Letter to Andrew Sarris

 

 Thanks so much for the English Cahiers. It must have been one hell of a job to reduce your material to such a fascinating selection of photographs and such an intriguing selection of articles.

Your introduction was cleverly sharp and plain and short preceding the Bazin translation which took me two hours and three dictionaries to get through. Mind, I am no intellectual judge but it did seem a lot of words, fancy words and four-letter words for director to get to the simple fact that 'the politique des auteurs' is "the negation of the work to the profit of the exaltation of its auteur". Ever since the beginning of films, writers and directors have been jealous of the actor's glory, trying to find some way of wiping them off the screen with words ...

One truth Bazin pressed to the point, I thought was splendid. "It is only through an absurd discrimination that one could attribute to cinéastes alone a senility from which other artists would be protected".

From London I have been hearing all sorts of spiteful things about how badly the Chaplin film is going ...

Now I have just got a letter from Kevin Brownlow who was on the set with Gloria Swanson. And he says that Chaplin is full of bounce and having the time of his life. Naturally it is tough for Loren and Brando, discovering that they have bodies and an infinite number of ways of using them.

Thanks again, Andrew. And don't pay any attention to me. If the magazine wasn't complicated and obscure, people wouldn't think they were getting the real French McCoy.

Louise Brooks, Letter to Andrew Sarris, “English Cahiers du Cinéma”, nr. 3, 1966

Checklist nr. 27

[Ad una succinta lista che elenca con cura i suoi film e parte dei suoi articoli, Louise appone una breve nota in cui chiarisce la sua non
          partecipazione a tre film
]

          What happened was that William Wellman had offered me a part in Public enemy and I turned it down to go to New York. But the advance publicity had gone out with my name in the cast (the part Wellman then gave to Jean Harlow), so when people see an extra girl walk through a scene with a black bob and bangs, they say: “There is Brooks”. How I am listed as having been in Steel highway or Hollywood Boulevard must be some like mix-up with Wellman and Florey. But I appeared in neither film.

Louise Brooks, Checklist nr. 27, "Monthly Film Bullettin", July 1965


Index ] Pagina superiore ] Louise Brooks, Actors and the Pabst spirit ] Louise Brooks, Stardom and Evelyn Brent ] Louise Brooks, Funny screen experiences - No no Nanette ] Louise Brooks, Ein wenig Louise Brooks ] Louise Brooks,Marlene ] [ Louise Brooks, Letter to Andrew Sarris - Checklist nr. 27 ] Louise Brooks, ZaSu Pitts ] Louise Brooks, The white hell of Pitz Palu ] Louise Brooks, Mr. Pabst ] Louise Brooks, Why I will never write my memoirs ] Louise Brooks, Buster Keaton ] scrittifundamentals.pdf ] Louise Brooks, Joan Crawford ] Louise Brooks, Charlie Chaplin remembered ]