"...we gotta get something different. Something unusual, something that's easy to say and hard to forget."

Josef von Sternberg’s classic independent film, Blonde Venus, incorporates the trials and tribulations of a woman who is caught up in the glamour of the cabaret stage. Marlene Dietrich portrays Helen Faraday. Helen starts off the film as a stay-at-home mother who has retired from show business to be with her family. However, when she returns to work, she is given the name Helen Jones. In addition to a new name, the club owner where she is employed gives her the stage persona, the Blonde Venus, the film’s namesake. Once she returns to the stage, she takes on the personas that were assigned to her at the beginning of the film. Even though she has a child, she does not constrain her identity to that role. Von Sternberg utilizes the motif of a jungle-like atmosphere to symbolize the chaos that ensues once Helen takes off as a fugitive on the run in addition to the trials and tribulations that she endures. Elements of the mise-en-scene in the scene when Helen hits rock bottom and goes to the women’s shelter reflect a sense of turmoil. The setting, costumes, acting, lighting, and space for this particular scene lend to this jungle motif is present throughout the entire film, establishing great significance for the main character and the storyline.the jungle motif is expressed though the mise-en-scene he creates in addition to giving the audience a look at how the Great Depression era damaged the soul of America. Von Sternberg was surprisingly insightful in creating this motif to signify the complexity of the plotline and the chaos that is evident in the film. He likens the film to that of a jungle-like mentality that is easy to relate and that to which the audience can comprehend.  Additionally, he compares the Great Depression to the jungle of reality in that people must trust their instincts to survive: Eat, or be eaten.