Georges Méliès - Portrait of a Man (Gustave Moreau?) (ca. 1883)
Wallraf Museum, Cologne, Germany
“In his trompe l’oeil picture, Méliès depicts himself behind a canvas on an easel, his hands gripped to the sides while his head bursts through and tears the canvas. An image representing the end of painting? Possibly, but the painted inscription on the canvas reads: ‘Ad Omnia Leonardo da Vinci’, ‘To Everything Leonardo da Vinci’ - suggesting that, for the visual artist, everything is derived from the work of Leonardo.”
“Georges’ father arranged a job for him as accounts supervisor in the family business despite Georges wish to enroll at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts to train as a painter. After a compromise, Georges was allowed to take private lessons from, as claimed by his grandaughter Madeleine Malthete-Méliès, painter Gustave Moreau.”
“In 1929, at a gala in his honour, Méliès made his stage entry by stepping through the cinema screen.”
“When you’re 20, you don’t know. All you know are bits and pieces. You grasp at experience. At that age, ‘I love’ is a mixture of many things.
To be completely at one with what you love takes maturity. That means searching. That’s the truth of life. That’s why love is a solution, but on the condition that it be true.”
Puerto-Rican flutist Esy Morales (brother or Noro Morales) and his orchestra performing “Jungle Fantasy” in Robert Siodmak’s film noir “Criss Cross” (1949).
I really like how well Latin Jazz suits the noir mood - the incessant, restless rhythm, the nervous flute, the bold banging of the piano spelling out the inevitability of fate…
Photographer Jacques Henri Latrigue’s influence on Wes Anderson:
- “Zissou’s bobsled with wheels, after the bend by the gate, Rouzat, August 1908”
- Max in Rushmore (1998)
- “Zissou in his Tire Boat, Chateau de Rouzat, 1911”
- The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
Zissou Latrigue was Jacques Latrigue’s brother.
