Day 12:01 am
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Das Phantom Von Soho and an imagining/reimagining of the heart of town
It’s not that Das Phantom Von Soho, hailing from Germany is 1964, is necessarily a great film but it was/is a particular reference point for Afterhours in the way that it imagined the streets and back alley joints of Soho at the time, particularly in the early part of the film.
In similar way that the teenagers in Karlheinz Weinberger’s photographs could be said to have “created their own version of rock’n’roll that made you think they had only ever experienced the original source via an out of tune radio”, this was a vision of Soho two or three steps removed, a sideways glance and reimagining of its stories and mythology via representations in film, fiction and tabloid salaciousness.
An English translation of the background on the film courtesy of an ether robot.
Peruse the relatively recent release of the film (and its somewhat prurient / misleading cover) here.
continue reading
