Louise Brooks manga

I came across this image of Louise Brooks, which is part of a vintage Hollywood manga contest. Not sure who the artist is. More on the on-line contest, as well as further examples of older Hollywood stars done manga style, can be found here.  It's kinda cute. Kinda.

RadioLulu stats

For those who don't know, the Louise Brooks Society has its own online radio station, called RadioLulu. (the station can be found at www.live365.com/stations/298896.) 

RadioLulu is a Louise Brooks-inspired radio station broadcasting music of the Twenties through today - including film music, songs by the actress' contemporaries, vintage jazz & dance bands, and contemporary pop songs about the silent film star. 

This unique station features music from six of the actresses' films - including the haunting themes from Prix de Beaute and Beggars of Life. There is Maurice Chevalier's much-loved 1929 recording of "Louise," as well as other vintage tracks associated with the actress. RadioLulu also plays Brooks-themed songs by contemporary rock artists such as Soul Coughing, Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark (OMD), Marillion, Ron Hawkins, and Sarah Azzarra.

Brooks co-stars and contemporaries are featured among the rare recordings of silent film stars heard on RadioLulu. Interspersed throughout are tracks by the likes of Rudolph Valentino, Pola Negri, Gloria Swanson, Joan Crawford, Adolphe Menjou, Ramon Novarro, Dolores Del Rio, Lupe Velez, Bebe Daniels and others.

On RadioLulu, you'll also hear torch singers, Jazz Age crooners, dance bands, show tunes, standards and some real hot jazz!  And, there are even tracks featuring the great Polish chanteuse Hanka Ordonówna, the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht (singing "Mack the Knife" in 1929), and the contemporary cartoonist Robert Crumb (playing on "Chanson por Louise Brooks"). And what's more, you're unlikely to find a station that plays more tracks with "Lulu" in the title than the always eclectic and always entertaining RadioLulu! Here's your chance to hear some great music, including many rare recordings from the silent film era.

For lack of anything else to post, here are my newly received radio station stats.

Total Listening Hours
Last Month: 402
This Month: 499

Total Station Launches
Last Month: 858
This Month: 955

Station Presets
Last Month: 1711
This Month: 1734

Favorite Station Designations
Last Month: 41
This Month: 41

Give RadioLulu a listen! The Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Art Spiegelman (author of Maus and other works) has. He told me so!

Steven Soderbergh said

According to an article on contactmusic.com, "X-Men star Hugh Jackman has withdrawn from negotiations to star in Cleo, Steven Soderbergh's upcoming rock 'n' roll musical about Cleopatra. It was revealed in October that Traffic director Soderbergh planned to cast Catherine Zeta Jones as the Egyptian queen with Jackman as her lover, Roman general Marc Anthony." 

Speaking at the Times BFI 52nd London Film Festival, Soderbergh said he wanted Cleo to be similar to "an Elvis musical".  The acclaimed director went on to explain, "I've always wanted to do a musical, I felt like a female protagonist was probably a good idea, because the majority of the audiences for musicals are female. I started thinking about Catherine because I knew she could sing and dance and the list  [of possible subjects for the film] got pretty short at that point."
Soderbergh then added "I know Cleopatra stole that haircut from Louise Brooks, but Catherine looks great in it." 

Yes she does. Anyone who saw Chicago knows that Catherine Zeta Jones wears a bob a la Brooks with the best of them.

Two new editions of Lulu in Hollywood

Two new editions of Lulu in Hollywood have just been released. 

Louise Brooks' acclaimed book of autobiographical essays, first published in the United States in 1982, have over the years been published in England and in translation in France, Italy, Germany, The Netherlands and Japan. Now comes two new editions - one from France and the other from Russia.



The new French edition was published in October by Tallandier. The book is 187 pages and has been translated by Rene Brest. I haven't yet gotten a copy, but plan to. It can be ordered through Amazon France or Amazon Canada. I usually order French-language books through amazon.ca because it it easier for me to navigate the site.

I don't know much about the Russian edition, except that it was published by a company called Rosebud (it may be their first publication), in cooperation with a Museum of Cinema.  Over the last year or two, I had been in email contact with a Russian publisher concerning a new edition of Lulu in Hollywood. Perhaps this is it.  My google translation add-on indicates, apparently, that the Louise Brooks Society, Estate of the Louise Brooks Estate, and the George Eastman House, all receive special thanks in this new edition.

More about this new edition can be found on this Russian-language LiveJournal page and on this Russian Cinematheque webpage. From what I can deduce, the publication of this new edition coincided with a mini-retropsective of Brooks' films in which three of the actresses films were screened along with Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu. Some of the links on the latter Russian-language webpage lead to a Russian-language filmography and discussion of Brooks' films.

Richmond in Ragtime: Socialists, Suffragists, Sex & Murder

Longtime Louise Brooks Society member and contributor Harry Kollatz, Jr. has a new book out. It's titled Richmond in Ragtime: Socialists, Suffragists, Sex & Murder. The book covers three rambunctious years, 1911 - 1914, in the life of the southern city. It's a narrative, bricolage style, of a Richmond you may not recognize - full of corruption, murder and flying machines. I haven't got a copy yet - I plan to, but from all reports, it looks great. Here is the link to its amazon.com page.



Harry Kollatz Jr., as many of you may know, was the organizer of the Lulupalooza festival in 2006. He loves, film and theater and is a great student of history. We have swapped many an email over the years.

More info on the book can be found on the author's blog. And here is the publisher's description: "The three years from 1909 to 1911 were busy ones in Richmond, what with the misadventures of Adon A. Yoder, a muckraking pamphleteer who gets beaten up, sued and thrown in jail; the organizing of women like Lila Meade Valentine to fight for their right to vote; the art of sculptor Ferruccio Legnaioli; the novels of Ellen Glasgow, Mary Johnston and James Branch Cabell; increased restrictions against African Americans; a public spectacle surrounding the murder trial of Henry Clay Beattie Jr.; exotic flying machines and automobile endurance contests; and the recording of Polk Miller and his Old South Quartette. Join local author Harry Kollatz Jr. (True Richmond Stories) as he revives the city of a century ago for a tour of Richmond in ragtime."

Two Louise Brooks films to screen in Germany

I don't speak or read German, but from what I can figure, two Louise Brooks' films from 1929, Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl, will be shown with live music in January in Germany, perhaps as part of a festival honoring director G.W. Pabst. That according to the following article:

Stummfilmtage mit Live-Musik - 22.-25. Januar 09 
 

Die Schauspielerin Asta Nielsen und der große Regisseur Georg Wilhelm Pabst stehen im Mittelpunkt der 7. Karlsruher Stummfilmtage, die vom 22.-25. Januar im ZKM und im Studentenhaus stattfinden. Damit setzt der neu gegründete Verein „Déjá Vu – Film“, der aus den Stummfilmtagen hervorgegangen ist, die erfolgreiche Kooperation mit dem ZKM fort.

Über die Jahre hinweg gleich geblieben ist das von Josef K. Jünger entwickelte Konzept, die Verbindung von alten stummen Filmen mit live gespielter Musik. Zur Eröffnung (22., 20 Uhr, StH) gibt es gleich drei (kürzere) Filme mit Asta Nielsen zu sehen. Die Dänin mit der androgynen Gestalt und den ausdrucksstarken dunklen Augen war der wohl größte weibliche Star des europäischen Stummfilms. Ihre eindrucksvollsten Darstellungen lieferte sie im deutschen Film, der in 20er-Jahren Weltgeltung hatte.

In „Abgründe“, „Die arme Jenny“ und „Vordertreppe und Hintertreppe“, die noch vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg von ihrem damaligen Ehemann Urban Gad gedreht wurden, spielt sie ihre Paraderolle als Frau, die die Konventionen sprengt. Frieder Egri, Ilmar Klahn, Eva Chahrouri und Shakya Grahe machen eine angemessen unkonventionelle Musik dazu.
In der Komödie „Engelein“ ( 25., 18 Uhr StH) gibt sie als Dreißigjährige einen achtzehnjährigen Teenager, der so tut, als wäre er ein 13jähriges Mädchen. Dazu gibt es noch den grotesken Kurzfilm „Zapatas Geist“. Für die musikalische Untermalung sorgt die Capella Obscura unter Leitung von Cornelia Brugger.

Zu dem Film „Nach dem Drama“ von Frank Wedekind drehte der Theatermann Leopold Jessner „Erdgeist“ (23., 18 Uhr ZKM/24., 18 Uhr StH) mit Asta Nielsen als Femme Fatale, die mehrere Männer ins Verderben reißt. Dieser Film, der schon einige Patina angesetzt hat, erstrahlt in neuem Glanz durch die Musik, die Luke Styles, ein Schüler von Wolfgang Rihm, eigens für diesen Film für ein Streichquartett komponiert hat.

Die gleiche Rolle als verführerische Lulu spielt Louise Brooks in „Die Büchse der Pandora“ (23., 20.30 Uhr ZKM/24.,20.30 Uhr StH) von G.W. Pabst, einem der faszinierendsten deutschen Filmklassiker. Das Stummfilmensemble Frieder Egri macht die Musik dazu.

“Tagebuch einer Verlorenen“ (25., 20 Uhr ZKM), ebenfalls mit Louise Brooks, war eine Art Fortsetzung dieses skandalumwitterten Films und wurde wie dieser von der Zensur heftig gezaust. Matthias Graf, Holger Ebeling und Ilmar Klahn sorgen für den musikalischen Teil der Aufführung der weitgehend rekonstruierten Originalfassung. 

Mit sozialen Realismus schockierte Pabst das Publikum bereits mit seinem dritten Film „Die freudlose Gasse“, in dem neben der Nielsen Greta Garbo zu sehen ist. Gespannt darf man sein, was sich die Karlsruher Band Kammerflimmer Kollektief dazu an Klängen und Geräuschen einfallen lässt. „Geheimnisse einer Seele“ (24., 18 Uhr ZKM) ist Pabsts ehrgeiziger Versuch die damals noch neue psychoanalytische Methode von Sigmund Freud an einem Fallbeispiel plausibel zu machen. Das Karlsruher Improvisationsensemble illuminiert musikalisch den Weg ins Unterbewusste.

Ein junges Publikum ab 10 Jahren versuchen die Stummfilmtage mit der Aufführung von „Der Dieb von Bagdad“ (25., 15 Uhr, ZKM) anzusprechen. Den großen Stummfilmstar Douglas Fairbanks, der akrobatische Körperbeherrschung mit einem umwerfenden Charme verband, über die Leinwand toben zu sehen, macht auch 80 Jahre nach der Entstehen des Films Laune. So flott wie der Held ist dann wohl auch die Musik, die das Ensemble von Holger Ebeling dazu macht.

Im Rahmenprogramm stellt Elisabeth Bronfen ihr Buch „Tiefer als der Tag gedacht. Eine Kulturgeschichte der Nacht“ vor (23., 16.30 Uhr, ZKM) und hält den Vortrag „Psychoanalyse und Filme“ (24., 16.30 Uhr, ZKM), und Christoph Köhler liest mit Klavierbegleitung von Axel Weinstein Texte von Frank Wedekind (17., 20 Uhr, Prinz-Max-Palais, Karlstr. 10)

22.-25. Jan., Festsaal Studentenhaus und ZKM

:: Festsaal im Studentenhaus
Adenauerring 7
76131 Karlsruhe

:: ZKM - Karlsruhe
: Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie
Lorenzstraße 19
76135 Karlsruhe
Fon: 0721-81001200
Fax: 0721-81001139

re: Lulu in Marrakech

Back on October 30th, I blogged about Diane Johnson's new novel, Lulu in Marrakech. Then, I wrote "Recently, the New York Times ran a couple of reviews of the new Diane Johnson novel, Lulu in Marrakech. I haven't read the book, but it's title caught my attention because of the name of its title character. (Johnson's novel is described as a social comedy about a clueless young American woman named Lulu.) What also caught my attention was the newspaper's suggestion that the novel's main character has some connection to Louise Brooks and the character she once played, also named Lulu."

Today, the Boston Globe ran a review of the book by Elizabeth Hand, the critically acclaimed fantasy author. Hands' review is a good one, and like the New York Times reviews, it picks up on some of the thematic / mythological tropes employed in the novel. In her review, Hand writes

The greatest irony, of course, is that the emotionally detached Lulu is as expendable to her government, and others, as suicide bombers are to their terrorist cause. Despite a passing reference to Mata Hari, she has far more in common with her namesake: the blithely amoral, guileless, and ultimately doomed femme fatale Lulu, embodied by Louise Brooks in G. W. Pabst's great film "Pandora's Box." At the end, Diane Johnson's Lulu is being coolly reassigned from Marrakech to London with the prospect of a posh new flat and another man's bed to warm as she goes about her business.
 

Hand's appreciation of Brooks' is not a surprise. Hand has mentioned Brooks before in her prose. In her World Fantasy Award-nominated short story, Cleopatra Brimstone (2001), Hand mentions the actress, " 'Did you do something different with your hair?' She nodded once, brushing the edge of her bangs with a finger. 'Yeah.' 'Nice. Very Louise Brooks.'"

[A number of other fantasy / horror writers have also referenced Louise Brooks in their work, Most famously and most prominently among them are Clive Barker and Neil Gaiman. I have spoken to each of them about their appreciation of the actress. Other genre writers who have given a shout our to Lulu are Fritz Leiber, Jr. and Peter Straub. For more, see "Louise Brooks in Contemporary Fiction" on the LBS website.]

F. Scott Fitzgerald and Louise Brooks

Louise Brooks first encountered F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood. According to the Barry Paris biography, they first met in 1927 in the lobby of the Ambassador Hotel. In letters and in interviews, Brooks recounted their one or two additional meetings over the years. What Fitzgerald and Brooks shared was a dislike of Hollywood. Despite its reputation as a dream factory, both the writer and the actress were profoundly unhappy during their tenures in Tinseltown.

I was reminded of all of this while reading David Wiegand's article about Fitzgerald in today's San Francisco Chronicle. The article, which looks at Fitzgerald's relationship with Hollywood and the films made from his books, was prompted by the forthcoming release of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett star in this adaptation of one of the writer's most unusual short stories. [It's a film I am looking forward to seeing, as I am a BIG Fitzgerald fan.]

Weigand raves over Bernice Bobs Her Hair, a 1976 film written and directed for TV by Joan Micklin Silver and starring Shelley Duvall. Has anybody seen this particlur work?

Curiously, Weigand fails to make note of some earlier films based on Fitzgerald's work. Most important among them is The Great Gatsby, a now lost 1926 film directed by Herbert Brenon (who directed Brooks in her first film, The Street of Forgotten Men). Check out the article. It is worth reading.

Early Modern Dance: The Denishawn Collection

There is a real nice collection of Denishawn images on Flickr ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/nypl/sets/72157610902043629/ ) . These images are exotic, erotic (at least I think so) and visually so very interesting. God, how I wish someone would publish a pictorial book devoted to Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn, and the Denishawn Dance Company. And by the way, Louise Brooks can be seen in at least two of the images gathered on Flickr.