A cinephilac blog about an actress, silent film, and the Jazz Age, with occasional posts
about related books, music, art, and history written by Thomas Gladysz. Visit the
Louise Brooks Society™ at www.pandorasbox.com
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Cool Pic of the Day: Louise Brooks
This blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society™. Launched in 1995, the Louise Brooks Society is a pioneering website and online archive devoted to the legendary silent film star. The Louise Brooks Society operates with the consent of the Estate of Louise Brooks (Louise Brooks Heirs, LC), and have its permission to use the name and likeness of the actress. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. CONTACT: louisebrookssociety (at) gmail.com
Monday, September 30, 2013
Beggars of Life to screen at 2013 Pordenone Silent Film Festival
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto has announced the line-up of films at this year's event, which will be held in Pordenone, Italy from October 5 through the 12th. Among the works to be screened is the 1928 William Wellman-directed film, Beggars of Life, starring Louise Brooks. It will be shown as part of the Festival's "Canon Revisited" series on Sunday, October 6th at 8:30 pm. Günter Buchwald will provide live musical accompaniment.
This blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society™. Launched in 1995, the Louise Brooks Society is a pioneering website and online archive devoted to the legendary silent film star. The Louise Brooks Society operates with the consent of the Estate of Louise Brooks (Louise Brooks Heirs, LC), and have its permission to use the name and likeness of the actress. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. CONTACT: louisebrookssociety (at) gmail.com
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Time Lost Never Returns
This blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society™. Launched in 1995, the Louise Brooks Society is a pioneering website and online archive devoted to the legendary silent film star. The Louise Brooks Society operates with the consent of the Estate of Louise Brooks (Louise Brooks Heirs, LC), and have its permission to use the name and likeness of the actress. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. CONTACT: louisebrookssociety (at) gmail.com
Saturday, September 28, 2013
louise brooks - berlin berlin
The song "Berlin" by Gosta Berling was inspired by the life of Louise
Brooks. Her story and iconic image have
inspired many tributes - songs, books, plays and movies. The
fascinating and frustrating saga of her life is captured in the
biography Louise Brooks by Barry Paris - which the songwriter says they devoured while
writing the words to this song. The images for this video were all
scanned from the book Lulu Forever by Peter Cowie. This song is from the band's
first EP, Everybody's Sweetheart (2007).
This blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society™. Launched in 1995, the Louise Brooks Society is a pioneering website and online archive devoted to the legendary silent film star. The Louise Brooks Society operates with the consent of the Estate of Louise Brooks (Louise Brooks Heirs, LC), and have its permission to use the name and likeness of the actress. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. CONTACT: louisebrookssociety (at) gmail.com
Monday, September 23, 2013
Louise Brooks Society marks Banned Books Week
This week is Banned Books Week, the book community's annual celebration of the freedom to read. Throughout the week, hundreds of libraries and bookstores and readers and writers around the country draw attention to the problem of censorship by mounting displays of challenged books and hosting events.
Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a rise in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. Since 1982, more than 11,300 books have been challenged. According to the American Library Association, there were 464 challenges reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom in 2012. Many more go unreported. For more information on Banned Books Week, click here.
The Louise Brooks Society marks Banned Books Week by displaying this page about a frequently challenged book closely associated with the career of Louise Brooks. (Not only was the book challenged, so was the German stage play based on the book, as were the two silent film adaptions.)
The Diary of a Lost Girl was first published in Germany in 1905 under the title Tagebuch einer Verlorenen. By the end of the Twenties, it had been translated into 14 languages, published around the world, and sold more than 1,200,000 copies. It is counted among the best-selling books of its time.
Today, however, it is little known.
Was it, as was claimed, the real-life diary of a
young woman forced by circumstance into a life of prostitution? A
veiled feminist critique of the treatment of women? Or a sensational and
clever fake, one of the first novels of its kind? Debate swirled around
its authorship for years.
The bestselling book
|
Described by one contemporary scholar as
“Perhaps the most notorious and certainly the commercially most
successful autobiographical narrative of the early twentieth century,”
the book was nothing less than a literary phenomenon. The New York Times described it as "shocking." A newspaper in New Zealand called it "The saddest of modern books."
Widely discussed, it was written about by
critic Walter Benjamin, by the followers of Freud, and by novelist
Henry Miller (who claimed it a favorite). Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula,
thought it should be banned. Censored in some countries, the book was
barred entry into others. Eventually, after more than 25 years of
acclaim and criticism, as well as controversy over its true authorship,
the book was driven out of print in the early days of Nazi Germany.
This contested book – a work of unusual
historical significance and literary sophistication – inspired not only a
cult following but also a sequel, a play, a parody, a genre's worth
of imitators, and two silent movies. The best remembered of these is Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), the G.W. Pabst film starring screen legend Louise Brooks.
This new edition, featuring the original
English language translation, brings a notable work back into print
after more than a century. The "Louise Brooks Edition" includes some
three dozen illustrations, numerous annotations, and an essay by Thomas
Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society, detailing the book's
remarkable history and relationship to the acclaimed 1929 silent film.
Learn more about The Diary of a Lost Girl at www.pandorasbox.com/diary.html
Praise for the original edition of THE DIARY OF A LOST GIRL:
The “poignant story of a
great-hearted girl who kept her soul alive amidst all the mire that
surrounded her poor body.” – Hall Caine
“The fact that one German critic
asserted the impossibility of a woman herself immune from vice having
written such a book, is proof that besides truth of matter there was
compelling art in Margarete Böhme’s book.” – Percival Pollard
“The moral justification of such a
publication is to be found in the fact that it shrivels up
sentimentality; the weak thing cannot stand and look at such stark
degradation.” – Manchester Guardian
This blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society™. Launched in 1995, the Louise Brooks Society is a pioneering website and online archive devoted to the legendary silent film star. The Louise Brooks Society operates with the consent of the Estate of Louise Brooks (Louise Brooks Heirs, LC), and have its permission to use the name and likeness of the actress. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. CONTACT: louisebrookssociety (at) gmail.com
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Sunday Event for Laura Moriarty's The Chaperone in Kansas
An article in the Pittsburg Morning Sun reports that author Laura Moriarty will talk about her recent novel, The Chaperone, at 2 p.m. on Sunday at the Pittsburg
(KS) Public Library. Preceding her talk, the library is hosting a Louise Brooks look-alike contest. No prior registration is required to enter.
The Chaperone focusses on the woman who accompanied a teenage Louise Brooks the summer she left Kansas for New York City, where Brooks hoped to join the Denishawn Dance Company. Two years later, Brooks performed in Pittsburg (a Kansas town) as a member of the dance company.
The article also noted:
The Chaperone focusses on the woman who accompanied a teenage Louise Brooks the summer she left Kansas for New York City, where Brooks hoped to join the Denishawn Dance Company. Two years later, Brooks performed in Pittsburg (a Kansas town) as a member of the dance company.
The article also noted:
There’s a good chance that “The Chaperone” will be turned into movie. Actress Elizabeth McGovern, who narrated the audiobook and plays the Duchess of Grantham in “Downton Abbey,” would play Cora.Read the Pittsburg Morning Sun article here. And if you haven't already read it, go out and get yourself a copy of The Chaperone.
“Julian Fellowes, ‘Downton Abbey’s’ creator is writing the screenplay, and Simon Curtis, who did ‘My Week with Marilyn’, will be the director for Fox Searchlight,” Moriarty said.
Not every book optioned for a movie doesn’t actually make it onto the screen, and Moriarty is well aware of that. Still, she thinks “The Chaperone” has a good chance.
“It looks like it might make it,” she said. “A lot of incredibly talented people are interested.”
This blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society™. Launched in 1995, the Louise Brooks Society is a pioneering website and online archive devoted to the legendary silent film star. The Louise Brooks Society operates with the consent of the Estate of Louise Brooks (Louise Brooks Heirs, LC), and have its permission to use the name and likeness of the actress. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. CONTACT: louisebrookssociety (at) gmail.com
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