Dean Frey

In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will be singing.
About the dark times.
– Bertolt Brecht, The Svenborg Poems

Post a tree you photographed

YouTube video by Constantart Bertolt Brecht speaks in the House Committee on Un-American Activities

Smart guy.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gkiq...

Brecht lights a cigar as he gets ready to testify in front of the Committee & a bank of microphones.

Leonard McCombe's photojournalism background & his interest in psychological portraiture come together in this shot: Bertolt Brecht testifying before HUAC, 1947

Brecht's HUAC transcript is here: en.wikisource.org/wiki/Brecht_...

Brecht poses sitting on his desk.

Bertolt Brecht by Fred Stein, 1950

On his first visit to the salon of Salka & Berthold Viertel in Santa Monica, Billy Wilder met Lubitsch, Garbo, Chaplin, Arthur Rubinstein & many others. And once, "an unkempt guy in the backyard grilling on the BBQ": Bertolt Brecht.

Brecht in a soft cap, his eyes downcast

Bertolt Brecht by Fred Stein, 1937

"On a beam in Brecht’s study are painted the words: 'Truth is concrete.' On a window-sill stands a small wooden donkey which can nod its head. Brecht has hung a little sign round its neck: 'Even I must understand it'."
- Walter Benjamin

Brecht ponders a chess board.

Bertolt Brecht by Nelly Peissachowitz for Life magazine, 1948

When Brecht & Walter Benjamin spent time together in the late 30s in Denmark, the routine was "after a meal, one or two lengthy games of chess".

Three-quarter shot of Brecht in strong light.

This great Josef Breitenbach portrait of Bertolt Brecht from Paris, 1939, has the quality of a northern Renaissance painting.

Stylized portrait head of Brecht in bronze.

Bertolt Brecht by Gustav Seitz, 1959

"The man who laughs has simply not yet had the terrible news."

Collage: profile of Brecht with daubs of paint & a red ribbon

Igael Tumarkin
Hommage to Bertolt Brecht, 1988

"One is forever buying or selling; one sells, one might say, one's urine to the urinal."

Double exposure of Brecht; in one shot looking down, in the other, looking into the camera.

Remembering Bertolt Brecht on his birthday 🎂
📷 Dorothy Norman, 1945

"Brecht speaks of the elegance & nonchalance of Virgil’s & Dante’s basic attitude, which, he says, forms the backdrop to Virgil’s majestic gestus. He calls both Virgil & Dante 'promeneurs'."
- Walter Benjamin

On Roberta Flack's birthday I'm listening to her debut album from 1969, First Take.

The awesome cover photo is by Ken Heinen

Leonard Cohen's "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye":

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz38...

Closeup of Flack, eyes downcast.

Roberta Flack by Anthony Barboza, 1971

"Feel Like Makin' Love":
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySlL...

Head & shoulders shot of the singer with one hand to her face.

Happy birthday Roberta Flack 🎂
📷 Jack Robinson, 1969

"She has the ability to take the most tired romantic cliches and invest them with a sense of quivering expectation."
- Stephen Holden

"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face":
www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8_f...

using the theme from Patton in The Burbs for Bruce Dern was genius

Leontyne Price as Tosca holds a dagger as she kneels over the body of Scarpia.

If I may add to @dean.bsky.social's excellent thread on Leontyne Price: This shows her in the sensational Act II of "Tosca," broadcast on NBC in 1955—Price's dazzling introduction to a worldwide audience. She sang it in English, and her Cavaradossi was David Poleri.

Movie poster "Chinatown" A Robert Evans production of a Roman Polanski film

Jerry Goldsmith had only ten days to compose & record Chinatown's music, for trumpet, four pianos, four harps, two percussionists, & strings.

He lost out in the Oscar race to Nino Rota for Godfather 2, which happens to be my all-time favourite score. Sorry Jerry!

youtube.com/watch?v=UUC2...

Scott as Patton, standing in front of a huge American flag.

In his score for Franklin Schaffner's 1970 film Patton Jerry Goldsmith used an Echoplex to loop recorded sounds of a trumpet, apparently to represent Patton's belief in reincarnation.

youtube.com/watch?v=cg6M...

The three pose in front of Goldsmith's score in the recording studio

Jerry Goldsmith with Executive Producer Ilya Salkind & director Jeannot Szwarc on the set of Supergirl
📷 Bob Penn, 1984

youtube.com/watch?v=9Jrp...

The young Damien stands menacingly among white crosses in a cemetery.

Jerry Goldsmith was nominated for 17 Oscars, but won only once, for Richard Donner's The Omen, 1976
📷 Harvey Stephens as Damien, by Bob Penn

youtube.com/watch?v=Vo-B...

Goldsmith conducts in the recording studio

Remembering Jerry Goldsmith on his birthday 🎂
📷 David Keeler, 2000

"He has instilled two things in his colleagues in this town. One thing he does, he keeps us honest. And the second one is he scares the hell out of us."
- Henry Mancini

LA Confidential:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOJo...

With some of the best advice ever

(Plus realizing Tom Waits owes these cats more than we know…)

youtu.be/VhkmB5OzvQ0?...

Jimmy picks up his mail in his beautifully furnished apartment.

This is unexpected: Julius Shulman was taking photos of Jimmy Durante's house for Modern House magazine in 1947, when who should turn up!

"Good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are."

Durante sings Sammy Fain & Irving Kahal's classic "I'll Be Seeing You".

youtube.com/watch?v=uSzm...

Durante is part of a card trick demonstation on an Italian street

Jimmy "Schnozz" Durante by Herbert List, 1959

"He collected every book and treatise which had been systematically written upon noses...."
- Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

A smiling Durante, with a cigar between his teeth

Jimmy Durante provides the style and George Hurrell provides the glamour in this portrait from 1931.

Durante, in a suit & tie & hat, leaps in the air with his arms held out.

Remembering Jimmy Durante on his birthday 🎂
📷 Philippe Halsman

"In a bad world he stayed good. His heart was in his voice & his body movements. When he got behind a piano or went on a stage, he was a man who put love & warmth into a room."
- Jimmy Breslin

The greatest. Nothing to do but bow.

Bing & Price arm in arm after a performance

Rudolf Bing with Leontyne Price after her Metropolitan Opera debut in Il Trovatore
📷 Alfred Eisenstaedt, January 26, 1961

Formal portrait of Price in a green dress & pearls, against a classical landscape with columns.

Leontyne Price by Bradley Phillips, oil on canvas, 1963
Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery

Black & white portrait of Price as Bess, posing in front of a line of washing.

Carl Van Vechten's portrait of Leontyne Price as Bess in Porgy & Bess, 1953
Beinecke Library

youtube.com/watch?v=2hDt...