Movie: "The Scarlet Empress" (1934)

No less figure than David Selznick complained that Josef Von Sternberg films dealt with "completely fake people in wholly fake situations" and case in point would be "The Scarlet Empress" (1934) where life of Catherine The Great is presented in such a way that Catherine herself would probably watch the movie without being aware it is about her - though the story is based on Catherine's diaries (her childhood and arrival on russian court,disposal of husband and the way she became omnipotent empress herself) Sternberg is too busy with cellophane to bother about the facts - his movie is all about artistic vision,shadows,lights and brilliant (often grotesque) scenography so never mind the real history.

Once the viewer accepts this has nothing to do with reality and Catherine The Great,it is a masterpiece and very pleasurable movie - no wonder audience at the time lapped it up since it has opportunistic and openly promiscuous main character who manipulates everybody around her into victory against baddies. Not sure how much the audience really got the art in Sternberg's work and his breath-taking german expressionistic visuals (just look at the ladies-in-waiting opening those heavy wooden doors,interiors of the castle or the royal dinner with those chairs that look more like Bluebird's castle than real russian court at the time) but movie surely stand the test of time because it is so unique and original that it simply can never became old-fashioned: it is a nightmare,a fairly tale and you will never again find anything like this elsewhere. Besides,the black & white movies always had special spell on me and I find myself watching them completely lost and drawn into them,like hypnotized into special world.

Louise Dresser is also very good as aged Empress who rules with iron fist,she treats young Catherine as a servant and though she is hard as nail,there is unexpected humanity behind all that posture,one imagines (and understands) that Catherine later probably turned into such kind of person.

Naturally the whole attention is usually focused on Dietrich but I must admit (as a afterthought) that she is simply brilliant marionette who does what Von Sternberg wants her to - sure,she inspired him and vice versa but without him she never reached that same peaks again (they made six movies together and than her movie career basically fizzled) and I wonder how would Sternberg worked if inspired by someone else - it's a interesting guess since he is the real artist here,movie is created by him and Dietrich just happened to be focus of the camera.

So far I have only seen "The Blue Angel" and "The Scarlet Empress" of Sternberg/Dietrich work so now I am really curious to see the rest.