{"id":171928,"date":"2025-12-27T08:00:48","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T13:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=171928"},"modified":"2025-12-26T11:37:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T16:37:07","slug":"marlene-dietrich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=171928","title":{"rendered":"“In America, sex is an obsession, in other parts of the world it’s a fact.” — Marlene Dietrich"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

\nI knew why I love taxis, yes
\nsubways are only fun when you’re feeling sexy
\nand who feels sexy after The Blue Angel
\nwell maybe a little bit
\n— Frank O’Hara<\/big><\/p>\n

It’s Marlene Dietrich’s birthday today. <\/p>\n

When I interviewed Dan Callahan about his book The Art of American Screen Acting<\/i>, we discussed Marlene Dietrich. He has been obsessed since college, and also obsessed with trying to put her into words. What exactly is she doing. Why does she get the effects she does? HOW does she do that? Movie magic, okay. Collaboration with Josef von Sternberg, a director absolutely OBSESSED with her, obsessed to the point of emotional torture. Okay. He set her up properly so she could be perceived. But she’s DIFFERENT from other stars of her day (well, they were all different from each other. Now, so many “stars” have a sameness to them. They can interchange roles. Back in the day, though, you couldn’t put Barbara Stanwyck in a Greta Garbo vehicle. You couldn’t swap out Marlene Dietrich for Katharine Hepburn. Or Irene Dunne. These women were all versatile – Stanwyck perhaps most of all – but before all of that, they were individuals. They were “themselves”, at least personae-wise. I call them “thoroughbreds of personality”.) <\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/p>\n

At any rate, I think Callahan’s chapter on Dietrich in his book is a major piece of writing, very important, and essential to contextualizing Dietrich, since he comes at it from a performance standpoint. He refers to her as “postmodern”. Almost like it’s all a big joke, and the joke is on us. It’s all a put-on, a gag, and we are the only ones taking it seriously. (“I never ever took my career seriously,” Dietrich said.) But don’t take my word for it. Read his book.<\/p>\n

Here’s our interview<\/a>. It’s a doozy. <\/p>\n

And just for fun, here she is with John Wayne. Their affair was crazy and on his death bed he – a man who loved sex – admitted she was the best sex he ever had. I mean … obviously. <\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/p>\n

\nMarlene Dietrich was one of the great sexual personae, to borrow Camille Paglia’s phrase, and remembering Paglia’s idea that all the great movie personae were (and are) androgynous, an idea Dan discusses as well. Dietrich was openly bisexual (“Sex is much better with a woman, but then one can’t live with a woman!”) and didn’t see the big deal about … any of it, really. This set her apart from American audiences and America in general (see the quote in the header). <\/p>\n

There is the woman and then there is the actress, and there isn’t quite as stark a division in any of the other great classic stars as there are in Dietrich. She talks about how “the legs” were used in film, or “the body”, and she is referring to herself. It just had nothing to do with her, in her mind. She talked about Josef von Sternberg like he was a tyrant, but also as the man who made her. She just did what he told her to do. He told her to count to herself during pauses. So there she is, looking all mysterious and glimmering with intrigue, when all along all she’s doing is thinking “One … two … three … four …”<\/p>\n

I think it was Steven Spielberg who said that the camera loves nothing more than to watch a person thinking. And the trick is: it honestly doesn’t matter WHAT you think. As long as you are thinking SOMEthing other than “How am I sounding? How am I doing? How do I look?” Those are actor thoughts. Think ANYthing. <\/p>\n

So Marlene Dietrich counted silently in her head and audiences have been enraptured for 80 years, wondering what the hell she’s thinking. That’s movie magic. <\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/p>\n

The Blue Angel<\/big>
\nby Allen Ginsberg<\/p>\n

Marlene Dietrich is singing a lament
\nfor mechanical love.
\nShe leans against a mortarboard tree
\non a plateau by the seashore.
\nShe\u2019s a life-sized toy,
\nthe doll of eternity;
\nher hair is shaped like an abstract hat
\nmade out of white steel.
\nHer face is powdered, whitewashed and
\nimmobile like a robot.
\nJutting out of her temple, by an eye,
\nis a little white key.
\nShe gazes through dull blue pupils
\nset in the whites of her eyes.
\nShe closes them, and the key
\nturns by itself.
\nShe opens her eyes, and they\u2019re blank
\nlike a statue\u2019s in a museum.
\nHer machine begins to move, the key turns
\nagain, her eyes change, she sings.
\n\u2014you\u2019d think I would have thought a plan
\nto end the inner grind,
\nbut not till I have found a man
\nto occupy my mind.<\/p>\n

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\nMarlene Dietrich’s screen test for The Blue Angel<\/i><\/p>\n

\n“I’m not an actress — I’m a personality.” — Marlene Dietrich<\/big><\/p>\n

\n 
\n 
\nThank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account<\/a>. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0<\/a>, if you’d like to subscribe.<\/em> <\/small><\/p>\n