Amalia Blumenthal
Amalia Blumenthal | |
|---|---|
 Amalia Blumenthal, 1935 | |
| Born | 1 September 1902 Aragon, Shalum |
| Died | 8 September 2007 (aged 105) |
| Nationality | |
| Occupation |
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| Years active | 1925–2007 |
Amalia Blumenthal (Gylic transcription: Amalia Bylymenþal; 1 September 1902 – 8 September 2007) was a Gylian filmmaker, producer, photographer, and actress. She was one of the most influential filmmakers of the Free Territories, where she produced technically innovative anarchist propaganda films, synthesising avant-garde influences into a politically-charged style that was influential on Gylian cinema.
Early life
Amalia Blumenthal was born on 1 September 1902 in Aragon, Shalum. Her father was a successful business owner and her mother was a part-time seamstress. She had a younger brother, Heinz, who later volunteered for the International Brigades and died in the Liberation War.
She was an artistically-inclined child, beginning to paint and write poetry aged 4, and athletic, joining a swimming and gymnastics club aged 12. Her father wished for her to follow him into the business world, but her mother supported her artistic inclinations. She became passionate about dancing at age 16, and her mother enrolled her in one of Aragon's top dance schools, where she became a star pupil.
Career
Alscia
Amalia became well-known for her self-styled interpretive dancing skills, and embarked on successful tours across Eracura and Siduri with various dance troupes. In the process, she relocated to Alscia. However, her dancing career was derailed by a series of foot injuries and a knee surgery. While going to a doctor's appointment, she saw a film poster, and was inspired to go into filmmaking. She began attending the cinema regularly and visiting film studios to look for work.
She made her acting debut in 1925. Her breakthrough occured shortly after, as she began a long-term collaboration with a pioneering mountain film director. Apart from launching her into the limelight, the genre appealed strongly to her athletic and artistic nature. She fell in love with the beauty of the Naryn and Kackar mountains, where she would regularly vacation throughout her life.
Having learned acting and editing techniques from her collaboration, Amalia directed her first film, Das blaue Licht, in 1932. It was a modernised take on a German folk tale, notable for its dazzling location filming and the influence of expressionism and futurism. It was critically acclaimed for its cinematography and social commentary, and became one of the year's most successful Alscian films.
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Her next film was an adaptation of the opera Tiefland, in which she played the main female role, and notably used a predominantly Romani cast. The film became known for its lengthy production, lasting 4 years in total, making it one of the most expensive Alscian films. Upon release in 1937, it garnered a mixed reception, with criticism of her acting balanced by praise for the photography and direction. Nevertheless, Amalia remained proud of Tiefland, considering it her masterpiece.
With only two films, she had established herself as one of Alscia's high-profile directors. She was a member of the Anarchofuturist Association of Alscia, and was granted the title Baroness by the UOC in 1938, and received the Order of Arts and Letters.
Free Territories
Alscia's accession to the Free Territories marked a turning point in Amalia's career. She remained in the Free Territories during the Liberation War, and this period of her career became her "gift and curse" — both defining her reputation and attracting controversy.
She embarked on a series of anarchist propaganda films, developing a distinctive style that synthesised her avant-garde influences, drawing particularly from Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov. Hallmarks included a documentary-like aesthetic, long camera takes, and use of music to heighten the narrative. One of her best-known films in this regard was Volksfest, a documentary sports film covering sports in the Free Territories, renowned for its groundbreaking advanced film techniques, such as unusual camera angles, smash cuts, extreme close-ups and placing tracking shot rails around sports venues.
Despite Amalia's protests that she was apolitical, her perceived political sympathies brought controversy. Due to her admitted futurist influences, she was accused of being a Political Futurist — her former AAA membership notwithstanding. Her iconography was criticised as unduly sympathetic to the theatre of totalitarianism. Her "heroic epic" approach as a filmmaker was also attacked as clashing badly with the foundations of anarchism, imposing a distorted preoccupation with power and discipline onto her films.
Adding to the fire was Tag des Sieges, which became infamous for its depiction of the Futurist Front and sparked heated debates whether Amalia was too sympathetic in depicting Emilia Malandrino, with defenders arguing that it was instead critical by showing Emilia as a buffoon. The ambiguous title similarly caused controversy, as it wasn't clear whether the "day of victory" referred to the Impresa di Chieti or its overthrow.
The effectiveness of Amalia's films as propaganda remains contentious to this day. Cultural commentator Hanako Fukui describes her films as "paralyzingly dull, simpleminded, and too clumsy to manipulate anyone", and notes that her filmmaking technique clashes badly with the spontaneity and social revolution of the Free Territories. Maija Džeriņa, one of the Free Territories' famed avant-garde directors and one of Amalia's rivals, dismissed her propaganda films as "pedestrian and repetitive", and claimed that "Amalia learned to wave the black flag, but at heart she yearns for the flash in the pan".
Throughout the war, Amalia also worked as a war photographer, with her work in the field being more well-received and less controversial.
Gylias
The end of the Liberation War left Amalia with a sometimes controversial reputation, and she became aggressive in defending herself. Over the years, she won numerous defamation lawsuits against people accusing her of being a member of the Futurist Front or having knowledge of war crimes. However, she bitterly noted that she never entirely escaped the association with totalitarian sympathies.
Although never entirely accepted by anarchists, Amalia remained one of Gylias' esteemed filmmakers. She was hired by the Gylian National Film Institute to direct The Red Shoes, one of the first major post-war projects. Her sister-in-law Elsa Blumenthal said that Amalia saw the project as an "official exculpation", and duly "behaved herself" on set. She established a great rapport with star Ludmila Canaşvili, stating in interviews that "of all the people I've worked with, Ludmila was the one I most enjoyed working with, because she did exactly as I asked, with no questions or complaints."
Released in 1958, The Red Shoes was a critical and commercial success, and has since been regarded as a classic of Gylian cinema. Amalia felt vindicated by the film's reception, and credited it with revitalising her career. She would alternate between directing, acting, and photography for the rest of her life.
The Delkoran magazine Skærmland would write that Amalia's influence declined after The Red Shoes and "her films became increasingly conservative, losing much of the energy and avant-garde bursts that had previously animated them, gradually growing more ponderous and slow".
Among the highlights of her later career were repeated collaborations with Alisa Marková, Ludmila Canaşvili, and Margot Fontaine — ballet being a medium that played to her dynamics and eye for choreography. She would also collaborate with famed actors such as Máiréad Ní Conmara, Violeta Andyriaḑe, Reda Kazan, and Amanda Leloup, but her work on these films is generally seen as indistinguished by biographers, akin to work for hire.
As an actress, Amalia chose to exploit her reputation, frequently taking villainous roles and playing mercurial and conceited characters that poked fun at her image. Rasa Ḑeşéy's 2017 documentary Beloved Rascals argued that Amalia couldn't invoke the wicked–evil distinction in her acting, due to both the accumulated baggage of her past and her inability to convey the joie de vivre and raucous charisma that define "wickedness", and thus her acting roles were mostly straightforward villains and unsympathetic characters.
She traveled extensively in her photography career, publishing several acclaimed books of photography, as well as an autobiography in 1987. Her interest in underwater photography grew, and she gained the distinction of being the world's oldest scuba diver. Her last film, Impressionen unter Wasser, was released on her 100th birthday; it was an idealised documentary of life in the oceans filmed over 30 years.
Death
Amalia suffered from cancer, and fell ill shortly after her 105th birthday celebration. Her health rapidly deteriorated, and she died in her sleep on 8 September 2007.
Private life
She was married once, in 1944, and divorced in 1946.
She was very close to her brother Heinz, and his wife Elsa. Elsa became one of Amalia's close collaborators, and authored what is considered her definitive biography, A Portrait of Amalia Blumenthal. Elsa was particularly critical of her sister-in-law's controlling tendencies and grudge-holding, and argued that she created or exacerbated much of her problems through a stubborn unwillingness to apologise or show reflection or contrition for her actions.
Legacy
Amalia was a significant figure in Gylian cinema and one of the important directors of the Free Territories. Her synthesis of avant-garde influences, agitprop, and technical innovation had a notable impact on Gylian cinema. She was described by Surface as "a consummate stylist obsessed with bodies in motion, particularly those of dancers and athletes". Radix similarly noted her "standing as a total auteur: producer, writer, director, editor, and actress", which supported her "at times strident assertions of being one of the few Gylian directors to have achieved the ideal of the Gesamtkunstwerk".
While her cinematic achievements are acknowledged, Amalia's legacy is still contested in Gylias due to the various controversies that burdened her career. In some ways, Maija Džeriņa eclipsed Amalia as the "great avant-gardist" of the Free Territories as Amalia wasn't able to escape the image of being a demanding and mercurial director who was overly sympathetic to authoritarianism.