view
Ludwig (Luchino Visconti, 1973)
Mar
25
Elton John – 1947
Elisabeth “Sissi” of Austria (Romy Schneider) and King Ludwig II of Bavaria (Helmut Berger) in his beloved Venus Grotto below Schloss Linderhoff. Ludwig wanted blue light in reference to the Grotta Azzurra in #Capri, and had electricity installed in the grotto, which was the first usage of electricity in Austria. DP: Armando Nannuzzi.
A flamboyant character for Elton John’s birthday (1947).
“I want to remain an enigma forever. To others, and also to myself.”
– Ludwig II
view
Plein soleil [Purple Noon] (René Clément, 1960)
Aug
20
1959
A contract for Marge, a sailboat, dated August 20, 1959. DP: Henri Decaë.
“Marge, my love, my angel.”
view
Plein soleil [Purple Noon] (René Clément, 1960)
Jun
15
croissants
Tom Ripley (Alain Delon) going though his passport over breakfast. Multiple passport photos, a fountain pen, and a magnifying glass take precedence over his fresh croissants. DP: Henri Decaë.
“Why bother having money when you can spend other people's?”
– Philippe Greenleaf
view
Max et les ferrailleurs [Max and the Junkmen] (Claude Sautet, 1971)
Mar
16
Lily (Schneider) and Max (Piccoli) at a small table decked with good food, good wine, and quite a few wads of cash. DP: René Mathelin.
view
La piscine [The Swimming Pool] (Jacques Deray, 1969)
Jul
13
“Chinese food”
The two couples (Delon and Schneider, and Ronet and Birkin) awkwardly sharing dinner. There's wine in red glasses and the food, plated on rustic French dinnerware, is handled with chopsticks. DP: Jean-Jacques Tarbès.
“Change your dreams, not the world.”
– Harry
view
Le procès [The Trial] (Orson Welles, 1962)
Jun
23
National Typewriter Day
Josef K. (Anthony Perkins) crossing an enormous open office space. The endless room is filled with clerks, identical desks, telephones, and typewriters. DP: Edmond Richard.
Office worker Josef K. is brought to trial and at no point told what he is accused of, if anything. Orson Welles' Le procès is an adaptation of Franz Kafka's unfinished 1914/15 novel Der Prozess. The manuscript, guarded from Kafka by his friend #MaxBrod in an attempt to keep the self-doubting author from destroying his work, was against K's wishes posthumously (re)assembled by Brod without the latter knowing the intended sequence of the loose pages nor what chapters were finished.
“All these fancy electronics, they're all right in their place, but not for anything practical.”
– Uncle Max
The story holds up in its vagueness thanks to the quirks of #Kafka's Brotberuf; Franz K. was a trained lawyer, working as an insurance agent in an impossible artifice world of reports and precise wording. Within its extended logic, a man can get perplexedly lost, either within the walls of his #office or one's bed.
