Психоанализа

O
ne day in 1922, in Berlin, Germany, a casting call went out for the
part of a voluptuous young woman in a film called Tragedy of Love. Of
the hundreds of struggling young actresses who showed up, most would do
anything to get the casting director’s attention, including exposing themselves. There was one young woman in the line, however, who was simply
dressed, and performed none of the other girls’ desperate antics. Yet she
stood out anyway.
The girl carried a puppy on a leash, and had draped an elegant necklace
around the puppy’s neck. The casting director noticed her immediately. He
watched her as she stood in line, calmly holding the dog in her arms and
keeping to herself. When she smoked a cigarette, her gestures were slow
and suggestive. He was fascinated by her legs and face, the sinuous way she
moved, the hint of coldness in her eyes. By the time she had come to the
front, he had already cast her. Her name was Marlene Dietrich.
By 1929, when the Austrian-American director Josef von Sternberg arrived in Berlin to begin work on the film The Blue Angel, the twentyseven-year-old Dietrich was well known in the Berlin film and theater
world. The Blue Angel was to be about a woman called Lola-Lola who preys
sadistically on men, and all of Berlin’s best actresses wanted the part—except,
apparently, Dietrich, who made it known that she thought the role demeaning; von Sternberg should choose from the other actresses he had in mind.
Shortly after arriving in Berlin, however, von Sternberg attended a performance of a musical to watch a male actor he was considering for The Blue
Angel The star of the musical was Dietrich, and as soon as she came onstage, von Sternberg found that he could not take his eyes off her. She
stared at him directly, insolently, like a man; and then there were those legs,
and the way she leaned provocatively against the wall. Von Sternberg forgot
about the actor he had come to see. He had found his Lola-Lola.
Von Sternberg managed to convince Dietrich to take the part, and immediately he went to work, molding her into the Lola of his imagination.
He changed her hair, drew a silver line down her nose to make it seem
thinner, taught her to look at the camera with the insolence he had seen
onstage. When filming began, he created a lighting system just for her—a
light that tracked her wherever she went, and was strategically heightened
by gauze and smoke. Obsessed with his „creation,“ he followed her everywhere. No one else could go near her.