Tea at Trianon: Almost There: Marlene Dietrich in "Witness for the Prosecution"

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, July 30, 2020

Almost There: Marlene Dietrich in "Witness for the Prosecution"

From The Film Experience:

In other words, the role of Christine Vole is performance inside another performance, inside a performance, a Matryoshka of lies and deceit. Only at the end does Dietrich get to show genuine emotion for, until then, she must play a Machiavellian genius pulling the strings, both towards the characters in the story and the audience watching the film. We mustn't trust Christine during any of the early scenes, and, in that regard, Dietrich excels as no other actress could. Leaning on her glamourous, but aloof, screen persona, she conjures a vision of untrustworthiness made flesh, an archetypal femme fatale that's as beautiful as she is poisonous.

It's easy to underappreciate Dietrich's craft since she so often played similar roles and hardly ever challenged the public and the studio's idea of herself. Watching her give life to Christine feels a lot like seeing a consummate professional going through the motions, a well-oiled machine whose precision doesn't surprise. Still, there's intelligence in the actress's choices, like the way she holds her body in rigid poses when on trial. Dietrich calls attention to the performative nature of Christine by contrasting such rigidity, as well as the staccato intensity of her anger, with the body language she exhibits during the amorous flashback and the finale's plot twist. (Read more.)