Masque of Hotel Orient

Overview

A melancholic lament about romantic longing and regret, originally written and performed by Tav Falco for his album Shadow Dancer. The piece was shot in Vienna’s famous Hotel Orient, a discreet brothel frequented by Orson Welles and Graham Greene during the filming of Carol Reed’s classic The Third Man. Notable Viennese stage and film actress Ellen Umlauf appears. Underground filmmaker and writer Kenneth Anger also appears as himself, shuffling a tarot deck and presiding over Tav Falco’s strange transformation into the dagger-wielding figure Fantômas.