There’s something about Lulu

Luiz ‘Lulu’ Bruks (1906-1985)

Bila je jedna od najvećih zvezda nemog filma i jedna, ako ne i prva holivudska antizvezda. Dvadesetih godina prošlog veka, Lulu je bila superiorno depresivna, prezirala lažni holivudski glamur, psovala kao kočijaš, gutala Šopenhauera i  pozirala potpuno gola za umetničke fotografije. Bila je modna ikona, promovisala dramatic make-up i zadužila ženski svet čuvenom bob frizurom. Nadimak Lulu dobila je po ulozi u filmu Pandorina kutija (1929) u kome je igrala mladu ženu neobuzdane  seksualnosti koja uništava i sebe i one oko nje.

“In writing the history of a life I believe absolutely that the reader cannot understand the character and deeds of the subject unless he is given a basic understanding of that person’s sexual loves and hates and conflicts. It is the only way the reader can make sense out of innumerable apparently senseless actions.

To paraphrase Proust: how often do we change the whole course of our lives in pursuit of a love that we will have forgotten within a few months. We flatter ourselves when we assume that we have restored the sexual integrity which was expurgated by the Victorians. I too am unwilling to write the sexual truth that would make my life worth reading. I cannot unbuckle the Bible Belt. That is why I will never write my memoirs.”

Louise Brooks, “Why I Will Never Write My Memoirs”, Lulu in Hollywood

“For two extraordinary years I have been working on it – learning to write – but mostly learning how to tell the truth. At first it is quite impossible. You make yourself better than anybody, then worse than anybody, and when you finally come to see you are “like” everybody – that is the bitterest blow of all to the ego.

But in the end it is only the truth, no matter how ugly or shameful, that is right, that fits together, that makes real people, and strangely enough, beauty.” 

Louise Brooks on writing her memoirs 

 

“I have been taking stock of my 50 years since I left Wichita. How I have existed fills me with horror for I failed in everything. Spelling, arithmetic, writing, swimming, tennis, golf, dancing, singing, acting, wife, mistress, whore, friend, even cooking. And I do not excuse myself with the usual escape of not trying. I tried with all my heart.”

Louise Brooks, Looking for Lulu

 Louise Brooks on the outrage that followed the release of Pandora’s Box:

“Besides daring to show the prostitute as the victim; Mr. Pabst went on to the final damning immorality of making his Lulu as “sweetly innocent” as the flowers which adorned her costumes and filled the scenes of the play…So it is that my playing of the tragic Lulu with no sense of sin remains generally unacceptable to this day. Three years ago, after seeing Pandora’s Box at Eastman House, a priest said to me, “How did you feel? Playing that girl!” “Feel? I felt fine! It all seemed perfectly normal to me.” Seeing him start with distaste and disbelief, and unwilling to be mistaken for one of those women who like to shock priests with sensational confessions, I went on to prove the truth of Lulu’s world by my own experience in the 1925 Follies, when my best friend was a lesbian and I knew two millionaire publishers, much like Schoen in the film, who backed shows to keep themselves well supplied with Lulus.But the priest rejected my reality exactly as Berlin had rejected its reality when we made Lulu and sex was the business of the town.

At the Eden Hotel, where I lived in Berlin [while filming Pandora’s Box], the café bar was lined with the higher-priced trollops. The economy girls walked the streets outside. On the corner stood the girls in boots, advertising flagellation. Actors’ agents pimped for the ladies in luxury apartments in the Bavarian Quarter. Race-track touts at the Hoppegarten arranged orgies for groups of sportsmen. The nightclub Eldorado displayed an enticing line of homosexuals dressed as women. At the Maly, there was a choice of feminine or collar-and-tie lesbians. Collective lust roared unashamed at the theater. In the revue Chocolate Kiddies, when Josephine Baker appeared naked except for a girdle of bananas, it was precisely as Lulu’s stage entrance was described by Wedekind: “They rage there as in a menagerie when the meat appears at the cage.”

I revered Pabst for his truthful picture of this world of pleasure which let me play Lulu naturally. The rest of the cast were tempted to rebellion. And perhaps that was his most brilliant directorial achievement-getting a group of actors to play characters without “sympathy”, whose only motivation was sexual gratification.”

“A well dressed woman, even though her purse is painfully empty, can conquer the world. 

‘Most beautiful dumb girls think they are smart and get away with it, because other people on the whole, aren’t much smarter’…respect Lulu!

Retka slika na kojoj je neko uhvatio Lulu da se smeje. Lulu se zaklela da se nikad nece nasmejati u javnosti, neki njen trip..doprinelo je celoj njenoj ‘poker face’ pojavi.

Well..that’s about it..lovely lady