Wiesbaden
August 19th, 2007
A few pictures from the city I used to call home, the town where Priscilla met Elvis. More Wiesbaden facts:
- The thermal springs of Wiesbaden were first mentioned in Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia in 121.
- By 1800, there were 2,239 inhabitants and twenty-three bath houses. Among visitors to the springs were Goethe, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Richard Wagner, and Johannes Brahms. In 1900, there were 86,100 inhabitants and 126,000 visitors. In those years there were more millionaires living in Wiesbaden than in any other city in Germany.
- The Wiesbaden synagogue was destroyed during Kristallnacht, November 9, 1938.
- Wiesbaden is home to the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau Foundation.
- Volker Schlöndorff and John McEnroe were born in Wiesbaden.
- Sting, Lionel Richie, and Luciano Pavarotti have performed on the Bowling Green in front of the Kurhaus.
- Wiesbaden’s coat of arms features three times as many fleurs-de-lys as New Orleans.
- More photos from previous trips.
Intolerance
April 7th, 2007
D.W. Griffith’s epic about “Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages” is surprisingly compelling for a silent film from 1916. “Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,” four stories take shape. In the modern tale, a working family endures greedy bosses, meddling “uplifters” and false murder charges. The other three stories tell of Christ’s crucifixion, the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, and the fall of Babylon. As the opening credits helpfully announce, the common theme, invoked again and again, is intolerance (you have to say it with a booming carnival-barker’s voice: in-tol-er-ance!). The accelerating back-and-forth between historical periods keeps things interesting, and of course you already heard about the unbelievable sets of the Babylonian sections. The gargantuan siege contains more than a few moments that will seem familiar from The Lord of the Rings, but hey, everybody’s ripping off Peter Jackson. Intolerance is recommended for anyone; if you have a taste for silent film, it’s a must-see.
Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages. D.W. Griffith, 1916. ****
Here are ten minutes of the siege of Babylon:
Decasia: The State of Decay
September 23rd, 2006
There isn’t much I can add to this fine description of Bill Morrison’s hallucinatory assemblage of decaying film stock:
As Decasia continues, the calligraphy of decay grows increasingly hallucinatory and catastrophic. The sea buckles. Flesh melts. A boxer struggles against the disintegration of the image. Wall Street is half consumed in flames. A dozen little parachutes dot the cracked sky. A group of nuns traverse a courtyard that frames an Italian landscape in severe perspective, evoking a Renaissance vision of the Last Judgment. Japón has been termed Buddhist in its contemplative acceptance of change; Decasia seems more Hindu in its awesome spectacle of violent flux. The film is a fierce dance of destruction. Its flame-like, roiling black-and-white inspires trembling and gratitude.
Decasia, Bill Morrison, 2002. ***
[tags]film, 3 stars, documentary, trippy, silent film, decay[/tags]
