Hi everyone,
Thanks for coming to the Chauvel tonight for this screening of Joseph Von Sternberg's 1953 film, The Saga of Anatahan. Unfortunately, tonight's short film, La Folie du Docteur Tube did not arrive in time for screening, but I will include it in a future program, perhaps looking at the films of Abel Gance. The Saga of Anatahan was suggested by one of the members and I am always interested in your suggestions. So if there is something you want to see, please let me know.
The Saga of Anatahan first screened in Sydney as part of the Sydney Film Festival in the mid 1950s. Von Sternberg brought his own personal print of the film to Sydney, at that time the only print in existence, and was the first international guest of the festival. At that time, the festival had a board where viewers could rate the films screened, and my colleague Barrie Pattison, attending the festival as a youngster, rated the film 1 out of 10. Apparently, Von Sternberg wasn't very happy about this and gave him a stern look every time he saw Barrie in the foyer.
I hadn't seen this film prior to Saturday's screening, but thought it might be good to show as I had recently been revisiting the films Von Sternberg made with Marlene Dietrich. After watching it Saturday, I can't say it's a classic, or even a very good film, but there is much to redeem it. More on that in a moment.
Von Sternberg made the film at the end of a long and distinguished career at a time when he couldn't get a film up in Hollywood. He was invited by a Japanese studio to make the film there on a low budget and with a Japanese cast and crew. Taking the principle of the auteur theory to an almost absurd extreme, Von Sternberg chose the subject, wrote and delivered the almost non-stop narration, decorated, photographed, directed, and even distributed the movie, giving Anatahan the feel of a deeply personal home movie. In some ways, the film predates the camp, highly aestheticized home movie and absolute auteurism of the American underground film movement of thew 1960s - say films like Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures and the films of Kenneth Anger.
The story on which the film was based, concerning a group of Japanese troops who become isolated on the volcanic island of Anatahan and refuse to believe the war is over, has an almost mythical quality, symbolising both the Japanese fighting spirit and their stubborn isolationism. Watching the film on Saturday I wondered what attracted Von Sternberg to this particular story. I hazard to say he identified with this fighting spirit of the Japanese as he found himself professionally in much the same position as his isolated subjects.
Although the film is not great, it retains some substantial curiosity value, not least for its dazzling lighting effects and production design. What Sternberg was able to do with a few lights, a few painted scenic backdrops, and a few bits of string and vines attests to his enormous visual talent.
Von Sternberg's films are nowadays regarded as camp and a queer reading of the film is perhaps the most illuminating. In troilism narratives, where men compete for the affections of the same woman, the woman, the supposed "object" of male desire, is a kind of cipher, and the real purpose of these narratives is the exploration of male sexual desire. Von Sternberg was very resistant to any camp readings of his films and was known to get very testy whenever his masculinity was questioned, pointing to his long relationship with Marlene Dietrich as a testament to his heterosexual masculinity, but both Kenneth Anger and Klaus Kinski have outed Dietrich in print as a lesbian, introducing the possibility that their relationship was a lavendar marriage. Like Von Sternberg's films with Dietrich, there is a raunchy and daring element to The Saga of Anatahan. If you don't believe me, look out for scene with the octopus.
Enjoy the movie.
POST-SCRIPT: See Pia Santaklaus' response for another possible reading of the film.
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