caburns90

I can't understand why this film made in 2000 directed by Karl Francis hasn't been made into a video or DVD. It shows the problems of The Hollywood Ten without preaching to the converted, and is very moving and well acted. We sympathise with those characters who are caught up in the tragic McCarthy era and imprisoned for their left wing views. It could well have failed as it is a hackneyed subject but the director managed to give it a fresh, humanitarian perspective. Once the cast enters into making a film or their own, The Salt of the Earth, the rhythm shifts and the relief is immense that they are safe from persecution. At the preview, the director's integrity matched the heroism of the lead actor. I strongly recommend it.

This moving film charts the life of an icon from birth to death. It is interspersed with a comments by her daughter, friends and colleagues, and gruelling documentary footage. After her success in The Blue Angel, Dietrich becomes an emancipated femme fatale, actress and singer. In the 1930s, she flees Berlin to join the German-Jewish exiles in America and protest against anti-Semitism and the Third Reich. Her fluctuating roles in movies are dependent on the political climate of the times. In the 1940s, she risks her life to entertain thousands of troops on the front-line and is devastated when she witnesses the Belsen atrocities. Sixteen years after the war, she returns to Berlin on a concert tour to an ambiguous reception: she is attacked by the press as a traitor and worshipped by fans. An ageing star in Israel, she wins an ovation for her poignant performance of Lili Marlene. I highly recommend this haunting film which is directed by the star's grandson.

This is one of the most moving, experimental films I have ever seen. Peter Watkins' political understanding of the times and his compassion for the struggling, alienated artist is superb. He has a unique method of linking the present to the painter's traumatic past, namely the deaths of his mother and sister from tuberculosis, when he was a boy. The camerawork and close-ups of individual faces is excellent. Munch's grief, when he loses the woman he loves, leads to his best works and a premature death. No other director has made a film about the inner and outer worlds of an artist as well as this. I highly recommend the film.