Showing posts with label George Eastman House. Show all posts
Showing posts with label George Eastman House. Show all posts

Monday, April 20, 2015

Pandora's Box starring Louise Brooks plays in Rochester, New York on April 21

The George Eastman House in Rochester, New York will be screening the classic 1929 German silent, Pandora's Box, on April 21st. The film, which will be shown in the Dryden Theater at 8pm, stars Louise Brooks as Lulu. (Undoubtedly, Louise Brooks watched this film in this  theater.)

Here is what the GEH website says:

(Die Büchse der Pandora, Georg Wilhelm Pabst, Germany 1929, 133 min., 35mm)

"For James Card, there was only one Louise Brooks. The cineaste referred to his lifelong infatuation as an emotional devotion that had begun at the age of 14, calling Brooks an inadvertent femme fatale who could in no way be coquettish or even deliberately seductive—ideal for the role of Lulu in Pandora’s Box, heroine of Frank Wedekind’s beloved German plays. An innocently immoral sexual predator, Lulu discards and destroys men as she tries to get ahead, until she meets Jack the Ripper. The steamy story is a tangled web of intrigue and deception—the camera work, sets, and direction brilliantly economical, powerfully simple."

“Pabst’s was the keyhole system: I’ll put your eye to the keyhole—become a voyeur of this scene and make of it what you will. A viewer is forced to participate intellectually in a Pabst film.” – James Card

Live piano by Philip C. Carli.

Saturday, April 11, 2015

The Legacy of James Card, exhibit at George Eastman House

Collecting Shadows: The Legacy of James Card

From April 11, 2015 through October 18, 2015 in Colonnade (at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York)

James Card at his desk, ca. 1970.
George Eastman House.

October 25, 2015, marks the 100th birthday of James Card, the museum’s first curator of motion pictures. Card’s role in building the moving image collection at George Eastman House and in furthering the cause for film preservation worldwide is without equal. This exhibition will celebrate Card’s roles as collector, educator, and showman, through photographs, film clips, and his own writings about his passion for film and sharing it with the public.

An extensive series in the Dryden Theatre will showcase films that influenced Card as a collector and those that would not exist today had it not been for his preservation work.

Much more info at http://eastmanhouse.org/tools/pressroom/view.php?title=jamescard

The story of Louise Brooks and James Card is intertwined. Among the films scheduled to be shown is Pandora's Box (1929), on April 21st, which Card helped rescue from obscurity.

Monday, December 3, 2012

A Girl in Every Port with Louise Brooks at George Eastman House

The 1928 Louise Brooks film, A Girl in Every Port, screens on December 4th at 8:00 pm in the Dryden Theater at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York. That's the same theater where Louise Brooks used to watch films in the 1960s. Here's what the GEH website has to say about this event:




A Girl in Every Port
(Howard Hawks, US 1928, 62 min.)

Preceded by:
The Treasurer’s Report
(Thomas Chalmers, US 1928, 10 min.)
 
Silent Tuesdays. Movie theatres were just being wired for sound in 1928, so it wouldn’t have been unusual for a cinema to show a silent starring a tried-and-true draw like Louise Brooks in A Girl in Every Port — where Brooks shows her considerable talent for wearing a tight-fitting bathing suit through most of the film — with one of the newfangled “talkies.” Here it’s humorist Robert Benchley’s film debut The Treasurer’s Report, in which he established his soon-to-be world-famous befuddled public speaker routine. A Girl in Every Port was Brooks’s last film before going off to Germany to make Pandora’s Box, her last American silent starring role, and one of the last silent films Fox made. Can Brooks survive both high diving and the “suave” attentions of Victor McLaglen and Robert Armstrong?

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Dryden Theater in Rochester turns 60

The Dryden Theater, where Louise Brooks spent many an hour watching films, turns 60 years old. The theater is part of the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York.

Jack Garner, the noted film critic for the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle and a friend of the actress, penned an article about the anniversary. Garner wrote:
The Dryden opened in March 1951, thanks to the vision of James Card, the museum's first curator of motion pictures. After Eastman House opened in 1948 as a museum for photography and motion pictures, Card saw the need for an exhibition space to show off the substantial film collection. Card got George Eastman's niece, Ellen, and her husband, George Dryden, behind the project as donors and supporters of a fundraising campaign.
I had a chance to take a peek inside the Dryden Theater when I visited the George Eastman House in 2006 (as pictured right). It was thrilling to think Brooks (and many other early film stars honored at Eastman House) entered the Dryden right where I was standing. More info about the Dryden Theater and the George Eastman House can be found at http://www.eastmanhouse.org/ and on my column at examiner.com.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Love Em and Leave Em to screen in Rochester, NY

Love Em and Leave Em, the fast-paced 1926 romantic comedy featuring Louise Brooks, will be shown in the Dryden Theater at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York on Tuesday, November 16th at 8:00 pm. 

The GEH announcement states, "This early comedy features Louise Brooks and Evelyn Brent as the dueling Walsh sisters: Brent’s Mame is bookish and considerate, while Brooks’s Janie is a heartbreaking flapper whose morals extend so low as to snag her sister’s betrothed. Their relationship comes under even further trial as Janie finds herself in a financial hole from which only Mame’s sibling devotion can rescue her. Far ahead of its time in sexual politics, Love ’Em and Leave ’Em also exhibits one of Brooks’ rare onscreen dance routines. Live piano by Philip C. Carli."


The Dryden Theatre (where once Brooks herself used to watch films) is located at George Eastman House (900 East Avenue) in Rochester, New York. For further information, call 585.271.4090. A little more on this special event can be found at examiner.com

Sunday, January 28, 2007

December Trip (part two)

From Detroit, my wife and I flew to Rochester, New York. As most readers of this blog know, Louise Brooks made her home in Rochester starting in the late 1950's. Rochester is also home to the George Eastman House, one of the largest motion picture archives in the world.  My wife and I spent a full day at the GEH, mostly looking through clipping files and archival material related to the actress. We read letters both to and from Brooks, looked at vintage photographs she once owned, poured over many clippings about the actress, and examined other related documents such as manuscript pages, programs, and books. And of course, we took lots of notes.

While at the George Eastman House, we also took the opportunity to see the Louise Brooks exhibit, which was then on display. Here are a few snapshots taken in the museum. Anthony L'Abbate, the helpful curatorial assistant, took this first picture of my wife and I. It was very exciting to be there.



As can be seen from these pictures, the Brooks exhibit at the GEH was a modest one. (The exhibit took up one room - with a few other pictures hanging in the adjoining hallway.) The exhibit mostly featured photographs, many of which were familiar, some of which were not. There were also a few related magazines, books, and other items, including a painting of two birds by Louise Brooks. The painting - which is something I had never seen before - can be seen in two of the images below. (There is similiar piece of art depicted in the Barry Paris biography - see page 446.) I wonder how many such artworks Brooks completed?




It was thrilling to see this exhibit. And I am very glad we took the time to do so. My only regret is that we did not get into the GEH Dryden Theater. Wwe saw it from the outside, but it would have been interesting to see it from the inside. Lastly, here is a snapshot of one-half of the Brooks display in the George Eastman House gift shop. There were also a few DVD's for sale. Peter Cowie's new book and the recently released Pandora's Box DVD from Criterion were each featured prominantly.



While in Rochester, my wife and I also walked around the downtown. (Imagining Brooks herself walking these very streets in the 1950s or 1960's, perhaps . . . .)  We also made a point of visiting the Rochester Public Library - which Brooks frequented - and took the opportunity to do some research. 

We dug up articles, reviews and advertisements for the Denishawn Dance Company's two performances in Rochester during the years Brooks was a member of the troupe. We also scavenged some reviews and advertisements for Brooks' films when they were shown in the city in the 1920's. (Back then, Rochester boasted more than four city newspapers. And to date, I have only been able to get at a couple of them.)  We also copied more recent articles from the Rochester newspapers. For example, there were articles about the actress by Henry Clune, a local columnist. There was considerable coverage, including large headlines and front page articles, about the actress at the time of her death. And there were articles about the Louise Brooks biography by Barry Paris. All together, we gathered much new material. Citations for all that we found have been added to the LBS bibliographies.
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