Saturday, June 30, 2012

Laura Moriarty (and Louise Brooks) on CBS

Today, author Laura Moriarty appeared on CBS This Morning, where she spoke about her new book, The Chaperone, and its silent film inspiration, Louise Brooks. Be sure and get a copy. It is terrific, and as they mention on the show, it is on everyone's must read list.


The video is titled, "Louise Brooks book author on how she wrote it" and its descriptor is "One of this summer's hottest reads is The Chaperone, a book about the famous '20s film star Louise Brooks and her fictional chaperone. The author, Laura Moriarty, spoke with Rebecca Jarvis."

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

The Louise Brooks Society meets Laura Moriarty, author of The Chaperone


Yesterday, the Louise Brooks Society met Laura Moriarty, author of The Chaperone! The occasion was Laura's reading at A Great Good Place for Books in Oakland, California. I had the honor of introducing Laura, and she gave a terrific talk and reading, and then answered questions about Brooks and the chaperone character and the writing process. It was a swell evening. Laura also signed a lot of books, so if you are looking to get an autographed copy, follow the link to the bookstore to embedded above.

At the conclusion of the evening, Laura agreed to have her picture taken with myself (Thomas Gladysz - right) and my wife (Christy Pascoe - left, Associate Director of the LBS). Laura Moriarty, of course, is in the middle. In honor of Louise Brooks' high school yearbook picture, taken just before she left Wichita to go to New York City as described in The Chaperone, we locked arms. (To see that picture, follow this link to an earlier LBS blog.)


And don't miss Caroline Preston's excellent review of The Chaperone in today's Washington Post;  Preston, herself a noted novelist, calls Moriarty's book "captivating and wise fourth novel" and an "inventive and lovely Jazz Age story."

Sunday, June 24, 2012

The Countess Geschwitz

This weekend, as San Francisco and other cities around the United States celebrate gay pride, it's worth looking at one LGBT connection with a Louise Brooks film.

On Saturday, July 14th the San Francisco Silent Film Festival is set to screen Pandora's Box, director G.W. Pabst's once controversial adaption of Frank Wedekind's Lulu plays. Pandora's Box (1929) is the Festival's centerpiece film, and the print which will be shown is a recently restored version screened only twice before.

Pandora's Box is notable as it contains what is "probably the first explicitly drawn lesbian character" in the history of the movies. That's according to Vito Russo's 1981 book, The Celluloid Closet.

In this groundbreaking work, Russo goes on to note, "The adaptation of Frank Wedekind's two-part drama about Lulu, a woman 'driven by insatiable lusts,' starred Louise Brooks as Lulu and Belgian actress Alice Roberts as her passionate lesbian admirer, the Countess Geschwitz. Pabst explores the personality of Geschwitz with great range, manipulating the performance of Alice Roberts to achieve a believable woman with a lesbian nature."

After further consideration of the character, Russo adds ". . . in the context of both the Wedekind drama and the film it [referring to Geschwitz's lesbianism] is a motivating force in the action and it makes the debut of Sapphic passion onscreen an exciting cinematic event."

Alice Roberts (left) as the Countess Geschwitz glares at the man who dares come
between her and Louise Brooks in a scene from G W. Pabst's Pandora's Box (1929).
However, not everyone was excited or accepting at the time of the film's release. In fact, nearly all aspects of sexuality (straight and gay) in Pandora's Box were cut or altered. The film was attacked in Germany, where it was made, as well as in France, where censors thought it indecent for a father and son to vie sexually for the same woman. According to Russo, "British censors deleted the character of Geschwitz from Pandora's Box, and she did not appear in the initial release version of the film in the United States."

In fact, by the time Pandora’s Box debuted in the United States in December of 1929, nearly a third of the film was missing. Photoplay, one of the leading American film magazines of the time, quipped “When the censors got through with this German-made picture featuring Louise Brooks, there was little left but a faint, musty odor.”

For whatever reason, society has long been more receptive to female homosexuality than male homosexuality. In the movies, however, gay male characters were depicted first, notably in earlier German films such as Different from the Others (1919) staring Conrad Veidt, Michael (1924) directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, and Sex in Chains (1928) directed by and staring William Dieterle. All three present a more sympathetic - if not wholly approving - look at homosexuality.

Was Geschwitz the first overtly lesbian character depicted in a film? The answer is likely yes. Check out Pandora's Box on July 14th in San Francisco to see for yourself. [History is always being written: if you know of an earlier (pre-1929) instance of a lesbian character in the movies, please post details in the comments field.]

***

Vito Russo (1946 – 1990) was an American LGBT activist, film historian and author who spent the last year of his life teaching at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He was 44 when he died, and it is claimed that some of his ashes rest inside the walls of the Castro Theater (the venue of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival). A documentary film on the life of Russo, Vito, premiered at the 2011 New York Film Festival and is set to air on HBO on July 23 of this year.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Rare screening of Louise Brooks film, Prix de Beauté

The infrequently screened film, Prix de Beauté, starring Louise Brooks, will be shown on June 23rd as part of the 26th edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato festival in Bologna, Italy. The prestigious international event is put on by the Mostra Internazionale del Cinema Libero and Cineteca di Bologna. 


For this special presentation, the silent version of Prix de Beauté will be accompanied by the noted pianist and composer Timothy Brock, who will direct the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna in a performance of Brock's original score. (Timothy Brock has composed scores for two other Brooks' films, Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl.) The Prix de Beauté score was commissioned by the Orchestre national de Lyon in collaboration with l'Institut Lumière. Prix de Beauté will be screened outdoors in a public square, the Piazza Maggiore.

Image courtesy of Il Cinema Ritrovato
An international effort, Prix de Beauté (which translates as "Beauty Prize," and was given the title Miss Europe in England and other countries) is a 1930 film directed by Augusto Genina, an Italian director then working in France. The film was based on a story idea by the German director G.W. Pabst (who directed Louise Brooks in Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl) and the French director Rene Clair. Clair had, at one point, intended to direct Prix de Beauté, until funding fell through.

The film stars Louise Brooks as Lucienne Garnier, a typist who enters a beauty contest. Georges Charlia plays Andre, Lucienne's jealous boyfriend. Augusto Bandini plays Antonin, Lucienne and Andre's friend and co-worker. Also in the cast in small roles are the French actors Jean Bradin and Gaston Jacquet. Costume design is by the famous Jean Patou.

Prix de Beauté is notable as being the first sound film to feature Brooks, though her dialogue (Brooks did not speak French) and singing were dubbed. Prix de Beauté was, in fact, shot as a silent. Dialogue, sound effects and two songs were added in post production.

Though at times prosaic, Prix de Beauté retains great charm and interest - largely because of Brooks. And, its ending, both striking and poetic, is considered one of the most remarkable and striking passages in film history.

"Prix de beauté represents a truly success¬ful mix of the tenants of neorealism and elaborate fantasy ..." notes film historian Paul Vecchiali in L'Encinéclopédie. Ciné¬astes "français" des années 1930 et leur œuvre. "Despite unrefined post recording and overacting by Georges Charlia, in standard silent movie fashion, the film is a masterpiece.... Genina proves it with his stark style: love and jealousy go hand in hand, gnawing away at the banality of day-to-day, which is no longer sublimated by feelings. The extraordinary beauty of light and the skill and intelligence with which it is used add other noteworthy elements, placing this movie among the most important works of the first years of talkies even though it is a silent film!"

More info: Bilingual pages on the Il Cinema Ritrovato can be found at http://www.cinetecadibologna.it/, with additional information on Prix de Beauté on this webpage.

An international effort with pan-European appeal, Prix de Beauté proved popular and played across Europe. Enough, that is, to be noted in the upper left hand corner of the front page of this 1931 newspaper from Iceland.


Friday, June 22, 2012

In the news

The Louise Brooks Society was in the news today. Shelf Awareness, a book industry newsletter, ran a short piece about Laura Moriarty's author event at the Watermark bookstore in Wichita, Kansas. The piece, which links to the LBS blog, is depicted below. (Many followed the link. Traffic to this LBS blog post was four times greater than usual.]


Louise Brooks was also in the news. The New York Times ran its third article on Moriarty's new novel. This one, "Blunt Memories of Celluloid Life" by Janet Maslin (she had also penned an earlier review), looks back to Brooks' own 1982 book, Lulu in Hollywood. Many also read that piece. When I checked late in the afternoon, Lulu in Hollywood was #1 on Amazon for Books > Arts & Photography > Performing Arts > Theater.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Louise Brooks' Schopenhauer

Rosie Brooks shows off Louise Brooks' copy
of the essays of Schopenhauer
As many of you may know, Laura Moriarty is touring the country to promote her new book, The Chaperone (Riverhead). It's a captivating novel about the woman who chaperoned an irreverent Louise Brooks to New York City in 1922, and the summer they spent together that would change them both. 

In an early scene in the book, Brooks and the chaperone are traveling by train to New York, and to help pass the time, both characters are carrying a book. The chaperone is reading The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton. And Brooks, though only 15, is reading a volume of Schopenhauer's essays.

Just the other day, Moriarty stopped in Wichita, Kansas for an appearance at Watermark Books, a local independent bookstore in Brooks' former hometown. In the audience was Rosie Brooks, Louise's niece. (Rosie can be seen in the 1999 documentary, Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu, directed by Hugh Munro Neely. If you haven't seen it, you should. It is really terrific.) 

Rosie Brooks brought along Louise Brooks' own well worn copy of Schopenhauer's essays. The book even contained Brooks' personal bookplate. Here are a couple of additional snapshots of the book itself.


By all accounts, Laura Moriarty's events have been well attended, and her book has been selling briskly just about everywhere. And what's more, some fans, and even some bookstore staff, have been adorning Louise Brooks wigs at events. Here is another snapshot taken at Watermark Books in Wichita. Pictured below are Beth from Watermark, Rosie Brooks and Laura Moriarty in the middle, and Sarah, also with Watermark.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860) was an important figure for Brooks. And, apparently, someone she read pretty much all her life. The German philosopher is mentioned three times in the Barry Paris biography, including this noteworthy passage. "In a 1967 reminiscence called 'Meeting with Pabst,' Lotte Eisner recalled her visit to the Pandora set [in 1928]:

In a corner sat a very beautiful girl reading the Aphorisms of Schopenhauer in an English translation. It seemed absurd that such a beautiful girl should be reading Schopenhauer, and I thought quite angrily that this was some sly publicity stunt of Pabst's. Some 25 years later, I found out that Louise Brooks really did read Schopenhauer."

If you have the chance to see Laura Moriarty talk about her new novel, don't miss it. Her remaining events include


SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Friday, June 22
5:30 p.m.: Cocktail Reception, Talk, Q&A and Signing
Warwick’s (link)
7812 Girard Avenue
La Jolla, CA 92037

Sunday, June 24
11:30 a.m.: Brunch Reception, Talk, Q&A, & Signing
Mysterious Galaxy (link)
2810 Artesia Blvd.
Redondo Beach, CA 90278

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA

Monday, June 25
7 p.m. Talk, Q&A and Signing (intro by Thomas Gladysz of the Louise Brooks Society)
A Great Good Place for Books (link)
6120 La Salle Avenue
Oakland, CA 94611

Tuesday, June 26
7 p.m. Talk, Q&A and Signing
Copperfield’s  (link)
140 Kentucky Street
Petaluma, CA 94952

Wednesday, June 27
2 p.m. Tea Reception, Talk, Q&A and Signing
Towne Center Books  (link)
555 Main Street
Pleasanton, CA 94566

Wednesday, June 27
7 p.m. Talk, Q&A and Signing
Rakestraw Books (link)
522 Hartz Avenue
Danville, CA 94526

IOWA CITY, IA
Saturday, July 14
2 p.m.: Talk, Q&A and Signing
Iowa City Book Festival (link)
University of Iowa

(A big thank you to Laura Moriarty for permission to post these pictures of her Wichita event.)

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Louise Brooks film Prix de Beauté screens in Italy


The 1930 Louise Brooks film, Prix de Beauté, will be screened on June 23rd as part of the 26th edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato festival in Bologna, Italy. The prestigious international festival is put on by the Mostra Internazionale del Cinema Libero and Cineteca di Bologna. The program from the event can be viewed and even downloaded on this page.

Here is the small listing for the Prix showing, which will be accompanied by Timothy Brock and a (newly?) commissioned score.


I don't know for sure, but suspect, that the festival will screen the silent version of Augusto Genina's Prix de Beauté. It is considered superior to the more commonly seen sound version, which has added sound effects, dialogue and a couple of songs. Genina was an Italian director working in France when he came to make the film, which was based on a story idea by the German director G.W. Pabst (who made Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl) and the French director Rene Clair. Brooks' voice was dubbed in the sound version (she didn't speak French), and a professional singer sang the lovely theme song Brooks is shown singing.

Prix de Beauté has great charm, and its ending scene is considered one of the most remarkable passages in film history. A clip is embedded below. If you haven't seen Prix de Beauté, please note that this fragment contains spoilers.


Sunday, June 17, 2012

Louise Brooks - Lulu on My Mind

Here is a splendid Louise Brooks tribute video which I just ran across on YouTube. I was a little late to notice, as more than 17,000 others had viewed it before me. All-in-all, nicely done, though one of the very last still images is not of the actress. Maybe Colleen Moore or someone else.


The music is "Diga Diga Do," recorded in 1928 by Duke Ellington and his Orchestra, with vocal by Irving Mills. For those who like to listen to music via their computer, and for those who like vintage jazz and vocal music, be sure and check out the Louise Brooks Society online radio station, RadioLulu - streaming since 2002 :: http://www.live365.com/stations/298896

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Cool pic of the day: Louise Brooks with feathered hair

Cool pic of the day


Louise Brooks with feathered hair (and sparkling crystals),
a publicity portrait from The Canary Murder Case (1929).
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