L'autre jour  j'ai vu The Quiet American sur TCM . Je copie cet article du site tcm.com
 Overview Article:

When an American working for an aid organization in Vietnam is murdered, Vigot, a French police inspector, must investigate the case. The story, told through flashbacks, concerns an American who arrives in Indochina (Vietnam) under the auspices of an economic aid organization to support the "third force" in the struggle against the French Colonists and the Communists. There he meets Fowler, a world-weary British journalist, and falls in love with Fowler's mistress Phuong. In retaliation, Fowler accuses the American of using economic aid as a cover for a scheme to sell arms to anti-Communist forces, making the American a target for the Communists. Eventually, Fowler learns of the American's innocence through Inspector Vigot.
___the story , told through flashbacks , ...
___ world-weary, adj. = Tired of the world; bored with life.
___retaliation , vb. intr. = To return like for like, especially evil for evil ; in retaliation for → en représailles de

The Quiet American (1958) was among the first films to deal with the problem of the American presence in Vietnam (or Indochina, as it was commonly known at that time). The original book by Graham Greene was overtly critical of "Uncle Sam's" presence in Vietnam and caused an uproar in the U.S. when it was published in 1956.
___overtly
___it caused an uproar
 However, this provocative aspect of the story was softened by writer/director/producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz for the adaptation. Among other things, the American was changed from a government official to a private citizen. Casting real-life war hero Audie Murphy as the American also helped make the character more immediately sympathetic to American audiences.
Incidentally, Laurence Olivier, who was originally to play Fowler, dropped out when he learned that Murphy was cast as the American instead of Montgomery Clift; Michael Redgrave took Olivier's place. According to Robert Lantz, before making the film Mankiewicz said, "I will tell the whole story anti-Communist and pro-American." However, Mankiewicz later denied saying this, claiming that he made the changes in the script to show how "emotions can very often dictate political beliefs."
___real-life war hero
___it helped make the character more ....
___he was to play ...
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The novels of Graham Greene (1904-1991) are an unusual combination of globetrotting intrigue, psychological character studies and serious meditations on moral and theological issues.
___globetrotting intrigue ; globetrotting ,vb.intr. =To travel often and widely, especially for sightseeing.  Educated in Oxford, he flirted with Communism briefly before converting to Catholicism in 1926. During the 1930s, he worked for the Secret Intelligence Service and traveled to countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, Indochina, Cuba, Haiti and Mexico, thus discovering settings for his travel writings and novels. Greene's works have been widely adapted to film, often with screenplays written by Greene himself: The Power and the Glory, which became John Ford's The Fugitive (1947); The Fallen Idol (1948); The Third Man (1949); The End of the Affair (1955) and Our Man in Havana (1960). The most notable Greene adaptation of recent years is Neil Jordan's reworking of The End of the Affair (1999).
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The film was shot partly on the soundstages of the Cinecitta Studio in Rome, partly in Vietnam. Location shooting in Vietnam was not without complications. Cinematographer Robert Krasker had to avoid shooting at noon because the intense overhead tropical sun created lighting problems. The crew also encountered difficulties obtaining permission to shoot inside a Buddhist temple due to the phase of the moon.
___soundstage ,n. =A room or studio that is usually soundproof, used for the production of movies.
___location shooting in Vietnam was ....
___ the intense overhead tropical sun  ; overhead ,adj. = situated or operating above head height or some other reference level
___he encountered difficulties obtaining ...
According to one source, the film's Vietnam production unit became the unwitting participant in a political demonstration. While filming in the city of Tay Ninh, they witnessed what they believed to be a religious procession by the Cao-Dai sect with about 40,000 participants. However, they later learned that it was a protest by the sect calling for the return of its leader. The police, who assumed that the event had been staged specially for the film, allowed it to proceed without interference.
___unwitting , adj. = Not knowing; unaware
___it was a protest calling for...
___ they allowed it to proceed without interference  ; proceed ,vb. intr. = to undertake and continue (something or to do something)" he proceeded with his reading"

While a number of critics pointed out the film's blunted political message at the time of its release, it was nonetheless praised for its acting, especially Michael Redgrave's brilliant performance as Fowler, and its vivid use of locations. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote, "Scenes shot in Saigon have a vivid documentary quality and, indeed, the whole film has an aroma of genuine friction in the seething Orient."
___blunted , blunt , adj. = Abrupt and often disconcertingly frank in speech: "Onscreen, John Wayne was a blunt talker and straight shooter" . See Synonyms at gruff.

                                          Slow to understand or perceive; dull.

___vivid , adj. = Perceived as bright and distinct; brilliant: a vivid star.

                          Conveying to the mind striking realism, freshness, or trueness to life 

J'ai lu un article concernant un documentaire sur deux cinéastes hongrois ,Vilmos Zsigmond et Laszlo Kovacs .
Szigmond studied cinema at the Academy of Drama and Film in Budapest.He worked for five years in a Budapest feature film studio becoming "director of photography".
Together with his friend and fellow student László Kovács, he chronicled the events of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution in Budapest on thirty thousand feet of film and then escaped to Austria shortly afterwards.
___he chronicled the events on thirty thousand feet of film
In 1964 working with a favorite crew which included László Kovács, Jim Enochs, and Ernie Reed, Vilmos shot the European style, neo-noir, black and white film "Summer Children" (aka a Hot Summer Game)which has recently been fully restored digitally for DVD release.
He gained prominence during the 1970s working on Robert Altman's" McCabe & Mrs. Miller" and" The Long Goodbye" ...

On peut lire davantage sur sa maniere de filmer dans un livre d'interviews avec différents cineastes : Masters of Light: Conversations with Contemporary Cinematographers. University of California Press.
                                         
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Je devrais peut-etre voir ce film , l'intrigue est inhabituelle pour un western .
 "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" ,  a 1971 Western motion picture starring Warren Beatty, directed by Robert Altman.
One of Altman's typically naturalist films, the director called McCabe an "anti-western film" because the film ignores or subverts a number of Western conventions.

The plot :                    
Around the beginning of the twentieth century, a gambler named John McCabe arrives in the fictional town of Presbyterian Church, Washington to open a low-class brothel.
McCabe quickly takes a dominant position over the town's simple-minded and lethargic miners, thanks to his aggressive personality and rumors that he is a gunfighter. The "legend" of McCabe is propagated largely through gossip on the part of Paddy Sheehan, a local saloon owner notorious for telling tales.
___take a dominant position over the town's miners
___simple-minded
___story propagated through gossip on the part of...
The rumor is that McCabe shot a famous gunfighter named Bill Roundtree with a Derringer pistol during a card game. The legend is neither confirmed nor encouraged by McCabe; he is not seen with such a pistol until the film's conclusion, and is not portrayed as a courageous type, leading the audience to believe that the legend is merely a fabrication.
McCabe establishes his make-shift brothel, consisting of three prostitutes purchased from a pimp in the nearby town of Bearpaw for $200.
___make-shift = a temporary or expedient substitute for something else.
___pimp = One who finds customers for a prostitute; a procurer.
Constance Miller, an opium-addicted professional "madam," arrives in Presbyterian Church. She convinces him that she can do a better job of managing the brothel than he can, as McCabe is clearly inept when dealing with women.
The two become successful business partners, and a love interest develops between these two
frontier-hardened and cynical characters.
___he is inept when dealing with women
___fronteir - hardened
As Presbyterian Church becomes a richer and more successful community, a pair of agents from the Harrison Shaughnessy mining company arrive to buy out McCabe's business as well as the surrounding zinc mines. Harrison Shaughnessy is notorious for having people killed when they refuse to sell.
McCabe doesn't want to sell at their initial price, but he overplays his hand in the negotiations in spite of Mrs. Miller's warnings that he is underestimating the violence that will ensue if they don't take the money and run.
___he overplays his hand
___overplay =  overestimate the strength of (one's holding or position) with resulting defeat: overplayed his hand and lost the game.
Three bounty killers are dispatched by the mining company to make an example of McCabe.
___bounty =  a reward, inducement, or payment, especially one given by a government for acts deemed beneficial to the state, such as killing predatory animals, growing certain crops, starting certain industries, or enlisting for military service.
 The climactic showdown between McCabe and his hunters is unconventional for a Western.
___showdown =  An event, especially a confrontation, that forces an issue to a conclusion.
 McCabe is clearly afraid of the gunmen when they arrive in town. He initially tries to appease them. Finally, when a lethal confrontation becomes inevitable, he manages to kill two of the gunslingers by shooting them in the back from hidden positions, leaving only the most fearsome of the three to deal with.
As a final twist of the plot, McCabe shoots the third bounty killer with a Derringer pistol, confirming that the original gunfighter legend might well have been true. McCabe, however, does not survive.
___twist of the plot

* for vocabulary  see the link

Lancaster a été le troisième mari de la journaliste Ann Scott-James. J'ai trouvé sur internet cet article qui est un résumé d'une biographie écrite par Richard Boston , "A Portait of Osbert Lancaster".

Osbert Lancaster was born in 1908, near the end of the Edwardian era, and carried throughout his life the memory of those final, happy days before Europe’s first Armageddon. He was the last of the last of the Edwardians. (His first name, Osbert, is a derivation of Albert, the Christian name of Edward VII.) The young Osbert was an unwilling schoolboy at Charterhouse, where the headmaster’s final report praised him as “irretrievably gauche” and “a sad disappointment.” For Osbert the feeling was mutual: He was already drawing at this time — the officials at Charterhouse coming in for many an illustrated drubbing — and already in the active style full of movement that would mark his future work.
___Armageddon (de l'hébreu : מגידו, signifiant « colline de Megiddo », un petit mont en Israel), terme biblique  mentionné dans le Nouveau Tastament , est un lieu symbolique du combat final entre le Bien et le Mal .

___irretrievable , adj =  Difficult or impossible to retrieve or recover ;

___irretrivably ,adv. =  irréparablement.

___drubbing ,n. = a beating, as with a stick, cudgel ;  the act of inflicting corporal punishment with repeated blows

Osbert’s first move after being admitted to Lincoln College, Oxford, was to grow the distinguished, just-shy-of-Stalinesque mustache that would adorn his upper lip for the rest of his life, and which was quite contrary to the prevailing fashion among the university’s effete young arbiters of taste. His contemporaries at Oxford include a who’s who of 20th-century aesthetes, dandies and literati: Allan Pryce-Jones, Beverly Nichols, Cecil Day-Lewis, Cyril Connolly, Evelyn Waugh, Harold Acton, Randolph Churchill (Winston’s boy, whom Osbert described as “without exception the best-looking man I’ve ever seen”), and Robert Byron.
___just-shy-of- Stalinesque mustache
___mustache that would adorn his upper lip
___prevailing fashion ; prevailing , adj. = Most frequent or common; predominant.
During his college years Osbert primarily ran with the aesthetes as opposed to the games-mad hearties. Yet unlike many of his fellow artistic and literary friends he wasn’t gay. Nor was he attracted, like Waugh and others, to Catholicism. With drawing-room Marxism and other lefty political poses he would have no truck; likewise with the far right. He was uniquely Osbert, and that had already come to mean a balanced mind with a sense of proportion in a modest conservatism.
___games-mad
___hearties , n.pl. = A good fellow; a comrade. hearty , adj. = enthousiaste , chaleureux
___truck  (= dealings) to have no truck with sb = refuser d'avoir affaire à qqn.

                                                     ***************
Osbert’s sartorial style also crystallized during the ‘30s. Like many of the more innovative dandies before him, Osbert’s style was decided not only by what he chose wear but what he cast off. “I wear everything I was not allowed to wear at Charterhouse. We were not allowed jackets with vents, shirts with attached collars, or less than three buttons to a jacket,” he once said. “As soon as I left school, I had all my suits made up with two-button jackets.” He claimed to have set the fashion for attached collars and pink shirts. “My shirtmaker was appalled,” he remembered. And he discarded vests — he said that central heating had made them unnecessary — and the boots that his mother insisted “were so good for my ankles”

He was not above a bit of sartorial daring now and then and claimed to be among the first to wear white dinner jackets. It’s probable that Noel Coward was really among the first, but Osbert was no doubt the first among his set and class, which is what counts.

Osbert may have been a shade more casual a dandy than his predecessors — which is also, of course, very like many of his dandy predecessors. But he insisted on certain standards, such as dinner jackets for evening, saying, “I can’t see the point of saying ‘don’t dress, just put on a dark suit.’ If you are going to change, you might as well do it properly.”

Despite the depression, the mid-1930s were good times for the Lancasters, all the way up until the time the Germans invaded Poland.

***

Osbert wasn’t exactly the military type, but he managed to do his part and with considerable aplomb. He joined the Diplomatic Service and was sent to the British Embassy in Athens after British and Greek forces forced the Nazis out, only to be caught in the middle of one of the least pleasant civil wars of the 20th century. Here he worked with Harold Macmillan, among other notables. Caught between the various trigger-happy factions, the embassy was all but used by snipers for target practice. The ricochet of bullets served as accompaniment to each day’s dissonant aria of diplomacy.

After the war, Osbert returned to London and settled into that pattern of life that would continue to make him such a quiet social, creative and commercial success. He continued creating his pocket cartoons, writing and illustrating his own books and illustrating those of his friends. In addition he gave lectures, went often to his tailor (Thresher & Glenny), appeared occasionally on BBC television, traveled to Italy (to see Max Beerbohm), as well as other places, painted murals for commercial buildings, designed costumes and sets for opera, ballet and theatre, and of course kept up with the gossip at his clubs and rarely turned down an invitation to a party. He was knighted in 1975, the only cartoonist ever to be thus honored. He died in 1986, aged 77.

(extrait de l'article paru dans  www.dandyism.net/?p=307 )

Le Tombeau des Rois est le nom donné à des tombes datant de l'époque du Second Temple. Il se trouve à Jérusalem dans la rue Saladin, à 700 mètres au nord des remparts de la Vieille ville.

Aujourd'hui, les historiens proposent l'hypothèse que le tombeau était destiné à la famille d'Hélène, reine d'Adiabène, un royaume situé entre l'Assyrie et l'Arménie dont les souverains s'étaient convertis au judaïsme. L'origine de cette identification vient de Flavius Josèphe qui parle du tombeau que Monobaz avait commandé pour sa mère Hélène.

Revenue en Adiabène, elle [Hélène] ne survécut guère à son fils lzatès. Monobaze envoya ses os et ceux de son frère à Jérusalem et les fit ensevelir dans les trois pyramides que sa mère avait fait construire à trois stades de la ville. Antiquités juives (XX, 5, 4)

Dans la Guerre des juifs contre les romains (V,2,2), on apprend que le monument d'Hélène était au nord de Jérusalem, ce qui correspond à l'emplacement du tombeau des Rois.

Jérusalem : tombeau des rois de Juda : intérieur de la cour (1856)

Une légende ancienne prétendant que le tombeau abritait un trésor, le gouverneur ottoman de Jérusalem entreprit des fouilles en 1847 qui ne donnèrent rien mais qui endommagèrent beaucoup le site.

Au XIX^e siècle des sondages et des fouilles ont été réalisés par des archéologues français qui ont d'abord identifié le site au tombeau des rois de la lignée de David. Une campagne de fouilles eut lieu en 1863 sous la conduite de Ferdinand de Saulcy. Il permit de découvrir un sarcophage portant l'inscription צדה מלכתה ("Sadah reine"). Le sarcophage fut transféré au musée du Louvre.
Une autre campagne de fouilles eut lieu en 1867 sous la direction de Charles Clermont-Ganneau.
A la fin du XIX^e siècle, le site fut l'objet de dévotions de la part des juifs de Jérusalem, pendant les fêtes de Pessah et deHanoucca.
En 1878, le site fut acheté par les frères Pereire afin de le donner au gouvernement français pour le conserver à la science et à la vénération des fidèles enfants d'Israël. Du fait de la législation ottomane qui ne connait pas la personne morale, le site ne fut pas donné à la France, mais directement au consul de France à Jérusalem.

 Auguste Salzmann French, 1824-1872 Born into a family of painters in Ribeauvillé, Haut-Rhin in Alsace, Auguste Salzmann exhibited his canvases of landscapes in the Paris Salons of 1847, 1848, and 1850.
This artistic background, along with his distinctive subject matter, contributed to Salzmann's photographic style. His photographs were exhibited only once during his lifetime, at the 1855 Exposition Universelle in Paris.

Primarily interested in archaeology, he belonged to no photographic societies and considered his photographic work merely a tool.

Auguste Salzmann: Jerusalem, Tombeau du Rois de Juda: Fragments d'un sarcophage. 1854, Blanquart-Evrard salt print from waxed paper negative, 9-1/4 x 13-1/4 in. (236 x 337 mm), on original lithographed mount. t1118j.

  Salzmann visited Palestine (1850-51) and Jerusalem (1853), combining a project to record the monuments left by the Crusaders with another that tried to prove the work of scholar Louis-Félicien-Joseph Caignart deSaulcy, whose controversial historical and architectural theories involved the dating of buildings within the ancient city.
The resulting images were published by Louis-Désiré Blanquart-Évrard in Jérusalem, époques judaique, romaine, chrétienne, arabe, explorations photographique par A. Salzmann (1854).
In these extremely intense studies, light and form were used to animate the ancient buildings and landscape of the Middle East.

Auguste Salzmann: St. Sepulchre. 1854, Blanquart-Evrard salt print from waxed paper negative, 13-1/16 x 9-1/4 in. (333 x 236 mm), on original mount. q1450j.

Auguste Salzmann: Jerusalem: Église de Sainte Marie Madeleine. 1854, Blanquart-Evrard salt print from waxed paper negative, 9-1/4 x 12-7/8 in. (235 x 328 mm), on original lithographed mount. r1093.

A journey to Rhodes (185-67) led to another publication, Nécropole de Camiros, which documented a site Salzmann is believed to have discovered. Although much of the biographical information about Salzmann is unclear and remains a subject of debate, his work continues to be influential and admired.

  Porte de Damas , vue exterieure

Auguste Salzmann: Porte de David, Jerusalem., Blanquart-Evrard salt print from waxed paper negative, 12-7/8 x 9-1/8 in. (328 x 232 mm), on original lithographed mount. z1038.

One of Pasadena's most unique buildings, the Castle Green was built in 1898 as the annex for the famous Hotel Green. The Castle Green is an imposing seven story Moorish Colonial and Spanish style building sitting next to Central Park in Old Pasadena at Raymond and Green Street.

Green Hotel (left) and Castle Green (right)

Pasadena was one of the most famous resort communities in Southern California during these times and a place for those suffering from Tuberculosis. Doctors advised their patients to dry and warmer climates and Pasadena became a boom town for Snowbirds, those people who desired a warmer climate during the harsh winters back east.

Here's the Castle Green in Pasadena in 1967. Once part of a vast, Moorish/Spanish Colonial-style building that spanned two blocks, Hotel Green complex was home to both the Tournament of Roses and the Valley Hunt Club.

Dans cette vidéo,  filmée aux Tuileries quelques arbres et des statues.A quel moment de l'histoire de Spartacus fait allusion cette sculpture de Barrias, le Serment de Spartacus ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2iEPUu6IH0

Assayas et Carlos

Mon ami m'a parlé d'un réalisateur français que je ne connaissais pas, Olivier Assayas ( quelle est l'origine de ce nom?) et de son dernier film, Carlos.
"Véritable mythe, Carlos est au coeur de l’histoire du terrorisme international des années 1970 et 1980, de l’activisme propalestinien à l’Armée rouge japonaise. A la fois figure de l’extrême gauche et mercenaire opportuniste à la solde des services secrets de puissances du Moyen-Orient, il a constitué sa propre organisation, basée de l’autre côté du rideau de fer, active durant les dernières années de la guerre froide. Le film est l’histoire d’un révolutionnaire internationaliste, manipulateur et manipulé, porté par les flux de l’histoire de son époque et de ses dérives. Nous le suivrons jusqu’au bout de son chemin, relégué au Soudan où la dictature islamiste, après l’avoir un temps couvert, l’a livré à la police française. Personnage contradictoire, aussi violent que l‘époque dont il est une incarnation, Carlos est aussi une énigme."