Showbiz History: Bergman's Persona, Roseanne's Debut, Einsenstein's Trip
Thursday, October 18, 2018 at 8:00AM 5 random things that happened on this day, October 18th, in history
1867 The USA take possession of Alaska (formerly owned by Russia). Happy Alaska Day if we have any readers there. Enjoy your holiday.
1961 West Side Story has its world premiere in New York City. It will go on to become a blockbuster at the box office and win 10 Oscars including Best Picture. We recently did a deep dive right here that you should read if you missed. It's currently being remade (sigh) by Steven Spielberg.
← 1966 Persona premieres in Sweden. Ingmar Bergman's masterpiece (well, one of them) will hit US theaters in March the following year. Strangely, given its reputation now and Bergman's position in world cinema then, it was not one of his Oscar successes...
The only group that went crazy for it was the National Society of Film Critics which gave it Film, Actress, and Director prizes. Oscar Trivia Time: Bergman was submitted by Sweden for the Oscar an incredible 8 times, 3 of resulted in nominations and all of those won (The Virgin Spring, Through a Glass Darkly, and Fanny and Alexander). In addition to the foreign film play he received 9 Oscar nominations and an Irving Thalberg award making him the second most Oscar-lauded foreign film director of all time (just behind Itally's Federico Fellini).
1988 Roseanne premieres on ABC. It will become one of the most successful sitcoms of all time, progressive in its politics, and influential in its realism, regularly topping the Nielsen's and running for nine years. Roseanne herself eventually goes crazy but that's another story.
2000 Actors Demi Moore and Bruce Willis divorce after 13 years of a very high profile superstar marriage.
Today's Birthdays
Herzog & Kinski. Friends/Enemies/Mutual-MusesOscar Winners: Actor George C Scott (Patton), Screenwriter Graham Moore (The Imitation Game), Screenwriter Waldo Salt (Coming Home, Midnight Cowboy), Composer Howard Shore (Lord of the Rings)
Oscar Nominees: Actors Miriam Hopkins, Lotte Lenya, and Melina Mercouri and Cinematographer John Schwartzman
Actors: Peter Boyle, Joy Bryant, Pam Dawber, Zac Efron, Marco Hofschneider, Arliss Howard, Klaus Kinski (pictured left), Calvin Lockhart, Erin Moran, Joe Morton, Freida Pinto, Tyler Posey, Om Puri, Toby Regbo, Emily Robinson, Esperanza Spalding, Vincent Spano, Jean Claude Van Damme, Dawn Wells, Zhou Xun, and Victor Sen Yung
Other Showbiz Peeps: Musician Chuck Berry, Writer/Director Stéphane Brizé, Producer Chuck Lorre, Athlete Martina Navratilova, Writer Nic Pizzolatto, and Playwright Wendy Wasserstein.
Today's Birthday Suit Elmer Bäck. Did any of you see that insane Peter Greenaway film Eisenstein in Guanajuato (2015) in which the Russian director Sergei Enseinstein (Bäck) travels to Mexico where he shacks up with Palomino Cañeda (Luis Alberti)?
Since it's a Greenaway film there was copious male nudity. Supposedly the Finnish actor and iconoclast British director are reteaming for a sequel Eisenstein in Hollywood. Greenaway is so insane and I feel cinephiles under, say, 35, missed his entire provocative career as his career was waning just as movie discussions were migrating to the internet in the mid 90s but the internet wasn't yet super image friendly and his career was nothing if not visual, cutting the discussion off even more quickly. His most famous film remains The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover (1989/1990).
Reader Comments (12)
I love the NSFC. They usually bring something different to the awards season. Persona was by far the best movie in that year (and in any year, really).
OMG!! Destroyer trailer juz dropped!! Kidman looks promising!! 😘
It's unbelievable that the Academy failed to nominate Persona. Anybody heard of Three, the Yugoslav film they chose over it? Well, at least they did nominate Battle of Algiers. Then it's unbelievable that it lost to A Man and a Woman, which won over the far superior Loves of a Blonde, too. That category is a constant wonder.
I just don't get Greenaway,his films are a hard slog.
I've been a film buff since the sixties, when it was required that you be up on Ingmar Bergman. I love many of his films, but of those mentioned, the one I always especially champion is The Virgin Spring.
Not as well known as those others these days, and often dismissed as just "his other medieval-set film besides The Seventh Seal", I think it's one of his best. Spellbinding and terrifying, gorgeously photographed and acted, focused on his classic theme of God's silence... but (since it's based on a folktale, not an original script) with a slightly more positive ending than usual. There's also an atypical, clearly visible Kurosawa influence: Bergman acknowledged being fascinated by his work at that point.
But be warned, it's a tough, brutal film, with an almost unwatchable (though not explicit by modern standards) rape sequence. And yes... the story was later reworked by Wes Craven into "The Last House on the Left".
Glenn has a Gotham nod.
Cuaron is likely to overtake Bergman this year? He could be up for Pic, Dir, Screenplay, Editing and Cinematography. Don't think he actually gets all 5, but he only need 3 to tie him in nods. He'll also add his first FL Oscar.
It's amazing how some films which were ignored or did not make money or dismissed during the period they came out would later be discussed more avidly than those which won awards. I love the afterlife of films which get dissected in cinephile groups (like TFE), the academe, and in the subterranean space of the stranger kind of film aficionados.
I too love Persona even if my favourite Bergman film is (still) Wild Strawberries. There is something about that film that just gives me pleasure. It is closest to being perfect in execution, performance, cinematography, the existentialist musings, and the deft direction.
I don't love Peter Greenaway but I always watch his films -- always. Drowning By Numbers shows him at his most adventurous and imaginative. I am not sure "enjoy" is the word that comes to mind when I watch his films but I never miss his films.
Someone needs to give Joy Bryant better work.
I’ll be sure to celebrate today by masturbating to Tyler Posey’s leaked jerk off video.
Incredibly Jean Claude Van Damme is not today’s birthday suit. What material you have to choose from with that one. 🎂
Hey Owl, Wild Strawberries is probably/nearly my favorite Bergman film too!
Just last night I showed my (third-gen film buff) daughter He Who Gets Slapped, the seriously disturbing (even for him) Lon Chaney film that Victor Sjostrom directed in 1924... And I made a point of telling her that the director played Isak Borg so incredibly in Wild Strawberries (which we've watched twice!) 35 years later.
I love many, many Bergman films from throughout his career... but I tend to prefer the b/w ones from the fifties.
@Doctor Strange
I agree 100% about He Who Gets Slapped. It is nightmarishly disturbing and the staging and the use of light are clever; Lon Chaney was close to faultless. The circus scene with spectator-gladiators reminds so much of the expressionist visages of Joan of Arc's tormentors in that Dreyer film. And Victor Sjöström's direction was totally inventive and bold and daring.
I love Sjöström as the professor in Wild Strawberries especially his relationships with his son, daughter-in-law (the incandescent Ingrid Thulin) and housekeeper Ms Agda. His grand-avuncular ways and kind eyes were why I also love the recently-deceased Scott Wilson.
Sjöström's brilliant The Phantom Carriage aka Körkarlen can be watched online in very clear resolution.