Dietrich

Taschen Movie Icons

by James Ursini, Paul Duncan (Editor), The Kobal Collection (Photographs)

Marlene Dietrich once said, ""I am not a myth."" But by referencing the term, Dietrich only reinforces the fact more emphatically. For, using almost any common dictionary definition of that word, Dietrich is a myth. Her image was fashioned by director Josef von Sternberg in films like The Blue Angel, Shanghai Express, and The Scarlet Empress, after which she maintained a Hollywood career that included Destry Rides Again, Rancho Notorious, and an accomplished performance in Billy Wilder's Witness for the Prosecution. She has been an object of worship to millions throughout the decades, up to and including this jaded, post-modern 21st century. She is the ""intellectual's pin up girl,"" as author Herman G. Weinberg called her, of filmmakers and film critics alike. She is the ""Monstre Sacre"" as one of her recent biographers has labeled her. She is her own ""Superior Product,"" (her daughter's words) manufactured and refined in her fertile brain. In other words, Marlene Dietrich is an icon for all ages. The Movie Icon People talk about Hollywood glamour, about studios that had more stars than there are in heaven, about actors who weren't actors but were icons. Other people talk about these things, Taschen shows you. Movie Icons is a series of photo books that feature the most famous personalities in the history of cinema. These 192-page books are visual biographies of the stars. For each title, series editor Paul Duncan has painstaking selected approximately 150 high quality enigmatic and sumptuous portraits, colorful posters and lobby cards, rare film stills, and previously unpublished candid photos showing the stars as they really are. These images are accompanied by concise introductoryessays by leading film writers; each book also includes a chronology, a filmography, and a bibliography, and is peppered with apposite quotes from the movies and from life.

Genres: Biography, Art

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Luciana Nery · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's not an comprehensive of all aspects of Marlene's life, but it covers the most important points, and highlights her intelligence, foresight and why she deserves so many accolades post-morten.

The pictures in the book, her beauty, talent and strength at full force, also follow her in every step of her life, all of them full of meaningful in relation to her career, but also showing her as a hero while entertaining American soldiers in German territory, when she would have been a prize to Hitler. She left Germany at the first signs of authotarianism, famously saying she could take part in oppressing children, and that's why she moved to the US.

She ate soldier's food, she slept in tents, she listened to the sounds of bullets - and she could have done none of that. Her generosity and braveness was beyond description.

She was unapologetic about being disciplined and demanding that from those who worked with her. She strived for perfection.

She was a political being to the very end, when she advised François Miterrand by phone from her apartment in Paris. She had her heart in the right place. She reached the fame that she deserved, and lost an Oscar by mere circumstance - stop whatever you're doing and watch "Witness for the Prosecution".

[Shay Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is basically a coffee table book, which includes a great many glossy stills from Marlene Dietrich's movie career, as well as a few from her live shows. Also included are an array of movie posters. The book contains a number of interesting quotes from the lady herself, as well as people who knew or worked with her. There is a little bit of biographical text, as well as brief explanatory notes about the stills and photographs. All text is in three languages: English, German, and French.

Marlene Dietrich was a top tier star, a very sexy woman who flirted with both women and men and was as captivating in a man's tuxedo as she was in a Hollywood gown. This is a woman who, when offered the chance to be a star in Nazi-sponsored German movies (in 1933), basically told Hitler to stuff it, and became an American citizen. This book isn't meant to be an in-depth biography, but is well worth an hour's time for anyone who finds her fascinating...and who wouldn't?

[Paddy]

Ein wirklich tolles Buch!! Sehr geil, wuerd' ich es jedem empfehlen!! :)

[Thiago Freitas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Small book with non relevant pictures of a beautiful and iconic woman.