BAMcinématek presents Blonde Venus: The Films of Dietrich & von Sternberg, a retrospective of the seven collaborations between the incomparable pair, Apr 4—10
“One of the most dazzling runs of creativity in the history of the movies.”—Dave Kehr, The New York Times
All films in 35mm
The Wall Street Journal is the title sponsor for BAMcinématek and BAM Rose Cinemas.
Brooklyn, NY/Mar XX, 2014—From Friday, April 4 through Thursday, April 10, BAMcinématek presents Blonde Venus: The Films of Dietrich & von Sternberg, a complete retrospective of their seven collaborations. An actor-director match made in Hollywood heaven, arch-stylist Josef von Sternberg found the perfect muse for his sumptuous experiments in lighting and mise-en- scène in the supremely glamorous screen siren Marlene Dietrich.
Dietrich began her acting career with small parts in German films and on stage in Berlin and Vienna, but her breakout role came with von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel (1930—Apr 6), which quickly became an international star-making success. As cabaret singer Lola-Lola, the smoldering Dietrich seduces an unwitting professor (Emil Jannings) into a string of blunders that lead to his tragic downfall. The film introduced audiences to Dietrich’s signature song ―Falling in Love Again (Can’t Help It)‖—which has since been parodied by Danny Kaye in On the Double, Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles, Helmut Berger in Luchino Visconti’s The Damned, and countless others—and launched a partnership for the ages. BAMcinématek will screen the original German version (4, 6:30pm) as well as the long lost English-language version (8:45pm) for this series.
Opening the series on Friday, April 4 is Dietrich and von Sternberg’s Hollywood debut, Morocco (1930). Dietrich (once again) plays a cabaret singer, donning her iconic tuxedo and tails in a performance that garnered her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Von Sternberg was nominated for Best Director for both Morocco and Shanghai Express (1932—Apr 4), memorable for its elegant chiaroscuro cinematography—perfectly orchestrated to illuminate Dietrich’s (notorious ―coaster‖ Shanghai Lily) stunning features. Boasting a whip-smart script by frequent von Sternberg collaborator Jules Furthman and an uncredited Howard Hawks, Shanghai Express was the highest grossing US film of 1932.
Also screening are campy spy romance Dishonored (1931—Apr 7), for which von Sternberg directed, edited, wrote the screenplay, and composed original music; madcap pre-Code drama Blonde Venus (1932—Apr 9), featuring Cary Grant’s first leading role as a foolhardy playboy seduced by nightclub showgirl Dietrich; and the final collaboration between Dietrich and von Sternberg, Spanish melodrama The Devil is a Woman (1935—Apr 7 & 8). The pair never failed to bring out the best in each other, and as von Sternberg famously told Peter Bogdanovich, ―I am Miss Dietrich. Miss Dietrich is me.‖
For press information, please contact: Lisa Thomas at 718.724.8023 / [email protected] Hannah Thomas at 718.724.8002 / [email protected]
Blonde Venus: The Films of Dietrich & von Sternberg Schedule
Fri, Apr 4 2, 6, 9:50pm: Morocco 4, 8pm: Shanghai Express
Sun, Apr 6 4, 6:30pm: The Blue Angel (German-language, 106min) 8:45pm: The Blue Angel (English-language, 100min)
Mon, Apr 7 5:15, 9:15pm: Dishonored 7:15pm: The Devil is a Woman
Tue, Apr 8 4:30pm: The Devil is a Woman
Wed, Apr 9 4:30, 7, 9:45pm: Blonde Venus
Thu, Apr 10 4:30, 7, 9:30pm: The Scarlet Empress
Film Descriptions All films in 35mm.
Blonde Venus (1932) 93min With Marlene Dietrich, Cary Grant, Herbert Marshall. Cary Grant’s first leading role was in this outlandish Dietrich-von Sternberg pre-Code gem. When an American scientist (Marshall) suffers chemical poisoning, his former-showgirl wife (Dietrich) takes to the German nightclub stage to foot the medical bills, seducing a foolhardy playboy (Grant) along the way. Get ready for fireworks when hubby finally recovers! Wed, Apr 9 at 4:30, 7*, 9:45pm *Post-screening discussion
The Blue Angel (1930) 106min/100min With Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich, Kurt Gerro. Dietrich and von Sternberg rocketed to international superstardom with this German production, in which she plays nightclub singer Lola-Lola, who leads a milquetoast schoolteacher (the extraordinary, touching Emil Jannings) down a road to ruin. Seductively crooning her signature song, ―Falling in Love Again,‖ Dietrich’s star quality is apparent from frame one of this lacerating depiction of sadomasochistic love. Sun, Apr 6 at 4, 6:30pm (German-language, 106min) Sun, Apr 6 at 8:45pm (English-language, 100min)
The Devil is a Woman (1935) 79min With Marlene Dietrich, Lionel Atwill, Edward Everett Horton. Dietrich and von Sternberg headed to Spain for their final collaboration, in which she plays Concha Perez, a beautiful seductress whose fickle ways drive rival suitors to extremes. Von Sternberg’s coldly formalist approach lends the melodramatic proceedings a cruel, ironic edge as passions and tempers boil over in an abstract world of glittering surfaces. Mon, Apr 7 at 7:15pm Tue, Apr 8 at 4:30pm
Dishonored (1931) 91min With Marlene Dietrich, Victor McLaglen, Gustav von Seyffertitz.
Dietrich shows dazzling range—and a dazzling array of costume changes—as Agent X-27, a Mata Hari- esque spy who mixes business and pleasure during World War I. Highlighted by a feverish masked ball sequence, Dishonored—said to be a favorite of Godard’s—―takes high camp as a springboard to the dream-delirium that makes Sternberg one of the screen’s Surrealist poets of l’amour fou‖ (Raymond Durgnat). Mon, Apr 7 at 5:15, 9:15pm
Morocco (1930) 92min With Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Adolphe Menjou. In her first American film, Dietrich established her iconic look as Amy Jolly, the tuxedo-clad cabaret singer with a checkered past, who smooches a woman during a performance. Aboard a ship bound for Morocco, she develops a yen for a restless legionnaire (a very comely Cooper). Von Sternberg conjures a heady exoticism from the desert locale, and caps it off with an unforgettable final shot. Fri, Apr 4 at 2, 6, 9:50pm
The Scarlet Empress (1934) 104min With Marlene Dietrich, John Lodge, Sam Jaffe. Sternberg’s deranged vision of 18th-century Russia in The Scarlet Empress was his most crazily over- the-top visual extravaganza. Dietrich goes from being the blushing bride of the half-wit Grand Duke to S&M-freak empress Catherine the Great, while Sternberg revels in the impossibly ornate architectural details of the palace setting—an expressionist riot of gargoyles, flickering candles, and looming shadows. Thu, Apr 10 at 4:30, 7, 9:30pm
Shanghai Express (1932) 80min With Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook, Anna May Wong. It’s romance and intrigue aboard the titular locomotive, carrying a shady cargo-load of societal castoffs— including notorious man-eater Shanghai Lily (Dietrich). Von Sternberg explores the emotional capacities of light and shadow to transcendent effect; the hyper-stylized look and feel somehow give way to haunting, dreamlike moments of pure feeling. Fri, Apr 4 at 4, 8pm
About BAMcinématek The four-screen BAM Rose Cinemas (BRC) opened in 1998 to offer Brooklyn audiences alternative and independent films that might not play in the borough otherwise, making BAM the only performing arts center in the country with two mainstage theaters and a multiplex cinema. In July 1999, beginning with a series celebrating the work of Spike Lee, BAMcinématek was born as Brooklyn’s only daily, year-round repertory film program. BAMcinématek presents new and rarely seen contemporary films, classics, work by local artists, and festivals of films from around the world, often with special appearances by directors, actors, and other guests. BAMcinématek has not only presented major retrospectives by major filmmakers such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Manoel de Oliveira, Shohei Imamura, Vincente Minnelli (winning a National Film Critics’ Circle Award prize for the retrospective), Kaneto Shindo, Luchino Visconti, and William Friedkin, but it has also introduced New York audiences to contemporary artists such as Pedro Costa and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. In addition, BAMcinématek programmed the first US retrospectives of directors Arnaud Desplechin, Nicolas Winding Refn, Hong Sang-soo, and, most recently, Andrzej Zulawski. From 2006 to 2008, BAMcinématek partnered with the Sundance Institute and in June 2009 launched BAMcinemaFest, a 16-day festival of new independent films and repertory favorites with 15 NY feature film premieres; the fifth annual BAMcinemaFest ran from June 19—28, 2013.
Credits
The Wall Street Journal is the title sponsor of BAM Rose Cinemas and BAMcinématek.
Steinberg Screen at the BAM Harvey Theater is made possible by The Joseph S. and Diane H. Steinberg Charitable Trust.
Pepsi is the official beverage of BAM.
Brooklyn Brewery is the preferred beer of BAMcinématek.
BAM Rose Cinemas are named in recognition of a major gift in honor of Jonathan F.P. and Diana Calthorpe Rose. BAM Rose Cinemas would also like to acknowledge the generous support of The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, The Estate of Richard B. Fisher, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, Brooklyn Delegation of the New York City Council, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, Bloomberg, and Time Warner Inc. Additional support for BAMcinématek is provided by the Coolidge Corner Theatre Foundation, The Grodzins Fund, The Liman Foundation and Summit Rock Advisors.
BAMcinématek is programmed by Nellie Killian and David Reilly with assistance from Jesse Trussell. Additional programming by Ryan Werner.
Special thanks to Gary Palmucci/Kino Lorber; Tim Lanza/Cohen Media; Paul Ginsburg/Universal.
General Information
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, BAM Rose Cinemas, and BAMcafé are located in the Peter Jay Sharp building at 30 Lafayette Avenue (between St Felix Street and Ashland Place) in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. BAM Harvey Theater is located two blocks from the main building at 651 Fulton Street (between Ashland and Rockwell Places). Both locations house Greenlight Bookstore at BAM kiosks. BAM Fisher, located at 321 Ashland Place, is the newest addition to the BAM campus and houses the Judith and Alan Fishman Space and Rita K. Hillman Studio. BAM Rose Cinemas is Brooklyn’s only movie house dedicated to first-run independent and foreign film and repertory programming. BAMcafé, operated by Great Performances, offers a bar menu and dinner entrées prior to BAM Howard Gilman Opera House evening performances. BAMcafé also features an eclectic mix of spoken word and live music for BAMcafé Live on Friday and Saturday nights with a bar menu available starting at 6pm.
Subway: 2, 3, 4, 5, Q, B to Atlantic Avenue – Barclays Center (2, 3, 4, 5 to Nevins St for Harvey Theater) D, N, R to Pacific Street; G to Fulton Street; C to Lafayette Avenue Train: Long Island Railroad to Atlantic Terminal – Barclays Center Bus: B25, B26, B41, B45, B52, B63, B67 all stop within three blocks of BAM Car: Commercial parking lots are located adjacent to BAM
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