Berliner No. 3

Captured Guns Paraded at the Brandenburg Gates, 1914.

Glorious Revolutions No. 2

The Great National Assembly of Alba Iulia, on December 1 1918

Transylvanians in Alba Iulia rally for the union of Transylvania and Romania at the end of the First World War.

[wiki Romania in World War One] [wiki Transylvania]

Berliner No. 2

Construction of the Wall, 13 Aug, 1961.  Courtesy Corey Hatch.

We often forget about the faces of the people in photographs such as these.  Look at masons on the east, doing their work whilst surrounded by officers, while onlookers in the west, also surrounded by officers, watch.

Stage or Screen No. 4

(A chance encounter with a preview of the upcoming remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still (starring Keanu Reeves as Klaatu, it appears) inspired today’s scouring of the net for images to share.)

[I may write later on about my favourite sort of sci-fi alien-encounter movies, as well as a more thorough analysis of the posters themselves.  I've always liked sci-fi films where the aliens look like us.  I think we tend to spend more time being introspective and thinking about ourselves and the "human condition" (whatever that is) when the differance and the other on screen in almost negligible.  I know I certainly am more worried about how slimy things are for Sigourney Weaver's crew in Aliens than when I watch Star Man, for instance..]

Like the 1951 film, the headlines on these first two posters are clearly influenced by mid-20th century new-wave sci-fi.  Note that the headline doesn’t say that the earth is threatened by something from outerspace.  Rather, something from outerspace comes to us to warn us about something.  The difference lies in intention.  Something that warns would comes in peace, while something that threatens would come to frighten its object into submission.  Also note that both the western and the eastern hemisphere is shown on the globe.

The following two posters for the same film, meanwhile, suggest one is going to see a sci-fi film movie that is based on suspicion and destruction.  The unknown is coming to the earth not to warn us, or even to theatenus.  Rather, the strange power (power is relative - it must be strong as us, or stronger) comes to simply menace the earth.  Words are not minced in these two posters: we are told that the other is an adversary, bent on destroying us.

Also note that this poster is focused on Gort’s destruction of Congress, a buidling with a great amount of symbolic value attached to it.  Gort is menacing not just earth, but our democratic values.

One can find some beautiful hi-res still at this website.  I’d give you context, but the site is written mostly in an Asian script, so I’m at a loss.

(Any further context on my part would be found, of course, over at Rough Notes.)

Berliner No. 1

Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, 1914.

German Artillery marching through the Brandenburg Gate, 1914.

Shock and Awe No. 4

Aerial Shot of Guernica, after the bombardment.  Found on an Air Minded post about aerial bombardment.

(wiki Guernica) (wiki Spanish Civil War)

Stage or Screen No. 3

Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor in Singin’ In The Rain (1952).

Singin in the Rain, Original Poster

Ansel Adams at Manzanar

Internees at Manzanar War Relocation Center. A. Adams, 1943

Japanese Internees at Manzanar War Relocation Center,
Owens Valley, California, 1943.
Photograph by Ansel Adams
(Source: Ansel Adams Manzanar Collection, Library of Congress)

[wiki Ansel Adams] [wiki Manzanar WRC]

The Polish Resistance, World War II

Poland’s Underground State (Click to enlarge).

[credit: War and Game]

I found this scan of a hierarchical diagram of Poland’s mechanics of government and resistance during the Second World War.  Surely, this was designed to assuage Poland’s allies that its resistance was a capable force against Axis powers.

(Note the second row on the right-and side, showing the swift movement of Justice:  Civil Courts->Verdict->Executions)

City Hall, Parade Square, Halifax

The above image is scan of a photograph held by the Nova Scotia Museum of Cultural History; it is undated on their website.

Note the old Moir’s Chocolate plant on Argyle St to the left of City Hall, in the distance.  I once read an endearing account of downtown Halifax back when the Plant was in operation.  With only the slightest hint of nostalgia, some one noted that all of downtown smelled of chocolate on particular days of the week.  That must be better than the harbour-smell that continues to prevail on foggy mornings today.

This is a scan of a postcard that I found on a flickr website.  It seems to be a coloured reproduction of the photo.  My initial thought was to think that it is a tinted copy, but if you look closely you will see that some features don’t align as they should.  First, “Nova Scotia Museum” has been burned or erased out of the picture and replaced with “City Hall, Halifax, N.S.”.  Second, the facing of the Moir’s plant in the coloured postcard is somewhat larger than the black and white photo.  The final piece of evidence is that fact that North End of Halifax, as well as the harbour has been substituted for a gentle rolling hill to create perspective. The colours of the photo also seem rather “pointillist-ic”, for lack of a better term.

The flickr website dates the coloured image as “1905-1915″.   Note in both the photo and the reproduction the lack of the Soldier’s Memorial, dedicated after the First World War.