Von: The Life & Films of Erich Von Stroheim

by Richard Koszarski

In this revised and expanded edition of Richard Koszarski's The Man You Loved to Hate , about a third of the material is completely new or significantly rewritten. It includes information recently unearthed in France and Austria and makes use of documents, scrapbooks, photographs and correspondence belonging to the Stroheim family. Reshaped and enriched, Von becomes once again what Sight and Sound called “...the best biographical treatment of Stroheim that we are likely to get – intelligent, judicious and a pleasure to read.”

Genres: Film

404 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2000

Reviews

[Milo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps the ideal candidate for a part-biography, part-filmography, in that the man’s films and life seem of one consistent fabric. He is not a Bruckner, whose art seems of opposite texture to his person, but very much a von Stroheim, whose various deceptive, licentious, bombastic artworks seem to distend from the soul of a man who was all fabrication, all pseudo-nobility, and dressed up in the way of an aristocrat. Much like so many of his films, he too was destined to failure; to reel off before he was done. Despite all, von Stroheim was party to the happy ending (in but a few exceptions). In The Wedding March, studio interference robbed the film of its pleasant tie-up, instead rendering it one of the most roundly upsetting finales of any Hollywood romance. Such is the life of Von. But we cannot be too teary at this prospect. He seems a monstrous man – a man I would despise – and one cloaked in all measure of deceit and violence. What we read here is only the exceptional, public material; if we are to read his films in reverse, we receive a man darker than even his grossest condemnations here contained. I am wont to believe these sentiments. But he is fascinating for and despite this. He is the multitude, he is the bourgeoius Jew fleeing Vienna and he is the medalled guardsman who annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, he is the grandest of all filmmakers and the rabid dog of Hollywood, he is the great romantic and the adulterer. He is all these things at once, in material or in spirit; his reality – his existence – relies on a variety of invented pillars that seemed, for his lifetime at least, to support his great mass. How much he was believed by his colleagues – whether his tales were convenient or convincing – is not entirely clear; certainly it seems that his life, his career, was the greatest of his acting roles. Koszarski’s biography is straightforward and rigorous; his access and his dedication are of that rare calibre, only supplied by genuine obsession. But he is not hagiographic, instead determined on the unveiling than the pedestalling. So much of von Stroheim is the mystery of von Stroheim; not so much the man but his shadow, and all the things he almost did. Koszarski provides a glimpse of the real, a shape quite different to the shadow produced, and in the doing makes that shadow yet more beguiling. Though it seems a history not quite ended; let us hope the many unexhausted archives of the world might provide a little more of this man’s broken art.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book, essential reading for those interested in Von Stroheim. Some myths are debunked, and a lot of new facts are brought to light.