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Hello, friends!
I’d like to preface this write up by acknowledging my dear friend Dru — not only is she an insanely talented artist in her own right (you best check out her work!), but also one of the most kind and intelligent people I know. It is a great honor to call her a friend! She has always been so supportive and encouraging and was, in fact, the one who provided me with this prompt in hopes that I could once again spark my desire to write. So Dru — thank you for being such an incredible individual!
Here’s the prompt for context:
In his six film collaborative relationship with Marlene Dietrich and Paramount Pictures, director Joseph von Sternberg established himself within American cinema as a consummate stylist. Using two or more films from that cycle, compare and contrast his approach to blocking and production design as a means to communicating the themes of his films.
Without further ado, I present my response! Thank you for taking the time to read. Feedback is greatly appreciated and encouraged.
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There’s a definitive distinction between the act of simply making a film and the art of creating an experience — the execution and presentation makes all the difference in the end. It becomes not just a piece of film in motion, but an elaborate labor of love that transcends its medium to intentionally bring the story to surface in all dimensions. Back in the beginning of the 1930s, the Hollywood studio systems were just starting to reach their apex in terms of profitability and efficacy. “Talkies,” or films with sound, were on the rise and thus provided even more room for directors and actors alike to choreograph and translate their ideal vision into a final and finished product. Many studios, however, were not so artistically inclined — a prime example being Warner Brothers, who were notorious for cranking out short, stark films that featured no frills or fringes. These films, typically B pictures, were filmed mostly in wide shots and typically featured simple plots that could be resolved within an hour. This way, they were able to maximize profit and production in order to get the most out of their stars who were under contract. More elaborate projects, in every sense of the word, would not become common fare for Warners or many other studios until well into the 1940s.
Of course, there was good reason for this as well — the U.S. was in the midst of the Great Depression, and additionally the entire world was reeling from its consequences. Millions were without work and struggled to make ends meet. For these disillusioned and disheartened people, films were one of the few available forms of desired escapism. Because films were still so novel and new, they didn’t necessarily have to be extravagant in order to captivate an audience. So long as the bare-boned story was engaging and positive enough, there was no need to invest in anything else. After all, film was a business, and the studio heads were out to make money more than anything else. It was, like any other business, hierarchical, with the people on top seldom caring about the character and quality of the work produced.
When Joseph Von Sternberg burst onto the scene with his phenomenal success The Blue Angel, there was something markedly unique and unprecedented about his execution that stood out from the works of his American contemporaries. Back in 1930, few American directors had yet to successfully make a name for themselves — if they had, it was thanks primarily to their work in long, silent epics. D.W. Griffith had long since faded from the spotlight, and the only other notable director to follow in his wake had been DeMille. Conversely, the draw of Von Sternberg’s films were not their length nor their subject matter, but rather the atmosphere he created.
The Blue Angel famously tells the tale of a morally stringent professor who becomes hopelessly enamored of the very thing which he sought to destroy — a beautiful, immoral cabaret girl by the name of Lola Lola. She’s beautiful, conniving and quick to make use of her new sycophantic admirer, stringing him along in a web of illusory love and desire. By the film’s end, our protagonist has been driven to the brink of madness by Lola’s incorrigible scheming, and thus concludes a story that was not atypical nor groundbreaking for its time — such stories were regular fodder of the precode era until the Hayes Code finally fell into effect in 1934. By examining two of his other vehicles made with Dietrich, I will explore the ways and methods in which Von Sternberg employed to create his dreamlike visions on the screen. His intentional use of loud, busy sets that functioned as microcosms of the stories alongside evocative and intentional lighting technique created a perfect arena for the sexually alluring protagonist, and with all three coming together he seamlessly creates that ethereal aura that transforms his films into artistic experiences.
The Blue Angel was not by any means an atypical picture for its time, even in spite of its obvious depictions of sexual debauchery. What was, however, groundbreaking was the distinctive style in which the film was made. Von Sternburg chooses deliberately busy sets, establishing each location as its own distinct microcosm. Each of these locations serves as an important arena for the film — we have the small, claustrophobic office of the Professor, a visual representation of his narrow-mindedness, and then we have the saloon — loud, gaudy, filled with everyday objects like chairs that have been weaponized by lust. It’s pure genius and allows the viewer to become more intimately acquainted with the Professor’s character. There’s Lola’s dressing room, an area typically rendered inaccessible to the pining professor — and an area in which she commits a fair amount of her own chicanery. This is just scratching the surface of Von Sternberg’s technique — he also masterfully applied the use of lighting, in addition to molding Dietrich into a living, breathing and adaptable portion of the scenery. These, in conjunction with his choice of elaborate and distinguishable sets, work together to create a final product that transcends film. It is storytelling brought to the next dimension, not only appealing to the viewer through written text but through delectable layered imagery that contributes both a magical element and further meaning to the story’s structural whole.
Such imagery is again employed in Blonde Venus, only to a greater degree. Again, Dietrich takes on a very similar role to the one she shot to fame for a smoldering cabaret singer who uses men for her own gain. However, whilst The Blue Angel was a rather low budget and scant German film, Blonde Venus was a full fledged Hollywood production. Von Sternberg,now with three pictures with Paramount and Dietrich already under his belt, had established himself as an auteur and on account of this had access to bigger budgets and thus, even more creative control. Unlike the Blue Angel, her performances are not restricted to a single venue. Protagonist Helen Fereday embarks on tours, but every club in which she performs contains the same basic set-up: a stage surrounded by sycophantic male admirers, plumes of smoke, a score of musicians and platform that allows her to reign control and bend the will of the show as she wishes. This microcosm, which is continually reconstructed throughout the film, gives us a glimpse into the sort of life that Helen leads. The nature of the work never changes, even if the location and the costumes do. In contrast, much like in Blue Angel, the film’s other primary sets — including the Fereday apartment — serve for darker elements of the story. It is a small and suffocating layout which is a stark contrast to the wide open and bright freedom of the stage to which Helen is used to. The home is not a place of comfort for her — she is a free woman, and is visibly uncomfortable in a world that is not suited to her own. Conversely, her husband is the same, fitting in nicely with the obscurity — tall bookshelves, darkness, protection — while openly resenting and rejecting the glitz and glamour and wasteful largess of his wife’s world. The great paradox of this technique is while setting is anything but subtle, the implications of character are. Von Sternberg challenges us: how much can we observe and unearth from our characters from going beyond the dialogue and the expressions they offer us? What do their homes — sanctuaries, if preferable — have to say about their true character and the desires that envelop them?
Perhaps one of the most blatant examples of Von Sternberg’s use of the microcosm (and one of the most effective, for it essentially lays the foundation for the character arc about to unfold) is the introduction of the future Queen of Russia, Catherine, in his 1934 production The Scarlet Empress. As a baby, she is sheltered in her frilly, overbearing room. The first glimpse the viewer catches of her as a young woman still depicts a child lost in a sort of reverie, completely ignorant to whatever sort of world may lie outside her bubble. This refuge is quickly lost once Catherine is whisked off to marry, into a world that is quite the opposite — cold, unwelcoming, austere. In order to survive, Catherine must resort to retaining whatever scraps of her own world that she can, often passing time alone in her room and avoiding the cruel reality that awaits her: a psychotic husband with whom she harbors a mutual hatred, an overbearing mother, and unfamiliar subjects that are aloof and mysterious. Catherine, then, is forced to create a new world for herself — one in which she can not only withdraw but thrive, and finds her respite in a heavily wooded courtyard. It offers her freedom from the vicelike control of her mother-in-law and additionally breeds temptation for her to challenge her traditional conventions. Much like the Garden of Eden, it is here that our Eve takes a bite of her forbidden fruit, seducing Count Alexei, the one she had truly found herself attracted to– though in her case it only transforms her for the better. Thus, Catherine is reborn, and this tiny world that she’s created continues to grow and usurp until the entire kingdom is hers.
The beginning of Blonde Venus opens in what one might easily mistake for an idyllic paradise — there are echoes of laughter, followed shortly by shots of bright sunlight and glimmering lakes. The viewer is thrown almost instantly into a dream. Moments later, we see a group of giggling girls splashing about in the water as they bathe themselves. A few curious young men make their way over to leer curiously at the girls — and as they yell, alarmed, one particular girl rises from the water like a Siren, prompting a glorious closeup of Dietrich that immediately lets the viewer know that she will take the leading role of this film. Sure enough, she is revealed to be the wife of a now struggling and ailing chemist, who has relinquished her career as a showgirl in order to care for him and their infant son. When we cut back to the apartment, it is dark, dim, and heavily obscured — a stark contrast to how we first met our protagonists in the early flashbacks. The family has been thrown into despair, and is in dire need of finances in order to secure lifesaving treatment for her ailing husband.
Thus, our heroine goes back to work clandestinely until she secures the financial aid of playboy Cary Grant, thus ensuring she can send her husband off for treatment without the fear of being discovered. Naturally, she is radiant in her return to the spotlight — there are dazzling lights, glimmering costumes a plenty, and an abundance of white outfits — perhaps a nod to the opulence in which she has suddenly found herself. She and her child enjoy a luxurious life and travel the world, all while her husband remains in the dark — quite literally — and comes home unexpectedly early to a deserted apartment before Marlene can make it back in time. It is a tense and uncomfortable scene, which results in Dietrich fleeing with her baby and going on the run. The mood becomes dark, and our glimpses of the once dazzling, glamorous performer are now simply cursory glimpses of a woman quite literally in hiding. The lighting is almost entirely dark for the duration of this arc — Marlene and child stow away on a train, hide out in shacks, and jump from state to state as she desperately tries to make her identity fade into obscurity. The lighting is masterfully applied here by Von Sternberg, not only complementing the turn of the story but also adding considerable mood to support the dismal circumstances in which she finds herself.
Lighting is employed similarly in Scarlet Empress, helping to quite literally highlight the transformation of Dietrich’s meek and sheltered Catherine into a seductress who becomes exceptionally adept in her craft. In an almost unexpected reversal of tradition, however, Von Sternberg uses his brightest lighting at the beginning of the film — once again playing up Dietrich’s angelic presence. In Scarlet Empress, the first time we are introduced to her as an adult she is laughing and swinging, dressed all in white frills. Her character could not be presented as any more childlike, complete with ringlet curls adorned by bows — an enduring coquettish popularized years earlier by Mary Pickford. Here, the lighting is also meticulously applied to illuminate Dietrich’s face in such a way that she appears younger than her actual thirty-three years at the time of filming. Such bright colors and lighting do not come into play again until the film’s grande finale, when Dietrich is all ablaze in glory, triumphantly riding into the palace to rightfully claim it as her own. The intentional decision to wait is a wise one — it only further helps to build up the glorious visual fanfare that overtakes both kingdom and viewer as Catherine declares her victory.
Many of the Dietrich/Von Sternberg collaborations typically revolve around a world-weary cabaret singer and how she has learned to weaponize her sexuality in order to maintain and defend her identity, Blonde Venus being no exception. However, even the characters Dietrich inhibits that are not cabaret girls possess this intoxicating trait, perhaps the best and most prevalent example being Catherine the Great in Scarlet Empress. Catherine is different from most of the Dietrich protagonists in the sense that she is one; a characterization of a real person and two, not a cabaret girl. She is introduced to the viewer as a little girl, and then a coy and naive ingenue who is quite literally snatched from her family and shipped off to marry the unsightly Louis, the heir to the Russian throne. He is revealed to be an eccentric cripple, and Catherine, devastated that she has been deceived, finds herself in the miserable clutches of his domineering mother. Her story is one of classic corruption — disillusioned by having to relinquish her identity in order to be more or less a figurehead, Catherine eventually throws herself right into corruption through literal debauchery. May we also note here that she is obscured in darkness, nestled between trees — hidden but in plain sight, thanks to the expert lighting employed by Von Sternberg. Again, the mood is once again heightened and built up by this masterful use of technique.
After her little nighttime tousle with Alexei, we see a new and decidedly transformed Catherine emerge. Gone is the wide-eyed, shy and cowering young girl — in her place emerges a woman who is now wise and privy to her newfound power in her sexuality. Here, Dietrich embodies the typical vamp which she most often portrayed, and it is here that sex becomes part of the main narrative. Perhaps she is not a prostitute, but she is now willingly partaking in forbidden dalliances at her own will, making her just as deplorable in the moral sense. Like Lola in Blue Angel, she begins to use sex as a means of manipulating and influencing those around her — namely, the men. It is portentous commentary on male weakness that pushes and promotes a more feminist narrative, years earlier than such discourse would come into public discussion. Of course, this is bolstered by the fact that all three aforementioned movies were made in free reign before the code forced a much more restrictive set of rules when it came to such content. Louis’ wicked mother, now older and ailing, recognizes that she is starting to be eclipsed by her pawn, but cannot do much more than warn her son before succumbing to her illness. With Catherine’s biggest rival now out of the way, she can now fully make use of her power and guiles in order to execute her grand plan of usurping the throne from her demented husband.
While Catherine ultimately succeeds in her endeavors, Dietrich’s Helen is not as fortunate. Instead, she resigns to once again give up her life — and lover — to return to being a faithful wife and mother in a fractured household, an ending that aligns surprisingly well with the Hayes Code, despite it not being in effect for another two years. Still, one could make the argument that she was still very much successful in conquering, as well as exercising, her sexuality. However, up until this point in the story Helen has not only survived — but additionally thrived — thanks to her sexual nature. From the beginning she shows that becoming a married mother never changed her sense of empowerment, and is more than happy to return to the stage in order to finance her husband’s treatment. From there, she is able to land herself as the mistress of a doting playboy, before eventually even becoming a celebrated performer in her own right, without his aid or interference. Dietrich is the vision of the empowered female, more than just a simple seductress for the sake of the male gaze — rather, she uses this to achieve what she wants, whether it be an income, an escape, or something entirely different. It’s not so much important to focus on the film’s end as it is to focus on the effrontery of Helen’s character and all that she achieved thanks to her own abilities — and while sexuality gave her an upper hand, she proves it is not her only talent, by showing expertise in singing, dancing, and even adopting a sense of pragmatism when dealing with her affairs. This might prompt one to approach the ending in an entirely different way — sure, it may be implied that she’s going to settle down — but knowing what we know about Helen, it is evident that she is more than capable of fending for herself and taking matters into her own hands.
When these three Von Sternbergisms converge — the sexually empowered temptress, the employment of light to elicit and disguise mood, and visually extravagant sets — one might fear that the end result would amount to disaster. Three strong and colorful characters in their own right, a juxtaposition seems like it could only produce an overwrought, explosive sensory disaster with little room for much else. Perhaps that would be the end result for any other director, but most certainly not for Von Sternberg. These three pillars serve as the main structural support to his craft and technique, allowing a vision so unique and unlike any other to rise and stand out in stark contrast to contemporary films of their time. His finesse is so delicately balanced that any adjustment could easily throw one of the structures off balance and thus lead to reckless abandon, but no such thing ever happens in his films. They are turgid with visuals and closeups, sure — scenery ripe in every shot and Dietrich transcendent as she waltzes across the screen. But never once does it feel too much — if anything, one is left with the impression that such masterpieces would never have been half as effective without the visual largess that Von Sternberg so generously layers on to his films. The beautiful thing though is that each layer is intentional, albeit some are markedly more visible than others.
While there have been and will continue to be myriad talented directors who leave their mark upon the history of cinema, there will never be quite another like Joseph Von Sternberg. He brought a sense of unprecedented opulence to the screen not only to enrich the viewer’s experience, but to flesh out his story to its very limit. His stories are purposefully larger than life, masterfully dealing with the everyday mundane and weaving them into stories that not only showcased teachable moments, but the craft and art that cinema allowed. A more visual director could not have been luckier — even in its rudimentary forms, the medium of moving pictures allowed for a new way of storytelling. While it holds truth in saying that any story can be told — and thus filmed — without going to such extremes, I implore the viewer to think more critically. How memorable is a film that rushed and churned out to meet studio quotas, one on a severe budget of time and funds that never really allowed for the integral collaborations between director and his players? To me, such productions are not art, but rather pre-constructed stories that speak in only one medium: dialogue. The true art of cinema is found in the bonds between cast and crew, and Von Sternberg’s films are perhaps one of the best examples that showcase this.
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