In the days when being in China was like “Once upon a time…,” along came Josef von Sternberg to make films that proved the ability of studio and backlot to be anywhere in the world. Thus, the realism of place was given over to the loveliness of decor and the ambiguous iconography of the love goddess. Von Sternberg made half a dozen serene masterpieces about what happens when you fall for a strangely beautiful creature who-when photographed properly-becomes the image of eternity. Marlene Dietrich is the burning light in all these films. He guessed early on that the real Marlene was duller than the imagery, and he knew he was a fool to cherish the portrait he had painted. But their films together are simply magnificent, ironic accounts of an obsessive making a fool of himself. They are also the clearest record that films are about light-a thing worth stressing as light itself becomes antique.