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cahnI would like to show you a thing mildred_of_midgard, selenak, and I have been working on! Two things :D Two covers of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire," 18th-century versions!
Chronological, Prussian-centric version:
Non-chronological, Euro-centric (but not quite as Prussian-centric) one:
These were inspired by the Hildegard von Blingin' medieval/Renaissance cover that came out a year and a half ago. Clearly this was not something salon could let stand without trying to produce its own 18th-century version. (In fact,selenak posted about it on her DW and within twenty-four hours I was reading not one but TWO first drafts, one written by selenak and the other by mildred_of_midgard!)
So then we were committed to putting this thing together. It obviously took a while from there (quite a lot of that gap was unfortunately due to me, as I had limited times that I could record properly, and it took me a while to figure out the best way to do it -- the last time I did something even faintly like this was in grad school).mildred_of_midgard is the real MVP in terms of doing all the video/video-audio syncing, which was a LOT. Also: I apologize abjectly for pronunciation, which has never been my strength even in English, let alone anything else. But I hope you enjoy anyway! (And of course if you have any questions as to what any of the lines refer to, feel free to ask here or there and someone will answer! :D )
mildred_of_midgard, selenak, and I have been working on! Two things :D Two covers of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire," 18th-century versions!Chronological, Prussian-centric version:
Non-chronological, Euro-centric (but not quite as Prussian-centric) one:
These were inspired by the Hildegard von Blingin' medieval/Renaissance cover that came out a year and a half ago. Clearly this was not something salon could let stand without trying to produce its own 18th-century version. (In fact,
selenak posted about it on her DW and within twenty-four hours I was reading not one but TWO first drafts, one written by selenak and the other by mildred_of_midgard!)So then we were committed to putting this thing together. It obviously took a while from there (quite a lot of that gap was unfortunately due to me, as I had limited times that I could record properly, and it took me a while to figure out the best way to do it -- the last time I did something even faintly like this was in grad school).
mildred_of_midgard is the real MVP in terms of doing all the video/video-audio syncing, which was a LOT. Also: I apologize abjectly for pronunciation, which has never been my strength even in English, let alone anything else. But I hope you enjoy anyway! (And of course if you have any questions as to what any of the lines refer to, feel free to ask here or there and someone will answer! :D )
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Date: 2026-01-05 04:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-01-05 05:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-01-05 11:28 pm (UTC)TWO first drafts written by selenak and mildred_of_midgard
Respectively, if that wasn't clear to anyone.
So then we were committed to putting this thing together.
Only because you agreed to do the vocals and music! I didn't think I was going to be able to talk you into it, but you were GAME! \o/
This is another excellent example of that magical alchemy of salon. <333
I apologize abjectly for pronunciation, which has never been my strength even in English, let alone anything else
I told my wife about how hard the task of singing all those unfamiliar foreign names so fast was, and she was duly impressed!
mildred_of_midgard is the real MVP in terms of doing all the video/video-audio syncing, which was a LOT
30+ hours a lot!
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Date: 2026-01-07 05:26 am (UTC)Hee, I amended that in the post!
I didn't think I was going to be able to talk you into it, but you were GAME! \o/
This is another excellent example of that magical alchemy of salon. <333
Lol and yay! The vocals and the music I was up for! :D It was the recording I was worried about, haha. Yay alchemy!!
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Date: 2026-01-07 09:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-01-07 05:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-01-07 09:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-01-09 05:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-01-08 06:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-01-09 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-01-08 08:35 pm (UTC)(Out of curiosity: Was the "didn't"/"did not" change in the refrain from the first to the second just for variety or did you have a different reason?)
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Date: 2026-01-08 08:42 pm (UTC)I do like that we ended up following different versions, as it results in more variation and makes it more worthwhile having two 18th century covers.
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Date: 2026-01-08 10:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-01-09 05:30 pm (UTC)But yeah, what Mildred said -- and I mostly sang whatever was given to me, except for very occasionally having to e.g. elide something so that I actually *could* sing it in meter, lol!
MT: The Musical online
Date: 2026-02-08 11:58 am (UTC)Guess which famous directors wanted to collaborate on a Fritz/Voltaire movie?
Date: 2026-03-24 04:05 pm (UTC)Now, I'm assuming Cocteau would have written the script, because witty, biting dialogue was definitely not a strength of Leni R. while it was one of Cocteau. Given Cocteau did not go into exile during WWII and in fact accepted a few invitations to Nazi cultural events (he also was friends with Arno Breker, aka Hitler's favourite sculptor), I am also not that surprised he kept up relationships with Riefenstahl post war and was in theory willing to work with her on a shared project. And between them he and Leni Riefenstahl certainly were responsible for some enduring visuals of the 20th century in their movies. However, I am also entirely unsurprised it didn't happen. Because again, leaving morals completely aside, one big reason why Leni Riefenstahl's career as a director never resurrected when that of so many other (ex?) Nazis did was that having been Hitler's favourite filmmaker had utterly spoiled her work methods. She got for each project however much money she wanted to have, however many people she wanted to have. She could shoot as much material as she wanted. This would not have been the case in any project in any post war project because no potential employer would have been a Dictator willing to give her eveything instead of a studio head wanting to keep a project within budget, especially one that risked being hugely controversial.
(Leni Riefenstahl did eventually end up with professional success again, but not as a director; as a photographer. But this is another story.)
Also, she and Cocteau were both convinced they were geniuses. Epic clashes about who gets to decide what in a shared movie would have been guaranteed.
But let's say these problems were somehow solved: I still can't see such a collaboration result in a good movie on this subject. For starters, having read biographies and her memoirs, I feel confident in stating that Leni Riefenstahl had zero sense of humor. Deadly for anyone trying to tell the Fritz/Voltaire story. But okay, let's say Cocteau (who could write comedy) would have made up for that, and would also have been the one to do the research and conceptualize the tale because Leni Riefenstahl's ideas of Great Men and Misunderstood Geniuses were, well, you can guess. Then there is still the fact that where she excelled as a director were projects featuring either gigantic masses (might work for depictions of Fritzian battles, but those aren't important for the Fritz/Voltaire relationship), or beautiful bodies in motion (not a feature of either Fritz or Voltaire). Or mountains. What there is no example for is her doing something chamber play like intimacy.
All this being said: it definitely would have been an interesting trainwreck of a movie. Not shot at Sanssouci, btw, because in the 1950s when Cocteau and Riefenstahl were planning to do this, Sanssouci was part of the GDR, and I cannot see the Communist government giving Leni Riefenstahl the permission to film on their territory. Since France was rather invested in presenting itself as the country of the Resistance and not the country of the Collaboration and Vichy in the 1950s, I don't see her and Cocteau getting permission to film in some French chateaus, either. It probably would have been some West German baroque palace, of which there are plenty. (Including of course Bayreuth. Which, err.)
I'm also curious whom they would have cast as Fritz and as Voltaire. Otto Gebühr who had practically monopolized the part of Fritz in German films of the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich alike was too old and died in 1954. I have trouble seeing Jean Marais as either Fritz or Voltaire, but he would have undoubtedly played one of the two due to Cocteau's involvement. Maria Casares as Émilie? And would Fredersdorf have been represented or cut out of the saga?
... wouldn't have helped disassociating Fritz from the Worst Fanboys, either, of course.
Re: Guess which famous directors wanted to collaborate on a Fritz/Voltaire movie?
Date: 2026-03-28 01:12 pm (UTC)Also, she and Cocteau were both convinced they were geniuses. Epic clashes about who gets to decide what in a shared movie would have been guaranteed.
So basically, they would have been well-prepared to get in the heads of Fritz and Voltaire! /snark
... wouldn't have helped disassociating Fritz from the Worst Fanboys, either, of course.
No, indeed.
Re: Guess which famous directors wanted to collaborate on a Fritz/Voltaire movie?
Date: 2026-03-28 04:03 pm (UTC)(If you've seen the cartoon Disney Beauty & the Beast, that basically Disney-fied the 1950 Cocteau movie - I hope they payed Cocteau's heirs royalties.) (Oh, and any movie which has a character go through a mirror - Cocteau did it first in "Orphee".)
Also, she and Cocteau were both convinced they were geniuses. Epic clashes about who gets to decide what in a shared movie would have been guaranteed.
So basically, they would have been well-prepared to get in the heads of Fritz and Voltaire! /snark
Well, if you put it like that... (Though Voltaire would point that when he washed Fritz' dirty laundry, err, worked as Fritz' beta-reader, he proved he could collaborate with him. On that level. Of course he'd never co-written anything with him. He had a reputation to uphold!)
As Leni Riefenstahl was truly a Prussian (she was born in Berlin), in theory a useful French-Prussian background would have been there, too. But like I said - no sense of humor, and this is the woman who during the relevant 12 years said that that all the geniuses of the past like Frederick the Great or Caesar were flawed, only one genius in all of history is perfect, guess who. This does not fill me with confidence in her contributing useful Fritz characterisation. Otoh: she had an awful FW-like Dad who nearly drowned her on one occasion when she was a child and didn't obey, and an AW-like younger brother whom she was close to. And she certainly had amazing will power and energy; between as a young woman in the Weimar Republic being game to - as an actress - incredibly dangerous stunts, including being thrown into an avalanche in the mountains, and as an old woman of 70 learning how to deep dive (which she did until she was 90), she certainly never lacked physical courage. Sadly, she was also 100% a Nazi (and not the naive artist who didn't know what was going on she presented herself post 1945 as), and the only thing she was ever sorry (other than herself) was that she didn't use her good relationship with Hitler to save her brother from the Eastern Front. (Where he ended up dying in 1944.)
Re: Guess which famous directors wanted to collaborate on a Fritz/Voltaire movie?
Date: 2026-03-28 08:46 pm (UTC)Nope, never heard of her! Cocteau was the name that looked vaguely familiar, and when you mentioned Beauty & the Beast, I figured I must have come across it in that context. (I haven't seen his version, but I did see the Disney cartoon way back when.)
all the geniuses of the past like Frederick the Great or Caesar were flawed, only one genius in all of history is perfect, guess who. This does not fill me with confidence in her contributing useful Fritz characterisation.
Oh, boy. Yeah, no.
Leni Riefenstahl
Date: 2026-03-29 10:29 am (UTC)If you've watched the original Star Wars movie, i.e. "A New Hope", you've watched one of many, many films which consciously imitated some of Riefenstahl's visuals. The scene where Han, Luke and Chewie get awarded medals by Leia at the very end is an almost one to one homage/transition to one of the scenes from "Triumph of the Will" about the 1935 Nazi party convention in Nuremberg, starring Hitler, Himmler and the guy who was Röhm's successor in the SA . (Don't ask me what George Lucas was thinking, but he admitted it. He also made sure that ever after the rebels weren't depicted with that type of ceremonies.) 70s and early 80s rockstars like David Bowie went with the Triumph of the Will visuals (not these, other ones) in their videos of the time as well. For that matter, if you've ever seen Hitler on film , and it's not taken from a cinema weekly newsreel, it's definitely taken from "Triumph of the Will". And the Triumph of the Will parodies in pop culture are countless (one of the most succcessful ones is the "Be Prepared" song from "The Lion King", up to and including the camera angles); there even was one shot during The Third Reich itself, a comedy based on the Amphytrion myth which spoofed the introduction sequence of "Triumph of the Will". It was a box office hit, but the director wisely didn't stay in Germany for much longer and fled.
In short, you have seen the legacy of Leni Riefenstahl all your life, even if you've never heard her name.
As to how Leni R. ended up in the position to achieve this in a society which proclaimed day in and day out that women were supposed to be mothers first and foremost and inferior to men: despite having a brutal FW like Prussian parent who also believed in traditional gender roles, she was stubborn and convinced of her own genius (with only a vague idea of what that genius was supposed to consist of) enough to first try out as a dancer. Not a ballet dancer but an expressive dancer (very fashionable in the 1920s), with mixed success; she got some good reviews and some bad ones and the bad ones really cut to the core of a life long problem - they said she was really beautiful but mechanic in her movements, without the ability to convey emotions via her body, which was key in expressive dancing. Importantly, though, she got her first patron, a German-Jewish banker named Harry Sokal (whom she later did her best to downplay and erase from her biography for obvious reasons). He hooked her up with a director called Arnold Fanck who was in dire need of money and had singlehandedly invented a very expensive film subgenre called "mountain movies" - thin plots but spectacular visuals because Fanck truly filmed in the glaciers and mountains. Fanck agreed to cast Riefenstahl (and would continue to do so for the next eight years), who had never had any training as an actress but was, to give credit where due, both an enthusiastic sports woman, a tireless worker and physically courageous. She did her own stunts, including as mentioned earlier one in an avalanche. (Fanck was crazy.) And she got interested in directing en route. She and Sokal had stopped being a romantic pair in 1925, but he still financed her and thus she became a part of the creative team (later rewritten by her to be her directorial debut) of a different type of mountain movie, "The Blue Light". (When it debuted in 1932, Leni Riefenstahl in addition to playing the lead is mentioned as co-director and co-scriptwriter. Since the other scriptwriter and director were Jewish, their names magically disappeared post 1933.) This movie again had a mixed critical reception; some praise for the visuals but strong criticism for Riefenstahl's acting. Up to this point in her life, she hadn't shown signs of antisemitism, but now she started to complain about "The Jewish Press". And she heard Hitler talk as part of his election campaigns in 1932 and wrote him a fan letter with momentous consequences.
Hitler had actually known who she was before. He loved mountain movies, both the Arnold Fanck ones and "The Blue Light", he loved movies in general, and of course he knew how important supporters in the entertainment industry were. They met and had a mutual meetings of the minds, so to speak. Ever after, she was part of his inner circle. Meanwhile, and because "The Blue Light" hadn't been a box office success, Leni Riefenstahl played her last role in an Arnold Fanck directed movie, this one set in Greenland instead of the alps but following the same narrative pattern, in a German-American co-production. The US producer Paul Kohner would go on to be one of the key supporters of German speaking exiles later and was one of several Jewish friends she had pre 33 who were horrified and disillusioned when upon the premiere of "SOS Iceberg", the movie, which took place in the spring of 1933 (i.e. after Hitler had become chancellor but before the transition to dictorship was complete) performed the Hitler salute when on stage for the premiere.
Leni Riefenstahl later claimed it was all Hitler's idea to make her shoot "documentary" movies about the party conventions first in 1934 and then in 1935 and she was an apolitical artist who just shot what she saw, which is of course nonsense. She wanted those assignments, but the amazing thing is - again, given that Hitler could never be accused of supporting independent women otherwise in any fashion whatsoever - that she got them, based on nothing more than "The Blue Light" in terms of directing a movie experience, and that had been shared. Her first attempt was "Sieg des Glaubens" about the 1934 party convention which quickly disappeared, not because it was deemed bad by Hitler but because it starred in very prominent positions Ernst Röhm, the head of the SA and one of the few people Hitler was on a "Du" footing with, who not long after the 1934 party convention Hitler declared a traitor and got rid off in the "Night of the Long Knives". Röhm had been so prominent that you could not cut him out of this film, which was deemed lost until a copy was rediscovered in later years. But for the 1935 convention, Leni Riefenstahl got it all - months of preparation, material, cameramen, access, etc., and if the sound of the original speech wasn't captured well enough successfully, the Nazi speakers like Hess were ordered to report to her in the studio and repeat the speech so she could rerecord it - and did deliver not only a very successful piece of propaganda for the German but also for the international audience. (And her first box office success as a director.) Next, she wanted to return to fictional movies - one about legendary Amazon queen Penthesilea (starring her, of course), and one based on the opera "Tiefland" (a rare non-Wagnerian favourie of Hitler's and hers). (Sans opera music but based on the story. Also starring her in the lead.) The Penthesilea movie never made it beyond script stage, the Tiefland movie got eventually made through almost a decade of production and became infamous because for the part of the film shot in the 1940s she used Romani and Sinti concentration camp inmates for the crowd scenes. It didn't make it to the actual screen until 1950, though. What did make it to the screens on a global level were her two movies based on the 1936 Olympic games.
Now, the host country making a cinematic documentary about the Olympic Games wasn't a Nazi invention, that was already customary. And of course Germany had been awarded the 1936 Games years before Hitler. But the Games were a golden propaganda opportunity and definitely the high point of Leni Riefenstahl's career. Like I said, she got every possible support and she did make the most of it, though it took her over two years to finish the two movies. (BTW, you may or may not have heard that black US athlete Jesse Owens' various victories during said games pissed Hitler off for racist reasons. Hitler might not have been thrilled, but Leni Riefenstahl was. Her type of fascism wasn't racially connotated in that she was into beautiful healthy bodies and sports feats, and Jesse Owens definitely is treated as one of the key stars of this movie. (But you would never have seen someone unattractive in a Leni Riefenstahl movie. Euthenasia, she did not have a problem with.) Which she then went on global tour with, winning film awards not just in fascist Italy at the Venice Biennale but also in democratic Paris. She also was feted upon arrival in New York. But then the November 1938 progrom, the so called "Reichskristallnacht" happened, and that basically meant the US audience by and large got a wake up call and no longer was in the mood for two movies showcasing the "New Germany" of the 1936 Olympics; by the time she arrived in Hollywood, Walt Disney was the only director willing to talk to her.
She returned to Germany. Come 1939, the War started, and something that was only discovered well into the post war era because she was very silent about it was that she was originally right with the army when it marched into Poland; evidently a "Blitzkrieg" documentary was planned. But then something happened that showed even Leni Riefenstahl had it in her to be shocked. She was busy preparing a film shot in a conquered Polish town and said something along the lines of "Get the Jews out of the picture" (meaning out of the camera angles). This direction ended up being understood in a very different lethal way, and the Jews in the town square were shot. Because she was not the only person with a camera on the occasion and various soldiers also took pictures, there are photos of her looking horrified. She then broke off filming and returned to Germany, instead of focusing on hier Tiefland project, the fate of which, see above.
Post war, she went in denial like so many Germans and to her dying day - and she was 1001 years old when she died - insisted on the myth of her as the naive artist who just loved beauty and had no idea, honest, and everything else is a lie. As mentioned her various attempts to get another film project going in the 1950s went nowhere, but in the 1960s she got interested in the Nuba, went to Sudan, lived with them for ca. one and a half years and emerged with two photo books which became internationally successful again. In the 1970s, she started to get praise as a director, especially in the US for some reason, and then in the 1980s she got into deep diving and finished off her career with photos and films about corals and fish , which again were rather successful. Throughout the decades, there were also law suits because her tactic whenever someone brought up inconvenient facts was to sue them - most notoriously the (female) director of a documentary about the surviving Sinti and Roma from "Tiefland" and what had become of the dead ones -, and the occasional tv appearance in talk shows. Oh, and her memoirs. In conclusion, as in the beginning: awful person, important part of cinematic and political history.
Re: Leni Riefenstahl
Date: 2026-03-31 05:41 am (UTC)The scene where Han, Luke and Chewie get awarded medals by Leia at the very end is an almost one to one homage/transition to one of the scenes from "Triumph of the Will" about the 1935 Nazi party convention in Nuremberg, starring Hitler, Himmler and the guy who was Röhm's successor in the SA .
WOW.
For that matter, if you've ever seen Hitler on film , and it's not taken from a cinema weekly newsreel, it's definitely taken from "Triumph of the Will".
I know I've seen clips, and I suppose some of them were newsreels, but I imagine I've seen this too!
And the Triumph of the Will parodies in pop culture are countless (one of the most succcessful ones is the "Be Prepared" song from "The Lion King", up to and including the camera angles
Whoa! I'll have to go back and look at this.
Fanck agreed to cast Riefenstahl (and would continue to do so for the next eight years), who had never had any training as an actress but was, to give credit where due, both an enthusiastic sports woman, a tireless worker and physically courageous. She did her own stunts, including as mentioned earlier one in an avalanche. (Fanck was crazy.)
This is all crazy! Fascinating, but crazy!
Her first attempt was "Sieg des Glaubens" about the 1934 party convention which quickly disappeared, not because it was deemed bad by Hitler but because it starred in very prominent positions Ernst Röhm, the head of the SA and one of the few people Hitler was on a "Du" footing with, who not long after the 1934 party convention Hitler declared a traitor and got rid off in the "Night of the Long Knives". Röhm had been so prominent that you could not cut him out of this film, which was deemed lost until a copy was rediscovered in later years.
Wow! (I realize I'm saying that a lot.)
you may or may not have heard that black US athlete Jesse Owens' various victories during said games pissed Hitler off for racist reasons.
I have heard that! Hee.
Her type of fascism wasn't racially connotated in that she was into beautiful healthy bodies and sports feats, and Jesse Owens definitely is treated as one of the key stars of this movie.
Ah, that's interesting.
This direction ended up being understood in a very different lethal way, and the Jews in the town square were shot
:(((((((((((((
In conclusion, as in the beginning: awful person, important part of cinematic and political history.
Fascinating and awful. Thanks for telling us about her!
Re: Leni Riefenstahl
Date: 2026-03-31 12:57 pm (UTC)Re: Jesse Owens, he did famously correct the legend that Hitler refused to shake his hands and said no, that wasn't true*, but that FDR never shook his hand.
*Hitler on the first day of the Olympics had shaken the hands of the German athletes but then was told by the IOC that he either had to shake the hands of all the athletes or none of them, and decided to shake no one's hands. While he certainly wasn't pleased about Jesse Owens, the question as to whether or not to shake his hands thus never arose. And you know that segregation sadly was very much still a thing for the US in the 1930s. here is the one minute scene of Owens setting a new world record which will demonstrate what I mean when I say Riefenstahl-the-director treats him as one of the stars of her movie.
Re: Leni Riefenstahl
Date: 2026-04-03 03:09 am (UTC)Ohhhhh that is interesting about Jesse Owens! And a very cool clip :)
Re: Leni Riefenstahl
Date: 2026-04-03 02:58 pm (UTC)And speaking of Jesse Owens (like Cahn, I had actually heard that story, it was drummed into us in grade school) and sports reporting I have watched, if you haven't seen the LA marathon finish that happened last month, it's worth watching. One minute and very dramatic. Not a world record, but a photo finish.
Re: Guess which famous directors wanted to collaborate on a Fritz/Voltaire movie?
Date: 2026-03-31 05:28 am (UTC)But yeah like Mildred I don't really recognize these people :) (I have this vague feeling that I might have heard of Riefenstahl as a photographer??)
Also, she and Cocteau were both convinced they were geniuses. Epic clashes about who gets to decide what in a shared movie would have been guaranteed.
This is so interesting, it makes me wonder how entirely cursed a literary collaboration between Fritz and Voltaire themselves would have been. (Of course it would have been cursed, the only question is how much :) )
I feel confident in stating that Leni Riefenstahl had zero sense of humor.
oh nooooo
beautiful bodies in motion (not a feature of either Fritz or Voltaire)
LOLOLOLOL
Re: Guess which famous directors wanted to collaborate on a Fritz/Voltaire movie?
Date: 2026-03-31 12:38 pm (UTC)This is so interesting, it makes me wonder how entirely cursed a literary collaboration between Fritz and Voltaire themselves would have been. (Of course it would have been cursed, the only question is how much :) )
Well, as I said, technically they did collaborate repeatedly if you count Voltaire's beta-reading services/laundry cleaning, starting with "The Anti-Machiavell" and then later with some of Fritz' historical works and poetry. (You know, the collaboration indignant patriotic Prussian Fritz fans later denied to have happened, only we do have some examples with Voltaire's hand written remarks on the pages, so yeah. He was a busy laundry cleaner!
On the other hand, I could see Fritz doing something like Wilhelmine who set one of Voltaire's dramas to operatic music. (In fact, am not sure he didn't do that - Merope, I seem to recall?). However, Voltaire wasn't present in those cases, and the plays weren't new. So basically he was flattered that they did it independent of how good he might have thought the music was, because it showed they cared AND it further promoted his fame and those bits of drama.
Now you'll notice in both cases, the beta-reading and the music settingg, there is a clear division of labour. Fritz isn't co-writing his books with Voltaire, Voltaire is offering edits. Voltaire isn't writing his play to fit with the Prussian music, the play exists first, and then the music is composed thereafter. Plus of course as we all know - even when he cursed Voltaire's name on every occasion, Fritz never doubted Voltaire was a genius, and clearly considered him the infinitely superior writer. I don't think he would have, say, ever dared to offer edits of the ongoing La Pucelle, or something like that.
The true challenge would have been if they had to collaborate on a work of art that had both of them as creators while it was still a work in progress. I'm thinking here of something like the collaboration two generations earlier between Moliere the playwright and Lully (court composer of Louis XIV). This went well for a time but then exploded because yes, they both considered themselves geniuses, and Lully thinking his music and ballet scenes were the main action while Moliere thought his witty dialogue was caused the predictable bust up. Now, at the time of Voltaire and Fritz, the kind of opera they both liked was the pre Gluck reform one, so I'm hesitating to invoke the example of a generation after them that immediately comes to mind, Mozart/Lorenzo da Ponte. Mozart used a lot of other libretto writers, da Ponte worked with other composers far more often than with Mozart (including Salieri), but the operas they did together are regarded as their best... and it's still telling that they didn't collaborate more often, isn't it?
So basically: if Fritz and Voltaire had to work together on an original opera, i.e. based not on a previously existing play of Voltaire's but on a new piece, then I could see problems starting. And if anyone had ever dared them to collaborate on an account of Voltaire's three years in Prussia, well....
Re: Guess which famous directors wanted to collaborate on a Fritz/Voltaire movie?
Date: 2026-04-03 03:17 am (UTC)I mean. You are working with two people here who have substantially below-average knowledge in the field of film for the class of people with our general knowledge of other fields (I am sure I would recognize more American film directors than German ones, but that would still be a relatively small number), so that may be playing into it too... I was going to say that I don't know that many people in RL who know a lot about film, but of course I have an extremely biased sample. (I think some of my coworkers, for example, are reasonably knowledgable about film, but I'm not totally sure as we never talk about it :) )
Well, as I said, technically they did collaborate repeatedly if you count Voltaire's beta-reading services/laundry cleaning
Ha, yes, I saw that after I replied :) But yes, like you say:
So basically: if Fritz and Voltaire had to work together on an original opera, i.e. based not on a previously existing play of Voltaire's but on a new piece, then I could see problems starting.
Ohhhh. Yeah. That would be a nightmare!
And if anyone had ever dared them to collaborate on an account of Voltaire's three years in Prussia, well....
AHAHAHA. One can only imagine the epic fight!
Re: Guess which famous directors wanted to collaborate on a Fritz/Voltaire movie?
Date: 2026-04-03 02:45 pm (UTC)"The general public? Like the average American? Likely has absolutely no idea who she is. For me the name rung a bell and I had some memory of a WWII connection, but I needed to google her to remember what that was about. That said, I also have an interest in WWII and am married to someone who knows a lot of German history, so...🤷♂️"
Re: Guess which famous directors wanted to collaborate on a Fritz/Voltaire movie?
Date: 2026-04-05 04:59 am (UTC)I asked D tonight, now that I'm home, and he both knew who Riefenstahl was and thought it was a bit weird that I was asking if he'd heard of her, because he assumed that most people who had either film or politics knowledge would in fact know who she was. (D is not particularly knowledgeable about film compared to other fields, but he has what I'd consider a reasonable cultural literacy given his general knowledge about most other subject fields. Whereas I am not at all culturally literate in film.)