Also, he wears glasses and gets nervous when hot female students write the words “Love You” on their eyelids. Do you have any idea how much commitment is involved in writing “Love You” on your eyelids?  It’s really hard!  Not that I’ve ever done it.

Because I haven’t.

Indiana Jones is surprised by a cobra in the forbidding Well of Souls in a scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

And while we’re on the subject of Dr. Jones, here’s another thing I love about him.  He’s actually scared of stuff.  This doesn’t seem like something that should be celebrated, but it’s actually quite rare for the hero of a movie to be scared of anything.  Do you know what Green Lantern is afraid of?  Fear. He is afraid of being afraid. Does that even make sense? Here’s what makes sense to be afraid of — Hissing Cobras and Gigantic Bald Nazis with mustaches trying to kill you. And it was perfectly OK for me to be scared of them because Indy was too.

You know what else is wonderful about you? That over and over and over again, Indiana Jones has failure rubbed in his face, yet he refuses to give up. He gets the Golden Idol…. But it’s snatched away by a Frenchman. Indy finds the Well of Souls and recovers the Ark. It too gets taken away from him.  Same Frenchman! Now Indy gets back the Ark and …  oh no, Nazi submarine! They take the Ark and Marion… but Indy gets the drop on them with a bazooka! And yet, he can’t bring himself to destroy the Ark, so Indy is captured.

By the Frenchman.

Yeah, I know his name is Belloq. And I’m pretty convinced that he is another reason I love you so much. Because quality French bad guys are hard to come by and Belloq is la crème du la crop.

Nazi Col. Dietrich, played by Wolf Kahler, left, French archeologist Renée Belloq, played by Paul Freeman, and the evil Toht, played by Ronald Lacey, examine the contents of the Ark of the Covenant in a scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

And so, we now arrive at your ending. This, more than anything else, is why my love for you is an undying one. Because we all know how movies like you are supposed to end. The hero fights off a bunch of evildoers, saves the girl, gets the thingamabob away from the bad guys before they can do any harm with it and then say something kinda cool before he rides off into the sunset.

But this, sweet Raiders, is not what you did.

Marion Ravenwood and Indiana Jones try to avoid the powerfully destructive forces unleashed by the Ark of the Covenant in a scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Lucasfilm)

Your big climax is not affected by Indiana Jones at all.  He’s tied to a pole with Marion the whole time, completely helpless as Belloq and his Nazi pals open the Ark. And while most heroes would perform some incredible act of selfless bravery, what does Indy do? He shouts at Marion to not even look at whatever is coming out of the very thing he has coveted for your entire duration. And you know what?

I listened to him.

For the first 20 or so times I watched you, I shut my eyes tightly as I heard the Nazis scream for what seemed like five minutes. And when they finally stopped, I slowly peeked out to find Indy doing exactly the same thing.

In that moment, we were one. Terrified.  Awestruck. And most of all, relieved that it was finally over.

Now I fully appreciate that Indy was rightly pissed that the Ark was ultimately taken away by the same shady Intelligence dudes who hired him in the first place (“Top people” indeed.  Hrrrmumph!).  but if they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been treated to your final crowning achievement. I would never have seen the Ark, now packed unceremoniously in a simple crate, being wheeled down an impossibly long aisle in the largest warehouse ever. And for reasons I am far too lovestruck to fully articulate, let me leave it at this –

In a world where movies and TV shows often end in ways that are sometimes unsatisfying bordering on outrage-inducing (yeah, yeah, I know), your ending, darling Raiders, is absolutely, exquisitely perfect.

And that is how I shall always remember you. Locked away safely in the warehouse that is my heart … fully aware that it’s highly possible that you will burn a hole through my chest or at the very least, make the rats inside me run around in uncomfortable backward circles.

I love you.

Always have. Always will. And I am deeply grateful for the countless hours we have spent together.  I will treasure them more than you can ever know.

Your Biggest Fan,

Damon

P.S.  Do you have a mailing address for “Close Encounters of the Third Kind’”?  She left her T-shirt at my apartment.

–Damon Lindelof