Skirball Cultural Center — Page 2

Film noir comes in focus at the Skirball’s Holiday Pop-Up Shop

November 3, 2014 by Film Noir Blonde

Miriam Haskell costume jewelry on display at the Skirball Cultural Center’s Holiday Pop-Up Shop.

Do yourself a favor and be sure to stop by the Light & Noir Holiday Pop-Up Shop at the Skirball Cultural Center in West Los Angeles. Allow plenty of time because you’ll be amazed at all there is to see.

The shop houses a terrific variety of merchandise – from bar accessories, Black Dahlia candles, bright yellow Crime Scene scarves and a slew of books in the detective’s office to the vintage dresses, hats, lingerie and cosmetics in the femme fatale’s boudoir.

The Light & Noir Holiday Pop-Up Shop at the Skirball Cultural Center.

And what boudoir would be complete without jewelry? One exquisite example: a limited-edition vintage reproduction brooch and bracelet from costume jewelry house Miriam Haskell.

Additionally, there are toys, T-shirts and games as well as several items that play up the high-contrast black-and-white cinematography of film noir, such as stunning compact mirrors and specially designed chocolate bars.

Light & Noir curator Doris Berger (left) and The Noir Effect curator Linde Lehtinen. FNB photo

The Light & Noir Holiday Pop-Up Shop is open through Jan. 4, 2015. The outstanding exhibitions Light & Noir: Exiles and Émigrés in Hollywood, 1933–1950 (curated by Doris Berger) and The Noir Effect (curated by Linde Lehtinen) run through March 1.

Take a walk through all three and explore the richly layered legacy of film noir. Ahead of their time artistically, the classic movies still intrigue today and their neo-noir counterparts continue to reinvent the genre. What’s particularly fascinating from a historical perspective and what the Skirball shows illustrate so beautifully is the unusual confluence of forces that came together to give birth to film noir.

The film noir visual style is referenced in the Holiday Pop-Up Shop.

The influx into Hollywood of supremely talented Jewish and anti-Fascist artists that began in 1933 after the Nazi government came into power forever changed the American movie-making landscape.

The exiles and émigrés brought a sophisticated, cynical and wryly humorous sensibility to their new work. Perhaps most strikingly, they brought the daring and sublime visual style that many had learned while working at the German movie studio UFA in the 1920s.

Detail of a Miriam Haskell pearl bracelet on display at the Holiday Pop-Up Shop.

But German Expressionism wouldn’t have meshed with musicals, comedies or lightweight whodunits. By serendipity, there was a perfect narrative pairing: the hard-boiled, realistic work of American crime writers, such as James M. Cain, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Patricia Highsmith and Dorothy B. Hughes.

Sometimes snubbed by the literary establishment, these scribes took inspiration from downtown, dangerous streets, from real court-room cases, from seedy dive bars and elite private drinking clubs. They wrote tough, gritty detective stories as well as satirical novels about doomed love and perverse murder schemes. Heavyweight writers like Chandler, Billy Wilder, William Faulkner and Ben Hecht turned these books into scripts.

The Holiday Pop-Up Shop has great gifts for men. FNB photo

Another boon: Hollywood was in its heyday. In 1946, 80 million people (57 percent of Americans) went to theaters every week. Post–World War II audiences craved realistic fare and film noir fit the bill. Technical innovations allowed for more creativity with the camera.

At the same time, the bare-bones budgets of B movies typically left directors to their own devices, spurring their inventiveness. The strict codes of the censors also drove writers and directors to find subtle ways to subvert the status quo.

To bring larger-than-life characters like Philip Marlowe and Phyllis Dietrichson to the big screen, there was a remarkable pool of Golden Age acting talent. Robert Mitchum, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Ryan, John Garfield, Edward G. Robinson, Peter Lorre, Lauren Bacall, Barbara Stanwyck, Gloria Grahame and Joan Crawford were just a few of the charismatic, one-of-a-kind stars who played these unforgettable roles.

Candles and chocolate and books, oh my! FNB photo

All these factors came together at exactly the right time to engender a startlingly original and truly international cinematic art form. But, as in any film noir story, there was a dark and troubling side underneath the surface.

The exiles and émigrés often faced bias and fierce anti-Semitism in America. Some of them couldn’t find work, some were relegated to low-budget titles, some of their careers faltered and faded. It stands to reason that a sense of fear and persecution lingered in their psyches long after they left Europe.

Step back in time with a little boudoir browsing. FNB photo

Imagine then, the new surge of terror they must have felt when in 1947 the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings (into alleged Communist ties and influence) named the Hollywood Ten, six of whom were Jewish.

After the hearings, the studios blacklisted hundreds of artists and many had to leave the U.S. in order to survive.

But, today, more than 80 years after the rise of Hitler and the emigration that followed, these artists are widely recognized and their work endures in one of the most powerful, stylish, resonant and entertaining of all movie genres: film noir.

(Photos not identified as FNB are courtesy of the Skirball Cultural Center.)

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Filed Under: Noir Stuff, Noir Style, Out of the Shadows Tagged With: 1933–1950, Doris Berger, film noir, Light & Noir Holiday Pop-Up Shop, Light & Noir: Exiles and Émigrés in Hollywood, Linde Lehtinen, Miriam Haskell, Skirball Cultural Center, The Noir Effect

Skirball Cultural Center’s The Noir Effect exhibition explores the far-reaching influence of film noir

October 27, 2014 by Film Noir Blonde

ROUSE & JONES, Dead End, 2009, courtesy of the artists.

Pick up a glossy magazine and there’s a good chance you’ll see a fashion layout or an advertisement featuring a mysterious, glamorous woman, dressed to kill, shot in high-contrast black and white. She’s retro but cutting-edge contemporary as well.

Scroll through a Netflix menu and it won’t be long before you find a slew of crime movies with archetypal characters: the private eye, the corrupt cop, the vicious gangster and the woman who lures men to lust and doom.

Why does noir – a term that covers much more than movies – continue to intrigue and delight? My theory is that film noir’s strikingly elegant style, moral ambiguity and political awareness put the pictures way ahead of their time when they were made in the 1940s and ’50s. Not surprisingly then, they still resonate with audiences of today.

Page from You Have Killed Me. Illustrations by Joëlle Jones and story by Jamie S. Rich, 2009.

At the Skirball Cultural Center in West Los Angeles, running in conjunction with the Light & Noir: Exiles and Émigrés in Hollywood, 1933–1950 exhibition, The Noir Effect examines how the film noir genre gave rise to major contemporary trends in American popular culture, art and media.

The show, which runs Thursday, Oct. 23, 2014 to March 1, 2015, highlights noir elements such as the city, the femme fatale, the anti-hero and moral codes.

As Skirball Cultural Center Assistant Curator Linde Lehtinen says: “Noir remains a powerful approach and style because its dark, urban sensibility and its perspective on identity, morality and the shifting nature of the modern city continue to be relevant and timely.”

Bill Armstrong, Untitled (Film Noir #1401), 2011.

In addition to clips from neo-noir films such as “Chinatown” (1974, Roman Polanski) and “Brick” (2005, Rian Johnson), the exhibition will feature contemporary art, literature, photography and fashion advertising as well as children’s books, games and comics, including Luke Cage Noir and Spider-Man Noir.

Featured artists include Bill Armstrong, Ronald Corbin, Helen K. Garber, David Lynch, Daido Moriyama, Karina Nimmerfall, Jane O’Neal, Alex Prager, Rouse & Jones, Ed Ruscha and Cindy Sherman.

The Noir Effect will allow visitors to reinvent noir for themselves. A costume wall and portrait station invite visitors to pose for their own noir-inspired “museum selfie,” while writing materials encourage on-the-spot noir narratives. The Skirball Cultural Center will also hold an online photo contest as a way to gather visitor snapshots of L.A. neighborhoods captured in classic noir style.

Ed Ruscha, 51% Angel / 49% Devil, 1984, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Graphic Arts Council Fund.

Additionally, the site-specific installation Café Vienne pays tribute to the important cultural role of the Viennese coffee house. In the early 20th century, female artists and writers embraced these coffee houses as places for debate, networking and inspiration.

Contemporary visual artist Isa Rosenberger (b. 1969) uses this historical setting to address the life and work of Austrian- American Jewish writer Gina Kaus (1893–1985), once known in literary circles as “Queen of the Café.” A best-selling novelist before she was driven from Europe by the Nazi regime, Kaus eventually emigrated to the U.S. where she became a Hollywood screenwriter.

We at FNB are very excited about this terrific programming and can’t wait for it to start. We’ve long been captivated by film noir and it’s gratifying to find so many others who share our passion.

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Filed Under: Noir Style, Out of the Shadows Tagged With: 1933–1950, Alex Prager, Bill Armstrong, Brick, Café Vienne, Chinatown, Cindy Sherman., Daido Moriyama, David Lynch, Ed Ruscha, film noir, Gina Kaus, Helen K. Garber, Isa Rosenberger, Jamie S. Rich, Jane O’Neal, Joëlle Jones, Karina Nimmerfall, Light & Noir: Exiles and Émigrés in Hollywood, Linde Lehtinen, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Rian Johnson, Roman Polanski, Ronald Corbin, Rouse & Jones, Skirball Cultural Center, The Noir Effect

Light & Noir at the Skirball Cultural Center tells a spellbinding story of immigration and innovation, set in Hollywood

October 20, 2014 by Film Noir Blonde

Joan Bennett entraps Edward G. Robinson in 1944’s “The Woman in the Window,” directed by Fritz Lang. The film will screen at the Skirball Cultural Center as part of Exiles and Émigrés in Hollywood, 1933–1950.

“Making movies is a little like walking into a dark room,” said legendary director Billy Wilder, who made more than 50 films and won six Academy Awards. “Some people stumble across furniture, others break their legs but some of us see better in the dark than others.”

“Sunset Blvd.” won three Oscars: writing, music and art direction. Shown: Gloria Swanson and Billy Wilder.

By the time the Austrian-born journalist, screenwriter and director came to America in 1934, he’d seen more than his share of darkness, on screen and off. Wilder left Europe to escape the Nazis; his mother died in Auschwitz.

He joined many other prominent Jewish artists (such as directors Fritz Lang, Otto Preminger and Fred Zinnemann, composer Franz Waxman, and writers Salka Viertel and Franz Werfel) as they left their homes and careers in German-speaking countries to build new lives and find work in Hollywood.

Starting on Thursday, Oct. 23, a new exhibition at the Skirball Cultural Center in West Los Angeles Light & Noir: Exiles and Émigrés in Hollywood, 1933–1950 highlights the experiences of these émigré actors, directors, writers and composers.

They came to California at a pivotal time in the world’s history and in the evolution of the movie-making capital, greatly contributing to Hollywood’s Golden Age and raising the artistic bar for its productions.

In particular, film noir was born when the talents of these European émigrés merged with the hard-boiled stories of American pulp crime fiction and the subtle sensibilities of French Poetic Realism.

Lizabeth Scott and Dick Powell star in “Pitfall.”

Films, concept drawings, costumes, posters, photographs and memorabilia will help tell the story of Hollywood’s formative era through the émigré lens. Accompanying the show is a plethora of events: film screenings, readings, talks, tours, courses (photography and cooking with a Café Vienne installation), comedy, family programs, a holiday pop-up shop and more.

Organized by the Skirball Cultural Center and co-presented with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the exhibition will run through March 1, 2015.

Running in conjunction with the show is The Noir Effect, which explores how the film noir genre gave rise to major contemporary trends in American popular culture, art and media. (More on that in an upcoming post.)

Of course, I’m especially looking forward to the impressive lineup of films. On Oct. 30, Jan-Christopher Horak, a German-exile cinema historian and director of the UCLA Film and Television Archives, will describe how Hollywood became the prime employer of European émigré filmmakers as Nazi persecution grew. The lecture will be followed by a screening of Austrian émigré Fritz Lang’s “Hangmen Also Die!”

Yvonne De Carlo and Burt Lancaster play doomed lovers in “Criss Cross,” (1949, Robert Siodmak). The movie will play in January.

(Additionally, continuing through April 26, 2015, at the Los Angeles County Museum is Haunted Screens: German Cinema in the 1920s. The series explores approximately 25 masterworks of German Expressionist cinema, a national style that had international impact.)

At the Skirball Cultural Center, on Dec. 7, fashion expert Kimberly Truhler will discuss the effect of World War II on film costume design and American fashion in the 1940s. Gabriela Hernandez, founder of Bésame Cosmetics, will share the history of make-up and tips on achieving the film noir look.

And in January, the Skirball Cultural Center will host the film series “The Intriguante: Women of Intrigue in Film Noir,” which will feature: “The Woman in the Window,” “Pitfall,” “Criss Cross,” “The File on Thelma Jordon” and the 2008 documentary “Cinema’s Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood.”

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Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews, Noir Style, Out of the Shadows Tagged With: 1933–1950, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Billy Wilder, Criss Cross, Franz Waxman, Fred Zinnemann, Fritz Lang, Hangmen Also Die, Haunted Screens: German Cinema in the 1920s, Jan-Christopher Horak, Light & Noir, Light & Noir: Exiles and Émigrés in Hollywood, Los Angeles County Museum, Otto Preminger, Pitfall, Skirball Cultural Center, The File on Thelma Jordon, The Intriguante: Women of Intrigue in Film Noir, The Woman in the Window, UCLA Film and Television Archives

Film noir feast this weekend: ‘Sin City,’ Exile Noir and ‘Pickup’

August 20, 2014 by Film Noir Blonde

“Double Indemnity” and “Pitfall” will open UCLA’s Exile Noir series.

There are several delectable film noir offerings this weekend in Los Angeles. First, a sequel worth seeing! That would be “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For” by directors Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez. It’s a follow-up to 2005’s “Sin City.” (Miller adapted both scripts from his graphic novels.)

“Sin City 2” stars Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Josh Brolin and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The movie opens Friday.

Following closely behind its Hollywood Exiles in Europe series, UCLA is hosting Exile Noir, a lineup that explores the major contribution to film noir by German-speaking émigrés in Hollywood, all of whom were schooled in German expressionist cinema. Exiled from Nazi Germany, Jewish writers and directors brought a dark vision to their work, informed by staggering loss, pain, fear and betrayal.

Their arrival in Los Angeles permanently altered the city’s creative landscape. As Jan-Christopher Horak, director of the UCLA Film & Television Archive, recently told Susan King of the LA Times: “[Their arrival] changed not just the film industry and the kind of films that were being made, it changed the intellectual life. You have people who are not in the film industry but came here because of the weather and perceived opportunities, like [composer] Arnold Schoenberg and [author] Thomas Mann. They changed the intellectual character of Southern California.”

The program, which runs through Sept. 28, kicks off with an impressive double bill: the prototype of the genre, “Double Indemnity” (1944, Billy Wilder) and “Pitfall” (1948, André De Toth), starring Dick Powell, Lizabeth Scott and Jane Wyatt. In honor of “Double Indemnity” turning 70 this year, on Valentine’s Day, we compiled a list of 14 reasons we love this flick.

This series is presented in anticipation of the Skirball Cultural Center exhibit, Light & Noir: Exiles and Émigrés in Hollywood, 1933–1950, running Oct. 23–March 1, 2015. More on that in the next few weeks.

Also, as I mentioned earlier this week, the Egyptian Theatre is showing Sam Fuller’s film noir masterpiece “Pickup on South Street” and “White Dog.” His daughter Samantha Fuller will introduce the movies.

There’s no doubt: Life is good for noiristas in Los Angeles!

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