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(More customer reviews)The documentary "Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Song" is directed by grandson David Riva. About halfway into the film I realised I was watching some sort of "authorized/family" version of Dietrich's life. The film chooses to focus on certain parts of Dietrich's life while completely ignoring other substantial portions. The film concentrates on Dietrich's WWII activities, but it includes surprisingly little about her film career--many of her films are not even discussed. There's also very little here about Marlene's personal life--although her marriage to Rudolf Sieber is mentioned. Marlene's love affairs with three members of the Kennedy clan are also not mentioned--one brief clip flashes a very recognizable and young John Kennedy at the camera. The film does, however, chose to pursue the story of Dietrich's love affair with the French actor, Jean Gabin, but there's no mention of her affairs with other women.
The documentary includes information about Dietrich's early acting career, concert footage, and her screen test for "Blue Angel". Various people in the film industry relate their anecdotal memories of Dietrich--including Hildegard Neff, Burt Bacharach, Rosemary Clooney, daughter Maria Riva (the director's mother), and various biographers. There are some fascinating photographs of Marlene Dietrich's WWII involvement--the shows she gave to the troops, etc. The film discusses Dietrich's brave opposition to the Nazi party, Goebbel's attempts to get her back in the German film industry, and how she coped with being a German in wartime. Dietrich's films were eventually banned in her native Germany.
While it's extremely interesting to learn about Marlene's devotion to the troops, and how she suffered for being German, overall, the documentary is a disappointment. It's well made, well organized, coherent, etc., but it hardly gives a full picture of Dietrich's life. The film travels down one road and ignores the rest. I was especially disappointed that the film contained no analysis of Dietrich's relationship with von Sternberg. This one-sided presentation of Dietrich's life removes any possibility of analysis from the viewer and instead, we are spoon fed what is supposed to be the accepted biography. It's not so much that we don't get the dirt--we just don't get the full picture of this fascinating unforgettable, and complicated star. All that said, while this is not a definitive biography by any means, Dietrich fans will still want to seek out the film and absorb the information here. For me, the very best scene was Dietrich singing "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" in German while on tour in Israel. This was extremely moving--displacedhuman
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