I saw this "Mr Magorium's Wonderful Emporium" because I think this was the first to construct a story with the primary intent of creating a character for an actor. In this case the actor is the writer and director. He's a slight Jewish kid with poor education and working class background. For the international movie industry, he created an extremely well articulated story about himself as an Austrian nobleman, with bearing and art in the blood.
He did so by extreme consistency in lies throughout his life, but he introduced himself, using films as the main truth. This is the first.
The story is simple: he is traveling with a renown doctor and his supposedly beautiful wife to the Alps. While the doctor is away, he seduces the wife. The doctor confronts him on the mountain and he dies. It is told primitively: von Stroheim was for all his own story never a good storyteller. The mountains are significant of course, being something that references and defines the majesty of the Germanic soul. They would be exploited later in the service of Nazi identity, using much the same technique of imposing the unreal of the ideal on the real.
Does it matter that he created this life for himself. It does for me, because I consider "Sunset Blvd." a touchstone and his placement in it an act of genius.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
He did so by extreme consistency in lies throughout his life, but he introduced himself, using films as the main truth. This is the first.
The story is simple: he is traveling with a renown doctor and his supposedly beautiful wife to the Alps. While the doctor is away, he seduces the wife. The doctor confronts him on the mountain and he dies. It is told primitively: von Stroheim was for all his own story never a good storyteller. The mountains are significant of course, being something that references and defines the majesty of the Germanic soul. They would be exploited later in the service of Nazi identity, using much the same technique of imposing the unreal of the ideal on the real.
Does it matter that he created this life for himself. It does for me, because I consider "Sunset Blvd." a touchstone and his placement in it an act of genius.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.