Saturday 18 December 2010

Garbo, Vienna, Pabst FULL download


G W Pabst's Die freudlos Gasse or Joyless Street (1925). This full download is the original US release so it plays up the Great Garbo angle for US audiences. But the film is also interesting because it shows Vienna in 1921, and is based on an influential novel written shortly before. Austria was devastated by the First World War. Everyone suffered deprivation, even the well off. So much for the myth of "Vienna, City of Dreams". Effectively, the waltz stopped in 1914. Obviously low life was depicted before in art (Zola, Wedekind etc) but films like these are background to what was happening in music and opera in the 20's and 30's.

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