I was watching an interesting documentary I downloaded, The Architecture of Doom, about the relationship of art to Nazism. It went into Hitler’s fascination with German adventure writer, Karl May, who wrote novels of the wild west and other far off, fantastic locations he never travelled to but nevertheless wrote about. I remember a while back that there was something on Weekend Edition about his resurgent following in post-reunification Germany where people play cowboys and indians with the good guys being the indians. Anyway, here are some interesting links on the subject:
- Deutsche Welle: Cowboys and Indians – Made in Germany: East Germans and West Germans attended different Karl May inspired movies due to the competing political environments.
- Karl May’s Imaginary America
- The Strange Life and Legacy of Karl May
On a completely unrelated note, Sunset Boulevard is a scary movie. I actually got freaked out.
I like watching Sunset Boulevard on the big screen because it’s so freaky at the end when Norma Desmond says “all those wonderful people out there in the audience” (or something like that) and she’s really looking at you and sort of beckoning. It gives me the heebie-jeebies, but I like it.