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More (Barbet Schroeder, 1969)
Aug
22
Munchies
Druggies Estelle (Mimsy Farmer) and Stefan (Klaus Grünberg) eating straight from a jar of honey and picking crumbs out of a loaf of bread. There's Coca-Cola product placement and half-eaten foods everywhere. DP: Néstor Almendros.
– You know what's really awful?
– No, tell me.
– Getting hooked. It's the end. But, if you only take one shot every once in awhile. Its no different than an occasional drink or cigarette.
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Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1982)
Jul
2
World Sports Journalists Day
Actress Veronika Voss (Rosel Zech) with sports journalist Robert Krohn (Hilmar Thate), driving a car at night. DP: Xaver Schwarzenberger.
Veronika Voss, once one of Ufa's greats and rumoured lover of Goebbels, has a chance meeting with #sports journalist Robert Krohn. Despite not recognising her at first glance, the faded star and her world turn out to be irresistible to him.
“What do you want from Voss? She's no good at soccer.”
– Grete
Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss [litt. The yearning of Veronika Voss] is #Fassbinder's tribute to both #BillyWilder's Sunset Blvd. (1950) and real-world actress Sybille Schmitz whose career, like Voss', suffered greatly due to her #morphine dependence after the Entnazifizierung.
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West of Zanzibar (Tod Browning, 1928)
May
14
Spinalcord Injury Awareness Day
Lon Chaney as the tormented Phroso dragging himself along the ground. DP: Percy Hilburn.
A brawl over a woman. That's what breaks The Great Phroso. After recovery, a year later, he finds himself a #paraplegic and his stolen wife dead in a church with an infant next to her. To Africa he takes the child – it's the other man's, the ivory trader's – and carefully, vengefully raises her.
“How did God ever put a thing like you on this earth?”
– Maizie
Phroso, now known as Dead-Legs and White Voodoo to the tribe he resides over, uses his magician's skills to rule over his own little jungle empire. We see the gestation of Kurtz, oddly too an ivory trader in that other White Hell, Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad, 1899).
Despite attempts to tone it down on request of censors, West of Zanzibar is one of Tod Browning's meanest. Lon Chaney is fantastic, of course. His Phroso, torn by love and #revenge, one of the early and rare depictions of male frailty in western cinema.
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Red & Rosy (Frank Grow, 1989)
Apr
1
National Handmade Day
Big Red (Rico Martinez) high on adrenaline. DPs: Frank Grow, Ralph Hawkins & Rico Martinez.