Early Morning Frosts

It feels like the winter won’t quite let us go, as I look down at the weather app and see the third frost advisory in the last week and a half. I appreciate the cool temperatures, and the scattering of warm days, but I suppose I miss the consistency. And I long for an end to even the gentle turbulence of spring. Yesterday we were standing in a wetland while the wind came up and the rain began and the orange skies at one of the horizon lines made everything look so wild.

I can appreciate the wildness, like barn swallows appreciate the updrafts of the winds and buffeting of approaching storms. But there comes a time to rest. Constant overtime is making me sharply aware of this.

Films And Those Who Make Them

One of the things I need more of in this time of much overtime? I need more films — even if I don’t have the time for them. And so, this week I decided to review one of my favourite books about classic film from an insider’s perspective: Lulu in Hollywood, written by Louise Brooks. Louise Brooks was a huge star in silent film and the first wave of talkies, and when you think of long strings of pearls, blunt-cut black bobs, and flappers, you probably have a mental image that is in fact her image from such films as The Canary Murder Case and Pandora’s Box.

Lulu in Hollywood from 1982 is Old Hollywood described by Brooks herself. This book was a big deal, since Brooks had basically disappeared into relative obscurity and poverty for decades. Here, she breaks her silence, but, as I will describe, leaves more than a few things unsaid.

What Happened?

Brooks details her past starting from Kansas, through being on top of the Hollywood pyramid, to making films in Europe, to burning through all her money and burning all of her bridges. While she does provide a few candid stories, there is a lot here left unsaid and hazy. She’s not one to provide key details. What we are left with are trajectories and some stories that are missing a few pieces.

Also? While Brooks openly admits to victimizing partners for their money or for their status, she is less forthcoming with how she was victimized in Hollywood (though she does imply that her introduction to the Hollywood scene was rough). She is very focussed on being financially exploited and her refusal to compromise on contracts. However, between the lines there’s a feeling that Brooks is leaving out what her arrival in Hollywood was like and what happened to her when she was young and wasn’t wise to the ways of what the movies were like. It leaves the reader wondering what happened that Brooks feels so guarded about and what other ways she was exploited.

A Word About Photographs

What do I love as much as Hollywood stories? Photographs to go with the stories! This edition of Lulu in Hollywood includes a generous amount of photos, many of them captioned by Brooks herself. It brings me back to one of my favourite Old Hollywood books of all time, Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon – which is packed with them too. However, unlike Anger, I believe more of what Brooks is writing and all of these photos are actually of the people who she claims they are of. That’s not the case with Hollywood Babylon.

There’s also the same feeling of Hollywood gossip as Brooks takes you behind the scenes and spills the tea on both the who’s who and what the who’s who were really like.

Summer Plans

Already it feels like we are continually asked to make summer plans. Summer? But it’s May? Then I realize it’s half-past May and I cannot be Toad buried underneath the blankets and asking Frog to come back later.

So I have accepted plans, but the thing that plans make me aware of? That time continually feels fleeting, and I need more time to relax and read and let seconds slowly pass in unstructured ways.