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Eclipse Series 16: Alexander Korda's Private Lives

 

 
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Rembrandt

 

  Directed by Alexander Korda

UK 1936 / Period / Biopic / 85 min / Black & White / Monaural / 1.33: 1 / NTSC / In English with Optional English Subtitles

Charles Laughton, Gertrude Lawrence, Elsa Lanchester, Edward Chapman, Walter Hudd, Roger Livesey, Herbert Lomas .

Charles Laughton once again teams up with Korda for this moving, elegantly shot biopic about the Dutch painter. Beginning when Rembrandt’s reputation was at its height, the film then tracks his quiet descent into loneliness and isolated self-expression, following the death of his wife to the unveiling of Night Watch to the ecclesiastical excommunication of his late-in-life lover and maid, Hendrickje Stoffels (played by Laughton’s wife, Elsa Lanchester). Though black and white, Rembrandt is shot by cinematographer Georges Périnal (Le million, The Fallen Idol) with an attention to light that’s particularly Rembrandtesque.