Oh, Canada

On this day in 1924: The Denishawn Dance Company, with Louise Brooks, began a twelve day tour of Canada. I wish I could have been there.

Tagebuch einer Verlorenen

This uncommon poster for the 1929 film The Diary of a Lost Girl is for sale on eBay. The reserve is $8,000 and the estimate is $15,000. 



The artwork for this lithograph was designed by Heinz Schulz-Neudamm. The piece measures 55.9 x 37.4 inches (142 x 95 cm).

Kate Moss = Louise Brooks

An article in today's Guardian (UK) newspaper about the artist Marc Quinn and his sculpture of model Kate Moss quotes the artist thus:

"She is a contemporary version of the Sphinx. A mystery. There must be something about her that has clicked with the collective unconscious to make her so ubiquitous, so spirit of the age," Quinn said. "When people look back at this time she'll be the archetypal image, just as Louise Brooks was in the 1920s. For me as an artist it's interesting to make something about the time I live in."

Helnwein shows the pubis

Did you know that Gottfried "Helnwein also has a strong sense of theatre. He has worked in opera, designing sets and costumes for Maximilian Schell and working with the equally notorious Austrian choreographer Johann Kresnik. His poster for the 1988 production of Lulu at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg caused outrage across Europe. A tiny Sigmund Freud in a long coat stares up at a gigantic woman, who lifts her skirt to expose her vagina. The opposite of porn, it provocatively illustrates Wedekind's view of a sexually ambiguous bourgeois society on the brink of destruction. This iconography overturns the 1929 screen image of Louise Brooks as Lulu in G W Pabst's Pandora's Box. Whereas that film presents us with a face, Helnwein shows the pubis. "  . . . according to an article by Julia Pascal in the current issue of New Statesman, a very serious British journal.

Prix de Beauté

From the April 18th Village Voice article on the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival - "Best in Show: The Top 40 Picks of the Tribeca Film Festival" by J. Hoberman.

Prix de Beauté

In her final starring role, Louise Brooks plays a Parisian typist who wins a beauty contest and dumps her boyfriend, with tragic consequences. Augusto Genina's direction is routine, but this is a cinematographer's movie, from the dazzling location shooting to the beautifully lit projection room climax. Cameraman Rudolph Mates does wonders with Brooks's radiant face—her performance is an irresistible mix of innocence and eroticism. The film began shooting as a silent, sound was added, and it was released in four languages. The rarely revived silent version will be shown, preceded by Giovanni Pastrone's The Fall of Troy, an important film in the history of set design—the magnificent decors often give a sense of bound- less space in contrast to the one-dimensional sets of earlier historical pictures. E.S.

An idea: Louise Brooks on the radio

I had an idea. . . .  it would be cool if radio stations around the United States and the world were to play one or more of the contemporary songs "about" Louise Brooks on or near the centenary of her birth, November 14th.

Anybody have any ideas about how to go about doing this? Anybody work as a disc jockey or radio programmer? Anyone know of any stations (both broadcast or internet) that might be interested? It would be especially nifty if a station in Wichita, Los Angeles, or NYC - for example - were to play a track or two and make mention of Brooks. I think its a good idea. I could provide playlists, or mp3s of some of the hard-to-get ahold of recordings, if that is of any help.

For example, a local rock station here in San Francisco, KFOG, has an acoustic Sunday morning show. That might be a good fit for the Ron Hawkins or Jen Anderson songs. Or perhaps there is a film music show that might be interested in contemporary soundtrack recordings. I have a bunch of those that aren't on RadioLulu.

I have also thought about trying to put together a podcast - perhaps later this Summer or early Fall. I haven't done anything like that before, but putting together RadioLulu gave me the idea to try and do something with all of the music I have gathered. And some of which I haven't been able to use - like classical and soundtrack recordings.

Comments, suggestions, and help appreciated.

RadioLulu updated

RadioLulu (www.live365.com/stations/298896) has been updated. I've added a half-dozen tracks, including recordings by Bebe Daniels, Jeannette MacDonald, Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell ("If I Had a Talking Picture of You"), Cliff Edwards, and Dick Powell ("Lulu's Back in Town") . There are now more then 125 tracks and nearly 7 hours of programming. I hope everyone has a chance to tune-in.

Louise Brooks's Swan Song to Stardom

The Village Voice ran a short review of the new Prix de Beaute DVD in their April 7th issue. The article, "Louise Brooks's Swan Song to Stardom," is by Michael Atkinson.

The moviehead re-rediscovery of flapper chic continues with this rarely seen French cornerstone (released in 1930), starring a free-from-expressionism-at-last Louise Brooks, she of the iconic jet-black bob, androgynous figure, and laser sight line. She plays a typist at a Parisian newspaper who, despite the snitty protestations of her fiance (Georges Charlia), enters and wins a Miss Europe beauty pageant, which is when her biggest conflicts begin. Italian journeyman Augusto Genina's film is far from conventional in tone - the pre-fem awakening of Brooks's unpretentious everygirl starts with a chilly carnival moment when she realizes all of the men around her, including her boyfriend, are grotesque fools. The breathtakingly lurid finale, set in a screening room, has an almost necrophilic obsessiveness. (The film did turn out to be Brooks's swan song to stardom; she picked up supporting work in Hollywood and England for a few years, but then quit movies in disgust, at the age of 31.) But the movie's ramshackle form is what makes it truly fascinating: It's a vintage example of a fleeting breed, the unsynchronized early talkie (a lost silent version was also made), often avoiding the actor's moving mouths altogether and then suturing the narrative with a frenetic soundtrack of dubbing, ambient noise, and music. (Rene Clair, whose original story was adapted by Brooks pal G.W. Pabst, pulled off a similar but more visual coup with the nearly silent Under the Roofs of Paristhe same year.) A newspaper quote included on the DVD attests that Genina's patchwork approach, which represented "an ideal model for the talkie," was easily dubbed into seven languages - a paramount concern on the tongue-twisted European mainland circa 1930. Extras include promotional art, including ad art by famed costume designer Boris Bilinsky.

Lulu on TV in Toronto

I hear that the Toronto Globe & Mail TV guide lists Lulu (LouLou) as being on TFO-TV tonight at 9 pm.