Lesley Truffle's Blog, page 5
February 23, 2023
Manipulation by Gaslight
The term ‘gaslight’ can refer to psychological manipulation. The concept was derived from a play in 1938 and later a British film titled ‘Gaslight’ in 1940. In 1944 there was also an American movie version of the same name.
In the 1940 film, a husband tries to persuade his wife she is going mad by challenging her sense of reality and keeping her in a state of confusion, stress and high anxiety. The film opens in 1865 with a haunting musical score and a strange event in a cosy London townhouse. I won’t reveal the plot details.
The 1940 British thriller directed by Thorold Dickinson adheres closely to the original 1938 play ‘Gaslight’. The husband surreptitiously lights the gas lamps upstairs. Then when his wife comments on the gaslights dimming, he informs her she’s imagining things. He then escalates by manipulating and distorting her sense of self.
In 1944 an American movie ‘Gaslight’ was released, directed by George Cukor. It retells the story in a melodramatic fashion accompanied by a powerful but sinister soundtrack. The very charming French actor Charles Boyer plays husband to Ingrid Bergman.
Many pschologists have written about gaslighting. Dr Stephanie Sarkis PhD is a clinical therapist who specializes in gaslighting, ADHD, anxiety, chronic pain and depression. She sees firsthand the damage that ‘gaslighters’ do to family, friends, neighbours and work colleagues.
Sarkis has written extensively about gaslighting and provides ways to deal with a gaslighter should you have the misfortune to come into contact with them.
A few years ago I was targeted by a gaslighter. Initially I was perplexed by her seemingly bizarre behaviour which involved an avalanche of emails and legal threats. So how does one recognize a gaslighter in action?
Gaslighters lie to your face, scheme to bring you down, lie compulsively and try to overpower you with their assumed power. They may also attempt to turn your friends or family against you. Gaslighters often attempt to gain control over your emotions in order to make you dependent on them.
In short they are a piece of work and will do their damndest to bring you undone. Gaslighters are devoid of empathy and distort the truth by lying, manipulating, withholding, providing ‘false facts’ and using triangulation (getting a third party involved).
Gaslighters are often found in the ranks of politicians and presidents – a former American president immediately comes to mind. But gaslighters can be found in all levels of society and in every culture.
‘Gaslighting’ has characteristics in common with other personality disorders. Sarkis identifies various Cluster B Personality Disorders such as: Borderline Personality Disorder, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Histrionic Personality Disorder.
Sarkis explains what happens to the gaslighter’s victims and how you can defend yourself from them. Frankly, I find it difficult to understand how the hell these people can knowingly engage in such ugly, cruel and bizarre behaviour.
I found Sarkis’s 2019 book ‘Gaslighting’ most useful. It’s an engaging read. Sarkis explained gaslighters actions that I’d only understood intuitively. Her anonymous case examples bore a strong resemblance to other gaslighters I’ve had the misfortune to come across.
The last chapter was particularly helpful. The author provides practical advice on how to arm yourself against the gaslighters in your life.
As Sarkis puts it, ‘The more you educate yourself about gaslighting, the better you can protect yourself from it.’
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February 18, 2023
Venus in a Fur Bikini
‘My name is Raquel Welch. I am here for visual effects, and I have two of them.’
Raquel Welch came to fame after starring in One Million Years B.C. in 1966. She only had three lines in the film but her fur bikini – made from deer skin – became a defining image of the 60’s.
The fur bikini made her famous but it also confined Welch to roles that affirmed her status as a sex goddess. A publicity poster of her wearing the fur bikini made her an instant pin up babe. The New York Times declared Welch was ‘a marvellous breathing monument to womankind’.
She then appeared in films including The Biggest Bundle of them All (1968) which was filmed at Cinecittà Studios in Rome. In the heist film and she played the sexy girlfriend of an Italian gangster. The poster for the film featured Welch in a skimpy yellow bikini. It was publicized as, ‘The World’s Sexiest Robbery’.
Unfortunately despite being a gifted singer and dancer Welch didn’t get to show her moves until about 13 years later. She starred in the Broadway musical Woman of the Year. Welch acquired the lead role after Lauren Bacall went away on holiday.
A New York Times critic pompously stated, ‘This lady can move and she can dance – and I think she can sing’. He also confessed he hoped she would go on to star in her own musical. It didn’t happen.
For as Raquel Welch later said,
‘Americans have always had sex symbols. It’s a time-honoured tradition and I’m flattered to have been one. But it’s hard to have a long, fruitful career once you’ve been stereotyped that way. That’s why I’m proud to say I’ve endured. Being a sex symbol was rather like being a convict.’
Hugh Hefner’s Playboy magazine – known for fetishising the female body and exploitation of Hefner’s play bunnies, featured her several times. They nominated Raquel Welch as ‘the most desired woman of the 70’s. Cleverly she made damned sure she never appeared fully naked in the Playboy photographs.
As she put it. ‘You know what’s the sexiest thing of all? A little mystery.’
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Welch starred in several Westerns including 100 Rifles (1969) and Bandolero! (1968). In Hannie Caulder (1972) she portrayed a frontier woman seeking revenge on three repellent and depraved bank robbers who raped her before murdering her husband.
It was a courageous role to take on, as was her starring role in Kansas City Bomber (1972), which gave Welch the chance to do some great character work. She did her own skating as well as selected stunts. Ostensibly the film’s about competitive wrestling – on roller skates – but it possesses a darker subtext.
In 1970 Welch gave a brilliant performance in the 1970’s black comedy Myra Breckinridge. The film was divisive, transgressive and many feathers were ruffled.
Adapted from the satirical novel of the same name by Gore Vidal, the film begins with a film critic named Myron Breckinridge having a sex change. He morphs into Myra Breckinridge (Raquel Welch).
Myra Breckinridge, wreaks havoc and targets a young macho actor as a symbol of everything she’s fighting against. Myra gives a whole new meaning to the descriptor ‘feminist’.
A bizarre scene of Welch donning a strap-on contributed to making Myra Breckinridge one of the edgiest films of the 70’s.
Myra is aided and abetted by the wisecracking Mae West at her most lascivious. West plays Leticia van Allen, a casting agent who seduces the young men who come to her for auditions.
Welch later stated, ‘Myra Breckinridge is the antithesis of a sex symbol. She’s revolutionary. She’s a warrior.’
Rachel Welch’s biography, ‘Beyond the Cleavage’ (2012) reveals the wit, intelligence and humour that’s patently obvious in her many interviews. Unlike most celebrities, she actually wrote the biography and didn’t use a ghost writer.
Given Raquel Welch has just departed this life, she should have the last word –
‘I’d taken the bull by the horns by liberating myself and creating a career. It took guts – it was scary and chancy – but they discounted me as empty-headed: some little piece of fluff without any brain that happened to come along.’
photo: Raquel Welch in the film, One Million Years B.C. (1966).
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January 29, 2023
Babylon
Babylon
Babylon is a test of whether or not a film can be the sum of its gorgeous pieces. A great score, a talented ensemble, and expert cinematography—all are undeniable here. And yet there are narrative elements of Babylon that feel hollow from the very beginning …
Brian Tallerico
Babylon clocks in at over three hours running time. I saw it a plush movie theatre and many of those in the audience took brief refreshment breaks. Snacking was definitely a high priority with the emphasis on virtuous ingredients. All washed down with strong ethical coffee to firm up one’s attention span.
However despite it being a Sunday morning, some of us took our nutrients in the form of champagne. This may have been a wise move in order to take the edge off an incredibly loud film both sound wise and visually.
Babylon was directed by Damien Chazelle who made La La Land in 2016 starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. The two films couldn’t be more different.
Whereas La La Land was an American romantic musical, Babylon is ostensibly about the transition between silent films and what was known as talkies – films with sound. And the talent either made the transition or they were finished.
There are some terrific actors in Babylon. Diego Calva appears as Manny Torres a Mexican fixer and dogsbody who rises rapidly to become a studio executive. Jovan Adepo is a fabulous African-American trumpeter who has to deal with bigotry and overt racism. And Li Jun Li appears as lesbian cabaret singer Lady Fay Zhu. Stylishly elegant and louche, the singer has astonishing survival skills that are revealed in a bizarre scene involving a dessert rattlesnake.
Brad Pitt plays Jack Conrad, a charming leading man with a taste for serial marriages – none of which are successful. Conrad is a classy booze hound who has the capacity to get crapulous but still bounce back the morning after and appear on set. Looking like a handsome Brad Pitt with a thin black moustache.
Conrad’s trajectory is both comedic and tragic and provides relief from the excess of depravity and grotesque episodes of debasement. I felt that there were too many orgy scenes. The orgies became tedious as they didn’t drive the story forward. And frequently what was supposed to be humour was simply a grim, depressing or distressing event.
I got the distinct impression the director was quite determined to shock and impress. Chazelle also seems to owe a considerable debt to Frederico Fellini’s film, Fellini’s Satyricon.
Fellini’s movie was based on an adaptation of Gaius Petronius’s satire created during the reign of Nero. It was described by one critic as ‘An episodic barrage of sexual licentiousness, godless violence, and eye-catching grotesquerie. Much the same could be said of Babylon.
Kenneth Anger’s book Hollywood Babylon also appears to have inspired the film Babylon. The book detailed the alleged transgressive behavior of famous Hollywood actors and actresses in the period 1900s-1950s. Anger was a former child actor who became an underground filmmaker. His book evolved into a cult classic but many of the supposed ‘scandals’ have since been disputed or debunked.
I was disappointed in the film Babylon. It has a wealth of acting talent and an estimated budget of approximately $110 million but it was insubstantial in execution. Some critics have raved but others described it as being akin to a disaster.
As Leah Greenblatt wrote of Director Damien Chazelle –
… And he has at his disposal things that underground figures like Anger never did: a pile of money and movie stars, plus the high-gloss veneer of prestige filmmaking. It’s still three turgid, clattering hours of nudity, depravity, and mislaid alligators, but also, you know, art.
Image: Bratt Pitt in character as Jack Conrad in Babylon (2022)
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January 23, 2023
Botticelli’s Venus
Botticelli’s Venus
Goddess on the mountain top
Burning like a silver flame
The summit of beauty and love
And Venus was her name …
Venus by Robbie van Leeuwen, Shocking Blue rock band.
On a recent visit to the National Gallery of Victoria I glimpsed Jeff Koon’s stainless steel version of Venus. And I recalled how fabulous Botticelli’s Birth of Venus was when I first saw it quite some time ago in Italy.
For centuries artists have been enamored by the mythological goddess Venus. Sandro Botticelli’s Venus is considered to be a Renaissance masterpiece and is currently held by The Uffizi Gallery in Florence (image detail above).
However, Botticelli’s Birth of Venus (1485) wasn’t always famous. But after largely being ignored for centuries, Botticelli and his magnificent paintings were ‘rediscovered’ in the 19th century.
In 2020, American artist Jeff Koons produced a massive and somewhat matronly Venus in mirrored steel. Koons Venus now lives at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. Unsurprisingly, Jeff Koons Venus has nothing in common with Botticelli’s celestial Venus.
It’s basically a mirror-polished, stainless steel, 2.5 metre sculpture copied from an eighteenth. century figurine. The original porcelain piece would probably have been the type of small figurine purchased to decorate a family parlour.
Venus in her many forms has attracted more than her fair share of trouble and conflict. In 1914, a seventeenth century painting by Diego Velazquez, Venus at her Mirror, was viciously attacked in The National Gallery in London. The painting of a reclining nude Venus was slashed over five times with a meat cleaver.
Velazquez’s painting – also known as The Rokeby Venus or Toilet of Venus – was vandalized by Mary Richardson. She was a suffragette protesting against the arrest of British activist Emmeline Pankhurst.
Known to the press as ‘Slasher Mary’, Mary Richardson later became a devoted follower of the Fascist Leader, Sir Oswald Mosley. Mosley’s ugly anti-Semitism was inspired by Adolf Hitler.
Back to Venus. Although she’s the goddess of love and beauty, Venus’s mythological beginnings were not celestial for she was created from conflict. There are many variations on the Venus myth. But generally in Greco-Roman mythology, Venus/Aphrodite is known as a motherless goddess.
Venus/Aphrodite was created after Uranus – Father Heaven and first King of the gods – fought with his wife Gaia, the primordial Earth Mother. Uranus was filled with spite for the many children she bore him and Gaia sought revenge.
Using a large flint sickle created by his mother, Cronus ( leader of the Titans) castrated Uranus and flung his father’s testicles into the sea. The sea churned and foamed, and from the white foam rose Aphrodite/Venus, the goddess of love, beauty, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory.
In some retellings of the Venus myth the naked beauty was guided safely to shore on a giant scallop shell. Botticelli captured her arrival onshore in Birth of Venus.
The wind god, Zephyr, gently blows Venus to shore. He’s assisted by a young woman with impressive wings. She and Zephyr also create the breeze which ruffles the luxurious cloak being offered by the goddess of Spring. Clearly it is provided to cover and protect Venus. She’s calm and poised, her long red hair partially shielding her nudity from our gaze.
Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’ – ignored for centuries – is now acknowledged to be one of the most loved and famous paintings in the world.
Image above: detail from Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus (1485).
If you’d like to view a photo of Jeff Koon’s Venus – click here to see Reflection: Venus in Steel.
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December 19, 2022
All I want for Christmas
All I want for Christmas …
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads …’
A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement C. Moore 1823
Christmas in the city can be a bizarre proposition. Starting weeks ago a neighbour began playing Mariah Carey in the evening on high rotation at full volume. Building up to the well know tune, ‘All I want for Christmas is yoooooooooooo.’
Needless to say such festive shenanigans haven’t gone down too well with those who are not so peachy keen on the popular songstress. Obscenities have been yelled out open windows and competing music has been played loudly in a musical taste duel.
But Mariah Carey trills on undefeated. As does the perky Christmas music that pervades so many superstores at this time of year. The repetitious folksy tunes sends stressed staff and shoppers up the wall. There’s not a lot of Christmas cheer going down when everyone is crashing around with their laden trolleys and hyped up kids.
Oddly enough our present day Christmas traditions derive from ancient cultures. Originally created by our ancestors, the same rituals manifest across the Western World every December.
In the past these traditions were mysterious and sacred rites. They were backed by superstition, belief in magic and the desire to protect communities from fear of the unknown.
Celtic and Roman myths feature heavily in the way we decorate our homes at Christmas. We also shamelessly overeat, suck down vast quantities of Christmas cheer and indulge in decidedly bizarre behaviour.
However it’s not all carol singing and tinsel. The police are inevitably busier during what is quaintly termed the Festive Season. It has been noted by crime researchers that around Christmas and New Year there’s an increase in car thefts, aggravated burglaries, home invasions, robberies, serious assaults and knife crimes.
Why? It’s believed crime statistics rise because of the financial strain of Christmas gift buying and the additional stress incurred by relatives spending more time together. There’s also a marked increase in alcohol and drug abuse.
On a lighter note, Christmas as we know it started out as the ancient Roman holiday of Saturnalia. It was a pagan festival, celebrated 17–25 December. Eventually it morphed into Christmas (literally meaning Christ’s Mass) as Christians sought to usurp pagan holidays and traditions.
The Celtic year was divided into a dark half and a light half. The first of November marked the dark half. Around this time a gap in time opened and Druids believed they could travel to other times and places.
Ancient Irish and Celtic traditions are still around. In pre-Christian times holly and ivy wreaths were fixed to front doors to keep away vindictive evil spirits. Leaving a burning candle in a window was an ancient ritual to allow the spirits to pass on by peacefully.
In many Irish homes the burning of a yule log on Christmas morning happens even during the mildest winter weather. Back in pre-Christian times, Yul was a Pagan rite to honour the Mother Goddess and celebrate Winter Solstice.
It was believed that the sun stood still for twelve days in mid-winter and the lighting of logs banished the darkness along with any evil spirits.
The hanging mistletoe – that you avoid when you don’t fancy kissing disreputable acquaintances and relatives – had its origins in Celtic Druid traditions. Mistletoe was an earthly manifestation of the Thunder God (Taranus/Taranis).
Apparently Druids believed that oak trees were sacred and the mistletoe that grew on the oaks had medicinal properties and was exceptionally powerful when used in spells.
Mistletoe was also venerated as a symbol of renewal and male fertility. It was thought to be a powerful plant as it could blossom during freezing cold winters.
In the eighteenth century when mistletoe was hung overhead, gentlemen acquired the right to kiss any girl who was foolish enough to loiter under it. Since then mistletoe has gone on to become the bane of office Christmas parties and knees-ups everywhere.
Joyeux Noël! – Merry Christmas to you all!
Photo: Xmas in Moggs Creek – on Australia’s Great Ocean Road by Les Truffle
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December 9, 2022
Capote’s Betrayal
Capote’s Betrayal
Truman Capote is best known for his novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) and his narrative fiction book, In Cold Blood (1966).
In Cold Blood was based on the gruesome murders of the Clutter family at their Kansas farmhouse in 1959. In Laurence Leamer’s 2021 biography of Capote (Capote’s Women) he discusses In Cold Blood at length.
Truman had a close relationship with the two killers, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. The details of how Truman ingratiated himself with Perry and repeatedly lied to him are unsettling.
Apparently Capote formed an obsessive bond with Perry and it must have influenced what he wrote about the killer. Some observers at the time believe they were lovers while Perry was incarcerated in the Kansas State Penitentiary.
The author of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, Nelle Harper Lee, was a childhood friend of Truman’s. He referred to her as his ‘assistant researchist’ for In Cold Blood. It was Lee who supplied about 150 pages of painstaking research which enabled him to complete the book.
During a fact finding mission in Kansas it was Lee who saved the day. When Kansas Bureau of Investigations officers arrived to meet Capote at the Warren Hotel he greeted them dressed in a lacy, pink negligee. He liked to shock. It was Lee who smoothed any ruffled feathers and created a working relationship with the Clutter’s lawyer and Kansas investigators.
Lee had studied Law and understood the courts and legal processes. It’s been said that Lee should have been the writer and Capote her assistant researchist.
I found In Cold Blood an engaging, clever but somewhat disturbing read. I also think Truman’s relationship with Perry raises serious ethical concerns.
Capote thought his next book – Answered Prayers – would be his magnum opus. However, rumours still circulate that the completed script is sitting somewhere in a bank vault.
For years Capote told everyone he was writing ‘the greatest novel of the age’. Modesty was never his forte. But he did have skin the game of writing and by 1975 was an acknowledged famous writer.
Answered Prayers was a work of fiction based on his nearest and dearest friends. They were mostly high society women who adored him and made the mistake of welcoming Capote into their privileged lives. He called them his ‘swans’. They trusted and valued him as a friend.
The swans were rarely born into great wealth but they all succeeded in achieving it – mainly though well engineered marriages. Then having married into The Money, most of them successfully traded up for men who were significantly wealthier than their first choice.
So highly sought after were the swans that they were snapped up by rich men who perceived them as a great prize – even when they were no longer in the flush of youth. This was no small achievement given the conventions of the time – not much as changed.
The swans were not merely beautiful or attractive, they were also immensely personable, witty and great conversationists. They could hold the attention of a room simply with their charisma, sex appeal and grace. Age did not wither them.
The swans splurged on high fashion and were dressed by America’s and Europe’s most formidable couturiers. Anorexia was rife amongst the swans, as they were determined to retain the lithe figures of their youth.
Capote eventually had a few chapters of Answered Prayers published in the magazine Esquire. Titled La Côte Basque 1965 it set off a crap storm that bought him down.
When the excerpts appeared in Esquire all hell broke loose. For Capote had quoted living women while only thinly disguising them. For those who personally knew Capote’s swans it was easy to recognize them.
Capote never fully recovered after he lost loyal friends he thought he’d retain forever. He also lost access to their rarefied world of private yachts, personal planes and vacations all over the world. And no longer would he be a privileged guest in their splendid mansions, ranches, haciendas and island resorts.
The swans included: Marella Agnelli – an Italian Princess, Lucy Douglas – a ‘Boston Brahmin’, Lee Radziwill – Jacqueline Kennedy’s younger sister, Nancy Gross – a California girl known as ‘Slim’, Barbara Paley – known as ‘Babe’ Paley and the very elegant Gloria Guinness.
Pamela Harriman was a jolly young English aristocrat who didn’t really fit in with Capote’s swans but he welcomed her into his life as his ‘black swan’. She was known in some vicious social circles as ‘the dairy maid’.
Yet by sheer dint of will Pamela bloomed and outdid her detractors. She began her reinvention in her twenties by having affairs with uber rich, older married men.
Despite being branded as a courtesan or a geisha, Pamela managed to work her way into the highest levels of influence in the White House. Pamela was appointed by Bill Clinton as Ambassador to France.
Pamela Harriman died as elegantly as she’d lived. At 76 she died of a cerebral haemorrhage while taking her daily dip in the pool at the Paris Ritz. As she coolly stated when questioned about the fact all her men had been rich and influential,
‘Those were the people I met; everything in life, I believe, is luck and timing …’
Capote’s black swan also said, ‘I’d rather have bad things written about me, than be forgotten.’
Truman Capote would not have disagreed.
photo: Gloria Guinness – lounging in a Lanvin Castillo gown in her splendid Parisian apartment 1963.
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November 22, 2022
The Uber Rich
The Uber Rich
‘I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain … Time to die.’
Actor Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner (1982) – replicant Roy Batty’s final soliloquy.
Cynical observers have hypothesized that once planet Earth is destroyed by human negligence, The Money will flee to metagalactic space. Perhaps the uber rich will set themselves up in luxurious colonies, similar to the off-world colonies in the sci-fi movie Blade Runner (1982).
It was recently reported in the press that Elon Musk wants to reduce space transportation costs and enable the colonization of Mars.
There isn’t much agreement about how this might go down. One of Musk’s rivals for private space travel , Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder, is on record as stating, ‘We can move all heavy industry and polluting industry off Earth and operate it from space’.
Clearly the landscape has changed. Once upon a time, when the rich were lowly millionaires, they modestly aspired to luxurious yachts, buying islands and personally flying their very own private jets.
A few months ago a Financial Times journalist concluded the unequal distribution of wealth is so extreme that the US has become country of impoverished folk with ‘just a few bloated plutocrats at the top’ – and these people are busily planning on moving to Mars.
I was bemused last week that Tesla CEO Elon Musk – currently reputed to be the richest man in the world – is considered to be worth every cent of his $US55 billion salary package from Tesla Inc. Not everyone agrees. Apparently a lawsuit has been initiated by a Tesla investor, who claims Musk’s financial remuneration is excessive.
Nobody really knows how many hours Musk actually dedicates to Tesla Incorporated these days. But the Tesla Chair, Robyn Denholm, maintains that sometimes he’s ‘sleeping on the factory floor’. Interesting. Especially given Musk’s recent acquisition of Twitter and his purported business interests in perfume and flame throwers. Perhaps he’s given up on sleep?
It’s worth noting that according to the Australian Bureau of statistics – the richest 20 percent of Australians now own 63 percent of total household wealth. And the lowest quintile own less than one percent.
Does this mean that those of us who haven’t made it to the top of the food chain are going to be left behind when the mega rich strike out for their off-world colonies?
Merde. Surely not?
In the extended version’s closing scene of Blade Runner, Dexter (Harrison Ford) escapes Los Angeles with his replicant lover, Rachel. Dexter is anxious about how much time he and Rachel have left.
His conclusion? ‘I didn’t know how long we’d have together. Who does?’
Image: Futuristic rain sodden, gloomy Los Angeles from Bladerunner 1982 movie.
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November 15, 2022
The Black Eyed Blonde
The Black Eyed Blonde
It seemed like a nice neighbourhood to have bad habits in.
Raymond Chandler from The Big Sleep 1939.
I’ve been reading a Philip Marlowe detective novel that was not written by American author/screenwriter Raymond Chandler (1988-1959). I found the novel The Black Eyed Blonde engaging but somewhat disconcerting.
Chandler wrote seven Marlowe detective novels and some became film noir classics. Many Hollywood leading men played Marlowe. But Humphrey Bogart has become synonymous with Philip Marlowe – despite the private dick being more handsome and much younger in Chandler’s novels.
The Black Eyed Blonde was published by Irish writer John Banville under the pen name Benjamin Black. He diligently follows the formula of Chandler’s work but sometimes uses more contemporary expressions than Chandler’s mid-century parlance.
Chandler’s character Philip Marlowe is a hard drinking, wise cracking, hyper intelligent private detective with a choice line in witty sarcasm. Despite his grungy lifestyle and the criminals and ‘lowlifes’ he mixes with Marlowe is a man of high principles.
He can’t be bribed to violate his personal standards and beliefs. Marlowe regularly gets shot or bashed up for refusing to double-cross a client or divulge confidential information.
Banville makes Marlowe considerably more introspective and empathic than Chandler created him. He also has a kinder and more generous attitude to women. It could be said that Banville’s Marlowe has been humanized and made more palatable for 21st century sensibilities. But is this necessarily a good thing?
It can’t be denied that the women in the Chandler’s novels are usually femme fatales, devious old rich women, rich beautiful ice maidens, promiscuous wenches, bodacious babes or simply dead.
Chandler’s/Marlowe’s toxic attitude to women doesn’t go down well with feminists or the #Me Too movement. Much has been written about Chandler being a misogynist who objectifies and diminishes women.
The one exception is probably Anne Riordan in Farewell My Lovely who is clever, kind, generous, loyal and trustworthy. Marlowe not only dismisses the idea of becoming romantically involved with Riordan but he’s patronising, ‘There’s a nice little girl, for a guy that’s interested in a nice little girl.’
In the later Chandler novels Marlowe acknowledges he’s been tainted and compromised by his years working in the underbelly of The City of Angels. As he puts it in The Long Goodbye – ‘I was as hollow and empty as the spaces between stars.’
But despite the undeniable sexism of Chandler’s Marlowe, I still prefer him to Banville’s rehabilitated Philip Marlowe.
Noir detective novels don’t dwell on the sunny side of the street. And Banville ensures the world according to Philip Marlowe is dark, dangerous and treacherous. He also furthers the storyline of a previous Chandler novel in an inventive way.
But what I miss the most in The Black Eyed Blonde is the absence of Chandler’s cutting wit and sarcasm. His black humour was often quite twisted and being unique to Chandler it cannot be easily replicated.
Chandler’s humour is also unconventional. So for example, it may result from Marlowe glumly smoking as he contemplates something as ordinary as a weathered garden gnome. At other times he riffs on incongruent ideas by improvising and toying with his gut feelings about a particular criminal or oddball. But often – given the detective is regularly drunk or hungover – he’ll be lying in bed chain smoking and tossing off bizarre universal truths.
In closing here’s a few Raymond Chandler quotes:
She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.
Farewell My Lovely 1940
The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back.
The Long Goodbye 1953
Guns never settle anything, I said. They are just a fast curtain to a bad second act.
Playback 1959
Don’t kid yourself. You’re a dirty low-down detective. Kiss me.
Playback 1959
image: movie poster for The Big Sleep 1946. Lauren Bacall & Humphrey Bogart.
Novel by Raymond Chandler.
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October 20, 2022
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
All his prayers in the past had been simple concrete requests: God, give me a bicycle, a knife with seven blades, a box of oil paints. Only how, how, could you say something so indefinite, so meaningless as this: God, let me be loved.
Other Voices by Truman Capote.
Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s was published in 1958 and made into a Hollywood film in 1961 starring Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly and George Peppard as her neighbour Paul Varjak.
The sixties film has great music from Henri Mancini and fabulous fashion from designers Hubert De Givenchy and Edith Head. Holly’s dark past is largely brushed out and her life as a sex worker sanitized. She comes across instead as a charming, witty, opportunistic society girl.
Capote’s anonymous narrator in the novella doesn’t seem sexually attracted to Holly Golightly but he does care deeply about her. Unlike the film where the aspiring writer is a devilishly handsome kept man. Paul Varjak is paid for his sexual services by an older married woman who also buys him expensive gifts.
Directed by Blake Edwards the film is still enormously popular over sixty years later – despite ongoing criticisms about actor Mickey Rooney playing Mr Yunioshi as an offensive racial stereotype.
Truman Capote unsuccessfully lobbied the studio to cast Marilyn Monroe as Holly Golightly. His novella makes it clear it wasn’t just because of his heroine’s tawny/arctic blonde hair.
Monroe is now widely recognized as a highly skilled, intelligent actress who fused great comic timing with her innate sensitivity and vulnerability. Capote and Monroe were close friends. He described being with her in public, when she hit an inner switch and effortlessly morphed into the luminescent sex goddess everyone expected her to be.
Capote’s book is considerably darker than the film version, which is basically a Hollywood rom-com. Whereas the novella was set in New York in the early forties, the film is set in the sixties. In the book Holly and the narrator, an aspiring writer – whom Holly names Fred because he resembles her brother – live in an modest brownstone apartment building. They have quite a few rows but there are several comedic scenes involving Holly’s entourage. And despite the dark themes it is not a depressing, gritty novel.
Unlike the film version, the novel doesn’t end with a happily-ever-after kissing scene in the rain. For although the narrator adores Holly, theirs is a complicated relationship. And it’s through his eyes that we come to understand the impact of Holly’s traumatic childhood and why she became a child bride at fourteen to a much older man.
Shortly before she flees New York, Holly advises ‘Fred’ and their local barman,
‘… it’s better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place: so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear.’
Photo: Still from the film ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ 1961, starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard.
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October 12, 2022
Colette
‘People who are perfectly sane and happy don’t make good literature, alas.’
Colette 1873-1954
Every so often I sneak back to classic literature for a brain clean. It’s wonderful to go back and savour books I really love. This time around I’m on a Colette reading jag.
Colette was born in Burgundy France and christened Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette but she’s usually referred to simply as ‘Colette’. She was a French writer, dancer, actress and journalist.
At twenty she married a bully who exploited her. Writer Henry Gauthier Villars, known by his pseudonym Willy, forced Colette to write novels in his name and retained copyright of her work.
Willy was fifteen years older than Colette and a notorious libertine. He ushered Colette into Parisian artistic circles and connected her with artists, renegades and fashionable society.
He also personally chose the risqué subjects of her first novels. Willy frequently locked Colette in her room until she’d produced all the pages he’d demanded.
When the Claudine series became a huge success Willy retained all the credit and royalties earnt by his wife’s labour. After Colette left him she took to the stage and made barely enough money to survive.
She danced semi naked at the Moulin Rouge, mixed with the demimonde and wrote about her experiences in The Vagabond. Colette excelled at creating atmosphere and mood in her work, often fusing colours, sounds, aromas and tastes together to complement a scene.
Colette lived to be over eighty and led a sensational life. She gave birth at 40 to a girl nicknamed Bel-Gazou. At 47 Colette began a flaming affair with her stepson, Bertrand de Jouvenel while she was still married Henry de Jouvenel.
At a time when women were expected to be coy and submissive Colette became a fearless maverick. Being openly bisexual she had many affairs with both men and women. She also married three times.
I’ve been rereading the Vintage Classic’s version of Colette’s ‘Chéri’ translated by Roger Senhouse. Set in the 1900’s, it’s a melodramatic-sentimental novella of 122 pages.
The novella is primarily about a passionate six year affair between the spoilt, arrogant playboy Fred Peloux – known as Chéri – and Léa de Lonval .
Léa’s long and successful career as a high ranking Parisian courtesan has made her independently wealthy. She now has the means to do as she damn well pleases. Unfortunately Léa has underestimated the depth of her feelings for Chéri.
When it is time for Chéri to make a financially advantageous marriage to a young heiress, Léa behaves impeccably. She also discovers Chéri is not quite the sarcastic, sardonic, man-about-town he claims to be.
I enjoyed the flamboyance and heightened emotions of ‘Chéri’. At times it reminded me of the territory of Oscar Wilde, especially in the fabulous scenes of courtesans behaving badly. The slow reveal of Chéri’s true nature is deliciously wicked.
Colette was taken seriously as a writer and her books greatly admired by writers such as Proust and Gide. She was made a grand officer of The Legion of Honour and was also the first woman to become President of The Société littéraire des Goncourt.
Colette ended her days in an exquisite Palais-Royale apartment where she lived in sumptuous Parisian style with her menagerie of cats.
Despite having being denied a Catholic funeral – due to her two divorces – she was the first French woman to be granted a state funeral.
How much Colette would have enjoyed the irony!
image: cover of Vintage Books London 2001 – ‘Cheri’ cover illustration by Nuno DaCosta
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