" Woman is natural, that is, abominable, " wrote Baudelaire. Marlene Dietrich, who would have been 100 this year, refutes this maxim. Baudelaire opposed Woman to his masculine ideal, the dandy, who, he said, " should aspire to be sublime without interruption; he should live and sleep before a mirror. " But Dietrich, one of the sublime creations of the 20th century, unites Woman with the dandy. She constructs herself before the mirror of the camera lens.

She didn’t do it alone. " Without you I am nothing, " she once wrote in a telegram to director Josef von Sternberg, who chose her to play the female lead in The Blue Angel (at the Brattle this weekend, August 10 through 12), the 1930 film that won her a Paramount contract and made her an international star. She knew what he wanted to hear, but she would say the same thing to others when he wasn’t there. Sternberg shaped her nonchalance, made her time the reflections of her soul to a count in her head, and taught her what he knew about lighting, which was considerable.

In The Blue Angel, Emil Jannings, Germany’s most renowned actor of the day, stars as Rath, a stuffy, elderly professor who’s ridiculed but feared by his students. He falls in love with Dietrich’s cabaret singer Lola Lola and marries her, sacrificing his career to hers and ruining his life.

Dietrich takes charge of the film from Lola’s first appearance on stage at the cabaret. Sizing up her audience, she holds her right hand flat against the side of her right buttock and her left hand on her hip — a posture both commanding (the left hand is judgmental, aloof) and relaxed (the right hand is sensual, forgiving, approachable). Her eyes as she raises them to stare past the camera are satisfied, only mildly curious.

Dietrich’s Lola is a chameleon: in her first 15 minutes on screen, she has three different changes of costume — the last in front of Rath, in her dressing room. She adjusts her stiff skirtflaps and hitches up her undergarments, a teasing exhibitionism that’s her way of showing affection. She lets him hold her little make-up palette for her. She treats him like a little boy, combing his hair back when it’s messed. Her simplicity, as if she were just doing whatever she had a mind to, contrasts with Jannings’s worked-up acting. Over breakfast, Lola is adoring, wifely, asking how many sugarcubes she should put in his coffee. She makes a parody of all this domestic stuff, including the kiss goodbye and the " Do you still love me? " , but it’s a sweet parody, with no meanness.

There’s a close shot of her when he gives her the wedding ring: her mouth a childish " O " of surprise, she stares up at him five times, holding the look longest after she opens the box and sees what’s in it (this is one of those shots where Sternberg told her to count). Is it real astonishment or a put-on? The distinction is meaningless here. Sternberg and Dietrich create a totally theatricalized person. And it’s Sternberg who gives Lola her habit of pausing in doorways and turning around, sizing up what’s she’s leaving before she goes out — implying that where she’s going can take care of itself.

The centerpiece of the film is Lola’s rendition of a song whose English version became Dietrich’s signature ( " Falling in Love Again " ) but whose opening line in German means " I’m from head to foot made for love. " As she sings, her face, voice, and arms are all doing one thing (serenading Rath) and her legs are doing something else: they have a life of their own, crossing, uncrossing, being clasped by her hands. The combination of amused eroticism with the song’s superb half-regretful quality would define Dietrich’s star persona.

Issue Date: August 9-16, 2001