Text
So scrolling through pinterest, I'm wondering.. All the KoH fans I need help finding this film
#I'M CURIOUS I WANT TO SEE THIS#MOST OF THE SUBTITLES ARE IN SPANISH??? SO IT MIGHT BE A FOREIGN FILM OR DOCUMENTARY????? HELP#king baldwin iv#baldwin iv#kingdom of heaven#kingdom of heaven fandom#kingdom of heaven 2005#koh#koh fandom
74 notes
·
View notes
Text
Slavery and Roman Literary Culture, Sandra R. Joshel
#i have a small collection of texts on greek & roman slavery in the late republic era and the early empire from doing#a bunch of research for a spartacus comic and this is something that rattles around in my head constantly#i dont have a reading tag bc i have a sideblog for that but hey! what's the point of a blog if not to post on it#anyway! horrific! that one quote from the spartacus documentary. that the worst thing was to 'get used to it.'#there's a previous part in this text about the assimilation of identity and the violence of benevolence etc#(i also had to do a lot of this for the crassus comic and unlocked a new debate about his wealth that keeps me up at night for other reason#like. i need a map. actually i need several maps and a spanish dictionary)#roman slavery tag
118 notes
·
View notes
Text
A woman wears a protective mask during the Spanish flu epidemic. [1918]
#documentary photography#spanish flu#disease#surreal#black and white#monochrome#history#10s#photography#u
104 notes
·
View notes
Photo
I had this morbid little game where I played dead, even at a very young age, because I found it exiciting to see how my mother would react. Then I really took it further. So from suddenly screaming and then lying down to getting in the bathtub with a hairdryer and so on... Daniel Brühl: A European in Hollywood (2023)
#daniel brühl#dbruhledit#danielbrühledit#daniel bruhl#usertammy#userlindir#userpng#*#by lola#wake up brühlnation#here's a new documentary about your favorite german spanish hobbit man#sorry for the quality
542 notes
·
View notes
Text
“Teresa de Jesus”
227 notes
·
View notes
Text
Ambrose and Elliot #18
Masterpost
Previous
Next
Warnings: sickness
Elliot had an itch in his throat. At first he thought it was leftover from screaming during James’s visit, but that was a while ago and it hadn’t gone away.
He kept on with his chores regardless. It was his place to serve, and a little cold shouldn’t stop him. Master had been rewarding him at the end of every day with a shiny gold coin and Elliot didn’t want to disappoint him. It would be just as bad as the beating that would follow.
He was tired now, too. It wasn’t the satisfying kind that he’d gotten used to after a day of being a good boy. Instead of sleeping pleasant and deep, he tossed and turned at night. Cold and hot all at once, and his beloved blanket wasn’t doing its job. It wasn’t fair. Elliot had been eating more than he’d ever gotten before. He slept well. He had no open wounds (the scratches had faded just like Ambrose said), so there was nothing to infect. It wasn’t fair!
And it wouldn’t be fair to Master Ambrose to stop working. So he didn’t.
___________________
He couldn’t get out of bed. Oh gods, he couldn’t get out of bed.
The fire had gone out during the night, and the fall air chilled him. He shivered, burrowing into the quilt, blanket, and pillows. His jaw barely creaked open enough to breathe, as his nose was clogged. Why did everything hurt? His limbs weighed him down and his muscles protested at the slightest movement.
Light began to filter through the windows. Dawn was approaching. His room faced the sunrise, and it was too bright. Just yesterday, he’d cleaned the windows and now he couldn’t get up to draw the curtains closed. How pathetic.
He watched the beams of light grow longer on his floor. Master Ambrose would be awake soon. Please help me.
___________________
Elliot wasn’t up and about yet. Odd. He wasn’t in the kitchen, or the dining room, or even outside watching the sunrise.
Ambrose knocked on the bedroom door. He heard a faint whine from behind the wood.
“Ellie,” he called, turning the knob, “I’m coming in, sweetheart.”
Elliot was bundled in both his quilt and blanket. Shivering and squinting, he panted and looked absolutely awful. The fire was out, and cold.
Ambrose crossed the room, closing the curtains. Dimming the light would help Elliot’s obvious headache.
He arranged a few logs in the fireplace, striking a flint to light them. He would need to bring more wood from a neighboring room later.
___________________
“Oh Ellie,” said Master, sitting on the edge of his bed. “I’m so sorry.”
Master’s cool hand brushed away his sweaty hair to take his temperature. Master tutted, and guilt swirled in his gut. If Ambrose wasn’t panicked, it must not be that bad. If it wasn’t that bad, Elliot should be working.
He tried getting up, but Master Ambrose gently pushed him back onto the bed.
“None of that, love. Just stay in bed, and I’ll take care of everything.” Elliot was relieved. Now he could rest and obey at the same time. He’d make it up to Master later.
He let Ambrose rearrange the blankets, untangling them from between his legs. The fire was already warming the room and the pleasantness made his eyelids heavy.
___________________
Ambrose let Elliot doze as he tiptoed down the stairs. Luckily, he’d made and canned a huge batch of chicken stock for soup season. Made with roasted chicken bones and bits with peppercorns, bundles of herbs, garlic, and vegetables, the hearty stock would be perfect for Elliot. And it would provide some fluid and nutrients.
He grabbed a pint from the storeroom and set to work. He drizzled some oil in a copper pot and set the heat. Ambrose minced some garlic and ginger and tossed it in the pot. Ginger would help reduce the croaking pain in Elliot’s throat. He diced an onion while the aromatics became fragrant. He added the onion and gave it a stir. Ambrose uncapped the pint of stock, and carefully plopped it into the pot. It was so rich, it had partially congealed. Perfect.
Ambrose held off on adding potatoes. They would be fine for Elliot if cut small enough, but Ambrose knew swallowing would be tough for him. Better to start off with a thinner soup and gradually thicken it as Elliot recovered. Instead, he added some cream for protein. A generous amount of salt, and it was nearly ready.
Soon it was the perfect temperature and the scent was delightful. He ladled a portion into a wooden bowl and carried it up to Elliot’s room.
___________________
Elliot tried to sleep, but the rumble of his stomach kept the fuzziness in his brain from working. The ache in his joints was uncomfortable, and he just wanted everything to go away. He felt so heavy.
“Love, I’m coming in,” said Master.
Elliot saw the bowl and spoon as Master entered. His stuffy nose kept him from smelling anything, but even the promise of food made his mouth water. Master Ambrose sat the bowl on his nightstand, and helped him sit up. Ambrose even propped up the pillows to keep his head from lolling, and Elliot was too tired to even feel ashamed for being useless.
___________________
He couldn’t lift the spoon. Damn. He should have thought of that.
Elliot stared at the soup, despair on his face. Elliot was so fond of food, and for good reason. Sympathy panged in Ambrose’s heart. It must be killer for Elliot to be so close and yet unable to eat without assistance.
Ambrose put the bowl to Elliot’s lips, tilting it ever so slightly. He’d intentionally made it just warm enough to eat right away, thank goodness. Elliot drank, his eyes fluttering. After a moment, Ambrose pulled away to let him breathe.
The look Elliot gave him was halfway murderous and it was almost comical if it weren’t for everything else.
“I don’t want you to choke,” explained Ambrose, and Elliot settled down. Hiccups wouldn’t help either. They were unpleasant if your throat was raw.
Ambrose fed him until the bowl was empty. Elliot had finished it quickly, drinking it down as greedily as a bottle-fed lamb.
“Let’s wait to see how your stomach does,” said Ambrose. “I’ll get you more if you can keep it down, okay?”
Elliot gave him a small smile; he understood.
“Do you want to sleep?”
“Mhm.”
Ambrose helped him lay down again. He’d have to stay by Elliot’s side today. Thankfully it was the third day of the week, so he didn’t have to put out notice that he had closed.
But as he grabbed a book from his shelves and went back to Elliot’s side, he wondered. How did he get sick so fast? He understood why Elliot was hit so hard; he was still not physically recovered from before, and the stress of the recent fight must have contributed. But these things didn’t happen overnight.
He watched Elliot’s chest rise and fall. The soup had loosened his stuffy nose a little, but he still couldn’t breathe through it. Ambrose would have to whip up some medicine to make that easier.
If Elliot had hidden his developing sickness from him, Ambrose needed to know. He’d ask as soon as Elliot could tell him.
___________________
Elliot’s fever broke as he slept, but a cough had taken its place. Ambrose dashed downstairs and hastily made a salve for Elliot’s chest. It was a sticky thing, full of strong scented herbs that would help Elliot breathe.
Carefully, he pulled back the bedclothes and reached under Elliot’s nightshirt. The salve was still warm as he didn’t wait for it to set. He smeared a generous amount on Elliot.
He barely stirred at the touch. It worried Ambrose, but at least he was sleeping.
___________________
Elliot woke up groggy. His head was stuffed with cotton but he could breathe a bit better. Ambrose sat next to him, a book in his hands. He had stayed, and that meant the world to him.
“How are you feeling?” asked Ambrose, setting aside the book.
“Better,” he croaked. And then he coughed and Ambrose sighed a little. His shirt stuck to his chest when he coughed and it felt… sticky under there. Alarmed, he clutched at his shirt and looked down. No blood. And hey, his arm was responding now. But what was it?
“What- what’s on-” he coughed again.
“Just some breathing cream. I’m sorry I didn’t wake you to put it on. You needed to rest.”
Oh. That was nice. It seemed to be working, at least.
“Do you want some more soup?”
“Mhm.”
___________________
The next few days were a blur of tissues and various teas and soups. Elliot’s fever had returned a couple times, and scared the hell out of Ambrose. He’d even gone delirious at one point and begged Ambrose to let him go. It broke his heart.
Elliot had nightmares, too. Eventually Ambrose started reading to him, and that seemed to help.
His cough had gone from a dry nuisance to a wet hack but a steady treatment of the cream and hearty, steaming food kept the worst of it at bay. At one point he’d hacked up something green and nasty and the cough significantly diminished.
Elliot kept everything he ate down, and Ambrose was proud to say Elliot hadn’t lost any weight while bedridden.
By the third day, Elliot was up and moving. His cough was gone, and the weakness subsided into a simple tiredness that could be treated with an afternoon nap. The worst of it was over, and Elliot would be fine.
Thank the gods.
taglist: @cupcakes-and-pain @secretwhumplair @paintedpigeon1 @whump-blog @whump-em @thingsthatgo-whump-inthenight @starfields08000 @littlespacecastle @mylovelyme @whump-cravings @zeewbee @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi
#SICKFIC SICKFIC#i was ~inspired~ by both a spanish flu and a bubonic plague documentary#Ambrose doesnt get sick here bc he has an immune system with 100+ years experience and also is perpetually 25 years old#got that +75 advantage at 'resist disease' rolls#ambrose and elliot#my writing#whump#slavery whump
79 notes
·
View notes
Text
Help I'm looking for podcasts & documentaries & other LISTENING media in Spanish & Greek
I don't mean podcasts MEANT for learners I wants stuff meant for the people who speak the language. I'm basically shoving down everything I enjoy listening to.
Greek history, mythology, modern folklore
Ancient Near East history or mythology
Dominican history or modern folklore
Taino history or mythology
Anything related to indigenous American history, languages, cultures, modern problems etc
Archaeology especially stone age cultures
Human evolution
The Universe & layman astronomy
Deep sea ocean exploration for a layman
The Arctic ocean, landmass, history, exploration, circumpolar indigenous peoples etc
Disasters, but not news reports I mean documentaries, history that sort of thing
Religions, I don't mean sermons or meditations I mean something that goes over religious ideas, theology, cosmology, history from a non-religious standpoint.
Commentary Youtubers... think Swoop or iNabber but just in Spanish or Greek. Or even tea channels
Horror game letsplayers on youtube
If you know where to find Greek DUBS of movies/TV shows other than netflix that'd be appreciated too
...I like other things but I think, hopefully, that's enough. I don't want true crime since I can't properly listen to trigger warnings. I'm just not a fan of fiction so a lot of movies and TV are pointless to try and learn from.
History Vault & Curiosity Stream don't seem to have Spanish content unfortunately. I do have HBO Max and will get Hulu & Disney+ eventually later this year so recommendations on those 3 are also good!
Feel free to leave a comment or maybe reblog since I'm sure the majority of my followers aren't Spanish or Greek speakers
#spanish#greek#spanish language#greek language#greece#dominican republic#langblr#language learning#español#Ελληνικά#documental#podcast#ντοκυμαντέρ#youtube#documentary#language#no fucking clue if ill get any responses at all
64 notes
·
View notes
Text
Footage of the Old Christians Rugby team <3
(video credit here)
#if my spanish is correct (its probably not) according to the comments OP found the video on youtube and clipped it#im assuming from a documentary. but either way ive never seen this before!#flight 571#uruguayan history#you can see in the corner - the nightline watermark - probably the source of the video but i dont have a scooby doo where to find it#Marcelo with his team :( sweet boy#what is Canessa DOING#i love them <33#Nando looks like such a dork in this - i love him with all my heart
11 notes
·
View notes
Note
heeeey gina how are you? <3
hey, listen, i share a link of the aotv complete sub spanish if you help me to share and reach more people who want it <3
thank yooou!!
Hi sweetheart. Yes, of course. Happy to help!
AOTV with Spanish subtitles!
43 notes
·
View notes
Text
Three Promises (2023, Yousef Srouji 🇵🇸)
#three promises 2023#spanish subs sry#three promises#yousef srouji#just.. how this kid has become a missile / weapons expert by the impact they leave on his neighbors' homes#palestinian cinema#documentary#screencaps
5 notes
·
View notes
Text
I see what you did there, Brendan Hunt.
#this post is dedicated to Isabel#cause she just let me burst into our chat going 'listen we both don't have a connection to Arsenal but I watched their documentary#and let me tell you this Spanish guy is loco in the best way possible' followed by thousands of screenshots#slighty disappointed they didn't go for the light bulb team talk but okay#one final nod to the football part of the fandom#and at least it's not City related this time#Coach Beard#Mikel Arteta#Arsenal FC#Ted Lasso#Ted Lasso Spoilers#meins#football#football crack
26 notes
·
View notes
Text
De Lorca a Lorca (2023)
#very nice little documentary that made me long for a complete bibliography of federico garcia lorca#there's no letterboxd entry so i am reduced to this#it was like a cinematic production of the poems - a collection of theatre performances of the poems and his life#- a documentary about the theatre production - a philosophical dialogue about what it means to do theater during covid#all very good pieces and they managed to make it coherent#of course i realised in the middle of it that i am terribly ignorant of both spanish poetry but also the history of their civil war#we gotta go back to the library
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
oh my god its a dark and stormy night......perfect time to watch a dracula or two........... :o !!!!txt
#txt#i think Hammer's Horror of Dracula (1958) starring Christopher Lee#and then perhaps the Spanish Dracula (1931) dir George Melford if i am still capable of paying attention#i hear the spanish version (which featured different actors and had a different director)#is considered by some to be superior to the English version#that being said I was blessed by a friend who gave me a DVD copy which featured both#AND two commentary tracks AND a few documentaries on the making of!!!!#im a dracula fan. i just got to the part of the book where Lucy's mother died!#shes a vampire now i think. as i anticipated she is going to die. unfortunately i foresee it being at the hands of her friends. Very Sad!!!#anyways i jhave to watch christopher lee get covered in blood!!!!!!!!!
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
Not me not realizing the Mexican elections were yesterday despite literally reading some articles about mexpol like two days ago 🤦♀️
To be fair they were mentioned just in a way where I thought they were futher out than like. a single day lol
#anyways dont assume i like know things abt mexican politics now lol. i studied it for like 3 weeks in 2022 for part of a class that was more#focused on basics and current events so i rlly only know the major parties the names of like the 5 of the 6 or 7 most recent presidents and#a little bit abt what AMLO was doing in 2022 when i took that course#oh and like major resources/products and some trade stuff. and some history and geography ofc. can never miss w/o history and geography#anyways i should learn more abt mexico#think i have some movies or documentaries saved somewhere idk. ill look. hopefully theres spanish versions. still mad my one streaming#doesnt have an easy option to change languages
2 notes
·
View notes
Photo
You only heard the statement of the loss. You did not see the father fall as Pilar made him see the fascists die in that story she had told by the stream. You knew the father died in some courtyard, or against some wall, or in some field or orchard, or at night, in the lights of a truck, beside some road. You had seen the lights of the car from down the hills and heard the shooting and afterwards you had come down to the road and found the bodies. You did not see the mother shot, nor the sister, nor the brother. You heard about it; you heard the shots; and you saw the bodies.
- Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
The 1937 film The Spanish Earth, was an important visual document of the Spanish Civil War and a rare record of the famous writer's voice. Hemingway went to Spain in the spring of 1937 to report on the war for the North American Newspaper Alliance (NANA), but spent a good deal of time working on the film.
Before leaving America, he and a group of artists that included Archibald MacLeish, John Dos Passos and Lillian Hellman banded together to form Contemporary Historians, Inc., to produce a film to raise awareness and money for the Spanish Republican cause. The group came up with $18,000 in production money - $5,000 of it from Hemingway - and hired the Dutch documentary filmmaker Joris Ivens, a passionate leftist, to make the movie.
MacLeish and Ivens drafted a short outline for the story, with a theme of agrarian reform. It was MacLeish who came up with the title. The film, as they envisioned it, would tell the story of Spain's revolutionary struggle through the experience of a single village. To do that, Ivens planned to stage a number of scenes. When he and cameraman John Fernhout (known as "Ferno") arrived in Spain they decided to focus on the tiny hamlet of Fuentedueña de Tajo, southeast of Madrid, but they soon realised it would be impossible to set up elaborate historical re-enactments in a country at war. They kept the theme of agrarian struggle as a counterpoint to the war.
When Dos Passos arrived in Fuentedueña, he encouraged that approach. "Our Dutch director," wrote Dos Passos, "did agree with me that, instead of making the film purely a blood and guts picture we ought to find something being built for the future amid all the misery and massacre."
That changed when Hemingway arrived.
The friendship between the two writers was disintegrating at the time, so they didn't work together on the project. It was agreed upon in advance that Hemingway would write the commentary for the film, but while in Spain he also helped Ivens and Fernhout navigate the dangers of the war zone. Hemingway was a great help to the film crew. With a flask of whisky and raw onions in his pockets, he lugged equipment and arranged transport. Ivens generally wore battle dress and a black beret. Hemingway went as far as a beret but otherwise stuck to civvies. Although he rarely wore glasses, he almost never took them off in Spain, clear evidence of the seriousness of their task."
In Night Before Battle, a short story based partially on his experience making the movie, Hemingway describes what it's like filming in a place where the glint from your camera lens draws fire from enemy snipers:
“At this time we were working in a shell-smashed house that overlooked the Casa del Campo in Madrid. Below us a battle was being fought. You could see it spread out below you and over the hills, could smell it, could taste the dust of it, and the noise of it was one great slithering sheet of rifle and automatic rifle fire rising and dropping, and in it came the crack of the guns and the bubbly rumbling of the outgoing shells fired from the batteries behind us, the thud of their bursts, and then the rolling yellow clouds of dust. But it was just too far to film well. We had tried working closer but they kept sniping at the camera and you could not work.”
The big camera was the most expensive thing we had and if it was smashed we were through. We were making the film on almost nothing and all the money was in the cans of film and the cameras. We could not afford to waste film and you had to be awfully careful of the cameras.
The day before we had been sniped out of a good place to film from and I had to crawl back holding the small camera to my belly, trying to keep my head lower than my shoulders, hitching along on my elbows, the bullets whocking into the brick wall over my back and twice spurting dirt over me.
The Western front at Casa de Campo on the outskirts of Madrid was just a few minutes' walk from the Florida Hotel, where the filmmakers were staying. Any doubt about whether the passage from "Night Before Battle" is autobiographical are dispelled in the following excerpt from one of Hemingway's NANA dispatches, quoted by Schoots:
“Just as we were congratulating ourselves on having such a splendid observation post and the non-existent danger, a bullet smacked against a corner of brick wall beside Ivens's head. Thinking it was a stray, we moved over a little and, as I watched the action with glasses, shading them carefully, another came by my head. We changed our position to a spot where it was not so good observing and were shot at twice more. Joris thought Ferno had left his camera at our first post, and as I went back for it a bullet whacked into the wall above. I crawled back on my hands and knees, and another bullet came by as I crossed the exposed corner. We decided to set up the big telephoto camera. Ferno had gone back to find a healthier situation and chose the third floor of a ruined house where, in the shade of a balcony and with the camera camouflaged with old clothes we found in the house, we worked all afternoon and watched the battle.”
In May, Ivens returned to New York to oversee the work of editor Helen van Dongen. Hemingway soon followed. When Ivens asked Hemingway to clarify the theme of the picture, according to Kenneth Lynn in his erudite biography Hemingway (1987), the writer supplied three sentences: "We gained the right to cultivate our land by democratic elections. Now the military cliques and absentee landlords attack to take our land from us again. But we fight for the right to irrigate and cultivate this Spanish Earth which the nobles kept idle for their own amusement."
There were tense moments when Hemingway handed in his first draft of the commentary. Ivens felt it was too verbose, and asked him to make some cuts. Hemingway didn't like being told to shorten his work, but he eventually agreed. There was more tension when MacLeish asked Orson Welles to deliver the narration. Even though Hemingway had already shortened it, Welles thought the commentary was too long, and he told him so.
"Arriving at the studio," Welles said in a 1964 interview with Cahiers du Cinema, "I came upon Hemingway, who was in the process of drinking a bottle of whiskey; I had been handed a set of lines that were too long, dull, had nothing to do with his style, which is always so concise and so economical. There were lines as pompous and complicated as this: 'Here are the faces of men who are close to death,' and this was to be read at a moment when one saw faces on the screen that were so much more eloquent. I said to him, 'Mr. Hemingway, it would be better if one saw the faces all alone, without commentary.'"
Hemingway growled at him in the dark studio, according to Welles, and said, "You effeminate boys of the theatre, what do you know about real war?" Welles continues the story:
“Well, taking the bull by the horns, I began to make effeminate gestures and I said to him, "Mister Hemingway, how strong you are and how big you are!" That enraged him and he picked up a chair; I picked up another and, right there, in front of the images of the Spanish Civil War, as they marched across the screen, we had a terrible scuffle. It was something marvelous: two guys like us in front of these images representing people in the act of struggling and dying...We ended up toasting each other over a bottle of whisky.”
Skeptics have questioned the truthfulness of Welles's account, suggesting that he may have been trying to compensate for his own moment of humiliation, which followed soon after the recording session. MacLeish and Ivens liked Welles's performance, but Hellman and several other members of the Contemporary Historians group didn't. They thought Welles had been too theatrical, and suggested Hemingway read the narration himself.
The director eventually agreed. "When Ivens informed Welles that his own recording was going to be junked," writes Lynn, "Welles was miffed, especially since he had waived his right to a fee."
On July 8, 1937, Ivens, Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn, a journalist who had been with Hemingway in Spain and who would later become his wife, traveled to the White House to show the film to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The visit had been arranged by Gellhorn, who was a friend of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
A few days later Hemingway and Ivens traveled to Los Angeles to show the film to Hollywood moguls and movie stars. F. Scott Fitzgerald attended the screening, and the party afterward. It was the last time Hemingway and Fitzgerald saw each other. When Hemingway was back on the East Coast, Fitzgerald sent him a telegram: "THE PICTURE WAS BEYOND PRAISE AND SO WAS YOUR ATTITUDE."
The press reviews for The Spanish Earth tended to be a bit more equivocal. Some felt the film descended into out-and-out propaganda, to which Ivens later replied, "on issues of life and death, democracy or fascism, the true artist cannot be objective." But the writer of a 1938 article in Time magazine saw the film in a positive light:
“Not since the silent French film, The Passion of Joan of Arc, has such dramatic use been made of the human face. As face after face looks out from the screen the picture becomes a sort of portfolio of portraits of the human soul in the presence of disaster and distress. There are the earnest faces of speakers at meetings and in the village talking war, exhorting the defense. There are faces of old women moving from their homes in Madrid for safety's sake, staring at a bleak, uncertain future, faces in terror after a bombing, faces of men going into battle and the faces of men who will never return from battle, faces full of grief and determination and fear.”
In the end, with its mix of documentary and re-constructed elements, The Spanish Earth is at once a less elaborate but more complex film than that first conceived by Ivens. One critic aptly describes it as "an improvised hybrid of many filmic modes." This gives the film a curiously contemporary feel, but what really marks it out as a landmark of documentary filmmaking is its directness, its sense of immediacy, and its refusal to have any truck with spurious notions of "objectivity."
Ivens himself states that "My unit had really become part of the fighting forces," and again, "We never forgot that we were in a hurry. Our job was not to make the best of all films, but to make a good film for exhibition in the United States, in order to collect money to send ambulances to Spain. When we started shooting we didn't always wait for the best conditions to get the best shot. We just tried to get good, useful shots."
When asked why he hadn't tried to be more "objective" Ivens retorted that "a documentary film maker has to have an opinion on such vital issues as fascism or anti-fascism - he has to have feelings about these issues, if his work is to have any dramatic, emotional or art value," adding that "after informing and moving audiences, a militant documentary film should agitate - mobilise them to become active in connection with the problems shown in the film." Ivens would later justify his beliefs by stating, "on issues of life and death, democracy or fascism, the true artist cannot be objective."
Not that The Spanish Earth is in any sense strident - indeed, quite the reverse. Ivens understood fully the power of restraint and suggestion, quoting approvingly, à propos his film, John Steinbeck's observation of the London blitz that "In all of the little stories it is the ordinary, the commonplace thing or incident against the background of the bombing that leaves the indelible picture."
Ivens's visual restraint is matched by that of the commentary. The original commentary by Orson Welles did feel out of place and I would agree with Ivens sentiment that, "There was something in the quality of Welles’ voice that separated it from the film, from Spain, from the actuality of the film." Hemingway's manner of speaking, however, perfectly matched the pared-down quality of his writing. Ivens saw the function of the commentary as being "to provide sharp little guiding arrows to the key points of the film" and as serving as "a base on which the spectator was stimulated to form his own conclusions." He described Hemingway's mode of delivery as sounding like that of "a sensitive reporter who has been on the spot and wants to tell you about it. The lack of a professional commentator's smoothness helped you to believe intensely in the experiences on the screen."
Overall the film's avoidance of overt propagandising reflected not only Ivens' conception of the documentary aesthetic - it was also hoped that this might help The Spanish Earth achieve a wide theatrical release. However, as in Britain, there was thought to be no cinema audience for documentary films, and the plan failed. Nor did it help the film to escape the watchful eye of the British Board of Film Censors (who had previously attacked Ivens' New Earth) , who insisted that all references to Italian and German intervention were cut from the commentary, those countries being regarded as "friendly powers" at the time.
Photo (above): Ernest Hemingway and director Joris Ivens During the shooting of "The Spanish Earth" (1937).
#hemingway#ernest hemingway#the spanish civil war#war#the spanish earth#documentary#joris ivens#ivens#film#movie#cinema#orson welles#welles#f scott fitzgerald#europe#propaganda#art#aesthetics#film director#america#spain#fascism#franco
41 notes
·
View notes
Photo
María Inés Calderón (1611 – 1646 )
“A woman who apparently was not beautiful, but she had a lot of grace and charm. In addition to reciting, singing and dancing very well.”- Elvira Menéndez
María Inés Calderón, known as La Calderona and Marizápalos, was the most important actress in the Spain of the seventeenth century, who became the mistress of King Felipe IV and mother of his illegitimate son, Juan José of Austria. La Calderona was involved in a relationship with Ramiro Pérez de Guzmán, Duke of Medina de las Torres, at the time Felipe IV first saw and got smitten by the actress-singer on her debut at the Corral de la Cruz theatre in Madrid in 1627. But when the king got in the way, the lover had no choice but bow his head. La Calderona became the favorite of Felipe IV.
Enamoured of the red-headed actress, Felipe IV installed his lover in a balcony overlooking the square, a decision that flew right in the face of convention as these seats were meant to be the exclusive preserve of the aristocracy. After spotting her rival sitting in the posh seats, the queen Isabel de Borbón flew into a rage and threw La Calderona out of her love nest in the palace. To compensate, the rather sneaky king, then ordered that a secret balcony to be built under an arch. In this way, his lover could attend events at the Plaza Mayor and remain out of sight.
Upon the birth of her son in 1629, La Calderona lost the custody of him despite her protests. Her relationship to the king ended the same year. There were rumors at the time that her son was fathered by Ramiro Pérez de Guzmán. La Calderona was forced to become a nun against her will. Felipe IV ordered her entry into the monastery of San Juan Bautista of Valfermoso de las Monjas, in Alcarria, where the interpreter would lose contact with life, the theater, her son. In 1642, the King recognized Juan José officially as his son, and Juan José began his life's career as a military representative of his father's interests.
It was said that she died in closing, already under the name of Mrs. Maria de San Gabriel, Abbess. But it has also been written that she fled: that she managed, on the one hand, to escape from God's mandate and escape, along with a bandit, to the Sierra de la Calderona (Valencia) and, in another version, that she returned to Madrid, where she would welcome the guild of actors: « A kind of union that gave relief to interpreters who were in poor condition or who were already older. There seems to be data that helped her. Which would mean that she did not die in the convent as they officially said ».
The few concrete data of María Inés Calderón have served to increase the legend. Also regarding her family. It is not uncommon to find references to Pedro Calderón de la Barca as father of the creature. But far from it. It seems that, being very small, appeared at the door of Juan Calderón, a lender of the theater world and father of Juana, also an actress, although not as renowned as «La Calderona».
(x)(x)
#Maria Inés Calderón#La Calderona#Felipe IV#Philip IV#Juan José de Austria#Juan José of Austria#women in history#Spanish history#Carmen Maura#Paisaje con figuras#documentary
24 notes
·
View notes