FILM 1459: WILD STRAWBERRIES

TRIVIA: Ingmar Bergman has described in the interview how he came up with the idea while driving from Stockholm to Dalarna, stopping in Uppsala where he had been born and raised, and driving by outside his grandmother's old house, when he suddenly began to think about how it would be if he could open the door and inside it would be just as it had been during his childhood. "So it struck me - what if you could make a film about this; that you just walk up in a realistic way and open a door, and then you walk into your childhood, and then you open another door and come back to reality, and then you make a turn around a street corner and arrive in some other period of your existence, and everything goes on, lives. That was actually the idea behind Wild Strawberries (1957)"

Cinematographer Gunnar Fischer says that several scenes had to be shot indoors due to Victor Sjöström's poor health. "We had to make some very bad back-projection in the car because we never knew if Victor would come back alive the next day." Nevertheless, as long as Victor was home by 5:15 P.M. each day, "and had his whiskey punctually, all went well."

The dummy that Isak Borg mistakes for a pedestrian during the dream sequence was constructed from a balloon and a silk stocking.

FILM 1404: ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

TRIVIA: With the loss of limbs and gory deaths shown rather explicitly, this is undoubtedly the most violent American film of its time. This is because the Production Code was not strictly enforced until 1934, and also because Universal Pictures deemed the subject matter important enough to allow the violence to be seen.

Nazi rabble rousers stormed screenings of the film in Germany, often releasing rats or stink bombs into the theaters, as the wounds of defeat in the First World War still ran deep. This led to the film ultimately being banned by the Nazi party. It wouldn't receive proper screenings in Germany until 1956, though it did play to packed houses in 1930 in neighboring Switzerland, France and the Netherlands with special trains and buses being laid on to transport Germans to screenings.

Final film of Raymond Griffith, who played the dying French soldier Gerard Duval stabbed by Paul Baumer (Lew Ayres). He had lost his voice through illness as a child. A popular silent-film star, the coming of sound meant the end of his career.

Universal's first Best Picture Oscar.

The Greek writing on the blackboard in the schoolroom is the beginning of Homer's "Odyssey": "Tell me Oh Muse of that ingenious hero who traveled far and wide".

In part because of his experience in playing the part of Paul Baumer, Lew Ayres became a conscientious objector during the Second World War. His films were banned in over 100 Chicago theaters.

Around 2000 extras were utilized in the film, many of them Germans--including former soldiers--who had moved to the US after World War I.

BOOK 137: AUTOBIOGRAPHY: MORRISSEY

Autobiography is a book by the British singer-songwriter Morrissey, published in October 2013.

Controversially, it was published under the Penguin Classics imprint. It was a number one best-seller in the UK and received polarised reviews, with certain reviewers hailing it as brilliant writing and others decrying it as overwrought and self-indulgent.

A few days before the book's apparently scheduled, but unannounced, release on 16 September 2013, Morrissey issued a statement explaining that a content dispute with Penguin Books meant that publication would be delayed and that he was seeking a new publisher.‪The book's subsequent European release, on 17 October 2013, caused controversy as it was published under the Penguin Classics imprint, normally reserved for highly esteemed deceased authors.‪

The book is not divided into chapters and its opening paragraph lasts four-and-a-half pages.‪ The book covers Morrissey's childhood and adolescence, his period as lead singer with The Smiths, his subsequent solo career and his courtroom battles with Smiths drummer Mike Joyce, who sued him for royalties in the 1990s. He writes extensively about the television, literature and music that influenced him, devoting many pages to the New York Dolls, whom he persuaded to reform in the 2000s. The book includes a number of descriptions of people Morrissey has worked with which his biographer Tony Fletcher calls "character assassinations". Fletcher describes the depiction of Rough Trade Records boss Geoff Travis as particularly unflattering.‪ Morrissey writes in the book about two serious romantic relationships he has had with a woman and a man.‪ In the days following the book's release, he issued a statement emphasising that he did not consider himself to be gay: "I am attracted to humans. But, of course, not many".‪

The book was not issued with an index, although an informal and unauthorised "online index" created by a fan was released on 22 May 2014.

Book 92: In Youth is Pleasure - Denton Welch

In Youth is Pleasure is a beautiful and unassuming coming of age novel. Welch, who began to write after an accident left him partially paralyzed, is a Proustian writer of uncanny powers of observation. "Denton Welch makes the reader aware of the magic that is right under his eyes.... It is time Denton received the attention he deserves". -- William Burroughs.