Stroheim's Foolish Wives

Essay # 57909

Film > Analysis, Criticism, Etc.
Film > Artist
Film > Television

A look at how life events in Erich Von Stroheim's life found their way into his film, "Foolish Wives".

1,500 words () | 4 sources | MLA | 2004 United States

Paper Summary:

The mysterious Stroheim found countless ways to encourage his facade through his pictures. The paper explains how his lavish spending on his pictures gave him a fairly negative reputation. He could take years to complete his films, including "Foolish Wives". Stroheim's desire for extreme detail, which meant running times of five or more hours, was too unrealistic for the studios and the general public, as well. His version of his art was not compatible with popular films of the time. It took the studios ten years to realize that they could not control Stroheim, and all during this time, he was spending millions of their dollars on his own vision.

From the Paper:

"Erich von Stroheim was a man people loved to hate and is the image Stroheim loved to give them. In the film Foolish Wives he plays a man masquerading in Monte Carlo as Count Sergius Karamzin and is using counterfeit money to fund his fraud. The "Count" wears a white military uniform with white gloves and uses a monocle in his right eye. The film takes place right after the end of WWI and the Karamzin presents himself as a military man in order to gain more creditability. He also lives in a kind of menage et trois with two other women who help him carry out his frauds. An American ambassador and his wife arrive in Monte Carlo, and Karamzin sees an opportunity to quiet any suspicion of their creditability by associating themselves with the Americans. Soon Karamzin's lies and deceits catch up with him and his counterfeiter murders him without glory and then his body is dumped in a sewer."