Quote of the day: King Zog Shot Back!
“I might have known: every time I try to see The Magic Flute, something happens! I have yet to get a peek at the third act. Last time, King Zog lost Albania right in the middle of the opening aria!”
~ newsman Walter Abel in ARISE MY LOVE.
Directed by Mitchell Leisen.
Screenplay by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett.
The beautifully-named Albanian monarch is the only world leader in history to have responded to an assassination attempt by drawing his own pistol and blasting away at his assailant, a noteworthy fact commemorated in Nicholas Roeg’s installment of the operatic compendium film ARIA – which makes the connection between Zog and opera two-fold.
January 22, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Oh I love Aria ! It’s so marvelously silly, especially the Godard episode (what is this thing he has for women naked under their white shifts? See also Le Nouveau Monde, Alphaville and <iOne Plus One) The Charles Sturridge is really good, the Altman really strange, the Jarman and Bruce Beresford really lovely, and the Ken Russell really Ken Russell. Best of all there’s Julien Temple running amok at the Madonna Inn with Buck Henry and Anita Morris. (Read Umberto Eco’s description of the Madonna Inn in Travels in Hyper-Reality before viewing.)
January 22, 2008 at 7:49 pm
The one I couldn’t get on with was the Beresford, which seemed silly yet unimaginative: two naked people singing at each other, and isn’t one of them Liz Hurley?
Temple did a great job, embracing the daftness of the thing. Producer Don Boyd guests as a Vegas Elvis impersonator singing “Figaro.”
Mad Ken appeared at the Edinburgh premiere wielding an umbrella with a paper cup impaled on the end. Genius.