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Sunday 27 February 2011

Cinematic


.

File:Lady from Shanghai trailer hayworth2.JPG

Rita Hayworth in Lady from Shanghai, 1947: screenshot from film trailer




We dwell in our plush gumstuck viewing thrones.
Buck's still caught on that log when the house lights come
Up. Shocked by the return of a real life
We were doing very well without, thank you,
We recognize that image was a white lie,

With no more substance than a dream,
No more lasting than the gift by which we breathe,
No more lasting, that is, than itself.
And as in waking from the dream too soon
One forgets its truths, we turn back into lumps,

Resigned to our several lump personae
Washed up amid alien popcorn boxes,
Moving out past velvety chains into
Cool silks of the night, Rita Hayworth lost,
Stars widening their vast indifferent gaze.





File:Lady from Shanghai trailer hayworth1.JPG

Rita Hayworth in Lady from Shanghai, 1947: screenshot from film trailer

12 comments:

Ed Baker said...

first strapless bra was worn By Rita Hayworth and was invented by Orson Wells

or was it Howard Hughes

I think it was Howard Hughes and she wore it in that cowboy movie

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

"Stars widening their vast indifferent gaze"

-- thanks for these views of living at the movies. . . .
(maybe you could post a link to F'OH reading "To the Film Industry in Crisis" with Jane Freilicher, w/ piano accompaniment)

2.27

grey blackness of sky above black plane
of ridge, planet next to moon in leaves
in foreground, wave sounding in channel

because that is what, to be
that still in its one

specific view, toward right
of window, to be from

cloudless blue sky reflected in channel,
lines of sunlit white clouds on horizon

Walter Murch said...

Beautiful and true. Or true and beautiful.

Walter M.

TC said...

Someone in the background is saying "bras and free liquor..."

(No, now I realize I have mis-heard "Freilicher".)

Steve, there are a few abbreviated and/or muddied Frank trax available on Youtube (the one in which Nirvana drowns out his reading of "Lana Turner Is Collapsing" gets a lot of hits from the "awesome" crowd), but I fear I was unable to fill your specific request.

(Perhaps you know of secret sources for that?)


Walter, who would not be wowed to have a humble blog post on the movies endowed with the blessing of one of the historical geniuses of movie making.

(I have been greatly appreciating the fascinating education in the intricacies of sound design and editing to be found here.)

Anonymous said...

I believe the first strapless bra was worn by Orson Welles in The Third Man.

Artur.

TC said...

Well Ed, I was about to reveal the results of a bit of aim-to-please research into the bathetic depths of cultural trivia which revealed that Howard Hughes invented an underwire bra with straps to enhance Jane Russell's already considerable pectoral assets in the film The Outlaw (shot in 1941, but not in general release for five years after that, due to Hughes' struggles with the Production Code over "morally acceptable content").

Reportedly the thing was terribly uncomfortable, and Jane did not put up with it happily, nor for very long.

However by 1955, it seems, the nation was finally ready for a strapless bra, with free liquor.

But "at the end of the day", all other historical sources have now been trumped by Artur, who has, as we say in the biz, nailed it.

("Ouch, the damn thing PINCHES," Orson is said to have complained.)

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

Here's a link to O'Hara reading "To the Film Industry in Crisis," with Jane Freilicher and John Gruen on piano --http://www.ubu.com/sound/ohara.html.

Meanwhile, nice to find my/our neighbor Walter here -- "something to do with the physics of recording that sound an then slowing it down" ---

2.28

grey blackness of sky above still black
ridge, white of moon beside pine branch
in foreground, wave sounding in channel

place with respect to, this
can be arbitrary when

etc., in motion relative to
one another, there is

silver of sunlight reflected in channel,
whiteness of cloud to the left of point

TC said...

Steve,

Thanks for trying, my friend, but that UBU WEB link comes up as "Page Not Found".

(Why am I not surprised? The academic avant garde -- strictly academic, when you need it!)

And yes, great that two notable Bolinasian geniuses should appear on the same lucky day...

in motion relative to
one another

Ed Baker said...

ACTUALLY it was
Jane Russell ...
&not
Orson Wells!

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_uUYznvj1ti0/TMTgutuT-gI/AAAAAAAAAd4/SaFf4DFpHYs/s1600/russell.jpg

... who just died today


The Outlaw....

Anonymous said...

Funny. She doesn't look like a Republican in that picture.

Artur.

TC said...

That's Haystack Republican.

(No water in the tea.)

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Sorry Tom (!) -- no period after "html" -- try it like this:

http://www.ubu.com/sound/ohara.html