|
The original title (Caprice Espagnol) evokes Rimsky-Korsakov, the circular structure of desire inflamed and thwarted echoes Ravel. Carnival in Seville, a sea of masks crossed by Concha in her balloon-festooned coach, Marlene Dietrich spangled and lacquered and full of sharp edges. "The toast of Spain" catches the eye of the wandering young revolutionary (Cesar Romero), his friend the former Captain of the Civil Guard (Lionel Atwill) tries to discourage him from the planned rendezvous with a remembrance of allure and fickleness. Demure under a birdcage, tempestuous at a cigarette factory out of Bizet, the chanteuse who leans in for a kiss one moment and recoils coquettishly the next. The aristocrat's declaration of obsessive love cannot compete with the heroine's own reflection as she pats the curl on her forehead before a mirror, he's unceremoniously ditched for a sullen matador. "A jealous man is no more dangerous than a blind bull." Josef von Sternberg's remarkable, scalding-frigid private eulogy, with the cuckolded protagonist made up into an unmistakable facsimile and the ravishing muse turned angular temptress. A profusion of ornate textures (nets and slatted windows, showers of confetti and masts bobbing in the mist, heavy rain and arching fronds) to contrast with the nudity of the artist's pained serenity. "Are you my lover? Well, I must say you are content with very little." John Dos Passos adaptation, the director as his own cameraman, the purest masochist limbo. The tragedy of men and a woman's comedy, a bullet for the Queen of Hearts. On his back at the hospital following a duel, forever at the mercy of the lady with the ruthless pout and the vaginal name, Sternberg wouldn't want it any other way. "Let it never be said that he didn't know how to value beauty." Buñuel has the official recomposition (That Obscure Object of Desire), Kubrick the unofficial one (Eyes Wide Shut). With Edward Everett Horton, Alison Skipworth, Don Alvarado, and Tempe Pigott. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |