Tag Archives: 1928

RIP Lina Wertmüller (1928 – 2021)

Lina Wertmüller was an Italian film director best known as the auteur of The Seduction of Mimi (1972), Love and Anarchy (1973), Swept Away (1974), and Seven Beauties (1975).

Street flirting scene in The Seduction of Mimi, like a ballet actually.

Since I had not seen any of Lina Wertmüller’s movies yet, I watched all four of these over the weekend. One dubbed in English with Spanish subtitles, two in Italian with Portuguese subtitles, one in Italian with no subtitles.

A Belgian film critic

There was a Belgian film critic on Facebook who said that he’d never liked Wertmüller’s films, Patrick Duynslaegher is his name. He called the performances in her films exaggerated and he wondered how she could have merited the success she had once had.

One person commented on the good man’s post that his disapproval probably meant that these films  were good films. Ever since the days, she said, when he still wrote for Knack, when he panned a film, she had gathered it was probably a masterpiece, and it usually was. He replied graciously to her comment that he was glad that he had been able to guide her through the film landscape in this special way.

Four of her films

I watched the four films and as could be expected I felt different about these films than Duynslaegher. I was amused, I laughed, I thought they were very witty films, I didn’t find them pretentious anywhere.

The scene in Seven Beauties where the picaro in a concentration camp seduces the ugly, obese camp commander is masterful.

The flirtation scene in The Seduction of Mim‘ is, if anything, even more masterful.

The f***ing scene in Mimi with the obese ‘mama’ is hilarious.

Giancarlo Giannini is excellent in each of those films, he reminds me very much of Patrick Dewaere.

I don’t really understand your problem with her films, I said to Patrick. Surely Fellini is just as grotesque and unrealistic?

Sex

I found the rape scene in Swept Away hot and it reminded me of the extended scene in Irréversible, which was repulsive.

The sadomasochism in the seduction of the female prison guard in Seven Beauties is not the only bout of sadomasochism, because before the rape scene he had forced her to kiss his hand and after the rape scene the woman becomes as docile as ever and even kisses his feet.

Opening montage of Seven Beauties

And then there is the opening montage of Seven Beauties, where we see historical footage from WWII, with a song by Enzo Jannacci superimposed. In that song, titled “Quelli che” (English “those who”), Enzo sings cynical commentary phrases in parlando style. And after every sentence he says “oh yeah”, in a crooner-like way.

RIP William F. Nolan (1928 – 2021)

William F. Nolan was an American author best known for co-writing Logan’s Run, a dystopian novel which shows similarities to Blade Runner.

Trailer for Logan’s Run

Logan (the protagonist from Logan’s Run) is Rick Deckard (the protagonist from Blade Runner). Both chase renegades, rebels from the system. Logan is a sandman (a cop chasing people who refuse to be euthanized) and Deckard is a blade runner (a cop who chases robots who refuse to be put out of circulation).

Both change sides during the story, becoming renegades and rebels themselves.

For interesting thoughts on these similarities, check Hollywood Utopia: Ecology in Contemporary American Cinema (2005) and Blade Runner 2049 and Philosophy: This Breaks the World (2019).

RIP Tempest Storm (1928 – 2021)

Teaserama (1955)

Tempest Storm was an American burlesque star. Burlesque was a tem invented as an ameliorative for striptease.

In the history of American erotica, burlesque films came just before nudist films. One difference between the two genres was that during the era of burlesque, pasties were used, while the nudism of nudist films provided an excuse to show full nudity, as far as toplessness went.

To my surprise the film above, Teaserama (1955) also includes silly skits in the style:

  • “he’s so honest he finds things before they are lost”
  • “he studied for a doctor once, the doctor was too busy to study for himself”
  • “he treated a man for five years before he found out the guy was a chinaman.”

RIP Ennio Morricone (1928 – 2020)

“Ma Non Troppo Erotico” (1971)

Ennio Morricone was an Italian composer, a veritable monument.

He composed over 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as over 100 classical works.

“Dies Irae Psichedelico” (1968)

He is best known for the characteristic sparse and memorable soundtracks of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns: “Man with a Harmonica” from Once Upon a Time in the West and the theme to “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”. The first has a haunting harmonica and the second an immediately recognizable flute/whistle.

When I compiled the Jahsonic 1000, I also included “Dies Irae Psichedelico” (1968) and “Ma Non Troppo Erotico” (1971).

RIP Luigi Colani (1928 – 2019)

Luigi Colani was a German industrial designer, known for his use of curvilinear biomorphism.

I wished him happy 80th birthday in 2008 and did a post on biomorphism in in 2007.

Car Styling brought four special issues on his work:

  • Designing Tomorrow (1978)
  • For a Brighter Tomorrow (1983)
  • Bio-Design of Tomorrow (1984)
  • Concept-Design of Tomorrow (2010)

I own ‘Designing Tomorrow ‘ the first of these booklets, in the magazine edition, in very good condition. I’m selling it for 100 euros, contact me if you are interested.

This is a good occasion to delve into the historiography of biomorphism:

The term biomorph was coined in 1895 by anthropologist Alfred Cort Haddon in his book Evolution in Art, in which he stated that “the biomorph is the representation of anything living in contradistinction to the skeuomorph, which […] is the representation of anything”.

One year later, British writer Geoffrey Grigson uses the term biomorphism in two essays: in the short “Comment on England” (1935) he notes that “abstractions are of two kinds, geometric […] and biomorphic,” and observes that the way forward are the biomorphic abstractions; in the chapter “Painting and sculpture” in The Arts Today (1935), he describes the term biomorphic as “no bad term for the paintings of Miro, Hélion, Erni and others, to distinguish them from the modern geometric abstractions and from rigid Surrealism.”

Another year later, in 1936, New York art historian Alfred H. Barr Jr. in the catalogue of his 1936 exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art, borrowed Grigson’s term without acknowledgement and noted that there is a secondary current in abstract art wich stems from Gauguin and Matisse and is “intuitional and emotional rather than intellectual; organic or biomorphic rather than geometrical in its forms; curvilinear rather than rectilinear, decorative rather than structural, and romantic rather than classical in its exaltation of the mystical, the spontaneous and the irrational.” He mentions the work of Joan Miró and Jean Arp and concludes: “the shape of the square confronts the silhouette of the amoeba.” Barr elegantly points to the major faultlines in 20th century art, which run along the axes ‘straight lines vs curvilinearity’, ‘wit vs seriousness’, and ‘cult of beauty vs cult of ugliness’ (or sexuality vs asexuality).

For a historiography of these early beginnings of biomorphism, consult Biocentrism and Modernism (2017).

Colani is dead. The last persons in my database alive in 1928 are philosopher Noam Chomsky, anthropologist Desmond Morris, musician Ennio Morricone and photographer William Klein.