Sunday, March 31, 2013

Louise Brooks - Valentina exhibit in Italy


As fans and followers of Louise Brooks know, the actress was the inspiration behind Guido Crepax's internationally celebrated Valentina comix / graphic novels. A show currently on display at the Cart Gallery in Rome, Italy celebrates the artist and his best known work. Be sure and visit the page for "Ciak: Valentina," which contains descriptive text and examples of Crepax's art. Here are a few examples. The first references Diary of a Lost Girl, the celebrated 1929 Brooks film directed by G.W. Pabst.


Here is the Italian text from the gallery website.Use Google Chrome or a web translation feature to read its meaning in your language of choice.
Apparsa per la prima volta sulla rivista Linus nel 1965, Valentina è uno dei personaggi femminili dei fumetti più noto in tutto il mondo: l’unica capace di brillare di luce propria senza bisogno di un protagonista maschile. Per questo, oltre che dagli uomini, per i quali incarna un sogno erotico elegante e sofisticato, essa è molto apprezzata dalle donne come simbolo di indipendenza, fascino e seduzione.

Personaggio simbolo degli anni Sessanta e Settanta, ha continuato a riflettere modi e mode anche nei due decenni successivi. Il suo stile, innovativo e anticipatore, la rende ancora oggi incredibilmente attuale. La complessità del carattere, ricco di sfaccettature e contraddizioni, è una delle chiavi del suo successo, tanto che molte donne hanno finito con l’identificarsi in lei.

Crepax si è sempre preoccupato di costruirle intorno un mondo credibile. La data di nascita, la carta d’identità, il naturale e costante invecchiamento (unico caso nel mondo dei fumetti), le relazioni, il figlio, il lavoro, la macchina, i vestiti, gli oggetti: tutto è reale, fedele riproduzione di un quotidiano possibile. Anche i sogni svolgono un ruolo importante nelle sue storie non solo per evadere, ma per fornire una chiave interpretativa dei fatti. Talvolta inventati, altre fedelmente riportati da sogni veri, essi hanno dato ulteriore spessore al personaggio avvicinandolo alla psicologia di una donna reale.

Spesso il cinema e la fotografia hanno caratterizzato l’opera di Crepax, non solo sotto il profilo dell’impostazione grafica della pagina. Montaggio, inquadratura, sequenza, stacco, particolare: nei fumetti di Valentina tutto è cinema, tutto è immagine. Crepax dimostra una particolare passione per tutto ciò che è dettaglio, accessorio: diversi punti di vista dai quali ricostruire la scena.

Da ciò nasce la volontà di proporre, con la preziosa collaborazione dell’Archivio Crepax ed approfittando anche di alcuni Pezzi proposti nella Mostra Valentina Movie, un’Esposizione che ci presenta lo strettissimo legame ultratrentennale che Valentina ha avuto con il mondo del Cinema: oltre 30 Opere Originali in grado di calarci in una realtà parallela, nella quale veniamo accompagnati dalla fotografa milanese – moderno, raffinato e sexy Virgilio – in un percorso a volte onirico ma sempre fonte di forti emozioni.

E allora … Ciak: Valentina … si gira !!!

Friday, March 29, 2013

Valeska Gert street sign

Continuing our series of streets named after Louise Brooks and other individuals associated with her films . . . here is a German street sign which bears the name of Valeska Gert, the avant-garde dancer who played the wife of the reformatory director in Diary of a Lost Girl (1929).


For more on this fascinating individual, check out "The Remarkable Life of Valeska Gert," an article I contributed to the Huffington Post. Here is a videoclip to the (in)famous scene featuring Gert in Diary of a Lost Girl.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Louise Brooks Society blog nominated for a LAMMY Award

The Louise Brooks Society has been nominated for a LAMMY Award by the Large Association of Movie Blogs. The nomination came in the Best Movie Element Blog category. 

The award is "given for outstanding achievement by a blog, podcast or vlog that specializes in a specific element of the movie experience. Examples include sites dedicated to a specific actor, actress or director; sites dedicated to a particular filmmaking craft like cinematography, costume design, film editing, or set decoration; sites chronicling one’s own experiences as a scriptwriter, producer, projectionist, movie theater employee or Hollywood assistant; sites dedicated to the technology of film preservation or 3-D innovations; sites that focus on food in the movies, or musical scores, or movie posters and paraphernalia, or reading the books that movies have been adapted from."

The All-Important Link to the Ballot is here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/T6PCWCN


Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Cool pic of the day - Louise Brooks

Cool pic of the day: the one and only Louise Brooks, circa 1925.
 

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Alfred Hitchcock silent films

If you ever seen an early Alfred Hitchcock film, especially his silent efforts, than you may be aware his movies were influenced by German filmmaker of the 1920's - notably Fritz Lang and G.W. Pabst. From June 14 through June 16, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival presents the "Hitchcock 9" - the filmmaker's 9 silent films. It is a special event, without a doubt. More information at www.silentfilm.org/special-events/the-hitchcock-9


Blackmail
Pictured above: Czech actress Anny Ondra, who appeared in a number of German films in the 1920's, starred in Hitchcock's Blackmail (1929).
Nine silent films by Alfred Hitchcock, newly and beautifully restored by the BFI, presented with live musical accompaniment over three incredible days at the Castro Theater in San Francisco!

Friday, June 14
BLACKMAIL

Saturday, June 15
CHAMPAGNE
DOWNHILL
THE RING
THE MANXMAN

Sunday, June 16
THE FARMER'S WIFE
EASY VIRTUE
THE PLEASURE GARDEN
THE LODGER


The Hitchcock 9 is a joint venture of the BFI, Rialto Pictures/Studiocanal, and Park Circus/ITV Studios. Presented in association with BAMcinématek and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Louise Brooks and the Missouri Review

Seemingly, The Missouri Review has a thing for Louise Brooks. . . .  My writer friend, Lisa K. Buchanan, was kind enough to give me her copy of the Fall 2012 issue of The Missouri Review. She did so because, unbeknownst to me, there was a BIG article about Louise Brooks in this distinguished literary journal. The article, an illustrated essay which runs 25 pages, is titled "The Thoroughly Modern World of Louise Brooks." It is by Kristine Sommerville.

The theme of this particular issue of The Missouri Review is "risk." Here is how the journal introduces Sommerville's essay: "Finally, the life and career of dancer and silent screen star Louise Brooks is a paradigm of risk, especially in art. As a young girl in Kansas, Brooks fearlessly pursued modern dance. When she was barely out her teens, her obvious talent and unique good looks caught the attention of Hollywood. Paramount put her under contract before the other studios could get their hands on her and cast her as the prototypical flapper. The risk she’s most remembered for and that ultimately made her career is her flight to Weimar Germany to work with G.W. Pabst in silent films—most notably his adaptation of Pandora’s Box—while Hollywood studios were racing to make talkies. Later in life, forgotten or ignored by the film industry, Brooks bravely made a second successful career as a film historian."

I like the use of the quote by Tennessee Williams on the first page of the piece, "People who are beautiful make their own laws."

Interestingly, this is not the first time The Missouri Review has run a major piece about Louise Brooks. Back in 1983, the journal ran "Lulu in Rochester: Self-Portrait of an Anti-Star" by Robert McNamara. "In 1928 — at the age of 22 — Louise Brooks gave one of the best performances in the silent cinema as Lulu, an amoral woman of pleasure whose character had fascinated German artists since the 1890s. Director G.W. Pabst had searched for his star all over Europe, and he was ready to sign Marlene Dietrich when he heard that Louise Brooks, a refugee from Cherryvale, Kansas, a former Ziegfield girl and rising Paramount star, was willing to take the role. As Brooks recalls, contemporary critics complained that her performance was an utter blank: 'Louise Brooks cannot act. She does not suffer. She does nothing.' But, this was precisely the point."

The Missouri Review is, quite simply, one of the best literary journals in the world,” says Pulitzer Prize winning novelist and Louise Brooks devotee Robert Olen Butler. Copies of The Missouri Review may be ordered through the journal's website at http://www.missourireview.com/

Saturday, March 23, 2013

The Diary of a Lost Girl book signing

A reminder that I will be signing copies of my "Louise Brooks edition" of Margarete Bohme's The Diary of a Lost Girl (PandorasBox Press) today, Saturday, March 23 from 2 to 5 pm at the first annual Noe Valley Authors Festival. Please join me an other local authors at this special event.

The event takes place at St. Philip the Apostle Parish Hall, 725 Diamond Street, between 24th and Elizabeth Streets, in the Noe Valley neighborhood of San Francisco. A bit more about the event can be found on the San Francisco Chronicle website or below

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