Egyptissimo

    Brier, Bob. Egyptomania: Our Three Thousand Year Obsession with the Land of the Pharaohs, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
    Brier, Bob. The History of Ancient Egypt [DVDs]. Chantilly, VA, Teaching Co., [2003]. Series: The Great Courses. 8 discs and 4 course guidebooks.
    Cooney, Kara. When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt. Washington, D.C., National Geographic, 2018.
    Cormack, Ralph. Midnight in Cairo: The Divas of Egypt's Roaring '20s, New York, Norton, 2021.
    Goldman Michal, director. Nasser's Republic: The Making of Modern Egypt (DVD). Narration by Hiam Abbass. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Icarus Films Home Video, 2016. Includes bonus features: director’s commentary; bonus clip; 16-page booklet.
    Olson, Lynne, Empress of the Nile: The Daredevil Archaeologist who saved Egypt's Ancient Temples from Destruction, New York, Random House, 2023.
    Snape, Steven. Ancient Egypt: The Definitive Visual History, DK, 2021.
    Treasures of Egypt: A Legacy in Photographs from the Pyramids to Cleopatra; Ann R. Williams, general editor, Washington, D.C., National Geographic, 2022.

     
    Being the centenary of Howard Carter’s famous discovery of King Tutankhamen’s tomb, 2022 inspired renewed interest in and coverage of all things Egyptian. But it was Carter’s sensational find on 4 November 1922 (and the subsequent lurid tales of an ancient curse) that generated a tidal wave of fascination for Eygyptiana that manifested itself in Egypt-influenced clothes, architecture, interior design, jewelry, and heaven knows what else, probably most infamously in the various mummy novels and movies. Thus we might assume the craze for all things Egyptian began in the early Twenties. No such thing. Truth be told, the phenomenon sometimes called Egyptomania had been around a long time, a very long time, centuries actually, even millennia. As just one example the Romans and Greeks of antiquity had a fascination with, even reverence for, Egyptian culture. To be sure, Egyptophilia (the other, possibly less pejorative, term) was given a bit of a jump start in 1798-99 with Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt and the attendant scientific and archaeological discoveries, most significant being the Rosetta Stone and its eventual deciphering by Jean-Francois Champollion. Thus, the ‘modern’ era of Egyptomania began around 1800 and really kicked into high gear with the discovery of Tut’s tomb in 1922, and continues in various guises to this day.
    While many people are interested in the legitimate history of Ancient Egypt, probably many more folks (myself included) are fascinated by the Egypt of myth, legend, pseudohistory and pop culture. And this is not necessarily a bad thing. But more to the point, why Egypt? And not, say, the Incas in Peru, or the Maya of Central America and Mexico, or the ancient Chinese civilizations, or the Khmer Empire in Southeast Asia, they of the massive temple complex at Angkor. Or … well, you get the idea. In some mysterious way we have a thing for Ancient Egypt that we don’t have with other ancient cultures. As for me, it’s difficult to say exactly but it must have something to do with how long the civilization lasted, how far away it is in time, its exotic yet familiar design qualities, and, not least, the massive scale of the structures. And yes, I admit that I enjoy all the mummy movies – each is entertaining in its own way – but my favorite is the first, classic, darkest and probably most archaeologically accurate version, The Mummy (1932) with Boris Karloff.
     Mummy movies aside, Egypt’s tentacles reach far and wide, sometimes appearing in unlikely venues: in the 1933 original King Kong a member of the expedition crew opines that the massive wall built to keep Kong in looks like it could be Egyptian. Movie auteur Carl Denham then goes him one better by invoking Angkor (“nobody knows who built it”). Then there are other, in-your-face, reminders like the Luxor Hotel in – where else? – Las Vegas. More edifying is the fact that Sigmund Freud was an inveterate collector of Egyptian artifacts, art, and books on ancient Egypt. It’s not too far off the mark to think that Freud saw a connect between archaeology and psychoanalysis. Others have noted that writers and readers of mystery novels are also fans of ancient archaeology. In any case these examples have at their center an uncovering, a gradual revealing of what was hitherto buried, often with a surprise or twist ending.
    In any event the titles listed above are a grab bag with no discernable focus other than most are of (relatively) recent vintage and each in its own way, with varying degrees of success, represents an attempt to capture the mystery and mystique of all things Egyptian.
    I’m not qualified to judge how ‘definitive’ Steven Snape’s coffee table romp through ancient Egyptian history and culture is, but judged on its own merits Ancient Egypt: The Definitive Visual History is a mostly impressive achievement and has the usual high gloss qualities one expects from a DK production. The thorough index and intensely detailed acknowledgments section in particular add a certain academic heft to the mix. However – and it’s a near deal-breaking however – there’s no footnotes or even a token reading list, much less a true bibliography. An occasional title is tossed out randomly but we find nothing even close to a systematic listing of sources. But given that the rest of the book is so good, we can, if not exactly forgive the omission, appreciate the book’s other, not inconsiderable, qualities, best of which are the many sumptuous illustrations.
    Published during the Tut centenary of 2022, National Geographic’s Treasures of Egypt might be seen as the famous society’s coffee table answer to DK’s sumptuously extravagant volume. As to be expected the large tome is dominated by historical and current photos that present Egypt in all is splendiferous and mysterious glory. The book will hold few surprises for specialists or even well-informed amateurs, but the illustrations are something to behold. Alas, like Ancient Egypt: The Definitive Visual History, there’s no reading list.
    I’ve seen several of the Great Courses lectures on DVD and listened to a few on CD, and Bob Brier’s DVD traversal, The History of Ancient Egypt, is my all things considered choice as the best, or at least my favorite. In an engaging style that walks a fine line between audience-friendly and esoteric, he gives us a near perfect introduction to the mysteries of Egypt for the novice enthusiast or well informed amateur, and he even provides enough minutiae and specialized information to appeal to the serious student or specialist. There is never a sense of dumbing down the material, and this marvelous perusal once again reminds us of the cultural treasure that the Great Courses series is, either in their CD or DVD incarnations, with the caveat that even they have the occasional misfire, i.e. a boring presenter. But not this one. Brier’s infectious enthusiasm shines through and as a presenter he’s smooth and reasonably entertaining. In any case his chronologic approach with selected side trips to mummification, archaeological digs, and mummy movies maintains a remarkable consistency throughout the 48 lectures.
    Brier’s book Egyptomania might be seen as an unofficial condensed version, a kind of pop history take on his Great Courses lecture. Especially noteworthy are the many illustrations: posters, movie stills, pottery, toiletries, cigarettes, cigarette cases, jewelry, et al. There’s exceptionally strong coverage, perhaps too strong (i.e. to the de-emphasis of other, worthy subjects), on the removal and transportation of obelisks. Despite this imbalance, Brier’s book may be recommended as an entertaining breeze though one man’s obsession with Egyptiana, as well as an accessible introduction to the topic. Along with the present book, the reader may also be interested in checking out Joyce Tyldesley’s Tutankhamen: The Search for an Egyptian King and Ronald H. Fritze, Egyptomania: A History of Fascination, Obsession and Fantasy, both of which offer similar if meatier treatments of the subject.
    As for Kara Cooney’s When Women Ruled the World, none of the six women profiled actually ruled the world, but as is revealed in the book’s subtitle, only Egypt. And even given Egypt’s primacy as the dominant culture of the era, there were lots of other civilizations around, each with its own traditions and, invariably male, rulers. At any rate When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt focuses on the six women who ruled as absolute monarchs of Egypt: the better-known figures of Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, and Cleopatra, and the much less familiar Merneith, Neferusobek, and Tawosret. Of the lesser known rulers, Merneith is perhaps the most interesting: her reign goes all the way back to the early mists of history, ca. 3,000 BCE.
    Cooney’s basic thesis is that women rulers in ancient Egypt were not the normal way of business but that they usually came into power, and often held it, in periods of national stress. Less persuasive perhaps are Cooney’s frequent conclusions regarding these six queens and today’s female rulers and women leaders generally. The book’s academic gloss includes map, bibliography, illustrations, chronology, and detailed footnotes. See also Cooney’s informative DVD, Ancient Female Rulers: The Women Who Ruled the World (3500 Years Ago), Dreamscape Media, 2021, which covers much the same territory in somewhat more abbreviated fashion.
     With Robert Cormack’s Midnight in Cairo: The Divas of Egypt's Roaring '20s, we jump forward a couple of millennia (at least), and I confess much of my enjoyment of the book is due to the narrative’s semi-gossipy style as Cormack recalls the many colorful personalities, both substantial and more peripheral, that flit in and out of the narrative.
     While Midnight in Cairo is ostensibly a breezy examination of the history of entertainment in Egypt, focusing on the nightlife of the 1920s & ‘30s – the energetic music, theater, film, and cabaret scenes – all is skillfully filtered through the political and social backdrop of Egypt in the first half of the Twentieth Century. In this historically conservative culture, the Twenties and Thirties in Egypt were more a (near)anything-goes time in performance and the arts, not unlike the Weimar era in Germany at the same time. And the independence of women entertainers paralleled the struggle for women’s rights: opportunities for women were greater and indeed the women asserted themselves. As the book progresses we have more emphasis on the political scene and less on the entertainment industry. As mentioned above, numerous picaresque characters spice the narrative in starring or supporting roles, but for me hors concours go to the irrepressible belly dancing diva Tahiya Carioca in all her over-the-top glory. But there was more to the woman than just being an entertainer: she was something of a feminist activist and supported numerous left-wing causes. In this historically less-than-progressive society, she was perhaps the highest exemplar of the remarkable women profiled in the book during a time when there was freedom and passionate expression in the arts, entertainment, and even political arenas. It all coalesced into a nightlife scene that’s today, alas, largely lost to history.
     The remarkable documentary Nasser’s Republic overlaps much of the era of Midnight in Cairo, and the two books cover some of the same issues (for example, Egypt’s road to modernity). But there the similarity ends. Told largely by way of rare archival footage, Nasser’s Republic is a thoughtful, realpolitik examination of Nasser’s near two decades rule as President of Egypt in the 1950s and 1960s. The documentary is also, to a lesser extent, a profile of the man himself.
     As the narrative makes clear, for all his accomplishments in making Egypt a modern nation, and his unflagging popularity with the masses, Nasser never really achieved his stated goal of making Egypt a legitimate democracy. Indeed his methods were decidedly authoritarian. Even so, Nasser comes off as one who ruled more by charisma than by attention to abstract issues and bureaucratic detail. The broad brushstroke narrative rushes through the 1960s and especially the Six-Day War, instead focusing on the 1950s and, a few years later, the building of the Aswam Dam. The best part perhaps is the interview footage with poets, journalists, historians, Nasser associates, and especially Nasser’s daughter, all of which humanizes Nasser and gives texture to the story. While Nasser’s Republic is a mostly sympathetic view of its subject, on balance, it’s an even-handed account, and highly recommended.
     Lynne Olson’s fascinating Empress of the Nile gives full due to a major if somewhat low-profile figure in Egyptology, Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt, and in particular her heroic efforts to preserve ancient Egyptian monuments and artifacts in danger of being destroyed in the building of the massive Aswan Dam in the 1960s. There’s also substantial coverage of Desroches-Noblecourt’s acitivites in occupied Paris during World War II, which included work for the Resistance. The narrative also recounts Jackie Kennedy’s efforts as a rescuer of cultural artifacts, which included her own, not inconsiderable, efforts in persuading the Kennedy administration to financially support the Egyptian artifacts rescue project. Empress is a an engaging, reader-friendly read. Recommended.

coffee-table can be beautiful

     Albrecht, Donald. Cecil Beaton: The New York Years. New York, Skira Rizzoli, 2011. [Published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name held at the Museum of the City of New York, October 2011-March 2012.]  
   Brassaï : For the Love of Paris, Agnès de Gouvion Saint-Cyr [exhibition curator]. Paris, Flammarion, 2013. Translated from the French by David Radizinowicz. "Simultaneously published in French as Brassaï, pour l'amour de Paris" (Title page verso). [Published on the occasion of an exhibition held from November 8, 2013 to March 8, 2014 in the Salle Saint-Jean at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris].
     Fashion: The Definitive History of Costume and Style. New York, DK, 2012. [‘Smithsonian’ - cover]
     Jorgensen, Jay and Scoggins, Donald L. Creating the Illusion: A Fashionable History of Hollywood Costume Designers. Foreword by Ali MacGraw. Philadelphia, Running Press; Atlanta, Turner Classic Movies, [2015].  


     There’s the coffee table and then there’s the coffee table book. Alas, so called coffee-table books have attained a bad odor: they’re really just ornaments for display, things not really to be savored, much less read. Thus the moniker. In a word, they’re status symbols that advertise how cultured (and how well off) we are. Official sources tend to reinforce this: the term reportedly made its first appearance in a 1961 issue of Arts Magazine, and according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, coffee-table refers to "a large expensive book with many pictures that is typically placed on a table for people to look at in a casual way." Similarly, the august New Oxford American Dictionary, Third Edition, chimes in with the almost exact same definition: a large, expensive, lavishly illustrated book, especially one intended only for casual reading. However … I hope the four volumes listed above will to some extent refute this assumption: they have scrumptious photos but also sprightly, well informed, highly literate texts, so much so that at least one of them might be considered a full-on monograph.    

    The Brassaï volume is in its way the most substantial, though not necessarily the most beautiful, of the four. While Brassaï was a man of many talents – novelist, sculptor and painter – it’s his nighttime vistas of Paris that assure his place in aesthetic history. Indeed, the Hungarian-born Gyulus Halasz (1899–1984), who worked as Brassaï, was something of a lifelong Paris specialist, and the black and white images herein concentrate on the between-the-wars years and the 1950s. It’s not too much of an exaggeration to say that the city has never been captured so evocatively or poetically. My favorites are the photos that distill the melancholy and mystery of the night, and especially those that give us the night people – criminals, prostitutes, grifters, night owls, alcoholics, drug addicts, cabaret entertainers, the homeless – in the all their unsavory splendor. Brassaï: For the Love of Paris further benefits from David Radizinowicz’s insightful translation from the French. Includes a chronology.

    As for Cecil Beaton, he was of course more than just a portrait and fashion photographer. Illustrator, artist, set and costume designer, incorrigible bon vivant, his many talents are seen to best advantage in the extravagant volume that’s Cecil Beaton: The New York Years. Fans of Beaton will lap up this book like catnip and if one is new to his work you’ll probably become a fan quickly. We have page after page of mouth-watering photos (some never before published) of the beautiful – in all senses of the word – people. I’m especially partial to the candid(?) and not-so-candid entries of Greta Garbo. Also making an appearance are the usual suspects of the rich, famous and notorious: Brando, Astaire, Warhol, Marilyn, Capote, Callas, Chanel, Mick Jagger. Indeed Beaton ran with the beau monde and, like Capote and a few others, blurred the line between self and subject.
    Not so surprising then that this volume features selections from the elite figures in art, theater, fashion and the entertainment worlds from the 1930s to the 1960s. The portraits and ‘informal’ photos are fine, but what captures my heart are the illustrations of the theatrical costume designs in their technicolor glory. In his designs Beaton had an eye for the classical style and brought truth to the adage that old is always new again if we wait long enough. In sum, Cecil Beaton: The New York Years is a wonderful production and shows how classy a ‘coffee-table book’ can be.

    Speaking of classy coffee table books, Fashion: The Definitive History of Costume and Style, while it may overstate its title – I’m not sure what a ‘definitive’ history would look like – this massive volume is nonetheless a feast for the senses, well, certainly for the eyes. As the fellow said, fashion changes but art and artistry doesn’t.
     Impressive in its range and with impeccable production values, Fashion covers the most important trends in costume and style from antiquity to the present. True to DK form, the book scores on quality – and most definitely quantity – of illustrations; layout; and, to a certain extent, content, providing almost too many facts in one volume. Each chapter has a timeline; analysis of social, historical and cultural issues; major trends; feature articles on fashion legends and major designers; and many, many illustrations. The detailed index, even with its squint inducing small print, is also a plus, though conspicuously absent is a reading list or footnotes.
     One curiosity about Fashion is that there’s no author credited, not even an editor. There are lots of names listed on the copyright page, thus we assume this production was done by committee. However – to be perfectly technical, a listing of ‘consultant authors’ and ‘writers’ is provided on pages [8-9]. In any event, and perhaps not so surprising, the writing itself, while commendable in the plethora of information it offers, has a certain generic quality and lacks a cohesive voice or point of view.
     If I were to quibble, and it’s only a quibble, I would have preferred more coverage of costume design in the movies, and in particular its influence on fashion trends in the broader culture, especially during cinema’s golden age (roughly 1930-1955). Another caveat, if that is the word: the book’s content leans heavily toward women’s fashions, along with an almost total emphasis on white, American/Euro fashions that rich people wore, to the almost total exclusion of other cultures and socio/economic groups. Still, as long as there are those who appreciate the chronicling of costume design, conveyed through the most luxuriant imagery, Fashion: The Definitive History of Costume and Style will never go out of style.

     As much as Fashion: The Definitive History … may be a little weak on costume and the movies, Creating the Illusion: A Fashionable History of Hollywood Costume Designers fills the void admirably, almost with a vengeance. The cover photo of a wildly adorned Marlene Dietrich gives us an idea of the extravagant treasures to be found inside the pages of this huge tome. The book then is little short of nirvana for film lovers, especially those partial to the Golden Age. Each chapter has a brief biography of a designer, starting with the silent era and progressing more or less to the present. The better-known designers get several pages each, with heavy emphasis on the biographic details to the detriment somewhat of the aesthetic elements. A parochial observation: I was delighted to see that longtime RKO designer Renié Conley (who usually went by just plain ‘Renié’) was given a chapter. Among many other films, she created the wardrobes for the Val Lewton horror classics in the 1940s, and won the Oscar in 1963 for her over-the-top designs for Cleopatra.    
    Creating the Illusion then is a beguiling, somewhat incongruous combination of photos of near camp, and, in some cases, straight-on camp costumes, combined with a sensitive, knowing text that borders on the scholarly. The verdict: the book is an absolute stunner, and will delight movie fans, especially connoisseurs of classic cinema. A mild criticism: as the book's subtitle implies, the coverage is very Hollywood-centric, thus, and alas, very few, if any, foreign films are included.

killer's kiss: Day of the Jackal (1973)

     The  Day of the Jackal. [videorecording (DVD)]. Universal; Fred Zinnemann's film; a John Woolf production; directed by Fred Zinnemann; produced by John Woolf; screenplay by Kenneth Ross.
Universal City, CA: Universal, c1998.
    Blu-ray version: Arrow Video, [United States], 2018. Special features of Blu-ray DVD: new interview with Neil Sinyard, author of Fred Zinnemann: Films of Character and Conscience; two rare archival clips from the film set, including an interview with Fred Zinnemann; theatrical trailer.
    Originally released as a motion picture in 1973. From the book by Frederick Forsyth. Photographer, Jean Tournier; editor, Ralph Kemplen; music, Georges Delerue. Performers: Edward Fox (The Jackal), Michel Lonsdale (Claude Lebel), Alan Badel (The Minister), Tony Britton (Inspector Thomas), Eric Porter (Col. Rodin), Jean Martin (Wolenski), Cyril Cusack (Gunsmith).
     Summary: the story of a cold, suave British assassin hired by the French OAS to kill General Charles de Gaulle. The nameless and faceless killer, known by the code name of Jackal, relentlessly moves toward the date with death that would rock the world. The tension mounts as the methodical preparations of the Jackal are paralleled with the efforts of the police to uncover the plot, which gives the story non-stop, edge-of-your-seat suspense.
     

    2023 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the release of Day of the Jackal, Fred Zinnemann’s superlative take on the political assassin film. It’s my favorite assassin movie and indeed would be competitive for a spot in my all-time top ten favorites, regardless of genre. It’s one of those movies I can see over and over and it never gets old, and that’s one of my definitions of a great movie – it holds up, and sometimes even gets better, with repeated viewings. That being said, I confess I sometimes fast forward through the (few) slow parts (but don’t tell anyone!). Though the impression may be erroneous, and surprising, given Jackal’s many qualities, I don’t see it listed as high or as often in online best-of-assassin movies compilations as I would expect, and it seems to have settled into an under-the-radar status for the most part. Is it because it didn’t win any major awards, did only so-so at the box office (despite good critical reviews) or has a mostly non-star cast? (though one might argue that Derek Jacobi and even Edward Fox became [almost] major stars). Anyhow who can say?

   Despite its half century vintage Jackal has an amazingly modern look and feel, and it could all boil down to its non-sentimentalized, quasi-documentary style, which is further reinforced by the lack of a background music score. It’s all helmed by Zinnemann’s supreme directorial skills, though the thriller is not a genre with which we usually associate him. Indeed the film takes such a detailed, you-are-there approach, that the viewer readily accepts that he’s watching real events unfold and not just a scripted story. However – and it’s a big however, I’m always a little troubled by the Jackal’s obvious miscalculations, to the point of recklessness. They don’t convince given his otherwise cold, low-risk style. Moreover, for all that the Jackal possesses near preternatural skills as well as an uncanny talent for improvisation, this disconnect doesn’t quite jibe.

    These reservations notwithstanding, the Jackal fits the mold of the somewhat romanticized pop culture version of the hired killer: he’s well educated, well dressed, well spoken, polite – in his way – and he works independently. And of course he can take out an adversary with one hand tied behind his back. Moreover, he projects a blandly anonymous, workmanlike image (including aforementioned lethal fighting skills), all presented in smoothly aristocratic packaging.

     One downside of my otherwise excellent library copy of the Universal DVD is the complete dearth of special features. A movie like Jackal would seem to cry out for such extras. I’m not familiar with the Blu-ray special edition version, i.e. I haven’t seen it, but I note that it has special features.

     Great on-location scenes, especially in Paris and Genoa, add to the film’s authenticity, and the international flair isn’t diminished by the unmistakable Brit overlay, most obviously present in the British dominated cast, who don’t make any attempt to disguise their old boy accents. The ladies fare better in the ethnicity/accent department. Delphine Seyrig, Olga Georges-Picot, and Colette Bergé have an unmistakable French vibe about them. By the way, an interesting bit of trivia: the character played by Delphine Seyrig is always referred to in the film as Madame de Montpellier, though in credits online and elsewhere her character is listed as ‘Colette.’ Curious. Editorial comment: yes, I did see the so-called remake The Jackal and thought it was absolutely terrible. Stay with the original.

    One caveat: Day of the Jackal does move at a rather stately pace, i.e. it will seem slow to some viewers. Thus if your tastes tend to screeching tires, fiery conflagrations and brutal hand-to-hand fights, Jackal may not be your cup of tea. Perhaps because the film treats the characters and actions in a fairly neutral style, I find myself rooting for both the Jackal and police inspector Lebel. And why not? A close, down-to-the-wire photo finish is always more fun than a rout, no?

the baroque pleasures of Mr. Arkadin

 

    The complete Mr. Arkadin a.k.a. Confidential Report (Motion picture). Janus Films; written and directed by Orsen Welles; photography, Jean Bourgoin; editor, Henzo Lucien; music, Paul Misraki. Special edition 3-disc set, fullscreen. Irvington, New York: The Criterion Collection, c2006. 3 DVDs (approximately 302 min.); booklet (35 pages, illustrations).
   Includes: "The Cornith version," originally released as a motion picture in 1955; "Confidential report;" originally released as a motion picture in 1995; "The comprehensive version," originally released as a motion picture in 2006.
    Performers: Orson Welles, Robert Arden, Akim Tamiroff, Mischa Auer, Michael Redgrave, Jack Watling, Paola Mori, Patricia Medina. Summary: American smuggler Guy van Strattan decides to investigate the mysterious Mr. Arkadin after hearing about the wealthy man from a prison cellmate, but Arkadin claims amnesia about his own life, sending van Strattan off to investigate Arkadin's past. Filming locations: Sebastiansplatz, Munich, Bavaria, Germany; Spain; Bavaria Studios, Grünwald, Bavaria, Germany; France; Germany; Italy; Sevilla Films, Madrid, Spain; Switzerland (Château de Chillon); London, England, UK.

 

    Mr. Arkadin is one of the films in the Orson Welles oeuvre that I haven’t seen, at least not all of it: until recently I’d only caught snippets via various Welles documentaries. As I don’t possess the DVD and my public library lacks a copy, I was delighted at my good fortune to stumble upon it recently on television [1]. While flipping channels I came across this strange, Bergmanesque movie that was totally fascinating. I was hooked even before I knew what the movie was, and it didn’t take me long to figure out that it was a Welles film. Best of all I came in at a point near the beginning so I was able to see the bulk of the film. Despite its reputation as a ‘problematic’ Welles product, I enjoyed it very much. Still, and while very much a Welles fan, I readily admit that Arkadin isn’t his best movie, or even close to his best, but it’s one strange movie and in its wacky way one of his most enjoyable. Moreover, the convoluted plot and visual felicities most definitely reward repeated viewings. It’s been compared to The Third Man and Citizen Kane in style and content, and some go so far as to say it’s a Third Man sequel, of a sort. Commentators also note similarities to The Trial. I can appreciate the sentiments but, with its off-kilter angles, densely packed bric-a-brac visuals, and character grotesques, including a more or less villain protagonist, among other touches, Arkadin has strong overtones of the Welles film that immediately follows, Touch of Evil [2]. In fact, Arkadin might well be considered a warm-up for Touch of Evil.  

     There's no one authoritative version of Arkadin/Confidential Report, much less a director’s cut, though the Criterion release generously gives us three versions to choose from. I leave to others to sort out all the different edits, influences, chronologies, intrigues and permutations (some sources claim there are as many as seven separate incarnations, including two Spanish versions) [3]. At the very least, as is the case with many of his films, Mr. Arkadin – in any of its iterations – probably doesn’t reflect Welles’s original, auteurist vision, whatever it might have been. By the way a great introduction (14 min.) to Arkadin by ‘Joel’ covering many aspects is available on Youtube.

    Arkadin/Confidential Report is endlessly fascinating, in almost equal measure for its near incomprehensible plot and surrealist visual style as for its labyrinthine production history. Mr. Arkadin then is the definitive Welles cult film, though hardcore Welles heads may argue the point. Whichever version we’re served up, from the three in the Criterion set, or amongst the other … four(?), as is always true for a Welles film, there’s plenty to savor. In this case not the least of the riches is the, typically Wellesian, offbeat cast: the much-maligned Robert Arden as the shady journeyman is actually pretty good, at least a good fit in the role; Katina Paxinou as a no-nonsense brothel madam who oozes cynicism; Mischa Auer who manages his flea circus; Paola Mori, Welles's to-be wife, as Raina, Arkadin’s daughter; Akim Tamiroff, the worse-for-wear Jakob Zouk; Suzanne Flon as the shady Baroness Nagel; Michael Redgrave as a fey shop owner; and best of all Patricia Medina as the dancer Milly. And of course Welles himself as the portentous title character.

   1 The Mr. Arkadin I caught on tv, appropriately late at night, is probably the public domain cut that Wellesophiles famously disapprove of, though in truth I can’t verify which Arkadin it was that I saw (even if I could tell the difference).
   2 Other than style one similarity to Touch of Evil are the many studio-imposed cuts and changes, thus both films have a bumpy narrative.
  3 The above referenced Criterion release apparently covers these and other issues pretty thoroughly. Indeed, a study of the film’s mangled evolution and resultant permutations would seem ready-made grist for the mill for an enterprising doctoral student: if a PhD thesis hasn’t already been done, I’m sure one is not far off. Be that as it may, I can’t resist recalling a couple of the myriad stories of the film’s dark, tangled past: one is the tale of Welles and his collaborators ‘liberating’ hotel furniture for one location scene; another yarn, even more bizarre, involves the film’s co-producer, one Louis Dolivet, who may well have been a KGB agent who was laundering money he’d embezzled from his Soviet masters.

enigmatic rebel: Ann Dvorak

    Rice, Christina. Ann Dvorak: Hollywood’s Forgotten Rebel. Lexington, KY, University Press of Kentucky, 2013.

     From 1930 to 1934 a group of amazing little films burst onto the motion picture scene, much to the chagrin of self-appointed moralists. These movies, which today we dub pre-Codes, presented a rawer, more realistic view of the human condition, and by implication, they were a blistering critique of American society in general. Among other qualities, pre-Code films were notable for their fast pacing, snappy dialogue, edgy stories, lean, mean set designs, and most of all, tough, worldly-wise characters who more often than not were driven by self-interest, self-indulgence, sensuality, and quick fixes, including (sometimes unpunished) crime. All was presented in just an hour or so and with an obvious theatrical pedigree. In short, the pre-Code movies just had a different look and feel about them. However, under growing public pressure and threats of boycotts, the motion picture industry initiated the Code-enforced era beginning July 1934, which insisted that movies present a more wholesome view of the world. The studios by and large obliged, and, as they say, the rest is history.
     Mirroring the era of pre-Code itself, the careers of many stars faded quickly in the mid and late Thirties. These former luminaries are little more than footnotes in cinema history, and they include once big names, today largely forgotten, like Ruth Chatterton, Miriam Hopkins, Karen Morley, Dorothy Burgess, Ann Harding, Mae Marsh, Ruth Donnelly, Glenda Farrell, David Manners, Warren William, Chester Morris, Mae Clark, and Dorothy Mackaill. Alas, for a number of reasons both personal and professional, Ann Dvorak was one of the casualties whose promise never blossomed to the extent that seemed inevitable in her peak year of 1932. Looked at objectively, her career arc is spotty at best, but devotees relish her performances in the pre-Codes, especially Scarface and Three on a Match, two of her best loved films. A fun bit of trivia is that she appeared as Della Street in an early film version of a Perry Mason mystery, The Case of the Stuttering Bishop (1937). But Ann Dvorak had a talent for self-destruction: she committed the unpardonable sin of challenging the big studios (she tussled with Warners over her contract amid rancorous legal battles). As was the norm in them days, she lost. A couple years later Warners let her go, and she was determined never to attach herself to a major studio again; she was now a free agent. But her career never fully recovered. She was an ambulance driver in London in World War II and later in the Forties was mostly relegated to B movies and bit parts. A starring role of some interest during this time was her appearance in The Private Affairs of Bel-Ami (1947), with George Sanders.
     She left movies altogether in 1951 at the age of forty. In addition to being a rebel and free spirit, Ann Dvorak was that rare bird in golden age Hollywood: a film star who was an intellectual. Her cerebral pursuits included horticulture, book collecting, writing (a pet project was a history of the world), and most improbably, bacteriology. She spent her final years in Honolulu living in obscurity and semi-poverty and died in 1979 at the – by today’s standards – relatively youthful age of sixty-eight. But due to a number of factors – the revival of interest in pre-Code movies and their exposure via TCM, DVDs and theatrical releases; a growing online presence via various tributes and posts; and not least of all, Christina Rice’s marvelous biography – Ann Dvorak’s star has brightened in recent years and she’s finally getting the recognition denied her for decades.
     Christina Rice’s Ann Dvorak: Hollywood’s Forgotten Rebel is a triumph. As the author points out tracking down information on such an under-the-radar subject was not an easy task, to say nothing of locating folks who had actually known her personally. But she persisted and her tome is veritably a model for a star biography, and especially for a biography of a once (near) major star who had faded from public view. The book then is a felicitous balance of the scholarly and the popular: reader-friendly but having the usual academic patina in the form of extensive index, notes and reading list, and a complete filmography. Especially noteworthy are the many photographs – most of them culled from the author’s private collection – of the eminently photogenic Miss Dvorak, even when she’s a bit worse-for-wear. It’s obvious Rice has a genuine affection for her subject but manages an objective view, and the sympathetic biography nicely balances professional and personal elements. As expected the big movies receive more extensive treatment but the lesser ones get respectable coverage as well. While we may infer that indeed Ann Dvorak appeared in her share of mediocre movies, even a few bad ones, she brought class and professionalism to every film she was in. The recalling of Dvorak’s attempts to challenge the big studios, mostly on contracts, reminds us of the power of the studio system in moviedom’s ‘golden age’ (the 1930s and 1940s), and the near slave-like hold the corporate giants had over its stars, both major and minor.
     For ultimately the Ann Dvorak story isn’t unique in the annals of the entertainment industry, and like other performers with unfulfilled careers, any number of wha-if type questions arise. Would things have turned out differently if she hadn’t been so headstrong and hadn’t challenged the big studios early in her career; if only she’d played the game in the usual way and remained patient and let her career develop along more conventional lines; if she had gotten the role of Sadie Thompson in Rain, rather than losing out to Joan Crawford; if she hadn’t left the movies at such a relatively young age. Alas, as in all these kinds of questions, we have that always frustrating and unsatisfying answer: we’ll never know. What we do know is what she did, and, as much as is possible, who she was. But mostly we have her best films, those handful of pre-Codes, and for that we’re the richer. 

“I think the right woman could reform you, too”

    Victor/Victoria (Motion picture). Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer presents; screenplay by Blake Edwards; produced by Blake Edwards and Tony Adams; directed by Blake Edwards. Original music, Henry Mancini; set decoration, Harry Cordwell; director of photography, Dick Bush; choreography, Paddy Stone. Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, c[2012]. Originally released as a motion picture in 1982. Special features: feature-length audio commentary by Julie Andrews and Blake Edwards.
     Performers: Julie Andrews, James Garner, Robert Preston, Lesley Ann Warren, Alex Karras, John Rhys-Davies. Summary: a man impersonating a woman on stage? Piece of cake. But a woman whose livelihood depends on pretending to be a man who pretends to be a woman? Now you've got problems! An out-of-work singer conspires to pose as a female impersonator in order to get work on the Paris cabaret circuit.

    Viktor und Viktoria (Motion picture). UFA presents; production company, Alfred Zeisler; screenplay, Reinhold Schünzel; producer, Eduard Kubat; directed by Reinhold Schünzel. New York, NY: Kino Classics,c[2020]. 1 DVD (99 min.). Originally released as a motion picture in 1933. Special feature: audio commentary by film historian Gaylyn Studlar. Photography, Konstantin Irmen-Tschet, Werner Bohne; music, Franz Doelle. Performers: Renate Müller, Hermann Thimig, Hilde Hildebrand, Friedel Pisetta, Frtiz Odemar, Aribert Wäscher, Adolf Wohlbrück.
    Summary: a young woman, unable to find work as a music hall singer, partners with a down-and-out thespian to revamp her act. Pretending to be a man performing in drag, Victoria becomes the toast of the international stage. But she soon finds that her playful bending of genders enmeshes her personal and professional life in a tangle of unexpected complications.


    This year marks the fortieth anniversary of one of my favorite movies, Victor/Victoria [1]. Ergo some thoughts on this gender bending, and in its modest way, revolutionary work. I was lucky enough to catch it on the big screen when it was originally released, and since then a few times on DVD. As theatrical releases of VV are probably not in the offing, I suppose we must make do with the DVD for now. Thus I confess a certain disappointment at my last viewing. The content was as warm and compelling as ever, but something gets lost on a small screen, especially the glorious sounds and visuals in the big production numbers. And for all the scrumptious, extravagant look of the aforementioned set pieces I couldn’t help wondering whether the film might have been more effective in (gasp!) monochromatic black and white. It certainly would have conjured up the Depression era better and added to the hovering melancholy of the story. Indeed, for all that VV is, at least on its surface, an exuberant explosion of the joy of living, there’s something very sad, even profoundly so, about the story and its characters, though I can’t quite put my finger on it. It might be an unconscious reaction to the era, in which everyone was either struggling or, if temporarily doing okay, always on the edge of disaster. As a result there was an overriding sense of doom and futility. Perhaps it’s the opening scene of the snowfall on the ramshackle, albeit beautifully evoked, Paris streets, and especially Victoria’s sense of desperation and loneliness as she trudges on and does her best to keep a stiff upper lip.
   As for the many qualities of the film itself, our nominal leads do yeoman service: James Garner is fine as the constantly bemused King Marchand, but it’s Ms. Andrews who really shines in what might well be the performance of a career. Victor/Victoria reminds us just how talented she is: sing, dance, act, comedy, drama, slapstick. Still, and with no disrespect to our two leads, the real show stoppers of VV are the supporting players, especially Alex Karras as Squash, the tough guy bodyguard with a heart of gold; Peter Arne as the scowling cabaret manager Labisse; Lesley Ann Warren in full-on Jean Harlow mode as the squeaky voiced Norma; and best of all Robert Preston as the irrepressible, unapologetic Toddy. A little quibble, though: Toddy’s performance in drag at the end of the film didn’t really work for me, maybe because it went on a bit too long. Second, related quibble: at 133 minutes, the film comes perilously close to overstaying its welcome. In any event Henry Mancini’s score is classy as always, and for all the brassy flamboyance of the big scenes the real musical and emotional high point of the film is the song ‘Crazy World,’ which Ms. Andrews renders with true pathos. Alas the tune departs much too quickly but is brought back in instrumental guises throughout. Likewise kudos for the sets, choreography, costumes, production design, and of course the brittle script, which requires perfect timing delivery, and which it gets from the principals.
     In between all the farce and frivolity, there are some legitimate issues – what really is ‘manliness’ and ‘womanliness,’ and how much of it is surface and how much of it is ‘real.’ But these and like questions are interspersed so effortlessly, smuggled in as it were, that they’re almost gone before we know it. Ergo if you’re looking for a realistic, historically accurate depiction of gay sensibilities, gender definitions or even Paris night life ca.1934, look elsewhere, and so be it. For at heart VV is a polished, high-level Hollywood fantasy representative of the best qualities of its era. It evokes prior eras while in its limited way is ahead of its time. In a word, Victor/Victoria holds up exceptionally well. It manages the high wire act of balancing pie-in-the-face comedy, musical numbers, dance, costume, clever repartee and even a touch of wisdom with true grace, an understated panache, if you like. As an old-fashioned comedy romp with musical numbers and lots of jokes done in a supremely secure style technically, VV is arguably even more on the money today than when it first appeared in its slightly shocking glory four decades ago. Victor/Victoria then is the complete entertainment package. Considering the talent involved in all aspects of production, it really couldn’t miss, and it didn’t.

   [1] The 1982 Victor/Victoria is a remake of a German production, Viktor und Viktoria (1933), which stands on its own pretty well and actually compares favorably to its big budget namesake. Renate Müller is terrific in the title role. In fact I think she’s more convincing impersonating a man than Julie Andrews. In any case sources cite no fewer than five remakes of Viktor und Viktoria, but the number grows to seven if we add the 1934 UFA French language George and Georgette and the 1995 Broadway play. A curious bit of history is that the original 1933 VV had its premiere on 23 December 1933. It’s little short of miraculous that the film even survived, much less inspired the above-mentioned French version. The National Socialists had been in power for almost a year, and to say the least, they didn’t approve of anything even vaguely sympathetic to LGBTQ. This initial incarnation of VV then may be seen as the last gasp, if a toned down one, of the Weimar era entertainment zeitgeist in all its exuberant, life-affirming, decadent excess, all of which was anathema to the strait-laced Nazis. Not so surprising then that there's no gay subtext in the film, although the story – and characters – literally flirt with the idea a couple of times, and just as quickly abandon it. As an interesting aside, in this original take on "Victor and Victoria," many of the conversations take place in rhyme, either quasi-sung or in recitative, in the manner of Sprechstimme. This is a feature that didn’t carry over into the Hollywood redo.

homage to dystopias: why Orwell never goes out of style

    Glover, Dennis. The Last Man in Europe: A Novel. Overlook Press, 2017.   
    Lynskey, Dorian, The Ministry of Truth: the Biography of George Orwell's Nineteen Eight-four. Doubleday, 2019. (Contents: History stopped -- Utopia fever -- The world we're going down into -- Wells-world -- Radio Orwell -- The heretic -- Inconvenient facts -- Every book is a failure -- The clocks strike thirteen -- Black millennium -- So damned scared -- Orwellmania -- Oceania 2.0 -- Afterword.)   
    Orwell, George. Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays. Compiled and with an introduction by George Packer. Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009.
    Orwell, George. Homage to Catalonia. With an introduction by Lionel Trilling. Harcourt Brace & Co., 1980.


“On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.” – George Orwell, All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." – first sentence of Nineteen Eighty-Four

     George Orwell is one of the few creative artists, even fewer writers, to have an adjective named after him. ‘Orwellian’ went into the zeitgeist long ago, thus placing him in some pretty fast company – Wagnerian, Kafkaesque, Hitchcockian, et al. An elite group indeed. Part of the explanation may be that the word rolls off the tongue in such a pleasingly mellifluous fashion. Consider for example the possible adjectivization of other creators of dystopian classics: Huxleyian, Burgessian, Dickian, Koestlerian, Bradburyesque, Macaulayesque [1]. They don’t have quite the same magic. To be fair, Wellsian is pretty good, though it comes with the unfortunate peril of being confused with ‘Wellesian’ (relating to all things Orson Welles), a term that entered the lexicon some time ago. But a pleasing aural quality and ease of pronunciation can’t be the only reasons the term has stuck. Indeed, and only appropriate given Orwell’s egalitarian worldview, the word has a utilitarian, all-purpose quality and has been used, abused and misused mightily by all sides of the ideological spectrum: like the man himself, the word ‘Orwellian’ has been appropriated by both the Left and the Right. Perhaps most revealing, and most ironic, is that there’s no real consensus on what the word actually means.
    Be that as it may, and despite the ubiquity of the word, and more so, the plethora of dystopian novels, television programs, and movies today, it all serves to underscore, three quarters of a century on, that Orwell really had no successors. Even in his day there were few who could be mentioned in the same breath. Perhaps a useful comparison is the eccentric American film critic James Agee, who was an almost exact contemporary of Orwell, and who, uncannily, also passed on at the untimely age of forty-six [2]. Like Orwell, he was something of a literary polymath, and, also like Orwell, a bit erratic and unpredictable in his views. In addition to his film critiques, Agee also wrote poetry, letters, essays, novels, short stories, journalism and a work of quasi-documentary non-fiction. Like Orwell he sometimes ventured into politics, but the emphasis was reversed: Orwell wrote mostly about politics and sometimes dabbled in film and theater reviews. Both were prolific writers, and a close reading of their work sometimes reveals a grinding it out in the salt mines quality at odds with their supposed profound utterances. Unlike Orwell, Agee’s fame doesn’t rest (mostly) on one work, and in an age when we prefer the specialist over the generalist, it’s Orwell who has endured, but not Agee who, despite being revered in cinematic circles, is mostly unknown to the general public.
    It's interesting to theorize whether the two men knew each other’s writings. There’s no evidence but considering their respective prominence it’s hard to imagine they didn’t. In any case, like Orwell, Agee’s work holds up well, and after languishing in semi-obscurity for decades, he’s enjoying a modest second wind these days. Like Orwell he always stuck to his guns and had little regard for trends or fashions. As a result he had a small if loyal following in his own lifetime. And like Orwell he was frequently prescient in his assessments [3]. Some films he championed that were initially met with indifference or disdain have over time assumed the status of classics, examples being Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux and Val Lewton’s psychological horror films. Also worthy of note is his anticipating the auteur theory that emerged full blast two decades later.
    Agee, like Orwell, was wrong sometimes, well, often really, but like Orwell, he was nonetheless unfailingly fascinating and forthright in his wrongness. But in certain respects the two men were different. The prose style in particular is a study in contrasts. Orwell’s tightly focused, not-a-word-too-many prose contrasts with Agee’s twisty-turny writing style, which has a certain charm but is often maddening to read, and even more difficult to divine exactly what he said, or meant, never more so than when he set his critical pen to the field of politics [4]. After reading an Agee paragraph, even a sentence sometimes(!), it’s unclear whether his sympathies were with the Left or the Right. And it’s impossible not to mention the stunningly self-evident fact that Orwell, for all his progressive bent, was at heart old school British in his outlook while Agee was quintessentially American. Finally, despite both men’s forward-looking visions, both were creatures of their time. Agee did most of his film criticism in the 1940s and was a product of that era, while Orwell, as alluded to above, for all his egalitarian bent, never completely shed his old boy attitudes and their attendant social and cultural biases.
    But getting back to Orwell’s more progressive strain, one of the great ironies of his opus maximus, Nineteen Eighty-Four [5], is its pervasive presence in our modern world, along with the invoking of the term ‘Orwellian,’ a kind of Big Brother-is-watching effect, with Orwell looking down from the heavens and shaking his head in disapproval, even disgust. The simple fact is that Orwelliana — not just of the literary type in the form of biographies, letters, critiques, memoirs, tributes, graphic novels, comic books, parodies and homages, but also plays, movies, operas, musicals, ballet, blogs and heaven knows what else — runs rampant in our world. Some of it is insightful, but much of it not so insightful, or, perhaps even worse, blandly hagiographical (one might even cite this essay as being an example of the latter).
    The other irony is that, befitting his real calling as a journalist, Orwell was an essayist at heart, this despite the indisputable fact that his two novels are by far his best-known, and thus most influential, works. Still, the essay was a good fit for Orwell, and he used this eminently flexible format to opine on an impressive range of subjects. Which brings us to the present collection, appropriately titled Unpleasant Facts, a combination of memoir, autobiography and social commentary. In his sprightly introduction, George Packer points out that:

   “ … Orwell, who produced a produced a staggering amount of prose over the course of a career cut short at forty-six by tuberculosis, was a working journalist, and in the two volumes of this new selection of essays you will find book, film and theater reviews, newspaper columns, and war reporting, as well as cultural commentary, political criticism, autobiographical fragments and longer personal narratives. In Orwell’s hands, they are all essays. He is always pointing to larger concerns beyond the immediate scope of his subject.”

    Unpleasant Facts then has a remarkable variety, as well as an unapologetic tendency to subjectivity, though sometimes a reading between the lines is necessary to flesh out Orwell’s real message. Nonetheless each entry reflects Orwell’s great compassion and insight, whether he describes the sordid living conditions in “Marrakech;” recollects wistfully, if wryly, his experience in “Bookshop Memories; or recounts with great pathos "Looking Back on the Spanish Civil War." My personal favorites are “Wartime Diary,” “Why I Write,” and the aforementioned “Bookshop Memories.”
    For the Orwell novice or casual reader of the novels, this stellar collection is about the perfect and painless introduction to his nonfiction works. One quibble: there’s no index, usually an inexcusable sin in such a name- and concept-rich book. However, since Orwell is the author, and the content so good, I’ll overlook the omission. Aside: both in tone and content I prefer Unpleasant Facts over All Art, thus its inclusion here as the subject of a review. Interesting that I initially thought the reverse would be the case.
    But to move on to arguably weightier material: written in 1948, published in 1949, and originally titled The Last Man in Europe, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a novel for the ages, well, at least the Twentieth Century, for which it’s probably the definitive work of fiction. A work that’s always resonant and stubbornly all too contemporary, the novel has ensconced terms like "Big Brother," "doublethink," "newspeak" and “thought police” so much they’ve become embedded in all forms of discourse, not just the political.  
    As described by Orwell, the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four is a Hadean cauldron of newspeak and doublethink in which history is rewritten at the convenience of, and always friendly to, the all-powerful ruling class, which is comprised of members of The Party. Reality and accuracy don’t exist in this thick forest of fog and mirrors, drowning in a morass of slogans and approved phraseology. The similarities to today’s world have not been lost on commentators, not least of all author Lynskey when he states in his introduction to The Ministry of Truth that: “Nineteen Eighty-Four remains the book we turn to when truth is mutilated, language is distorted, power is abused, and we want to know how bad things can get.”
    In any case the rigidly-controlled society of Nineteen Eighty-Four features the aforementioned Ministry of Truth that distorts reality, and with the ever-watchful eyes of Big Brother, keeps tabs on citizens' behavior. The ruling society is also engaged in perpetual wars – war is peace, peace is war – that take place in vague, far-flung frontiers. Citizens receive frequent reports, all positive, on the progress of said wars. The world presented in Nineteen Eighty-Four has particular resonance in our current culture which is plagued by the misinformation, disinformation, outright lies and propaganda that lards all forms of media these days (especially the infamous social media), in both state- and non-state controlled societies. To be fair, there is also a goodly amount of accuracy and reliability online these days, at least in ostensibly free countries, if one takes the time to look hard enough.
    As prescient as he was in the political realm, Orwell didn’t get everything right. His dismissive attitude toward gay males and the ridiculing of vegetarians seems wrong-headed, even reactionary, in light of Twenty-first Century sensibilities. Similarly, he missed the eventual primacy of the mega corporations and the totalitarianism of the dollar. And he couldn’t possibly have foreseen what would have been deemed high tech miracles in his day that today we take for granted.
   Suffice to say that such technological miracles have come with a price, literally, an Orwellian bargain if you like. And not just in the rampant, some would say inevitable, commercialization and commodification of the internet, but the sad reality that anyone online is constantly being Big Brothered by companies wanting to push their products, not unlike Nineteen Eighty-Four’s low-tech peeking into the lives of ordinary citizens. Today’s mega-companies, however, with their ever more sophisticated technologies and ready supply of cyber gurus, are far more expert at collecting data than Big Brother’s clunky machines ever were. As Thomas Pynchon wrote in the foreword to a 2003 edition, the internet is "a development that promises social control on a scale those quaint old 20th-century tyrants with their goofy moustaches could only dream about."
    In The Ministry of Truth, author Dorian Lynskey does an admirable job of discussing the origins of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the social and political culture in which Orwell resided, and the book’s publication and subsequent reception and influence in high and low culture. It’s Lynskey’s thesis that Orwell’s six months fighting in the Spanish Civil War was the defining influence on the basic philosophy of the novel, not necessarily the fighting itself but the Stalin sympathizers’ manipulation of the facts. Lynskey isn’t a great literary stylist and he jumps around a lot, and those looking for an in-depth analysis or review of the novel itself will be disappointed. As the subtitle implies this is a history of the book itself, in particular its impact, and not an exercise in literary criticism. The Ministry of Truth then is a welcome addition to the Orwell deluge: it should fascinate and delight devotees and Orwell beginners equally. Index, precis, and extensive notes, but, alas, no general bibliography.
    Fast backwards a decade or so and we get Orwell’s far less well known but no less profound, and arguably best book, Homage to Catalonia, his account of his fighting on the Loyalist (Republican) side in the Spanish Civil War in 1937. The war was a magnet for journalists, novelists, leftists, adventurers, grifters, idealists, and not least, two very interested client state benefactors, Stalin on one side and Hitler and Mussolini on the other. However, few chroniclers can claim to have actually fought in the war, as did Orwell on the Loyalist side. Seldom has the outright futility and stupidity of war been portrayed so unflinchingly and from the standpoint of the ordinary soldier. Especially unforgettable is the dismayingly detailed account of the very moment a bullet fired by a sniper pierced his neck, barely missing a major artery.
    Orwell was a member of the POUM (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista) militia, one of several socialist groups in Spain that grew out of the Great Depression. The POUM was essentially a workers’ party, and its main focus was working conditions in Spanish factories. The POUM had little interest in the power structures in Moscow and little sympathy for the communism practiced by Joseph Stalin. Therefore it’s fascinating to read Orwell’s multi-layered discussion of the various groups and political factions fighting on the Loyalist side, not always co-operating amid their ever-tenuous relationships with their would-be masters in Moscow. It’s illuminating to read the evolution of Orwell’s initial infatuation with communism and subsequent gradual disillusionment, brought about by his observations in the war, the result being his savage lampooning in Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. The 1980 edition also benefits from Lionel’s Trilling’s perceptive if trifle long-winded introduction.
    Toward the end of the book Orwell writes eloquently, even affectionately, about his experience in the war which left him with perhaps ambivalent emotions. Moved by the little kindnesses he observed and experienced while put off by the larger social and political systems present, nonetheless in the end he survived, and not with a totally jaundiced view of humanity: “This war, in which I played so ineffectual a part, has left me with memories that are mostly evil, and yet I do not wish that I had missed it. When you have had a glimpse of such a disaster as this — and however it ends the Spanish war will turn out to have been an appalling disaster, quite apart from the slaughter and physical suffering — the result is not necessarily disillusionment and cynicism. Curiously enough the whole experience has left me with not less but more belief in the decency of human beings. And I hope the account I have given is not too misleading.”
    It should be no surprise that Orwell’s life and work have inspired several fictional accounts, and one of the most recent, and best, is Dennis Glover’s novel The Last Man in Europe, which covers Orwell’s life from 1935 to his untimely death in 1950. As much as Last Man ostensibly focuses on the great man’s magnum opus, which (co)incidentally was originally called The Last Man in Europe, only about a third of the book actually covers the last years at Barnhill on the Scottish island of Jura and the writing of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Among other things these sections include unvarnished accounts of the primitive living conditions and Orwell's progressively failing health, complete with unsettling details of treatments for his tuberculosis at hospital. Glover has a smoothly readable prose style and is an expert storyteller. It’s been said some nonfiction works read like fiction but here the order is reversed: Glover’s quasi-academic yet eminently reader-friendly narrative, along with his undoubted command of the facts, are so compelling we’re convinced that it’s a true story we’re reading and not a fictionalized account. Much as Glover draws his material generally from actual real-life events, he creatively embroiders and enhances the story in interesting and entertaining ways. Perhaps this accounts for more background and ‘telling’ in this version than snappy repartee, though I did like the dinner party with H.G. Wells and both men’s edgy back-and-forth.
    But Last Man is ultimately a serious work: the book is more a meditation of concepts and philosophy, specifically Orwell’s, than sparkling dialogue. As Glover writes so perceptively in his afterword, “ … Orwell’s nightmare future was not an imaginative work of science fiction (a genre he often criticized) but an amplification of dangerous political and intellectual trends he witnessed in his time.” Last Man in Europe will certainly appeal to Orwell buffs and especially those who have read Nineteen Eighty-Four and is a welcome addition to the vast Orwell literature.

    Further reading: Richard Rhodes, Hell and Good Company: The Spanish Civil War and the World It Made, Simon & Schuster, 2015; Amanda Vaill, Hotel Florida: Truth, Love, and Death in the Spanish Civil War, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014. 2014; James Agee, Film Writing and Selected Journalism, Library of America, distributed in the U.S. by Penguin Putnam, 2005; Rebecca Solnit, Orwell's Roses, Viking, 2021.

    1 ‘Macaulayesque’ is a term I've coined in honor of Rose Macauley, whose 1919 dystopian novel What Not is said to have anticipated, and possibly influenced, both Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World. Macauley also penned a book about the Spanish Civil War, And No Man’s Wit, which has an uncanny parallel to Orwell’s memoir Homage to Catalonia, discussed herein.
   2 One might have thought the obvious choice was Christopher Hitchens, who wrote at length on Orwell and was an accomplished essayist himself. But Hitchens has a certain sharp edge and almost self-conscious sense of irony, along with a tendency to pomposity, none of which are present in Orwell’s writing. Thus I thought Agee would be the more interesting, and more apropos, choice for comparison.
   3 And sometimes he missed the boat, his lack of interest in film noir being a prime example.
   4 As was the case with many writers of the Thirties and Forties, there’s a leftist tilt in the writings of Agee and Orwell. However, they were not always consistent or predictable in their views.
   5 Orwell invariably insisted on the full spelling of the novel’s eighteen letters as the book’s true title, not the digits ‘1984’.
  6 The two volumes Packer refers to are Unpleasant Facts and its companion volume All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays.

the good war that never ends

    Collingham, E. M. (Elizabeth M.)  The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food. New York, Penguin, 2012.
     Kempowski, Walter. Swansong 1945: A Collective Diary of the Last Days of the Third Reich. Translated from the German by Shaun Whiteside. Foreword by Alan Bance. New York, Norton, 2015. [Originally published in Great Britain by Granta Books, 2014 as Swansong 1945: A Collective Diary from Hitler's Last Birthday to VE Day.] "Original German edition first published in 2005. Walter Kempowski: Das Echolot. Abgesang '45 Ein kollekitives Tagebuch. Copyright © 2005 by Albrecht Knaus Verlag, Munich."
     McConahay , Mary Jo. The Tango War: The Struggle for the Hearts, Minds and Riches of Latin America during World War II. New York, St. Martin’s 2018.
     McMeekin, Sean. Stalin’s War: A New History of World War II. New York, Basic Books, 2021.
     Schmid, Walter. A German POW in New Mexico. Translated by Richard Rundell; edited by Wolfgang T. Schlauch. Albuquerque, NM, University of New Mexico Press, 2005. [Published in cooperation with the Historical Society of New Mexico]. [First published in Germany in 2000 under the title Einer unter Vielen: ein Bericht über Kriegseinsatz in Tunesien und Gefangenschaft in Amerika und England 1942-1947 (W. Schmid [Libri Books on Demand], Hamburg, [Norderstedt], 2000)].
     Selby, Scott Andrew. A Serial Killer in Nazi Berlin: The Chilling True Story of the S-Bahn Murderer. New York, Berkley Books, 2014.


    For professional historians as well as amateur enthusiasts (like myself), World War II is a source of never ending fascination and discovery, as is witnessed by the continuing deluge from the major publishing houses, small presses, and do-it yourselfers: every year new information is discovered or a new take on the events surges forth.
    As for myself, I enjoy the offbeat and even eccentric approaches to the conflict: studies that consider a specialized aspect or offer a different perspective, in contrast to the Allied-centric narrative we’re presented by pop culture venues like the History Channel, Story, A&E, Hollywood, and the many popular histories. Thus the six, relatively recent, entries considered here, presenting as they do aspects of the war that haven’t been covered so thoroughly, are especially welcome.
   Selby’s account of a serial murderer in Nazi Berlin at the height of the war, and Schmid’s POW memoir, while the slightest entries, are in their different ways the most remarkable, certainly the most novel, of the six volumes considered herein. McMeekin’s hefty Stalin tome, even with its revisionist vibe, is the most conventional in content and treatment, and moreover has considerable academic sheen. Collingham's analysis of food and the war similarly takes the familiar historical approach. The two remaining titles, Tango War and Swansong 1945, fall somewhere in-between.
    Kempowskli’s volume, however, is practically sui generis and thus deserves primacy as it is indeed a unique historical document. Swansong delivers the goods primo as it portrays the multi-dimensional, collage-like nature of the war as experienced by a wide swath of individuals. Swansong is the final entry of Kempowski’s ten-volume, 7,000-page opus maximus, Sonar: A Collective Journal (1993-2005). For two decades Kempowski collected newspaper articles, diaries, letters, memoirs and documents written by people on all sides of the fighting and from every level of experience and life during World War II. Swansong 1945 covers the final conflagration and ultimate end of Nazi Germany and the war in Europe. It covers four fateful days in Spring 1945: Hitler's birthday on April 20, American and Soviet troops meeting at the Elbe on April 25, Hitler's suicide on April 30, and finally the German surrender on May 8. In the Sources section the vast majority of the cites are of German texts, giving a primary source verisimilitude to the mix.
    The various persons quoted run the gamut from heads of state to civilians, prisoners-of-war, ordinary soldiers, refugees, and artists and writers caught up in the conflict. Indeed for some of us, such first-person historical accounts of the type we get in Swansong are the best barometers for what really happened, even if in some cases the memories must be treated with care. Still, one is tempted to invoke the cliché compulsively readable, because this book is exactly that. It’s tough to put down because there’s something compelling on every page.
    Especially fascinating to read Joseph Goebbels’s unintentionally ironic entry from 20 April (perhaps not so coincidentally Hitler’s birthday), in which he poetically – and presciently – waxes on about a newer, brighter Europe that will emerge after the war. Just such a Europe did emerge, but perhaps not in the way Dr. Goebbels envisioned. Then there’s an SS officer recalling a dinner at the fashionable Hotel Adlon in Berlin on April 20, where “waiters in tuxedos and maîtres d’ in tailcoats went on solemnly and unflappably serving purple pieces of kohlrabi on the silver trays meant for better days.” And there are the chilling first-hand accounts of the activities at the Führerbunker during the last days of the war.
      One quibble: I would have preferred some photographs of the individuals. If that wasn’t possible then a few photos of the various diaries, newspaper clippings, letters, notebooks, etc.. to give a flavor of the originals. But a quibble is only a quibble. Swansong 1945 is a work of signal import and is highly recommended to all serious students of WW2.
     Sean McMeekin’s ponderous Stalin’s War: A New History of World War II is not so much a new history – most of the chronologies and events discussed have been covered at length elsewhere – as it is a new emphasis and interpretation, actually more of individuals than events themselves. Most historical accounts of WW2 describe it as Hitler’s war and make Hitler the central protagonist and ultimate villain in the conflict. McMeekin, however, argues that the war that emerged in Europe in August 1939 was the one Stalin wanted, not Hitler, also that the Pacific War was due at least in part to Stalin’s maneuverings and schemings. McMeekin covers in some detail the massive aid in materiel offered to the Soviets by the United States. Apparently egged on by “Soviet assets” in his orbit, President Roosevelt went out of his way to appease the Soviet dictator, perhaps too much so. If Roosevelt didn’t exactly give away the store, he gave way a lot. The ultimate result was that Stalin emerged as the major beneficiary of the war, and that the Soviet Union was in a much stronger position, albeit at horrific cost, at the war’s conclusion than when the war started.
     McMeekin doesn’t go so far as to overtly endorse the controversial Suvorov theory that Stalin was planning to attack the West in 1941 or 1942, and that Hitler simply beat him to the punch by attacking the Soviet Union first, a classic case of a preventive, rather than preemptive, assault [1]. But if one reads carefully between the lines we can see at least a certain sympathy for and receptivity to this revisionist view. That McMeekin had access to documents in Russian archives and reads Russian adds strength to his arguments, be they controversial or conventional. Stalin’s War includes index, photos, and 120 pages of notes and bibliography.
     Similarly Mary Jo McConahay’s The Tango War, if not quite revisionist history, refreshingly takes on an aspect of WW2 that’s largely ignored in conventional histories, that is, the struggle between the U.S. and Germany for allegiances – and resources – in Latin America during World War II. Indeed McConahay’s opus may well be the first popular survey of what was going on South-of-Border during WW2, and for the most part the book succeeds admirably.
     McConahay’s approach is journalistic rather than purely historical, and she concentrates on the human element in the form of the wide array of colorful, often shady characters on both sides of the conflict. Perhaps most entertaining are the descriptions of the Good Neighbor efforts by the Office of Inter-American Affairs, which sent not-so-secret weapons – Hollywood celebrities like Errol Flynn, Orson Welles and the Walt Disney troupe – south to garner good will for the American cause. In the case of Welles and Disney, some legitimate cinematic products resulted, specifically Welles’s ill-fated documentary It’s All True and the Disney films Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros. On the other hand, the shameful, forced internment in the U.S. of "dangerous" individuals being extended to Central and South America was one of the more cringeworthy episodes recounted in the book, especially so since some of the internees were exchanged for American prisoners-of-war. Likewise compelling is the chapter on espionage activities. There’s also a section on the infamous ‘ratlines,’ the escape routes that helped Nazi fugitives escape to South America.
     In the final chapter McConahay discusses the sinister parallels between European fascists of World War II and Latin American dictators of the 1970s and ’80s, many of whom were unrepentant fans of Mussolini and Hitler. These regimes had the sometimes public, sometimes covert, backing of Washington, so long as they were anti-Communist and friendly toward American economic interests. A mild weakness of Tango War is that McConahay eschews the chronologic for the topical, and as a result there’s some jumping around in the narrative. On balance, however, a good read, also replete with lots of photos. Tango War is a long overdue examination of a little-known aspect of the war.
     Scott Andrew Selby’s A Serial Killer in Nazi Berlin is more noteworthy for the book’s subject matter than its treatment or style. For all that there’s plenty of works in English on Germany’s war effort, both military and civilian alike, little has been written on crime and criminals in the Third Reich amongst ordinary civilians, much less about serial murderers. And as has been pointed out, it’s a concept awash in contradiction: that such a regime specializing in state sponsored mass murder would spend so many resources tracking down a lone killer of a few women is difficult to understand. Indeed the dynamic is not unlike that depicted so provocatively in Hans Helmutt Kirst’s novel Night of the Generals, later adapted into a popular film, which told the story of a Polish prostitute murdered in 1942 by a high ranking German general, and of a certain Major Grau’s subsequent quest to track down the culprit. One can’t help recalling Grau’s maxim, ‘let us say what is admirable on the large scale is monstrous on the small. Since we must give medals to mass murderers, why not give justice to the small entrepreneur.’
     Serial Killer covers the case of Paul Ogorzow, the S-Bahn Killer. He had a family, a job with the railroad, and was a member of the Nazi Party. Since Ogorzow worked on the railway he found that the air raid blackouts at night provided good cover for him to do his deeds. Ogorzow murdered eight women total, attempted to murder six others, and assaulted many others. Wilhelm Lüdtke, head of the Berlin police’s serious crimes division, emerges as the story’s hero as he was tasked to hunt down the monster in the midst, and eventually he did. Lüdtke had the, albeit discreet, support of the likes of Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels, who “wanted to project an image of Nazi Germany as a place free from such problems as the predations of a serial killer.” Lüdtke’s rather florid afterlife following the war is covered in some detail in the epilogue. In addition to his other activities, Lüdtke worked as an asset for the CIA in the 1950s.
     Ogorzow was convicted and sentenced to death. He was executed – by guillotine – two days later. The book offers plenty of detail about the S-Bahn and investigative techniques of the German police, but little on the psychology of the protagonist. Thus the story that emerges is rather dry. For those of us accustomed to the backgrounds and especially psychology of serial killers, we sense something is lacking.
     The case was such a sensation that a series of crime novels emerged, most prominently Death Rode the Train (Der Tod fuhr im Zug). Its author was Wilhelm Ihde, writing under the name Axel Alt, and the killer’s name was changed to ‘Omanzow,’ but the fiction didn’t fool anybody, and the book was a big seller in Germany during the war. An even more bizarre detail is that Ogorzow’s widow was charged a fee for the use of the guillotine during the execution. Serial Killer includes a detailed S-Bahn map as well as photos of S-Bahn carriages, stations and towers.
     Walter Schmid’s A German POW in New Mexico offers a different take on the war experience. There are any number of WW2 personal narratives out there, written by those on all sides of the conflict, among them quite a few prisoner-of-war memoirs. Most of these are from the Allied point of view, but there aren’t many accounts of the German POW experience, written by a German, published in English, no less. In fact, A German POW is the only one I know of, though indeed there could be others.
     Walter Schmid was a member of Rommel's Afrika Korps and had fought only five months before he was captured in Tunisia. Schmid was one of 380,000 German POWs sent to prison camps in the United States. He was first sent to Oklahoma and soon transferred to New Mexico in July 1944. Schmid worked in southern New Mexico near Las Cruces as a farm laborer. His primary duties were picking cotton and harvesting melons. A German POW in New Mexico is based on his diary and the letters he sent home to his German girlfriend, whom he later married. Schmid's memoir was published in Germany in 2000, and the the abbreviated English version that’s A German POW in New Mexico benefits from the translation of Richard Rundell. Special mention must also be made of editor Wolfgang Schlauch’s introduction, as well as his commentary interspersed throughout. Includes vintage photos, bibliography and appendixes.
     Collingham's hefty opus, Taste of War, was an eye opener for me in many ways. Even as a (admittedly amateur) WW2 buff, truth be told I never thought much about the importance of food production and delivery in the context of the conflict. There have been many books on the personalities, battles and strategy of the war, but the present tome may well be the first scholarly (more or less) treatment of how something so basic as the supply of food and the feeding of soldiers (and civilians) was central to the prosecution of the total war that was World War II. Includes photos, maps, extensive notes and bibliography. Much recommended.  

   [1] Suvorov, Viktor.The Chief Culprit: Stalin's Grand Design to Start World War II. Annapolios, Md., Naval Institute Press 2008.

hitting all the right notes: Diva (1981)

Diva. Irene Silberman présente un film de Jean-Jacques Beineix; adaptation, Jean-Jacques Beineix et Jean Van Hamme; dialogues, Jean-Jacques Beineix; une co-production Les Films Galaxie, Greenwich Film Production avec la participation de Antenne 2. Santa Monica, Calif., Lions Gate Entertainment, 2008. Director of photography, Philippe Rousselot; editors, Marie-Josephe Yoyotte, Monique Prim Adapted from the novel by Delacorta. Originally released as a motion picture in 1981. Performers: Frederic Andrei, Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez, Roland Bertin, Richard Bohringer, Gerard Darmon, Chantal Deruaz, Jacques Fabbri.
    Summary: Jules, a young mail courier, is an impassioned fan of Cynthia Hawkins, a legendary, and determinedly unrecorded opera star. He smuggles a tape recorder into a performance and tapes her singing. At the same time, a prostitute hides a tape recording that details the career of a French mobster in Jules' delivery bag. Dizzying chases and bizarre plot twists follow, as Jules is pursued through Paris, aided by his two eccentric friends, Gorodish and his Vietnamese mistress, Alba.

    When it first came out all those many decades ago, well, four decades actually, I was fortunate enough to see Diva in the theater and enjoyed it very much. Only recently I’ve had the good fortune to catch it again on DVD and am delighted to say it’s even better than I remember. It seems to be a mixture of many styles and genres – thriller, art movie, comedy, surreal fantasy, film noir (albeit in color). But whatever the pedigree Diva is eminently, inevitably French. Indeed I see it as a kind of Frenchified Fellini, especially suggesting Roma and in particular the chase scene which recalls the last scene in Roma with all those motorcycles in their va-va-voom vroom glory. By the way, the DVD transfer looks like a million dollars, which further emphasizes Diva’s modern look and feel. Likewise, Diva’s slyly implied critique of commodified consumer culture seems more on the money today that when the film originally appeared.
    Wilhelminia Wiggins Fernandez is terrific in the title role. I’m a bit of a classical music – but not necessarily opera – buff and I don’t know much about Miss Fernandez’s subsequent career, as an opera singer or actress. In any case she’s just perfect here: her vocal timbre strikes me as very Callas-like – now there’s a lady who knew a little about being a diva. And at least in her public appearances, whether in recital or being interviewed by pesky reporters, title character Cynthia Hawkins, played by Miss Fernandez, seems to be channeling much of the Callas polish and hauteur. Indeed the film’s signature tune "Ebben? Ne andrò lontana" from Catalani’s opera La Wally, sung so expressively by Miss Fernandez, was a Callas specialty.
    Diva is a wild ride of textures, images and moods, and who cares if the plot’s a little shaky? Quite a bit shaky actually. Indeed if there ever was a film in which style triumphs over substance, this is it. But Diva has other merits. Best of all perhaps is the assortment of grifters, low-lifes, prostitutes, corrupt cops, good cops, aesthetes, journalists, bootleggers and various hangers on that pop up throughout, and of course we can’t forget our nominal hero Jules. But among the supporting cast and bit players pride of place must go to the drug cartel’s brutal, if slightly incompetent, assassins L’Antillais and Le Curé, two of the sleaziest characters you’ll ever see anywhere.
    Diva then is absolutely sui generis. I can’t think of anything like it, before or since. However, for all the film’s exuberant panache and historical significance, the one downside is that Diva’s director Jean-Jacques Beineix never quite found his voice so harmoniously again.