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| Erich von Stroheim |
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| Born: 1885 |
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A master director of the 1920s, Stroheim cultivated an image as a
European aristocrat who disdained Hollywood commercialism. Sadly,
his perfectionism and prodigality led to numerous conflicts with the
studios; most of his films were heavily cut and re-edited, and his
career foundered by the 1930s. Nevertheless, Stroheim is the great
novelist of the silent cinema: his films capture a precise realism of
setting and characterisation sometimes compared with Zola, and his
frank studies of sexual desire, class and power are unerringly modern.
His masterpiece is the overwhelmingly intense Greed. Later, Stroheim
acted, giving especially moving performances in Renoir's La Grande
Illusion and, basically playing himself, in Wilder's Sunset
Boulevard.
Alex Jacoby
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