#avant-garde classics
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DJ Wet CupCake: The Beat-Master Narrating Azeroth’s Chaotic Trade Chat Live on KAKE 420 AM
KAKE 420 AM In an era where social media giants dominate the landscape, one voice rises from the cosmic wilderness of Azeroth’s Moon Guard to remind us of a time when Trade Chat was the most raw and authentic social platform on the internet. Enter DJ Wet CupCake, the emcee whose live shows on KAKE 420 AM blend avant-garde beats, quirky commentary, and the unfiltered madness of Moon Guard…
#abstract commentary#alternative radio#avant-garde classics#avant-garde music#Azeroth Trade Chat#cosmic beats#digital beats#Digital Cowgirl#Digital Rebellion#DJ livestream#DJ Wet CupCake#Eat My Cake Records#eGirl4Rent#electronic rave#Empowerment Through Music#fantasy immersion#femcel rizz#gaming culture#high fantasy vibes#immersive experience#immersive role play#Jade Ann Byrne#JadeAnnByrne#KAKE 420 AM#LA DJ#live talk radio#Los Angeles DJ#Moon Guard Alliance#Moon Guard RP#Moon Guard server
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Let Us Descend Francesco Leali
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River Phoenix & Keanu Reeves, 1991.
#river phoenix#keanu reeves#my own private idaho#gus van sant#gay interest#classic movies#avant garde#poetic#beautiful
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Meshes of the Afternoon
Maya Deren, 1943
#maya deren#short film#old hollywood#black and white#surreal#dream world#avant garde#cinema#surrealism#contemporary art#women filmmakers#eldrich horror#eerie#strange#dreamlike#meshes of the afternoon#classic film
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George Crumb (1929 - 2022) was known for his use of Graphic Musical Notation. Here are a few more
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Maison Martin Margiela line 11 plastic grocery bag with metal handle
A/W 2012
#maison martin margiela#martin margiela#style#archives#art#classic#avant garde#accessories#shopping bag#gross#genius
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Cosplay the Classics: Nazimova in Salomé (1922)—Part 2
My cosplay of Nazimova as Salomé
As the studio system emerged in the American film industry at the start of the 1920s, many of the biggest stars in Hollywood chose independence. Alla Nazimova, an import from the stage, was one of them. In 1922, she made a series of professional and creative decisions that would completely change the trajectory of her career.
In part one of CtC: Nazimova in Salomé, I described how Nazimova’s independent productions were shaped in response to trends and ideas surrounding young/independent womanhood in America after World War I and the influenza pandemic. Here in part two, I’ll fit these productions, A Doll’s House and Salomé, into the broader context of the big-money business of film becoming legitimate in America.
While the full essay and photo set are available below the jump, you may find it easier to read (formatting-wise) on the wordpress site. Either way, I hope you enjoy the read! Oh and Happy Bi Visibility Day to all those who celebrate!
My cosplay of Nazimova as Salomé
Artists United? Allied Artists and the Release of Salomé
When Nazimova made her screen debut in War Brides (1916), the American film industry was undergoing a series of formative changes. Southern California became the center of professional filmmaking in the US—fleeing New Jersey (where War Brides was filmed) largely because of Thomas Edison’s attempts to monopolize the business. Preferences of audiences and exhibitors shifted away from one and two-reel films and towards feature-length films. The Star System emerged in full force. Nazimova soon relocated to Hollywood, signed a contract with Metro, and reaped the benefits of this boom period for American film artists.
The focus on feature-film production and the marketing of films based on the reputations of specific filmmakers or stars required a greater initial outlay of resources—time, money, and labor. But, it also paid dividends—the industry quickly grew into a big-money business. The underlying implication of that is that a larger share of the profits were shifted from the people doing the creating (artists and technicians) and towards other figures (capitalists). In practice, this also meant film companies would become eligible for listing on the stock exchange and could secure funding from banks and financial institutions, both of which were rare or impossible before the mid-1920s. The major players on the business end of production, distribution, and exhibition, therefore, wanted to consolidate their power and reduce the power and influence of the filmmakers.
To illustrate how momentous this handful of years was in the history of the US film industry, allow me to highlight a few key events. Will Hayes’ office was set up in 1922 to make official Hollywood’s commitment to self-censorship. Eastman Kodak introduced 16 mm film in 1923, a move which, while making filmmaking more accessible and affordable, also widened and formalized the division between the professional industry and amateur filmmaking. Dudley Murphy’s “visual symphony” Danse Macabre[1] was released in 1922—considered America’s first avant-garde film. Nazimova’s Salomé was considered America’s first art film from its initial release in 1923. That these labels were deemed relevant in this period illustrates the line being drawn between those films and film as a conventional, commercial product. The concept of art cinemas in the US was first proposed in 1922 spurring on the Little Cinema movement later in the decade.
from Danse Macabre
from Salomé
As any industry matures, both the roles within it and its output become more starkly delineated. That is to say that, as the US industry began differentiating between art/avant-garde/experimental film and commercial film, the jobs within professional filmmaking also became more firmly defined. Filmmaking has always been a collaborative art, but in the period prior to the 1920s, it was common for people in film to do a little of everything. As a result, what sparse credits made it onto the final film didn’t necessarily reflect all of the work that was done. To illustrate this using Nazimova,[2] at Metro, she had her own production unit under the Metro umbrella. While her films were “Nazimova Productions,” she didn’t have full creative control of her films. However, Nazimova did choose her own projects, develop said projects, and contribute to their writing, directing, and editing. When those films were released, aside from the “Nazimova Productions” banner, her only credit would usually be for her acting. Despite that impressive level of creative power, the studio still had the ultimate say on whether a film got made, and how it would be released. As studios grew and tightened control of their productions, this looser filmmaking style became much less common.
The structure of the industry at this time was roughly tripartite—production, distribution, and exhibition. Generally speaking, the way studio-made films traveled from studio to theatre—before full vertical integration—was that the production company would make available a slate of films of different scales. (Bigger productions with bigger names attached would have a special designation and come with higher rental fees.) Famous Players-Lasky was the biggest production house at the time, though other studios, like Metro, were quickly catching up. Distribution companies would then place this slate of films on regional exchanges, centered in the biggest cities in a given region. Exhibitors (this could be owners of chains like Loew’s in the Midwest and Northeast, the Saengers around the gulf coast, or individual theatre owners) could then rent films through their local exchanges. (This was an ever-shifting industry, so this process was not true for every single film. This is only meant as a quick overview of the system.) As the 1920s wore on, exhibitors began entering the production arena and producers further merged with distribution companies and exhibition chains. Merger-mania was the rule of the day.
My cosplay of Nazimova as Salomé
As merger upon merger took place and a handful of businessmen tried to monopolize the industry, American filmmakers responded by championing the artistic legitimacy of filmmaking in the US. Leading this charge were the very filmmakers on whose backs the big business of film had been built. As noted in Tino T. Balio’s expansive history of United Artists, The Company Built by the Stars:
…Richard A. Rowland, president of Metro Pictures, proclaimed that ‘motion pictures must cease to be a game and become a business.’ What he wanted was to supplant the star system, which forced companies to compete for big names and pay out-of-this-world salaries for their services. Metro, he said, would thenceforth decline from ‘competitive bidding for billion-dollar stars’ and devote its energies to making big pictures based on ‘play value and excellence of production.’”
It’s notable for us that these ideas were espoused by Rowland, head of the studio where Nazimova was currently one of those “billion-dollar stars.” (“Billion-dollar” is obviously a massive overstatement.) It was a precarious time for any filmmaker who cared about the quality and artistry of their work. It was this environment that birthed United Artists, a new production company built around the prestige and reputation of its filmmakers, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and D.W. Griffith. As the statement announcing the formation of UA detailed:
“We also think that this step is positively and absolutely necessary to protect the great motion picture public from threatening combinations and trusts that would force upon them mediocre productions and machine-made entertainment.”
It’s an accurate assessment of industry trends at the time. If the desired product is a high-quality feature-length film, production is necessarily more expensive. As the UA statement intimates, monopolizing the entire industry and sacrificing quality for quantity to fill the exchanges and theatrical bills was the studio heads’ solution to rising costs. Not a great signal for filmmaking as art in America.
My cosplay of Nazimova as Salomé
So, Nazimova was in good company when she chose to go independent, believing in film as art and that American moviegoers deserved better than derivative, studio-conceived films. Some of the other artists who went independent included George Fitzmaurice (one of the most revered directors of the silent era, though most of his films are now sadly lost), Charles Ray, Max Linder, Norma Talmadge (in alliance with Sam Goldwyn), and Ferdinand Pinney Earle (whose massive mostly-lost artistic experiment Omar Khayyam, I profiled in LBnF). If these filmmakers shared the motivation of UA to create higher-calibre productions, where would the money come from? For Nazimova, the answer was her own bank account.
In 1922, Nazimova’s final film for Metro, Camille (1921), was still circulating widely due to the rising popularity of her co-star, Rudolph Valentino, after the release of Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) and The Sheik (1921). While Nazimova had the funds to complete A Doll’s House and Salomé, there was no sure bet for the films’ releases. Nazimova’s initial concept for her independent productions was the “repertoire” film. This scheme would have seen A Doll’s House released as a shorter film with Salomé as a feature and the two could be rented as a package by exhibitors. It was a creative response to growing tensions between producers and exhibitors over a practice called block booking. Block booking was a strategy studios employed to leverage the Star System to its fullest. They would take the most in-demand films associated with the biggest drawing stars and only make them available in a package deal with productions that were perceived as less marketable. Nazimova was aware that her films at Metro had been rented this way (as the special feature). It’s not completely clear from my research if the decision to release Salomé and A Doll’s House as two features was creative, practical, or a combination of the two. The “repertoire” concept may not have gone according to plan, but it was an early indication that Nazimova was well-informed of the nuances of distribution and exhibition.
Nazimova’s need for proper distribution was met by United Artists’ distribution subsidiary, Allied Artists. United Artists’ first few years were a struggle. Fairbanks, Pickford, and Griffith[3] needed significant time and money to finish the high-quality productions that they promised and Allied was their solution. This distribution arm would release the work of other independent talent using the same exchanges as UA, but under a different banner. Though Allied used UA’s exchanges for distribution, the subsidiary had its own staff. Allied having different branding would also protect the prestige of the UA name. (An unkind, but not entirely inaccurate summary: the money your work brings in is good enough for us, but your work is not.) Allied would have a full release slate to generate the revenue that UA needed to remain in operation.
Nazimova was one of the filmmakers who signed a distribution deal with Allied and had reason to regret it—though she and Charles Bryant didn’t openly rag on UA/Allied.[4] Notably, Mack Sennett had arranged the release of Suzanna (1923) through Allied and was vocal about the company bungling its release. Differences over distribution and exhibition would also lead to Griffith’s exit from the company and a major rift between Chaplin and Pickford-Fairbanks. After 1923, Allied reduced its operation, at least in part because of the bad reputation they were garnering with other filmmakers. Despite numerous independents losing money on productions released through Allied, by 1923, Allied had netted UA 51 million dollars in revenue!
Trade ad for Salomé from Motion Picture News, 10 March 1923
The questionable deals that these independent filmmakers received with Allied are often mentioned in discourse about the period, but very, very rarely does anyone offer details of what Allied’s inadequate distribution looked like. Using the information available to me via Lantern, I collected and analyzed data regarding the release and exhibition of Nazimova’s final two Metro films and both of her Allied films.[5] Looking at the trade publications Exhibitor’s Trade Review, Moving Picture World, Motion Picture News, and Exhibitors Herald, I categorized every item I found about the release or exhibition of Billions (1920),[6] Camille, A Doll’s House, and Salomé. The “release” items are primarily advertisements, reviews, and news items about release dates or pre-release screenings. The number of these items for all four films were comparable.
The items in the “exhibition” category, however, reveal a marked difference between the Metro and Allied releases. This category includes items like first-run theatre listings, exhibitor feedback, and advertising advice for theatre owners. Only counting exhibition items from the first two years (24 months) from the initial release of each film, Billions and Camille had twice as many items as A Doll’s House and Salomé!
While this isn’t necessarily hard data on how many theatres ran each film, it is a rough indicator of how well the films circulated. This data suggests that neither A Doll’s House or Salomé had distribution comparable to the Metro films. In order to compensate for the Rudy factor—Valentino’s major rise to stardom in 1921—which could have affected Camille’s numbers in a big way, I included Billions as well. Billions was sold as a special (a bigger production with premium rental fees) on Nazimova’s name alone. It was not especially well received. Exhibitors/theatre owners had mixed feelings on the film because Nazimova’s previous film, Madame Peacock (1920), had underperformed. Many exhibitors viewed Billions as an improvement, though it still did not meet their perception of Nazimova’s standard of quality. Despite that, Billions had 76 exhibition-related items across its first 24 months of availability to Camille’s 80.
To get a little deeper into this data, I wanted to see how the feedback from exhibitors and theatre owners compared. I broke down the exhibitor feedback for each film as positive, middling, or negative based on how the exhibitors assessed audience response and/or box office receipts. (I discounted feedback that only reflected theatre owners’ own personal assessment of the films without mention of their patrons or receipts.) Positive feedback could be good reception and/or good receipts, middling suggests only average business and no noteworthy reception, and negative indicates poor response and/or poor ticket sales. Since there are so many more items about Camille and Billions than A Doll’s House and Salomé, I compared ratios as an indicator of exhibitor satisfaction. The results were truly surprising.
Theatre owners who rented Salomé may have been in significantly smaller numbers than those who ran Camille, but their satisfaction with ticket sales and audience feedback was roughly equivalent. (Though slightly more positive for Salomé!) The numbers for Billions line up with the qualitative assessment I summarized above, displaying a roughly equal 3-way split. A Doll’s House was the most divisive with the highest proportion of negative feedback of the four films, yet with a higher proportion of positive feedback than Billions.
Taking all of this into account, it’s clear that Salomé did not flop because it was too artsy or esoteric for the American moviegoing public. Such assumptions are obviously not very thoughtful or informed by reliable data.[7] A more historically sound reading is that, as professional filmmaking matured into a “legitimate” industry in the US, the various arms of the business were rigidly formed to fit conventional output. The conservatism that this engendered made the American industry ill-equipped at marketing anything too unconventional or experimental. While Hollywood insiders were lamenting European filmmakers artistically outdoing Americans—especially following the US release of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)—very few people with the power to shape the industry did anything to support experimentation. Given this environment, Salomé could only have been produced independently, but the quickly ossifying distribution and promotional systems didn’t have the range to give it a proper release. Two films contemporary to Salomé, Beggar on Horseback (1925) and The Old Swimmin’ Hole (1921) offer further evidence of the industry’s limitations.
The Old Swimmin’ Hole is a feature-length production by Charles Ray, experimental in that it uses no intertitles. The story is simple and familiar with Ray playing the Huck-Finn-type character he was well known for. Ray’s experiment was not an expensive one and the film was successful. However, decision makers at First National, the film’s distributors, felt that The Old Swimmin’ Hole was simply too complex for small-town Americans to comprehend and it wasn’t released outside of cities. To put it plainly, the distributor’s unfounded concept of ignorant yokels meant that a film about country living was largely inaccessible to anyone actually living in the country. Though the film was well received and turned a profit, this distribution decision likely limited its audience as well as possible revenue from small-town exhibition.
Stills from The Old Swimmin’ Hole from Motion Picture Magazine, April 1921
Beggar on Horseback was produced by one of the biggest studios in Hollywood, Famous Players-Lasky, and distributed by Paramount. Starring comedian Edward Everett Horton, Beggar was an expressionist comedy based on a popular play. The film had a popular star, popular source material, and was made and released by a major company, but Beggar was apparently too unconventional for that major company to adequately market it. (Unfortunately, only a few minutes of the film survive, so we can’t fully reassess it unless more is found/identified!)
Stills from Beggar on Horseback from Picture-Play Magazine, August 1925
With all these complicating factors at play, how might have Salomé found its audience in 1922-3? Nazimova and Charles Bryant had innovative ideas for the film’s release that might have done the trick, if they had been able to act on them. Nazimova and Sam Zimbalist had finished cutting Salomé in late-spring 1922. Having spent practically all of her money to finish the film, and following A Doll’s House’s disappointing results, Nazimova was eager for Salomé to hit theatres. Though the film was in the can and private preview screenings had been held by Bryant by summer ‘22, Salomé wouldn’t be released until February of 1923. In studio filmmaking, holding a film in extended abeyance wasn’t ideal but it was not disastrous. Studios had significantly more resources and revenue streams than independent producers. If, for example, the release of Billions had been delayed for seven months, Nazimova still had two films on the Metro exchanges (and therefore in theatres) and Camille would have entered production in the meantime. But for Nazimova as an independent producer, this situation was wholly untenable. (In fact, Pickford, Fairbanks, and Griffith were in a similar untenable situation when they founded Allied.)
Initially, Bryant proposed roadshowing Salomé. Roadshowing is a release strategy for notable film productions where a film is toured around major cities, often with in-person engagements by stars, writers, and/or directors. Nazimova expanded the idea of touring with Salomé not simply as a roadshow, but paired with a short play in which she would star. Double the Alla, double the fun. As far as I can tell, there isn’t publicly available information about why Salomé wasn’t roadshowed. However, we do know that Griffith, as the only non-performer in UA, wanted to utilize different approaches for the release of his films—like roadshowing—and it became one of the major points of disagreement with his fellow UA decision makers. That could be taken as an indication that something similar might have occurred with Nazimova and Allied.
As time dragged on without a release date for Salomé and Nazimova returned to theatrical work—openly admitting to audiences that she was broke—Bryant took matters into his own hands. At the end of December 1922, Bryant negotiated with the owner of the Criterion Theatre in New York City for Salomé to run on New Year’s as a special presentation. In two days, Salomé grossed $2,630, setting records for the theatre. Adjusted for inflation, that’s $48,988.96. It was successful enough that the owner of the Criterion opted to hold the film over. This bold move must have lit a fire under Allied’s tuckuses, as Salomé finally had its first-run release a little over a month later.
In the 1920s, the first-run booking of a film was a crucial part of its further success. Concurrent nationwide release of films wasn’t the norm yet, and if a film was a big production, getting booked at high-capacity motion picture houses in major cities was a necessity. These big city releases would, in theory, generate interest in the film with exhibitors across the country and internationally. Basically, if you spent a lot on a movie but couldn’t land a first-run release, you weren’t likely to turn a profit or even break even. Salomé had a handful of first-run bookings and local reviewers from those cities believed the film would succeed. A reviewer from the Boston Transcript in February 1923 wrote:
“…this newest Salome is something far better than a photographed play. Considered both as picture acting, and as an interesting experiment in design, “Salome” is a notable production. It will have a far and wide reaching influence on future films in this country.”
But, as I mentioned, only a handful of first-run theatres played Salomé, and, taken collectively, the notices I analyzed from contemporary trades imply that it didn’t gain traction once it was made available beyond its initial run.
My cosplay of Nazimova as Salomé
During this regrettably short theatrical run, exhibitors and reviewers from trade publications advised that Salomé was a unique film that called for unique promotion. The overall assumption was that theatre owners knew their patrons and recognised whether out-of-the-ordinary movies were popular with them. Rather than purely judging a film’s quality, exhibitors and trade reviewers had concerns specific to exhibition when providing feedback. These concerns cannot be overlooked if you want to understand their assessments. For example, exhibitor feedback was very often informed by how high the rental fees were for a film, even if exhibitors don’t directly mention said fees. That is to say, a mediocre film might be rated highly if the rental fees were modest (and if block booking wasn’t an issue). Reviewers in the early 1920s, both for popular magazines and trade publications, were already accustomed to the formulaic nature of most studio output. Their reviews commonly expressed fatigue with studio films’ lack of originality. And, perhaps surprisingly, this sentiment was shared among theatre owners as well—particularly when a run-of-the-mill film was sold to them as anything other than a “programmer” (a precursor to B-movies).
What I have learned, not just by analyzing feedback for Salomé, but also for all of the films in my LBnF series, is that when a 1920s reviewer calls out bizarreness in a film, it’s not always a negative quality, even when the review isn’t positive. In the case of reviews written for exhibitors/theatre owners, focussing on what makes a movie different is purely pragmatic. It guides how exhibitors might market films to patrons and helps exhibitors judge if a film would be suitable for their audiences. And, from that same research, I’ve found significant indications there were numerous markets throughout the US that were hungry for novelty—contrary to what studio apparatchiks wanted to admit. So, pointing out Salomé’s bizarreness was a recommendation for those markets to consider renting it as much as it was a warning against renting for theatre owners who only had success with more conventional films.
Cover of the Campaign Book for Salomé reproduced in Exhibitors Herald, 9 February 1924
In the case of Salomé, reviews and feedback upon its release focused on two major points:
The film isn’t “adult” in nature. Well-known productions of Strauss’ opera and the 1918 Theda Bara film of the same name led to a presumption of salaciousness. (I talked a bit about that in Part One!)
The film deserves/requires a build up as an artistic event film.
Nazimova’s company helped exhibitors with the latter point in a few ways. The company provided Aubrey Beardsley inspired art posters conceived by Natacha Rambova and executed by Eugene Gise. They printed a book to guide promotion of an artistic spectacle. (So far, I haven’t been able to find a physical or digital copy, so I can’t assess how good the advice was!) Salomé was also distributed with an official musical score, apparently written for a full orchestra.
Art Posters designed by Rambova and painted by Gise as reproduced in Exhibitor’s Trade Review, 10 February 1923
The exhibitors who ran Salomé—and put at least some of this advice into practice—were satisfied with the business it did. By these accounts, the American moviegoing public was attracted by the novelty of Salomé, but what chance were they given to see it?
While this evidence of Allied’s poor distribution work may be circumstantial, it certainly complicates the narratives that Salomé was an unqualified flop or that average Americans weren’t (or aren’t) receptive to artistic experimentation. Given that Nazimova was not the only independent filmmaker who suffered from Allied’s inept distribution, it does seem like the underwhelming business Salomé did was due more to a poor choice of business partners than to any quality of the film or of American moviegoers. That said, with the increasing monopolization of the industry, Nazimova did not have a wealth of options.
Though Salomé was made and released at an tumultuous period for the US film industry, it did eventually find its audience through circulation in art cinemas. As the gap between experimental/avant-garde film widened in the US and the professional industry became less and less tolerant of departures from convention, Americans concerned with film as an art form rallied around amateur filmmaking clubs and art cinemas began popping up in cities by the middle of the decade. Salomé played in these theatres even after the advent of sound—occasionally even today. This is likely the key reason that Salomé survives and we’ve been able to continue to enjoy and reevaluate it one hundred years later.
Salomé is a significant film made at a significant moment in American film history. Nazimova took a major risk in going independent and personally funding two artistic projects. These films were founded on the beliefs that American moviegoers wanted art made by human beings with unique imaginations, feelings, sensibilities and that there was an audience for more than derivative, “machine-made” film. In my opinion, through close analysis of the circumstances of Salomé‘s release, we can see that Nazimova was likely correct, but didn’t get a genuine chance to prove it in her lifetime. Additionally, it’s important to note that Nazimova’s risks did not “ruin” her as is occasionally said. The state of her finances were more greatly affected in the 1920s by her fake husband’s habit of spending her money and by getting swindled by a pair of con artists over her estate, The Garden of Alla. Soldiering on, Nazimova continued to work in both theatre and film for the rest of her life and found more stability with the partner she would meet at the end of the 1920s, Glesca Marshall.
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Once I finished this “Cosplay the Classics” entry, I realized that it would way too much for me to include a section on another relevant topic to Salomé: Orientalism in Hollywood. But, I feel that the topic is too important to just edit that writing out. Look out for a shorter “postscript” entry soon!
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Footnotes:
[1] Danse Macabre is also thought to be a major influence on Walt Disney animating to music, as seen in “Silly Symphonies” and later Fantasia (1940) and Disney’s other musical anthology features. It was also in this period that Disney fled from his debtors in the Midwest to California with his first “Alice” movie. However, the wide-ranging effects of Disney’s business practices were not felt until much later, so that’s another story for another time!
[2] Nazimova was one of a handful of women in Hollywood at the time who held significant creative power. June Mathis and Natacha Rambova, both of whom Nazimova regularly worked with, Mary Pickford and her regular tag-team partner Frances Marion are among some of the others.
[3] Chaplin wouldn’t produce a film for UA until 1923’s A Woman of Paris, as he was fulfilling a pre-existing contract with another studio.
[4] According to Gavin Lambert’s biography of Nazimova (which I discussed as a largely unreliable source in Part One), Robert Florey supposedly advised Nazimova against signing with them, citing Max Linder and Charles Ray as artists who had been “ruined” by their deals. However, the timeline does not quite match up. Though Florey did visit the set of Salomé, Nazimova had already signed the Allied deal by then and Ray had not finished The Courtship of Miles Standish (1923) when Salomé was in production. In fact, there was almost a year and a half between the completion of Salomé and the release of Standish. Whether this was a lapse of memory by Florey or misreporting by Lambert, I can’t be sure.
[5] Originally, I wanted to include Madonna of the Streets (1924) in my comparisons but, at the moment, Lantern has gaps in their Moving Picture World archive for 1924-5. I didn’t want to draw conclusions from incomplete data.
[6] Billions was also a Rambova-Nazimova collaboration. Rambova designed a fantasy sequence for the film.
[7] A mindset that’s still common among commercial media outlets today unfortunately. I could rant and rant about “content” and “content creation” all day but that’s another story for another time.
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Bibliography/Further Reading
(This isn’t an exhaustive list, but covers what’s most relevant to the essay above!)
Lost, but Not Forgotten: A Doll’s House (1922)
“Nazimova in Repertoire” in Motion Picture News, 29 October 1921
“Alla Nazimova Plans for Her New Pictures” in Moving Picture World, 29 October 1921
“Nazimova Abandons Dual Program for Latest Film” in Exhibitors Herald, 24 December 1921
“Plays and Players”in Photoplay, February 1922
“PICTORIAL SECTION” in Exhibitors Herald, 4 February 1922
“New Nazimova Film May Be Roadshowed“ in Exhibitors Herald, 15 April 1922
“Newspaper Opinions” in The Film Daily, 3 January 1923
“Splendid Production Values But No Kick in Nazimova’s ‘Salome’” in The Film Daily, 7 January 1923
“Claims “Salome” Hit New Mark at N. Y. Criterion” in Exhibitors Herald, 27 January 1923
“Salome” in Exhibitors Trade Review, 20 January 1923
“Nazimova in SALOME” in Exhibitors Herald, 27 January 1923
“Nazimova Appeals To Exhibitors In Behalf of ‘Salome’” in Exhibitor’s Trade Review, 27 January 1923
“Novelty Features Paper and Ads for ‘Salome’” in Exhibitor’s Trade Review, 10 February 1923
“SALOME’ —Class AA” from Screen Opinions, 15 February 1923
Nazimova: A Biography by Gavin Lambert (Note: I do not recommend this without caveat even though it’s the only monograph biography of Nazimova. Lambert did a commendable amount of research but his presentation of that research is ruined by misrepresentations, factual errors, and a general tendency to make unfounded assumptions about Nazimova’s motivations and personal feelings.)
Lovers of Cinema: The First American Avant-Garde 1919-1945 ed. Jan-Christopher Horak (most notably, “The First American Avant-Garde 1919-1945” by Horak, “The Limits of Experimentation in Hollywood” by Kristin Thompson, and “Startling Angles: Amateur Film and the Early Avant-Garde” by Patricia R. Zimmermann)
United Artists: The Company Built by the Stars, Vol. 1 1919-1950 by Tino Balio
#1920s#1922#Salomé#salome#nazimova#alla nazimova#film history#cosplay#queer film#silent era#classic movies#film#avant garde#experimental film#cinema#queer film history#silent cinema#1923#classic cinema#american film#women filmmakers#women in film#silent film#classic film#silent movies#bisexual visibility#cosplayers#natacha rambova#united artists#Metro
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#Post-Minimalism#Experimental#Film Score#Avant-Garde Jazz#Dark Ambient#Modern Classical#2010s#2020s#USA#Canada#poll
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and happy OTHER late birthdays to both george and doug <33
#AGAIN im a lazy ass mf#george harrison#the beatles#john lennon#paul mccartney#ringo starr#doug yule#the velvet underground#loud reed#sterling morrison#moe tucker#60s classic rock#psychedelic rock#british invasion#avant garde#alt rock#60s music#60s
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#On this day
#happy birthday
On November 10, 1928, Ennio Morricone was born, an Italian composer, arranger and conductor. Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. Winner of two Academy Awards: for outstanding achievements in cinematography (2007) and for best music — for the "Disgusting Eight" (2016), 9-time winner of the Italian National Film Award "David di Donatello" for best film music, three-time winner of the Golden Globe Award, 6-time winner of the award BAFTA and many others.
Ennio Morricone was born in Rome, the son of professional jazz trumpeter Mario Morricone and housewife Libera Ridolfi. Ennio was the eldest of five children. When he was 12 years old, he entered the Conservatory of St. Cecilia in Rome, where Goffredo Petrassi became his teacher. At the Conservatory, Morricone received 3 diplomas — in the class of trumpet (1946), instrumentation and composition.
When Morricone turned 16, he took the place of the second trumpet in the Alberto Flamini ensemble, in which his father had previously played. Together with the ensemble, Morricone worked part-time playing in nightclubs and hotels in Rome. A year later, he got a job at the theater, where he worked as a musician for one year, and then as a composer for three years. In 1950, he began arranging songs by popular composers for radio. He worked on processing music for radio and concerts until 1960, and in 1960 began arranging music for TV shows.
He began writing film music only in 1961, when he was 33 years old. He started with spaghetti westerns, a genre with which his name is now firmly associated. He became widely known after working on the films of his former classmate, director Sergio Leone. Later he worked with the largest Italian film directors — Bernardo Bertolucci, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Dario Argento, Salvatore Samperi and many others.
Since 1964, Morricone has worked at the RCA record company, where he arranged hundreds of songs, including for such celebrities as Gianni Morandi, Mario Lanza, Miranda Martino.
Having become famous in Europe, Morricone was invited to work in Hollywood cinema. In the USA, he wrote music for films by such famous directors as Roman Polanski, Oliver Stone, Brian De Palma, Mike Nichols, John Carpenter, Barry Levinson, Terrence Malick and others.
Ennio Morricone is one of the most famous composers of our time and one of the most famous film composers in the world. During his long career, he has composed music for more than 400 films and television series in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Russia, and the USA.
As a film composer, he was nominated for an Oscar six times, and in 2007 he received an Oscar for outstanding contribution to cinema. In addition, in 1988, he was awarded a Grammy Award for the music for the film "Untouchables". In 1996, Morricone, together with photographer Augusto De Luca, received the "Cities of Rome" award for the book "Our Rome".
Contrary to popular belief, Morricone created not only soundtracks, he also wrote chamber instrumental music, with which he toured Europe in 1985, personally conducting the orchestra at concerts.
Twice during his career, he starred in films for which he wrote music, and in 1995 a documentary was made about him.
The American band Metallica has been opening every concert since the mid-1980s with the composition "The Ecstasy Of Gold" from the classic western "The Good, the Bad, the Evil". In 1999, she was played in the S&M project for the first time in a live performance (cover version).
Ennio Morricone was married and has four children:
Andrea — conductor, composer;
Marko works for the Copyright Society;
Alessandra is a surgeon;
Giovanni works for Universal.
He was seriously interested in chess, and repeatedly played with world champions.
Ennio Morricone died on July 6, 2020 at the age of 92 in a hospital in Rome, where he had been hospitalized a few days earlier with a fractured femur sustained as a result of a fall.
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"It always hurts me when talented people die, because the world needs them more than heaven."
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
#On this day#happy birthday#Ennio Morricone#film score#classical#absolute music#jazz#pop#avant garde#music#my music#music love#musica#history music#spotify#rock music#rock photography#my spotify#rock#Youtube
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A Poet's Tears Of Porcelain by Virgin Black From Sombre Romantic (2000) Symphonic Gothic / Doom Metal / NeoClassical - from Australia
#virgin black#A Poet's Tears of Porcelain#sombre romantic#gothic metal#symphonic metal#Sombre Romantic (2000)#Neo-Classical metal#Neoclassical metal#avant-garde metal#symphonic gothic metal#music#FAVS
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Data studying John Cage's 4'33"
Original scene source
#lt cmdr data#data soong#star trek data#geordi la forge#star trek#star trek the next generation#star trek tng#star trek memes#john cage#classical music#classical music memes#music memes#avant garde music#btw this is edited to be clear the original scene just immediately made me think of 4'33''
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john cale
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8 1/2 (1963)
#movies#cinephile#federico fellini#1963#1960s#60s movies#classic movies#black and white#marcello mastroianni#claudia cardinale#anouk aimée#sandra milo#barbara steele#drama#comedy#avant garde#surrealism#cinema#quotes#movie quotes#movie lover#hollywood#cinephile club#everything i learned
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Chino Amobi’s EROICA
#chino amobi#EROICA#music#sound collage#electronic#chamber music#deconstructed club#post rock#free jazz#folk#spoken word#progessive electronic#noise#industrial#modern classical#industrial hip hop#experimental hip hop#ambient#rock#jazz#avant garde#abstract#experimental#club#dance#bandcamp
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COMME des GARÇONS Guerrilla Store Los Angeles
2008
The COMME des GARÇONS Guerilla Store concept is where CdG would open a store in a city for a specific duration of time and after that time’s up, it would close down, forever. After opening stores in places like Hong Kong, Warsaw, Singapore, Beirut and Athens, COMME des GARÇONS has decided to hit Los Angeles. As usual, the store’s hard to find but once you find it, you’ll be offered an opportunity to purchase some exclusive CdG items that you won’t be able to find else where. 125 West 4th Street Suite #106 LA CA 90013
#commedesgarcons#comme des garcons#rei kawakubo#guerrilla#style#fashion#archives#art#classic#avant garde#pop up store#losangeles#genius
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