Skip to main content

The Lasting Legacy of a Silent Film Icon

Photo by John de Mirjian
A new documentary that sheds light on a comic strip character that has become legendary is about to premiere at the 75th Venice Film Festival. Giancarlo Soldi's Cercando Valentina is the story of artist Guido Crepax's sensual, iconic character "Valentina". Here is a look at the actress who inspired her.

Louise Brooks

Black and white photographs of the silent film era preserve mystery and nostalgia from days gone by. Silent film star, Louise Brooks is often at the center of those fascinating portraits. Famous for her bob hairstyle and iconic flapper costumes, her influence and legacy reaches far beyond American shores.

“Louise Brooks is my favorite actress,” revealed Italian director Marco Tullio Giordana when we spoke with him at the 2018 edition of Lincoln Center’s Open Roads: New Italian Cinema. “When I saw G. W. Pabst’s Lulù and then Augusto Genina’s Prix de Beauté (Miss Europe) with this extraordinary American actress, I fell madly in love with her because she was so representative of the actresses of her time and interpreted very strong and volatile female characters.”

Austrian filmmaker Georg Wilhelm Pabst first introduced Europeans to Brooks with his infamous 1929 film, Pandora’s Box. Brooks portrayed the character "Lulu", a name that would forever stay with her. Based on Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist (1895) and Die Büchse der Pandora (1904), the film follows Lulu, a seductive young woman whose sexuality and care-free nature break the hearts of those who love her and eventually cause her to self-destruct. Although the film was not a hit at first, audiences did catch on and Brooks went on to make two more films with Pabst and become a huge international star. 

“Like many other American artists, Louise Brooks is differently and perhaps better appreciated in Europe. It was also in Europe, after decades in obscurity, that she was rediscovered,” explained Thomas Gladysz, author, founder and president of the Louise Brooks Society. “She made three films on the continent: Pandora’s Box and “Diary of a Lost Girl” for the Austrian-born German director G.W. Pabst, and Prix de Beaute, a French film directed by the Italian Augusto Genina. It is because of these three films that Brooks is remembered.”

Watch Brooks in a clip from Augusto Genina's Prix de Beaute..



“Her haircut was so unique, it inspired a famous Italian Comics designer, Guido Crepax, to use Brooks as model for his most famous creation, a character called ‘Valentina,’” said Tullio Giordana. 

It was “Valentina” that immortalized Brooks in Italy. Crepax created “Valentina” in 1965 in an effort to reflect the psychedelic spirit of the 1960s. The “Valentina” series of books and comic strips had a sophistication and erotism to them, even inspiring a 1973 horror film called Baba Yaga. Between 1968 and 2003, 27 books were created in the “Valentina” series.

“Guido Crepax started drawing Louise Brooks into his comics and graphic novel-type work in the mid-1960's. These were longer form, not just throw-away comic strips or comic books. They were published in the United States in a magazine called Heavy Metal, which was sort of an alternative culture magazine. They're a really big deal in Italy,” explained Gladysz. 

He went on to say that although Crepax was the main person responsible for developing Brooks’s image, there have been other artists smitten with her and have drawn her in to all types of comic books and graphic novels. So, she is still very much in vogue in Europe. 

“I would say that she is the actress who struck me most in the history of cinema,” proclaimed Tullio Giordana. “Certainly, I am one who loves Katherine Hepburn, loves Marilyn, loves all the great actress. But for me, she is something special.” He went on to talk about one of the rare interviews she did for Italian television in which she was “very radical and very clever with strict judgments on the industry but also very human and very understanding.” 

Brooks spent the last few decades of her life in Rochester, New York. She moved there at the invitation of James Card, a film curator of the George Eastman House. She lived a quiet life and even watched some of her own films for the first time. She also reinvented herself as a writer. She wrote essays and articles for publications. Many of her essays were collected in “Lulu in Hollywood.”

Watch my report for Radio Vulture on Louise Brooks' last years in Rochester, New York.. 




Much of her work is available on Amazon, including Pandora’s Box and Diary of a Lost Girl. Her collection of essays, Lulu in Hollywood, Thomas Gladysz’s books and Guido Crepax’s Valentina and the Magic Lantern are also available on Amazon. Visit the Louise Brooks Society at http://www.pandorasbox.com.

Cercando Valentina will be shown on August 30 in the  Click here to read my full interview with Thomas Gladysz. Click here to read my full interview with Marco Tullio Giordana. 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Federico Fellini: A Look into the Life and Career of an Icon

A Fellini family portrait  “The term became a common word to describe something on the surface you can say is bizarre or strange, but actually is really like a painter working on a film,” said Martin Scorsese when asked to define “Felliniesque,” an adjective inspired by one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. The oldest of three children, Federico Fellini was born in the seaside town of Rimini in 1920. His father was a traveling salesman, so his mother was left to do the bulk of raising the children. One can argue that Fellini was born for his destiny. “You could tell that even as a child, he was different and unique. He was very intelligent, well above average. He was always the one to organize things, direct the others, make up games. He could control the other kids with just a look, said Fellini’s sister, Maddalena, in an interview with journalist Gideon Bachmann.  Not only was Fellini directing the children, but he was also putting on shows and charging ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ornella Muti: Four decades of Acting and Still Going Strong

Ornella Muti was born Francesca Romana Rivelli in Rome in 1955 to a Neapolitan father and an Estonian mother. She began her career as a model during her teenage years and made her film debut in 1970 with La Moglie più bella (The Most Beautiful Wife).  Her follow-up role was in the 1971 film, Sole nella pelle (Sun on the Skin) in which she played the daughter of wealthy parents who runs off with a hippie they don’t approve of. The film offers a telling journey through Italian society in the seventies with the political climate, the breathtaking seaside as well as the styles and cars of that time.  Much of the film is set amid the sunny Italian seaside and succeeds in capturing the innocence and beauty of first love.   Muti made her American film debut in 1980 with Flash Gordon . She played the role of Princess Aura.  She’s appeared in two other American films, including, Oscar , which was directed by John Landis and featured Don Ameche, Chaz Palminteri, and...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cineuropa's Interview with Michele Placido

It was announced this week that Michele Placido's new film, "7 minuti" will be shown at this year's Rome Film Festival. 11 amazing actresses women star in "7 minuti" by Michele Placido , a drama co-produced by Italy, France, Spain and Switzerland and being distributed by German company Koch Media. The cast features Cristiana Capotondi , Ambra Angiolini , Fiorella Mannoia , Maria Nazionale , Ottavia Piccolo , Violante Placido , Sabine Timoteo , Anne Consigny , Mimma Lovoi and Clémence Poésy . The film is based on the play of the same name by Stefano Massini, who wrote the screenplay with Placido, and is the story of 11 women, a mixture of manual labourers and office workers, who are called to the negotiation table when the owners of the textiles company they work for sell the majority of their shares to a multinational. In a short space of time they must decide, for themselves and on the behalf of their fellow colleagues, whether to accept the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Iconic scenes from 'Totò, Peppino e la malafemmina' highlight Italy's North-South divide

If you’re in the mood for a quintessential old-school Italian comedy, look no further than “Totò, Peppino e la malafemmina.” Directed in the mid-1950s by Camillo Mastrocinque, the film has stood the test of time. Starring two of Italy’s most beloved comic actors, Totò (Antonio De Curtis) and Peppino De Filippo, it is widely regarded as one of the country’s most iconic comedies, showcasing mid-century Neapolitan humor. The film also features a young Nino Manfredi at the beginning of his prolific six-decade career. “Totò, Peppino e la malafemmina” is the story of two simple, old-fashioned brothers from Naples, Antonio and Peppino Caponi (Totò and De Filippo respectively), who embark on a trip up north to check on their young nephew Gianni. Gianni has moved to Milan and fallen for a seductive nightclub dancer named Marisa (Maria Luisa Mangini, aka Dorian Gray), whom they refer to as a “malafemmina,” meaning a “bad woman” or femme fatale. Believing she is corrupting him, Totò and Peppino ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Conversation with Actor- Luca Calvani from Warner Bros. Upcoming Release "The Man from U.N.C.L.E."

The cast and filmmakers of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.  in Rome  A few years ago, I interviewed actor, Luca Calvani on the occasion of his U.S. release, When in Rome . Today, we are revisiting our conversation as he is promoting his much anticipated spy thriller, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Directed by Guy Ritchie, the all-star cast includes Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Debicki, Jared Harris, and Hugh Grant. Based on the television series by Sam Rolfe, the story is set in the 1960's and follows CIA agent Napoleon Solo and KGB operative Illya Kuryakin as they participate in a joint mission against a mysterious criminal organization, which is working to proliferate nuclear weapons. The U.S. release date is set for August 14, but the cast recently did some press for the film in the Eternal City, where much of it was shot. Luca Calvani Born in Tuscany, Calvani has traveled the world following his career. He began working as a model in the 1990's...
Post a Comment
Read more