Review of The Scarlet Empress (1934) by Stella D — 30 Aug 2011

Wow. Makes Baz Luhrman's mediocrities look and feel like they'd been supervised by an incompetent Robert Bresson. Sternberg's penultimate collaboration with his most famous star is basically a whirling, glittering, thundering vision of a film with Dietrich as its still, sculpted center.

With only passing nods to the life of Catherine the Great, the picture is mostly an excuse for Sternberg to fling as many objects as possible--branches, gauzy curtains, contorted statues, galloping horses, capering courtiers and, on the occasion of Catherine's wedding, a human skeleton draped over a tub of steaming broth--past the camera lenses, which press them into the celluloid like some kind of fabulist illuminated manuscript for one to open up and gawk at.

Is there a reason for any of this, some theme or high moral purpose? I don't know, frankly I doubt it, but then I don't care--I can only stare, slack-jawed, and hope my eyes don't pop from the sheer visual pleasure.