Antonio Gaudi

When most people think about the architecture of Antonio Gaudi, they bring to mind something like this:





Its very impressive and why I wanted to watch this film. But you know me, I'm always more interested in the basic structure of things....




This is literally what is in the basement of his structures.







That last support system looks a lot like a fossilized skeleton structure, just as much as this staircase appears lined with vertebrae:



In fact, a lot of the interiors look like the setting for a nightmare suffered jointly by David Cronenberg and Salvador Dali. At times it was so utterly disturbing that I had to find the fast-forward button with my eyes closed.

Think happy thoughts...




Think happy thoughts....



Antonio Gaudi (1984)
directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara

discrimination de jure

The presence of helicopters alerts me to further protests tonight.

The California Supreme Court has backed the Prop 8 decision, which effectively upholds the public's desire to insert discrimination into the State Constitution.

Jeez, some people just want to get married. It makes me cry.

further disintegration

More beauty within loss.
With a running jump, our hero grabs onto an overhanging bar and spins himself upwards onto the next floor.
How sad that the one piece of stunt work in Street Angel is nearly lost to deterioration.
How lucky we are to experience it with the glow of disintegration that gives the feat an other-worldly quality:

single shot - street angel

Although the most photogenic aspect of the movie has to be this actress swanning about playing Garbo-as-a-vampire, my favorite part is this sweet little song that has stuck in my head for days now.

In the clip you get a brief glance of her broodiness as well as the lead heroine's Depeche Mode-like boyfriend and of singer Zhou Xuan herself in all her charm.

Most endearingly, the words appear as subtitles. I can only imagine how wonderful it must have been to see this in the theatre in its time with the audience singing along.

It should play on a double bill someday with Electric Shadows, which has a lovely scene in which the characters try to get into a sold out showing of Street Angel.

Malu tianshi (1937)
aka Street Angel
directed by Mu-Jih Yuan

single shot - let's go with pancho villa

The sign reads:
"Please don't shoot the piano player"

Vamonos con Pancho Villa (1936)
directed by Fernando de Fuentes

san francisco treasure

What could possibly draw these passengers' attention away from the ultra-modern interior design of the airplane in which they are zooming from Honolulu toward San Francisco?






Why, the World's Fair of 1939-1940 of course. Often eclipsed by the one held simultaneously in New York, the Golden Gate International Exhibition focused on the Pacific Rim- which makes Treasure Island the perfect location for a Charlie Chan movie.

Sadly, Chan doesn't stroll through the fairgrounds to give us a nice view of the meld of Art Deco and modernist delights. Only a few stock shots set the scene:





The lack of location photography is especially upsetting because virtually nothing remains from the Fair. The last image above features the 80 foot statue of Pacifica, designed by Ralph Stackpole, positioned in front of a sound sculpture of wind chimes. It was demolished along with most of the structures. Recently, an 8 foot replica was fashioned from Stackpole's original model. It now lives at San Francisco City College, near the Diego Rivera mural that was thankfully saved to be housed at the college.





At the Internet Archive, I found this amazing HOME MOVIE shot at the 1939-40 Golden Gate International Exhibition in San Francisco. The images captured are stunning - I wouldn't be surprised to find they were filmed by a professional cinematographer on vacation.
[A good source for research is the Internet Archive. Not just a repository for vintage ephemeral films, they also archive home movies of interest to those who appreciate past details of everyday life.]
Also, there's a more elaborate version of the Pacifica story HERE.

Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939)
directed by Norman Foster

prisoner 13

I'm completely blown away by the quality of light in the two photos above.
It is one of the most gorgeous scenes ever captured onto film.








el Prisionero 13 (1933)
aka Prisoner 13
directed by Fernando de Fuentes
cinematography by Ross Fisher

learning well from the masters

Nickelodeon (1976)
directed by Peter Bognadovich
cinematography by Laszlo Kovacs

Although I think Peter Bogdanovich will ultimately be remembered for his interviews with early Hollywood's legends, he sure can create some beautiful images:









I watched this film (after years of anticipation: I'm a huge Paper Moon fan) hoping for scenes of early silent film-making but I was blown away by these gorgeous shots of film projection, which fit right in with my series: