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Showing posts with label James Agee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label James Agee. Show all posts
April 16, 2020
November 3, 2019
Walker Evans ~ photographs of the Depression, James Agee & Many Are Called
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Today, November 3, is the birthday of Walker Evans who was born in 1903. Evans was an American photographer and photojournalist best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) documenting the effects of the Great Depression.
Walker Evans self-portrait - 1936
As with Dorothea Lange, many of his images have become symbols of the Great Depression such as the portrait of Allie
Mae Burroughs for the FSA.
Allie
Mae Burroughs - 1936
photo by Walker Evans
In addition to his portraits, his work included many studies of Depression era life in the 1930's primarily in the Southern United States.
Roadside stand, Birmingham, Alabama - 1936
In the late 30's he collaborated with writer James Agee on the famous book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, an extraordinary portrait of rural sharecroppers in the Deep South. While working on the book, the two men created another lesser-known work: Many Are Called (link below).
Many Are Called is a photographic study of people on the New York subway from 1938 to 1941. Using a camera hidden in his jacket and a cable release running down his sleeve, Evans snapped unsuspecting passengers while they traveled through the city. Evans said that these photographs were his “idea of what a portrait ought to be,” he wrote, “anonymous and documentary and a straightforward picture of mankind.” There is a five minute audio interview on NPR (link below).
Evans was born in St. Louis, Missouri to Jessie (née Crane) and Walker Evans, an advertising director. He spent his youth in Toledo, Chicago, and New York City. He studied French literature for a year at Williams College.
After spending a year in Paris in 1926, he returned to the United States to join a literary and art crowd in New York City. John Cheever, Hart Crane, and Lincoln Kirstein were among his friends. He was a clerk for a stockbroker firm in Wall Street from 1927 to 1929.
Evans took up photography in 1928 around the time he was living in Ossining, New York. His influences included Eugène Atget and August Sander. In 1930, he published three photographs (Brooklyn Bridge) in the poetry book The Bridge by Hart Crane.
Hart Crane ~ The Bridge cover - 1930
photo by Walker Evans
In 1931, he made a photo series of Victorian houses in the Boston vicinity which was sponsored by Lincoln Kirstein.
photo by Walker Evans
In May and June of 1933, Evans took photographs in Cuba for Lippincott, the publisher The Crime of Cuba (1933) by Carleton Beals. It was an account of the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado. His photographs documented street life, the presence of police, beggars and dockworkers in rags, and other waterfront scenes.
Cuba - 1933
photo by Walker Evans
While in Cuba he became friends with Ernest Hemingway and helped him acquire photos from newspaper archives that documented some of the political violence described in To Have and Have Not (1937). Fearing his photographs might be deemed critical of the government and confiscated by Cuban authorities, Evans left 46 prints with Hemingway but had no difficulties when returning to the United States and 31 of his photos appeared in the Beals book. The cache of prints left with Hemingway was discovered in Havana in 2002 and shown at an exhibition in Key West and at the Getty Museum in 2011 (link below).
In 1973 and 1974, he shot a series with the then-new Polaroid SX-70 camera, after age and poor health had made it difficult for him to work with elaborate equipment.
Polaroid SX-70 prints
photos by Walker Evans
Walker Evans died of a stroke at his apartment in New Haven, Connecticut, on April 10, 1975. The last person he talked to was author and photographer, Hank O'Neal.
In 1994, The Estate of Walker Evans turned over its holdings to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City.
Net links:
The Iris ~ Walker Evans’s Havana, through an Architect’s Lens
MOMA ~ Subway Portraits
NPR ~ Many Are Called: Walker Evans' Subway Photos
Styrous® ~ Sunday, November 3, 2019
MOMA ~ Subway Portraits
NPR ~ Many Are Called: Walker Evans' Subway Photos
Styrous® ~ Sunday, November 3, 2019
July 21, 2019
Walker Evans articles/mentions
mentions:
Robert Frank: The Americans
Walker Evans - 1936–41
Roof of 441 East 92nd Street, New York City
Self-portrait
July 26, 2017
The Night of the Hunter & Robert Mitchum
Today, July 26, 1955, the film, The Night of the Hunter, premiered and for the first time I realized what a great actor Robert Mitchum was.
I will never forget the first time I saw The Night of the Hunter. I had just turned 15 and up to that point my entire movie experience was Sci-Fi, westerns, gangsters, The Three Stooges and comedies. I was shocked by its theme of psychologically-disturbed personalities. I don't believe there had been a film like this before.
The Night of the Hunter movie poster
The Night of the Hunter is a 1955 American film noir directed by Charles Laughton; it was the only film he ever directed (link below). It stared Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, Billy Chapin, Gloria Castillo and Sally Jane Bruce. The screenplay by James Agee was based on the 1953 novel of the same name by Davis Grubb. The plot focuses on a corrupt reverend-turned-serial killer who attempts to charm an unsuspecting widow and steal $10,000 hidden by her executed husband.
There was nothing creepier than Robert Mitchum singing the spiritual, Leaning on the Everlasting Arms, nor the unearthly scream he utters in the river boat scene (links below). It makes my skin raise up in goose bumps.
The novel and film draw on the true story of Harry Powers, hanged in 1932 for the murder of two widows and three children in Clarksburg, West Virginia. The film's lyrical and expressionistic style with its leaning on the silent era sets it apart from other Hollywood films of the 1940s and 1950s, and it has influenced later directors such as David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Terrence Malick, Jim Jarmusch, Spike Lee, and the Coen brothers.
There was nothing creepier than Robert Mitchum singing the spiritual, Leaning on the Everlasting Arms, nor the unearthly scream he utters in the river boat scene (links below). It makes my skin raise up in goose bumps.
The novel and film draw on the true story of Harry Powers, hanged in 1932 for the murder of two widows and three children in Clarksburg, West Virginia. The film's lyrical and expressionistic style with its leaning on the silent era sets it apart from other Hollywood films of the 1940s and 1950s, and it has influenced later directors such as David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Terrence Malick, Jim Jarmusch, Spike Lee, and the Coen brothers.
An illustration of the unorthodox lighting in The Night of the Hunter (1955) remniscent of German Expressionist cinema. Note the placement of
the key light (main light) off the protagonist, played by Lillian Gish,
to illuminate the villain Robert Mitchum. This lighting arrangement
plays off the conventional association of light with good and darkness
with evil.
The scene of Shelley Winters dead in the car submerged in the river with her hair floating around her face while the music is a beautiful, gentle and dreamy watlz is one of the most terrifying scenes of all time.
The film was scored by Walter Schumann, (October 8, 1913 – August 21, 1958) who was an American composer for film, television, and the theater. His notable works include the Dragnet Theme. His themes for the film are dead on target: the song, Once Upon a Time There Was a Pretty Fly and Hush, Little One, Hush, sung by Kitty White, are hauntingly beautiful. Both are exquisite counter points to the creepy, sinister score.
In 1992, The Night of the Hunter was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. The influential film magazine Cahiers du cinéma selected The Night of the Hunter in 2008 as the second-best film of all time, behind Citizen Kane.
before filming "Night of the Hunter"
Charles Laughton directing Billy Chapin,
watched by Peter Graves
The Night of the Hunter, 1955
promo shot
The Night of the Hunter Cast & Crew
Slate.com ~ The Greatest One-Off in Movie History
Filmsite review
The Guardian ~ My Favorite Film
The Telegraph ~ a masterpiece of American cinema
A.V. Club ~ Charles Laughton’s first, and only, directorial masterpiece
Turner Classics review
YouTube links:
Slate.com ~ The Greatest One-Off in Movie History
Filmsite review
The Guardian ~ My Favorite Film
The Telegraph ~ a masterpiece of American cinema
A.V. Club ~ Charles Laughton’s first, and only, directorial masterpiece
Turner Classics review
YouTube links:
The Night of the Hunter (trailer)
Robert Mitchum - Leaning on the Everlasting Arms
River Boat Scene
Once Upon a Time There Was a Pretty Fly
Hush, Little One, Hush
Original cast and crew talks about The Night of the Hunter
Charles Laughton directs The Night of the Hunter
Once Upon a Time There Was a Pretty Fly
Hush, Little One, Hush
Original cast and crew talks about The Night of the Hunter
Charles Laughton directs The Night of the Hunter
“The Night of the Hunter is a nightmarish sort of Mother Goose tale."
July 1, 2017
45 RPMs 15: Charles Laughton reads The Night of the Hunter
front cover by
spoken word with music
spoken word with music
photo of album by Styrous®
Today, July 1, is the birthday of Charles Laughton.
So, in true Styrous fashion, I've dragged out an album to commemorate
it. I have many albums with which he was involved to chose from but this recording of The Night of the Hunter is the one I have loved the most. This is a reading by Laughton of excerpts from The Night of the Hunter screenplay by James Agee. The film was based on the 1953 novel of the same name by Davis Grubb. The novel in turn was based on actual events; the real story was even more nightmarish than the film (link below). Harry Powers was hanged in 1932 for the murder of two widows and three children in Clarksburg, West Virginia.
back cover
photo of album by Styrous®
Harry F. Powers (born Herman Drenth; 1892 – March 18, 1932) — also known as Cornelius O. Pierson and A. R. Weaver — was a convicted serial killer who was hung in Moundsville, West Virginia, USA.
Powers lured his victims through "Lonely Hearts ads, claiming he was looking for love, but in reality murdered them for their money. The 1953 novel, The Night of the Hunter, by Davis Grubb, and its 1955 film adaptation were based on these crimes (link below).
Harry Powers mug shot - 1920
Dayton, Ohio Police Department
Powers lured his victims through "Lonely Hearts ads, claiming he was looking for love, but in reality murdered them for their money. The 1953 novel, The Night of the Hunter, by Davis Grubb, and its 1955 film adaptation were based on these crimes (link below).
Laughton draws on his years of dramatic acting to weave the story of murder and deception with the virtuosity only he could carry off. He speaks, growls, howls and slithers with sinister tones one minute and gently soothes the next. He speaks with love and compassion then with vileness and hate; he soars through a rainbow of emotions and acting that is stunning. It is something truly amazing to hear. His experience as an actor is on brilliant display in this recording (YouTube link below).
The Night of the Hunter was the only film Laughton directed. When it was released, it was a critical and financial disaster and was the one bitter disappointment of his life he never got over it (links below).
spine
photo by Styrous®
page 1 detail
detail photo by Styrous®
The film score by Walter Schumann has some of the finest motifs in the history of movie scores. It ranges from dramatic and frightening themes to quiet and lovely ones. Pretty Fly and Lullabye are among the most beautiful songs ever written (link below).
page 2 detail
detail photo by Styrous®
Schumann was an American composer for film, television, and the theater. In addition to The Night of the Hunter his notable works include the Dragnet Theme for which he won an Emmy.
page 3 detail
detail photo by Styrous®
Upon the initial appearance of The Night of the Hunter in France, then-critic François Truffaut called it “an experimental cinema that truly
experiments, and a cinema of discovery that, in fact, discovers”, and he predicted that it would be Laughton’s only venture as a
director (I have not discovered the reason for his saying this). The experimentation Truffaut identifies reside in the film’s
variations in tone and style, and that some shots appear composed more
for style than meaning. To match the film’s novel-like shifts in
perspectives, patterns of influence also shift and range from the silent
pictures of D.W. Griffith to German Expressionism to fairy-tale
fantasy. Yet it all comes together to form a whole—a weirdly organic
construction filled with stylistic contradictions that are anything but
fortuitous. Rather, Laughton and his production crew toiled to vast
lengths to achieve the film’s idiosyncratic diversity of style, and
together created one of cinema’s purest examples of filmmaking as it
should be: a collaborative artform.
page 4 detail
detail photo by Styrous®
The 45 RPM EP The Night of the Hunter album has three records with Laughton reading the script for the film, which he
directed, with music by Walter Schumann and sound effects from the film. There is a video
of his reading of the script with music and sound effects from the film
accompanying Laughton as he reads each scene; it is an extremely chilling experience
to listen to the album (link below).
sides 1 - 3
photo by Styrous®
sides 4 - 6
photo by Styrous®
Tracklist:
A Part One
B Part Two
C Part Three
D Part Four
E Part Five
F Concluded
Label: RCA Victor – EPC 1136
Format: 3 × Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, Album, EP
Country: US
Released: 1955
Genre: Stage & Screen
Style: Theme, Spoken Word
Net links:
Soundfly ~ Pretty Fly/Lullabye
Slate.com ~ The Greatest One-Off in Movie History
The Telegraph ~ America's most notorious ladykiller
Original cast and crew talks about The Night of the Hunter Viewfiner links:
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