#Cross of Iron 1977

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"...AND I WILL SHOW YOU WHERE THE IRON CROSSES GROW."

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on film stills to "Cross of Iron" (German: "Steiner – Das Eiserne Kreuz," lit. "Steiner – The Iron Cross"), the 1977 war film directed by Sam Peckinpah, featuring James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason and David Warner.

“Germany. Do you think they will ever forgive us for what we’ve done? Or forget us?”

-- Feldwebel ROLF STEINER to his squad

Cinematography: John Coquillon

Screenplay: Julius Epstein, James Hamilton, & Walter Kelley

Source: https://darrenlinder.wordpress.com/2018/08/15/sam-peckinpahs-cross-of-iron-1977.

[misterivy]

[ruleof3bobby]

CROSS OF IRON (1977) Grade: B

James Coburn was cold, great actor. Sam Peckinpah film so the action gritty and good, especially the sound. It had to win something for 1977? It was awesome.

[cinearche]

CROSS OF IRON. Directed by Sam Peckinpah, 1977.

[letterboxd-loggd]

Cross of Iron (1977) Sam Peckinpah

June 3rd 2024

[all-action-all-picture]

Cross of Iron (1977). Artwork by Robert Tanenbaum.

[aiiaiiiyo]

[elizadraws]

Bulgarian Music in Studio Ghibli films

”Myth has it that Orpheus was born in what is now Bulgaria. It seemed to be fact, not myth, that his daughters are still singing there”

These words were written by the New York Times in the remote 1963 — the year in which the largest Bulgarian folk ensemble crossed the Iron Curtain to conquer an entire continent with its cosmic art.

The 1975 release of Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, a compilation album of modern arrangements of Bulgarian folk songs, further popularized Bulgarian music, and in 1977, a vinyl record featuring the folk song “Izlel ye Delyo Haydutin” (Eng: Come out rebel Delyo) began its journey aboard the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecrafts.

From this point on popularity from the West spread to the East, and Bulgarian folk music made it to the entertainment industry, including legendary Japanese anime films, like the cult cyberpunk “Ghost in the Shell” or the heartwarming Studio Ghibli features.

In this short article I write about two occasions of Bulgarian music playing in Studio Ghibli’s films.

The record that inspired the creation of “Only Yesterday”

“Only Yesterday” is a 1991 Japanese animated drama film written and directed by Isao Takahata, based on the 1982 manga of the same title by Hotaru Okamoto and Yuko Tone. Set in rural Japan, the film draws parallels with the peasant lifestyle present in Eastern Europe.

The original work is a compilation of short stories about 11-year-old Taeko’s daily life in 1966. Director Takahata had a hard time making it into a movie since the manga, told in the form of a memoir, has no plot to hold a feature. Together with producer Toshio Suzuki, they came up with the solution of bringing the narrator of the story, adult Taeko, into the movie. But there is a curious anecdote about how this idea came to mind.

Taeko picks safflower as the Bulgarian song “Malka moma dvori mete” plays in the background. © Studio Ghibli

In a 2021 interview with students from Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, producer Suzuki recounts how a record of Bulgarian songs performed by the children choir “Bodra Smyana”, introduced to him by director Takahata, inspired the creation of the movie. Moved by the cosmic voices of the children, they decided to make “Only Yesterday” a musical. He also recalls what a tiring process it was to acquire the rights to the music, but if you’ve seen the movie, I am sure you will agree that it was worth it; the haunting, beautiful songs with the pastoral images of farmers picking flowers contribute to one of the greatest scenes created in cinema.

Producer Suzuki showing the record that inspired the creation of ”Only Yesterday”. Source: Studio Ghibli’s Twitter

In “Only Yesterday”, we can hear two songs from the album Bulgarian Polyphony I by Philip Koutev Ensemble. The upbeat “Dilmano Dilbero” [Eng. beautiful Dilmana] sets a happy mood as the protagonist gets changed and ready to go on the field. As the scene shifts and Taeko starts narrating a sad story about the girls in the past picking safflower with their bare hands, the song and mood shift as well.

While the first song has a fast rhythm, with lyrics about pepper planting that can also be interpreted figuratively, the second one, “Malka Moma Dvori Mete” [Eng., a little girl sweeps the yard], is a ballad about a young girl who is forced into marriage but has never known true love.

Both compositions sing about life-cycle events like marriage and the regular coming of the harvests, with lyrics perfectly fitting the setting and plot of the movie, which makes me wonder if the filmmakers chose them by chance or if they had someone translate the words.

Bulgarian Cosmic Voices Enchanting Howl

“Howl’s Moving Castle” is a 2004 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, loosely based on the 1986 novel of the same name by British author Diana Wynne Jones. Set in a fictional kingdom the movie draws inspiration from various places in Europe. One of them being Bulgaria.

The story focuses on a young girl, named Sophie, magically transformed into an old woman, and a self-confident but emotionally unstable young wizard, Howl, living in a magical moving castle.

A sketch of a Star Child. Source: The Art of Howl’s Moving Castle

If you’ve seen the movie, you surely remember the scene when Madame Suliman ambushes Howl and tries to strip him of his magic powers. Star Children encircle him and his companions; their shadows grow big, dark and intimidating. They start dancing and chanting unintelligible magic words and are almost successful in their devilish act.

This scene, together with the music played in the background, have been a favourite of many fans of the film. Some even recount it giving them nightmares when they were children.

Star Children encircle Howl in an attempt to strip him of his magic powers. © Studio Ghibli

It turns out, however, that these aren’t any incantations, but the lyrics of a folk song. In Bulgarian. And a love song! Contrary to popular belief, the lyrics have nothing to do with magic and are actually about a boy taking his sweetheart, Dona, to the market to buy her new clothes. The excerpt used in the movie is very short and a bit altered from the original, but the words used go like this: Trendafilcheto, kalafercheto, Done mamino, translated as “the rose, the costmary, my darling Dona”.

I am planing a follow up article where I will post the translated lyrics together with a brief explanation on how they are related to the movies.

If you want to comment on or add something, I would love to hear!

Source

[railwayhistorical]

Inbound at Rondout

An inbound Milwaukee Road commuter train has just joined the double track main line, coming in off the Fox Lake Branch. The train is seen here passing the well-known tower at Rondout and will now head toward Chicago Union Station on the high iron.

At the time of this image, the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern crossed here at the tower; that line would become part of Canadian National. The Milwaukee Road itself will be folded into the Canadian Pacific. The commuter train will become part of Metra, with the locomotive here (an F40C) already being funded by local transit agencies to help out the (by that time) faltering Milwaukee Road.

I’ve included the going away shot to show the F40C more clearly. EMD built only fifteen of these units, but its development led to the successful F40PH, of which there would be hundreds.

Two images by Richard Koenig; taken October 9th 1977.

[captain-price-unofficially]

CROSS OF IRON (Peckinpah, 1977)

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Louise Glück circa 1977

* * * *

"It is true that there is lack of beauty in the world. It's also true I'm not the one to give it back. There's no candor either, but I can be useful there.

I am Working, even though I'm quiet.

The island

misery of the world pull us closer, an alley with rows of trees; we are

fellas here no talking, each one with his thoughts

behind the trees, the gates of iron houses, the shutters closed

in rooms somehow empty, abandoned,

as if it were the duty from the artist create hope, but from what? from what?

The word itself it's false, an instrument that refutes the perception. At the cross,

The luminous decorations of the holidays.

I was young here. Mountain on the subway with my little book how to protect myself

from this very world:

'you are not alone' said the poem in the dark tunnel".

- Louise Glück | “October” Snippet

Note: Yesterday, October 13, Louise Glück, one of the great voices of American poetry, passed away at age 80. In 2020 he received the Nobel in Literature, culminating a career for which he had already received awards such as the Pulitzer Prize, the Averno or the National Book Prize in the United States, among others. If for something he stood out, it was for his direct, honest poetry, where he did not hide his pain or trauma, nor his fighting spirit. This poem, which is one of our favorites, entitled, precisely, "October", summarizes part of his life philosophy. Rest in peace.

(Translation is by Abraham Gragera and Ruth Miguel Franco for Pre-texts) [Hermeneuta. Revista cultural]

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"WAR IS A CONTINUATION OF STATE POLICY THROUGH OTHER MEANS."

PIC INFO: Resolution at 960x1629 -- Spotlight on a Greek-language movie/promotional poster for the WWII/anti-war film "Cross of Iron" (German: "Steiner – Das Eiserne Kreuz," translation: "Steiner – The Iron Cross"), directed by Sam Peckinpah, c. 1977. EMI Films (UK)/ Constantine Films (West Germany).

DIRECTOR: Sam Peckinpah

SCREENPLAY: Julius Epstein, James Hamilton, & Walter Kelley

BASED ON: "The Willing Flesh" by Willi Heinrich

STARRING: James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason, David Warner, & Senta Berger

CINEMATOGRAPHY: John Coquillon

EDITED: Michael Ellis, Tony Lawson

MUSIC: Ernest Gold

Source: https://posteritati.com/poster/49539/cross-of-iron-1977-greek-a3-poster.

[misterivy]

[forthegothicheroine]

Swastikas in punk are basically another way for kids to get a rise out of their parents and maybe the press, both of whom deserve the irritation. To the extent that most of these spikedomes ever had a clue what the stuff originally meant, it only went so far as their intent to shock. "It's like a stance", as Ivan [Julian] says. "A real immature way of being dangerous." Maybe. Except that after a while this casual, even ironic embrace of the totems of bigotry crosses over into the real poison... Something harder to pass off entered the air in 1977, when I started encountering little zaps like this: I opened up a copy of a Florida punk fanzine called New Order and read an article by Miriam Linna of the Cramps, Nervus Rex, and now Zantees: “I love the Ramones [because] this is the celebration of everything American — everything teenaged and wonderful and white and urban…” You could say the “white” jumping out of that sentence was just like Ornette Coleman declaring This Is Our Music, except that the same issue featured a full-page shot of Miriam and one of her little friends posing proudly with their leathers and shades and a pistol in front of the headquarters of the United White People’s Party, under a sign bearing three flags: “GOD” (cross), “COUNTRY” (stars and stripes), “RACE” (swastika). Sorry, Miriam, I can go just so far with affectations of kneejerk cretinism before I puke.

Lester Bangs, The White Noise Supremacists

[mywifeleftme]

316: Toto Bissainthe // Chante Haïti

Chante Haïti Toto Bissainthe 1977, Arion

“These songs are mostly slave songs taken from the Vodou cult. They speak of the quotidian, of the suffering of exile, and the desire of Africa, not as a geographical place but as a mythical land of freedom. They express their resistance and their refusal: resistance to the colonizer, refusal of his politics, of his religion, of his culture, of his language.”

So begins Toto Bissainthe’s statement on the rear of Chante Haïti, her 1977 collaboration with a small combo of Antillean folk and French jazz musicians: vocalists Marie-Claude Benoît and Mariann Mathéus; percussionists Akonio Dolo and Mino Cinélu (Miles Davis, Weather Report, Gong); Patrice Cinélu on acoustic guitar; and Beb Guérin on the double bass. The songs indeed fuse the Vodou ritual of her native Haiti with the European avant garde sounds of her adopted milieu of Paris, where she had moved to pursue acting and found herself a de facto exile due to the political situation back home. Bissainthe had become a prominent figure in the French theatre, performing in new plays by Beckett and Genet and co-founding Les Griots, France’s first Black theatre company; by the late ‘70s, she was an acclaimed recording artist to boot. Her accomplishments made her a prominent figure in the Haitian diaspora and her activist streak is apparent throughout Chante Haïti, explicitly linking the grief and yearning for liberation in these traditional ceremonials with the country’s contemporary struggles.

Like many songs on the album, the Creole words of opener “Soley danmbalab” mourn the people's estrangement from Mother Africa, a crossing which can neither be reversed or repeated. It begins like a field recording, Bissainthe’s soulful, Miriam Makeba-esque voice set to a chorus of rattles and bells and gurgling masculine whispers. As the song develops, her melody wends like a stream through the dense jungle of percussion, dissonant bass, and counterpoint chanting. Eventually, Mino Cinélu’s arrangement becomes more free, the male chorus imploring the Oungan (a male Vodou priest) to intercede with the creator on the people’s behalf as the tune breaks down into an increasingly abstract bass and drum interplay, while the three female singers exchange birdlike vocal improvisations.

“Ibo Ogoun (Variations)” is even wilder, evoking a trance ritual, the spirits speaking in many tongues through the celebrants as they seek to summon Ogun, God of Iron and War, to lead the battle of liberation. One of the male percussionists times his tanbou beat so that it hits just as he sings certain notes, creating the illusion that he voice has suddenly lurched down an octave for a moment, almost like a DJ freaking a vocal sample. Bissainthe, Mathéus, and Benoît match the intense drumming with some crazy syncopations, sometimes talking, sometimes hissing and whispering, sometimes wailing and ululating.

Most of the album takes on a more meditative tact, anchored by Guérin’s plangent double bass. On the smoky “Papadanbalab,” an entreaty to the serpent creator Damballa to bear witness to the penury of his people, Bissainthe sways over a slinky jazz bass line, Patrice Cinélu adding mellow acoustic fusion licks. The song seems like a brief stopover in a Parisian club. But even the less overtly intense tracks pack plenty of musical interest. “Lamize pa dous” has this hypnotic rhythm that sounds exactly like a micro house beat—in fact, the first thing it made me think of was Ricardo Villalobos’ Alcachofa, or Animal Collective at their campfire ravingest. The song is about the moment of surrender to death, the winnowing of time represented by water encroaching on all sides, the realization too late that “we spend our lives trying to fill the sea with stones.”

Listening to a record like this, especially in light of Bissainthe’s note on the back excoriating the colonialist ethnographer who reduces Haitian folklore to “excitement and violence,” requires at least a smidgen of awareness from the white listener that Chante Haïti is not intended for them. The traditions it engages with are of deep spiritual significance to many Haitians, both in the ‘70s and today. But for those inside and outside the culture who are willing to approach it with respect, Chante Haïti is a fascinating fusion of Antillean and European musics, and a peek into a profound and secret history.

316/365

[in-another-lifetime-we-loved]

Cross of iron 1977. for the first time for a World War Two film showed two gay characters, an officer and private in a relationship. Later caught but let go with a warning. Apparently loosely based on a true story for a German NCO and a novel about what he saw and his battles, his friends etc.

It’s quite funny how nowadays you will never see this in World War Two movies and series, despite the fact there were gay soldiers. And many stories. This movie was unbiased for its time as well. A short sweet moment of a man touching another man so gently, his thumb pressing over the others lips. Just some warm friction, to feel another person was all he could, if time allowed there would’ve been a kiss scene.