Post by petrolino on Mar 10, 2018 0:25:32 GMT
'Salome' is a biblical epic shot in Technicolor that's inspired by the book 'The Good Tidings' by William Sidney. King Herod II (Charles Laughton) and Queen Herodias (Judith Anderson) attend to the throne in Galilee during the days of the Holy Roman Empire. Their marriage is condemned by street prophet John the Baptist (Alan Badel) who's popular among the people. Their daughter Salome (Rita Hayworth) lives in Rome where friction leads to her sudden departure at the behest of supreme leader Tiberius Caesar (Cedric Hardwicke). On her trip back to Galilee, forceful Centurion Commander Claudius (Stewart Granger) of the Roman Army takes advantage of the shunned barbarian girl and a relationship develops.
'Salome' is one of many stage and screen works dealing with the legend of Salome who's served as an unending source of inspiration to musicians, artists, poets and writers. Theda Bara played the character in the lost classic 'Salome' (1918) which was directed by the Canadian J. Gordon Edwards. Frenchman Claude D'Anna, Englishman Ken Russell, Spaniard Carlos Saura and American Al Pacino have also directed films concerning the legend of Salome. This film version from the 1950s is directed by German artist William Dieterle.
Dieterle's presentation is built for the stage but this allows him to elevate series of decorative shots, the veteran filmmaker being handed down special instructions by powerful movie mogul Harry Cohn. Dieterle's assistant director for this production was the filmmaker Earl Bellamy. Charles Laughton as Herod the 2nd looks like John Candy's long lost brother and he glides serenely like a Noh theatre princess. The music is composed by George Duning and there's some additional dance music by Daniele Amfitheatrof.
"In 1949, the world watched, enthralled, as Rita Hayworth became a princess when she married the wealthy Muslim leader, Prince Aly Khan, in a town hall in Vallauris, France. They had both been married when they embarked on their affair. The Vatican declared the Catholic Hayworth's marriage "illicit," and she was condemned by the Pope. Seven months to the day later her daughter Yasmin was born. The doomed union was over by the early 1950s, and Rita returned to Hollywood a few pounds heavier to appear in "Affair In Trinidad" (1952) with her "Gilda" co-star and good friend, Glenn Ford. Next she danced in the biblical epic "Salome" (1953) . Rita told interviewer John Hallowell of the New York Times, "I can certainly tell you some of my non-favorite (films) honey. Certainly Salome and her stupid seven veils..." In 1954, Rita appeared, sweating in 3-D and technicolor in "Miss Sadie Thompson." In 1957 she appeared looking older than her years in "Pal Joey" with Frank Sinatra and rising star Kim Novak."
- Steve Starr, 'Starr Light : Rita Hayworth'
"And then there was “Dance of the Seven Veils”, the gobsmacking fourth track on Exile in Guyville, and our first taste of Liz Phair’s unparalleled ability to be haughty, naughty, playful, and pernicious all in the same breath. It is also serves as our introduction to Phair’s more abstract tendencies, stringing together erotic and vaguely menacing imagery in deceptive lullaby rhyme. It’s an apt successor to the pseudo-sexual-spiritual interlude “Glory”, but “Veils” seemingly forgets all the gentility of its predecessor; here, rather, Phair is at her wryly seductive best, disingenuously self-flagellating as she voices her demands and desires so her male subject needn’t do the dirty work (and is perhaps robbed of his own sure to be underwhelming response). That Phair marries a relatively straightforward plea for her rocker lover to quit being such a b*stard (“Johnny my love / Get out of the business / It makes me wanna rough you up so badly”) with overt references to the Salome / John the Baptist beheading myth / Biblical passage / whatever veracious weight you prescribe it (“I have got a bright and shiny platter / And I am gonna get your heavy head”) is testament to the cunning complexities of Phair’s composer mind. Phair cherry-picks her allusions here, making substantial use of sparse ingredients, and sets a peculiar -- but purposeful -- tone by invoking a provocative cultural signpost and pairing it with what would otherwise be a pedestrian tale of romantic frustration. This Johnny character (who recurs not only later on the record in the even more beguiling abuse and abandonment romp “Johnny Sunshine”, but also on future albums, including the opening track of Phair’s 2005 soft-rock tapestry Somebody’s Miracle, though there he’s addressed as a more stately “John”) frustrates her to the point of fantasizing about wrapping him in plastic and “pumping [him] full of lead”. And yet Phair’s poetic dreams of annihilating him betray a paradoxical desire to keep him, what with her expressed urgent need to “get a preacher” who can “skip the ‘until death’ part”. Her aggression is, in its way, a form of submission."
- Joe Vallese, 'Strange Loops : Liz Phair'
"When Letters to Cleo burst into mainstream consciousness in 1995, it was on the back of the single “Here and Now,” a song famous for its instantly memorable, infinitely silly, lightning-quick, 28-word chorus. The “Here and Now” template — one consisting of power-pop arrangements, playful hooks, and sugary sweet vocals from Kay Hanley, a flaxen-haired, former Catholic school girl — was used throughout Letter to Cleo’s career to great effect, propelling the band to national popularity."
- Ryan Foley, The Music Museum Of New England
"I feel like a rock star in my head but not in the way I walk down the street. I don’t think people would know who I am. Plus, I’ve never understood the drive for fame. I like to call attention to myself by being a wise-*ss. It’s such an Irish Catholic thing. I always felt so weird to calling attention to myself on stage. I just never really enjoyed it. Which makes it so hard to be in a band. I completely sabotaged our career by being embarrassed. Now, being behind the scenes is a very good place for me. I can do what I love and I don’t have to sell myself image wise."
- Kay Hanley, That's It LA
"To be a realist is the beginning of wisdom, and the wise know that nothing matters except to find pleasure in the present."
'Salome' by Henri Regnault
'Where To Now, St. Peter' - Elton John
'Salome' by Henri Regnault
'Where To Now, St. Peter' - Elton John
'Salome' is one of many stage and screen works dealing with the legend of Salome who's served as an unending source of inspiration to musicians, artists, poets and writers. Theda Bara played the character in the lost classic 'Salome' (1918) which was directed by the Canadian J. Gordon Edwards. Frenchman Claude D'Anna, Englishman Ken Russell, Spaniard Carlos Saura and American Al Pacino have also directed films concerning the legend of Salome. This film version from the 1950s is directed by German artist William Dieterle.
"Lares are ancestral spirits that protect and preserve family lines and family knowledge. The Lares (Lar-AY) serve as bridges connecting the past to the present. In homes of Italian Witches, Lare shrines were usually placed in the East or West quarters. Traditionally Lares are associated with the hearth, so Witches usually place them on a mantle near the hearth. In the ancient Roman religion, Lares were worshipped at crossroads where small towers were built to honor them and offerings were left for them on alters. They were originally spirits of the fields, and with the development of agricultural knowledge they became associated with plots of farmland. They now guarded specific places, and the towers erected for them were their watchtowers. Because of their association with planting, Lares also were connected to the seasons and time itself.
The divine protection of places was as significant to the ancient Romans as the protection of time and seasons. The Roman god Janus, from which is derived the name of the month January, stood at the threshold of all these things, and was associated with the Lares by this relationship. He was also the god of doorways, and the Lares were spirits of the hearth and protectors of the home. Also, by being spirits of the seasons and time, they were considered ancestral spirits that connected the past, present, and future together through preservation of linkage. The Lares gradually acquired other protective duties and became Penates (pay-NOT-ays), spirits protecting the food supply within the home. The modern word "pantry" is derived from Penates. It is important to add that the Lares were not discriminate in protecting all members of a Roman household be they free or slave, blood related or not. This proved to be beneficial to the lower free class and the slave class who found shelter within the Lares cult. Among modern Italian Witches, non-Italians are adopted into the clan through the Lares and thereby become full members of the Tradition in all regards.
As a result of the earliest connection to the fields and meadows, the Lares also have a relationship with Faunus, Silvanus and other rustic gods. With the development of agriculture the Lares became linked to the seed, which resulted in the establishment of a connection with buried flesh. In their notions with death, the ancient Romans were more concern with the disappearance from this world than entry into the next. The Roman viewed death as the defilement of the person, and this defilement should be removed with the performance of certain rites. Specifically this required the sacrifice of a sow to Ceres, a sacred meal eaten at the burial site, and a ritual cleansing of the home of the departed. From this evolved the modern customs of serving a "wake" meal and sending flowers to the home of the deceased."
- Raven Grimassi, 'Encyclopedia Of Wicca & Witchcraft'
The divine protection of places was as significant to the ancient Romans as the protection of time and seasons. The Roman god Janus, from which is derived the name of the month January, stood at the threshold of all these things, and was associated with the Lares by this relationship. He was also the god of doorways, and the Lares were spirits of the hearth and protectors of the home. Also, by being spirits of the seasons and time, they were considered ancestral spirits that connected the past, present, and future together through preservation of linkage. The Lares gradually acquired other protective duties and became Penates (pay-NOT-ays), spirits protecting the food supply within the home. The modern word "pantry" is derived from Penates. It is important to add that the Lares were not discriminate in protecting all members of a Roman household be they free or slave, blood related or not. This proved to be beneficial to the lower free class and the slave class who found shelter within the Lares cult. Among modern Italian Witches, non-Italians are adopted into the clan through the Lares and thereby become full members of the Tradition in all regards.
As a result of the earliest connection to the fields and meadows, the Lares also have a relationship with Faunus, Silvanus and other rustic gods. With the development of agriculture the Lares became linked to the seed, which resulted in the establishment of a connection with buried flesh. In their notions with death, the ancient Romans were more concern with the disappearance from this world than entry into the next. The Roman viewed death as the defilement of the person, and this defilement should be removed with the performance of certain rites. Specifically this required the sacrifice of a sow to Ceres, a sacred meal eaten at the burial site, and a ritual cleansing of the home of the departed. From this evolved the modern customs of serving a "wake" meal and sending flowers to the home of the deceased."
- Raven Grimassi, 'Encyclopedia Of Wicca & Witchcraft'
"Salome has been a byword for controversy ever since Oscar Wilde's play was banned for the blasphemous use of biblical characters, and the opera Richard Strauss based on it condemned for the heroine's notorious striptease in the Dance of the Seven Veils. Jamie Lloyd's production Salome, a joint venture between Headlong and the Curve, seems determined to be no exception, ramping up Wilde's text into a degenerate vision of dangerous sexual delusion. Whereas Wilde's play conflates the New Testament with the image-rich cadences of symbolist poetry, Lloyd draws visual parallels with the bootylicious body language of gangsta rap videos and the post-apocalyptic look of Tina Turner's 1980s comeback. It's not subtle, but it provides the requisite erotic charge to what is, in effect, the Bible's most lasciviously extended lap dance."
- Alfred Hickling reviews 'Salome' being performed at The Curve in Leicester for The Guardian
- Alfred Hickling reviews 'Salome' being performed at The Curve in Leicester for The Guardian
"On a Spring day in the year 1876, Gustave Flaubert, one of France’s most respected and popular authors, paid a visit to the Salon, Paris’s annual official art exhibition, where the nation’s most prominent artists competed to show their work. There he saw two large paintings by Gustave Moreau, Salome Dancing before Herod and The Apparition, which brought Salome’s notorious dance vividly to life in rich, jeweled tones and mythically complex detail. These paintings were an intriguing counterpoint to a theme he was already deeply involved in: Salome’s dance, the crucial center of his short story, “Herodias,” the last story he published before his death four years later. Salome’s dance was critical to this story, and he took writing it very seriously. “I am sick with fear at the thought of Salome’s dance,” he wrote to his niece Caroline, “I’m afraid to spoil it.” But despite his concerns, the scene was a triumph, a visual, intriguing choreography that brought out all the horror, sensuality and exoticism he envisioned during the decline of Rome, in the palace of a despot, on the edge of the desert in Palestine."
- Andrea Deagon, 'The Image Of The Eastern Dancer : Flaubert’s Salome'
- Andrea Deagon, 'The Image Of The Eastern Dancer : Flaubert’s Salome'
'The Apparition' by Gustave Moreau
'Only Son' - Liz Phair
'Only Son' - Liz Phair
Dieterle's presentation is built for the stage but this allows him to elevate series of decorative shots, the veteran filmmaker being handed down special instructions by powerful movie mogul Harry Cohn. Dieterle's assistant director for this production was the filmmaker Earl Bellamy. Charles Laughton as Herod the 2nd looks like John Candy's long lost brother and he glides serenely like a Noh theatre princess. The music is composed by George Duning and there's some additional dance music by Daniele Amfitheatrof.
"In 1949, the world watched, enthralled, as Rita Hayworth became a princess when she married the wealthy Muslim leader, Prince Aly Khan, in a town hall in Vallauris, France. They had both been married when they embarked on their affair. The Vatican declared the Catholic Hayworth's marriage "illicit," and she was condemned by the Pope. Seven months to the day later her daughter Yasmin was born. The doomed union was over by the early 1950s, and Rita returned to Hollywood a few pounds heavier to appear in "Affair In Trinidad" (1952) with her "Gilda" co-star and good friend, Glenn Ford. Next she danced in the biblical epic "Salome" (1953) . Rita told interviewer John Hallowell of the New York Times, "I can certainly tell you some of my non-favorite (films) honey. Certainly Salome and her stupid seven veils..." In 1954, Rita appeared, sweating in 3-D and technicolor in "Miss Sadie Thompson." In 1957 she appeared looking older than her years in "Pal Joey" with Frank Sinatra and rising star Kim Novak."
- Steve Starr, 'Starr Light : Rita Hayworth'
"And then there was “Dance of the Seven Veils”, the gobsmacking fourth track on Exile in Guyville, and our first taste of Liz Phair’s unparalleled ability to be haughty, naughty, playful, and pernicious all in the same breath. It is also serves as our introduction to Phair’s more abstract tendencies, stringing together erotic and vaguely menacing imagery in deceptive lullaby rhyme. It’s an apt successor to the pseudo-sexual-spiritual interlude “Glory”, but “Veils” seemingly forgets all the gentility of its predecessor; here, rather, Phair is at her wryly seductive best, disingenuously self-flagellating as she voices her demands and desires so her male subject needn’t do the dirty work (and is perhaps robbed of his own sure to be underwhelming response). That Phair marries a relatively straightforward plea for her rocker lover to quit being such a b*stard (“Johnny my love / Get out of the business / It makes me wanna rough you up so badly”) with overt references to the Salome / John the Baptist beheading myth / Biblical passage / whatever veracious weight you prescribe it (“I have got a bright and shiny platter / And I am gonna get your heavy head”) is testament to the cunning complexities of Phair’s composer mind. Phair cherry-picks her allusions here, making substantial use of sparse ingredients, and sets a peculiar -- but purposeful -- tone by invoking a provocative cultural signpost and pairing it with what would otherwise be a pedestrian tale of romantic frustration. This Johnny character (who recurs not only later on the record in the even more beguiling abuse and abandonment romp “Johnny Sunshine”, but also on future albums, including the opening track of Phair’s 2005 soft-rock tapestry Somebody’s Miracle, though there he’s addressed as a more stately “John”) frustrates her to the point of fantasizing about wrapping him in plastic and “pumping [him] full of lead”. And yet Phair’s poetic dreams of annihilating him betray a paradoxical desire to keep him, what with her expressed urgent need to “get a preacher” who can “skip the ‘until death’ part”. Her aggression is, in its way, a form of submission."
- Joe Vallese, 'Strange Loops : Liz Phair'
"When Letters to Cleo burst into mainstream consciousness in 1995, it was on the back of the single “Here and Now,” a song famous for its instantly memorable, infinitely silly, lightning-quick, 28-word chorus. The “Here and Now” template — one consisting of power-pop arrangements, playful hooks, and sugary sweet vocals from Kay Hanley, a flaxen-haired, former Catholic school girl — was used throughout Letter to Cleo’s career to great effect, propelling the band to national popularity."
- Ryan Foley, The Music Museum Of New England
"I feel like a rock star in my head but not in the way I walk down the street. I don’t think people would know who I am. Plus, I’ve never understood the drive for fame. I like to call attention to myself by being a wise-*ss. It’s such an Irish Catholic thing. I always felt so weird to calling attention to myself on stage. I just never really enjoyed it. Which makes it so hard to be in a band. I completely sabotaged our career by being embarrassed. Now, being behind the scenes is a very good place for me. I can do what I love and I don’t have to sell myself image wise."
- Kay Hanley, That's It LA
'Salome' by Georges Antoine Rochegrosse
Rita Hayworth as Salome
Rita Hayworth as Salome
'From Under The Dust' - Letters To Cleo
'I know what you did,
and now he's waiting,
he knows what you did too,
you're not what you say you are ...'
- Kay Hanley, 'St. Peter'
'I know what you did,
and now he's waiting,
he knows what you did too,
you're not what you say you are ...'
- Kay Hanley, 'St. Peter'
