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selenak: (Branagh by Dear_Prudence)
[personal profile] selenak
Browsing through Curt Siodmak's memoirs again, I was reminded again of how so many things are a matter of perspective. Siodmak - scriptwriter of many a sci fi and horror movie in the 40s, started out writing (both scripts and novels) in the last years of the Weimar Republic, i.e.those very years which in the English speaking world's imagination are firmly coded as sexually liberated (or decadent, depending on who is doing the telling, but at any rate, if Brits and Americans refer to Weimar era Germany, you can bet they envision sex and drugs somewhere). Meanwhile, young Curt Siodmak, making it to the US in 1937 after wisely getting out of Germany post Goebbels' speech to the film worldi in March of 1933, and a few years in France and Britain, comes to just the opposite conclusion - he thought it - i.e. the US of A - was the country of sexual liberation, so unlike sexually repressed Germany (and he means Weimar era Germany, not the Third Reich) and even more repressed Britain. Now this might have something to do with just where Curt S. scored, but even so, I was amused.

Being a genre man through and through, he has a nice hang-up free attitude towards the fact he'll probably best known for The Wolf Man (and inventing a lot of modern day pop culture werewolf folklore, complete with doggerel), but he can be snobbish in other regards; David O. Selznick is never mentioned, for example, without the adjectives "ill-educated". And the descriptions of the first visits to post war Germany in the 50s are (deservedly) scathing, because of course he runs into denialists and "did something happen?" attitudes all around. One of these encounters includes the most effective verbal slap I've ever read administered, when he runs into Gustav Ucicky, whom he knew from ye olde UFA days, and who had then gone on to become one of the Third Reich's leading film directors. Seeing Siodmak again, he asks: "Mensch, Kurt, wo biste gewesen?" "Hey, Curt, long time no see" would be the closest English equivalent for what is the kind of informal greeting you give when you haven't seen each other in a good while but have parted on good terms - the literaral translation, however, is "where have you been?" To which Siodmak replies: "Not in your ovens", and leaves.

(A few decades later Siodmak got and accepted the Bundesverdienstkreuz; in the memoirs he said that three decades of Germany confronting its past (since said memoirs were written in the early 1990s, I'm assuming he means the time between the mid 60s and the present, which is a fair assessment) seemed supportworthy.)

I can't imagine what he'd say to the situation on both sides of the Atlantic right now. Or wait, I can. *cringes* (He died in 2000, at 98 years of age, in his sleep, which.) On that note:


Something New In the West : in which two writers from Die Zeit ponder not just German-US but general Europe-US relationships in the age of not just the Orange Menace:

Today Atlanticists have to deal with the paradox that the attack on the foundations of the liberal international world order founded by America comes from the White House. In the West Wing sits a nationalist and confessed enemy of multilateral politics, one who sympathizes with authoritarian leaders and undermines the EU by supporting Brexit.

The fact that the constants and principles of German foreign policy -- European integration, multilateralism, engagement in the name of human rights and the rule of law, rule-based globalization -- are questioned by the American government constitutes an enormous intellectual and strategic challenge. In the future, Europe now, out of necessity, has to do this by itself without the aid of the U.S., or perhaps even against the U.S. government.


And lastly, on to something to be fannish about.

Black Sails:


Fabulous essay about Black Sails by one Natasha Simonova, University of Oxford, posted by the British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies. Spoilers for all four seasons.

Date: 2017-11-05 07:00 pm (UTC)
sovay: (I Claudius)
From: [personal profile] sovay
Browsing through Curt Siodmak's memoirs again

I knew Siodmak had written novels; I don't think I knew about the memoirs. Are they English-language?

Have you read either Kevin Macdonald's biography of Emeric Pressburger or Pressburger's novel The Glass Pearls? Siodmak clearing out of UFA/Germany in 1933 reminded me.
Edited Date: 2017-11-05 07:02 pm (UTC)

Date: 2017-11-06 04:34 am (UTC)
sovay: (I Claudius)
From: [personal profile] sovay
Alas no on Pressburger, in both cases.

I recommend both. I wrote a little about the biography and a lot about the novel.

in German the memoirs appeared in two volumes, one convering his time in the German and British film industry, the second everything from 1937 onwards. Amazon tells me the English version consists just of one volume

Thank you! Neither English nor German versions appear to exist in the library system I have access to, unfortunately, but I will keep an eye out for them in used book stores. At this point I read German slowly, but I can still read it, and if the English version is a condensation I'd rather not rely solely on it.

Date: 2017-11-05 08:19 pm (UTC)
chelseagirl: Alice -- Tenniel (Default)
From: [personal profile] chelseagirl
Great essay on Black Sails -- thanks for sharing it!

Date: 2017-11-05 09:01 pm (UTC)
watervole: (Default)
From: [personal profile] watervole
The fact that the constants and principles of German foreign policy -- European integration, multilateralism, engagement in the name of human rights and the rule of law, rule-based globalization -- are questioned by the American government constitutes an enormous intellectual and strategic challenge. In the future, Europe now, out of necessity, has to do this by itself without the aid of the U.S., or perhaps even against the U.S. government.

Yay Germany! and Europe.

Date: 2017-11-05 09:45 pm (UTC)
saraqael: (Default)
From: [personal profile] saraqael
I should read Curt Siodmak's memoirs. I've noticed his name in the credits of many films I enjoyed, but I know nothing about him aside from what you posted here.

Thanks for the link to the Black Sails review. I loved that series. One the things that always struck me about the story was the way that the main characters invents and inhabits their own mythologies. I was surprised to read in this article that fans disliked the James McGraw/Thomas Hamilton love affair because it made the McGraw (Flint) character seem less 'badass'. Seriously? To me it made McGraw even more interesting, and his Flint persona even more fascinating and tragic. I loved the series' version of Calico Jack Rackham, my own personal favorite historical pirate.

Date: 2017-11-07 02:54 am (UTC)
saraqael: (Default)
From: [personal profile] saraqael
Re fannish reactions: I'm indifferent to the sexuality of characters for the most part. (Likewise is also true for people in real life.) Unless the character's sexuality is used in the story to provide insights into the character (other than who they are attracted to/sleeping with), I don't care.

It seems incredibly juvenile to me that any male fan would think that the character of Flint was ruined just because he was revealed to be bisexual. It is insightful about a lot of male tv viewers though, I guess. It also seems silly to me to advertise the show to female viewers as a 'gay' pirate show as if that makes the show or the character automatically better or more interesting.

So far as Flint is concerned, I thought that the reveal that he'd been in love with Thomas Hamilton did add to my understanding of him as a character. His loss of Hamilton fueled so much of his ferocious transformation into 'Flint.' He's only saved at the end when he is restored to Hamilton and to his own true identity. Flint is defeated but James McGraw gets a chance to live again. Fantastic story arc.

As for Carl Siodmak, thank goodness he was smart enough to get out of Germany in time.

Tangential comment is tangential

Date: 2017-11-06 09:41 pm (UTC)
rydra_wong: Lee Miller photo showing two women wearing metal fire masks in England during WWII. (Default)
From: [personal profile] rydra_wong
Fabulous essay about Black Sails by one Natasha Simonova

Who was also responsible for this marvellous Tweet:

https://twitter.com/philistella/status/910075928751038464

(Um, hi. *waves*)

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