If I had a movie theater I’d happily go broke showing films like “The Last Days of Pompeii” ( or “Gli Ultimi Giorni Di Pompei”) a 1926 silent movie with hand colored frames that recently had its first US showing at the Harvard Film Archive. Stars included Rina de Liguoro, who cavorted topless, playing an [...]
http://www.encyclopediaoftheexquisite.com/?p=1415
This post is sort of related to my post yesterday about Butterfly dances, because I came across this intriguing video while looking at the ladies fluttering by. Luis Martinelli, a contortionist who turned his body into a Mobius strip for Thomas Edison’s camera in 1894, is a total mystery. Beyond his meager film credit here [...]
http://www.encyclopediaoftheexquisite.com/?p=1033
I’ve been doing some research on Butterfly dances of the 1890s and couldn’t resist posting a video clip of these precious hand-tinted films. I could lose an afternoon in their clouds of chiffon. Specifically, this fluttering dancer is Annabelle Moore who would go on to star as the ‘Gibson bathing girl’ in the first Ziegfield’s [...]
http://www.encyclopediaoftheexquisite.com/?p=1024
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_oK7yn4e2A&feature=related[/youtube] Joseph Cornell holds a big place in my heart, and in Encyclopedia of the Exquisite, where I write about his love of 19th century ballerinas, and the film he never made, “Nebula, the Powdered Sugar Princess.” I’d like to make that film one day myself, following his notes and ideas. But in the meantime, [...]
http://www.encyclopediaoftheexquisite.com/?p=414
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fapVB35E0FQ[/youtube]This short film combines two things I love, the trapeze and frilly, fussy, Edwardian-era lingerie. It stars Sacramento native Charmion, aka Laverie Vallee (why bother with a stage name?), a pioneering strong woman who thrilled audiences in New York and in London with her audacious moves on the trapeze. Critic George Jean Nathan caught Charmion’s act [...]
http://www.encyclopediaoftheexquisite.com/?p=58
