STAR OF THE MONTH: Greta Garbo

The Great Garbo.

The camera will never love another face the way it did Greta Garbo's. The image of her pensive, vulnerable, yet aloof beauty has become synonymous with early cinema itself-- cinema at its peak, its most brilliant. A single utterance of "Garbo" draws forth even today a momentary pause, a brief second of awe, wherein the history of celluloid in its most perfect form flickers in the mind, the heart, the soul... then flickers out, leaving a feeling of palpable loss and nostalgia. So it was with Greta Gustafsson, who came to Hollywood, breathed more life and soul into it than any woman before or since, then ushered herself into a cloaked world of mystery. Had she not been a product of film, her legend would have lived only through word of mouth and broken recollections, such as acting contemporaries Sarah Bernhardt and Katharine Cornell. Instead, God invented Man, Man invented the Camera, and the Camera invented Garbo. Her allure, spirit, and talent continue to hypnotize; the enigma of her existence continues to draw our curiosity. But, unlike age old riddles, this Swedish Sphinx will never share her secrets nor tell her truths. This is the height of her irony, since history has made her one of our greatest and most trusted storytellers. While Greta herself is a fascinating creature, her makings are not as interesting as the way she made us, or rather, how she somehow accidentally made herself appeal to us so deeply. She seems superhuman, as if there are no dates, earmarks, or explanations in her personal timeline. There is no synopsis, no summary... There is only Garbo.

The greatest debacle in Greta Lovisa Gustafsson's character was her ignorance, or rather avoidance, of her own celebrity. One of the twentieth century's greatest artists, she never recognized her art, nor her talent, and hid in almost near terror of any reference to it. Within her beat the heart of a passionate collaborator in the world of human interpretation. She yearned to create, to share, to relate, to translate, but the equally humble and private part of her personality shunned the lifestyle demanded of such an auteur. In a perfect world, a world of her own invention, Greta would have acted her little heart out with abandon on the the sound stage, with nothing but herself and the camera, then gone home to a distant cottage to which no one else had access. There would be no magazine interviews, no ferocious fans, no prying eyes, no blood-suckers. The price of her fame, thus, was fame itself. Perhaps more than any other celebrity before or since, Greta-- who admitted that she wanted her work to be appreciated-- did not want the notoriety or attention that came along with it. She wanted peace. She wanted to be "left alone." Unfortunately, the cross that the greatest artists, poets, and performers have to bear is the over-eager jealousy of their most devoted fans. There is no peace in genius, only torment. Maudlin and ever-troubled Greta was always, therefore, in agony.

Greta Gustaffson would recall being a "big girl" who towered over her peers at 5'7".

While the world would see her after she lost her baby fat and fixed her teeth,

she just saw the same awkward girl of youth in the mirror.

The question remains, "Why?" In looking at her past, there is no overwhelming red flag that signals her transition from the average Swedish girl, growing up in Stockholm, to the socially ambivalent and hermetic woman she would become. If anything, her character is determined by sound common sense and strong principles. Greta's greatest blessing and greatest fault was her 100% effective bull-sh*t detector. Growing up impoverished, enduring cold winters, and knowing no comfort other than that afforded by family unity, the glamour of Hollywood never held any true allure. It didn't suit her character. A part of her European soul always yearned for the simplicity and material dearth of her earlier existence. A life of discipline and practicality, a life of order and modest happiness: that made sense. The movie stars of the 1920s-1930s, who lived extravagant lives of abundant joy and often obscenity, were nonsense to her. She could not interpret them. Instead, she would watch silently when forced, participate in conversation but rarely-- mostly due to her insecurity over her inferior education and poor English-- and wait for the moment when she could take off the ridiculous gowns and furs the studio adorned her with and traipse around in slacks and bare feet. Material things had no essence. Perhaps, for this reason alone, Greta always projected the epitome of essence in her performance. Whatever "it" is, whatever we human beings are, she got it. The essence of femininity and feminine yearning, of pain, of pleasure-- she communicated these things easily, effortlessly. Greta was not an actress of flash; she had substance. She was both the heavens and the earth.

Certainly, she was a quirky girl. There was a part of her innate personality that was not interested in frivolous things or frivolous people. She longed only for depth, meaning, and even childlike dreams. Insincere friendships, users, or hangers-on, had no chance with her. The protective barrier she built up, which left her isolated even in childhood-- albeit to a lesser degree-- was not easy to penetrate. She trusted few and withdrew her trust quickly at the slightest hint of betrayal. She was possessive of those she took into her sacred personal space, but refused to allow them to be possessive of her. Some postulate that the source of this was her father's early death, when she was but 14. As she was always closer with her father, she took the loss hard. Always the stoic child, she did not shed visible tears, but put her lanky foot forward, hid her emotions behind her impenetrable face, and moved on. Though the youngest of three children, including eldest brother Sven and sister Alva, Greta always took it upon herself to play the role of the oldest sibling. She was a leader. She made the plans, she designated the duties, she saw that they were carried out, and she lived the sort of distant and removed life that all rulers lead. The proof of her affection was seen not in an obvious tenderness but in the mere fact that she was always watching out the corner of her eye to see that those she loved were protected.

Greta's work in The Joyless Street would increase MGM's interest in her, 

(though Louis B. Mayer was already more than intrigued after seeing 

her work in The Saga of Gosta Berling.

In her father's death, a part of her remained stunted, and it is this part that can be seen in her moments of childlike innocence on the silver screen. A part of Greta never grew up. Another part of her did, and it was the same part that led her to adopt more typically masculine attributes, attitudes, and styles. Her legendary androgyny is the result of Greta stepping into her father's pants when he sadly left the earthly plain. This duality in Greta is the explanation for her amazing transformations on the silver screen. She is one moment the graceful, suffering lady in gowns of satin; the next she stands sternly with the look of a drill sergeant. She is both man and woman-- the mother earth of the silver screen. While she was beautiful and desired, while she conveyed great love and sexuality, there is very little sex identifiable in Greta. Greta was always more about the romance than the carnal act, which is perhaps why she spoke so well to and for her sisters. There was always a spiritual element to her sexuality, which heightened her performances above the erotically superficial. Whether you were consigning yourself to Heaven or Hell by mating with her, you were giving yourself up to a power greater than yourself-- as pure in its lust as in its devotion. This almost elevated expectation of sex on the screen is something she carried in her personal life, and it manifested itself in an almost asexual form. Whether she indulged her desires with men, women, or both, sex was the last thing on her mind and a messy and annoying side-effect of attraction that she didn't seem to enjoy too much. This is not to imply that she was completely frigid-- her demeanor and her actions at every instance implicate a depth and sensuality that was overpowering. On the other hand, it implicates more about her protective exterior. For a woman who feared scrutiny, judgment, and intimacy on any level, the act of love-making was never a question of soulful connection. In her fragile and fearful mind, no matter how tender the partner, it felt a lot more like rape.

Greta would find love with John Gilbert on and off screen, but the beautiful music

was not to last.

She did occasionally let her fierce guard down for temporary trysts, the most memorable being that between herself and John Gilbert. After her success in Mauritz Stiller's The Saga of Gosta Berling and G.W. Pabst's The Joyless Street, she and Stiller arrived at MGM and almost instantly she was partnered with "Jack." The two quickly fell in love before the eyes of the crew, and subsequently the eyes of America. Jack became at once lover, father figure, and friend, but his hopes that the passion of their on screen affair would translate into reality failed. Greta Garbo lacked one thing which is essential to all lovers: surrender. Her independence, her need to feel unbound and un-possessed, would forever cripple her chances at perfect love. With Jack, it is assumed, she came closest. While he was able to draw her out of her shell and bring her more into Hollywood society, high society meant little to her. The constant pull within her that at once beckoned her to her craft and begged her to return to her native soil made it impossible for her to compromise herself into the starlet, harlot, Goddess that Jack imagined her to be. He was too much the dreamer; she was too grounded in reality and all its unanswerable questions. She would embark on a steamy but brief affair with a more private actor, George Brent, during their teaming on The Painted Veil, but John remains her celebrity soul mate. Other rumored lovers range anywhere from good friend Mercedes de Acosta to Cecil Beaton to Louise Brooks. But all were temporary, and platonic friendship was always more favored in any case than romantic love. Many fell in love with her, or the idea of her, but none could get their hands on her. Garbo became an accidental Siren, pulling ardent wooers to her like moths to a flame, but she consistently failed to understand her power.

Greta had a natural command and nonthreatening ambiguity that allowed her to eclipse 

gender roles with ease. Whereas Marlene's cross-dressing is tongue in cheek or 

Katharine Hepburn's was defiant, Greta's androgyny was totally inoffensive. 

She just was.

Her power was mighty, nonetheless. What Garbo brought to the screen was something more than anyone had ever seen before. While she played temptresses, she was never quite the vamp; while she was new and fresh, she was far from a flapper. These two new female forms brought with them a scintillating sexuality, but while empowering women they too continued to objectify them. Garbo's mysterious sensuality alone set women free. Ever in control, she was also a woman at the mercy of her heart. Her beauty may have been her entre into romance, but it was her great depth and almost innocent passion that rendered her beauty nonthreatening and heightened her desirability. She was ethereal, impulsive, and also-- as Barry Paris pointed out-- "intelligent." This was not some woman simply sitting around yearning for a hubby, nor a street girl using her body to cling desperately to life-- or her next meal. Garbo was the master chess player, winning every game she played-- even if she lost. She made her move by not moving; by letting the other players rashly race around her to their own ruin. Meanwhile, she breezed past them all to a seamless victory. This could be said of her career as well as her self. Garbo had little to contribute to her success other than her performances. She did not choose her roles so much as not refuse them. Everyone around her would bargain, wheel and deal, make offers, and she would sit silently, ponder the opportunity, and if underwhelmed utter the now iconic: "I tink I go home now." Did she choose her most famous roles or did her most famous roles choose her? From Flesh and the Devil, to Anna Christie-- when she first spoke in that evasive yet familiar drawl-- to Ninotchka, Greta became the safety net of MGM. 'Garbo' was a continual promise of box-office success.

Until she wasn't. It took only one flop for the always uncertain and second-guessing girl of Stockholm to pack it in and remove herself from the world she had both loved and hated in the same breath. After Two-Faced Woman failed  to draw in ticket sales, Greta's insecurity got the better of her. She quit. Always doubtful and uncomprehending of her own talent, it took legions of compliments and confidantes to build her up and but one flickering, negative thought in her own mind to send her crashing to the ground. In the back of her mind too was this un-toppable image that she had somehow created-- Garbo-- that she could never live up to. The strain between fact and fiction was too difficult to uphold. Yet, by withdrawing into the shadows, she forever cemented the fiction, making it only more compelling by living a curious and secretive life for the next 50 years. She never returned to the screen, no matter how much the people and various collaborators begged her. A part of her yearned for a return, but self-doubt and the painful damages of time ruined any possible will she had to make such a move. Instead, she hid, saw a bit more of the world with trusted friends like Salka Viertel, Aristotle Onassis, Gayelord Hauser, and Sam Green, then passed away into the darkness. But celebrity death is never death. The darkness they dwell in is simply a waiting room-- inadmissible to the layman-- where they lay in wait for the great projector, the television, or the NetFlix instant player to roll their film again and bring them to life. Garbo thus continues to wake from a dream, perform her dreams before our eyes, then pass into that mystical dream land again. 

Greta rarely played for comedy, but when she did, she nailed it. This scene in Ninotchka, 

the film in which she played to and against her own universally recognized 

taciturnity, is one of her funniest: "Suppress it." Her humor in life 

was rather dry and rarely understood.

The events of her life, while fascinating and curious, are not as important as the work that she completed in her brief time on the silver screen, nor as important as the legacy she left behind. This is a truth she believed in most of all. She once quipped in one of her rare interviews that it should not matter who she was, where she was from, what she did, who she knew... Who cared? Well... everyone, but she had a point. People didn't want the true her, because the true Greta was very plain. They wanted Garbo. Her smartest move was maintaining her independence, was drawing the shade so that people could enjoy the illusion, and she could enjoy the tranquility of her privacy. She gave so much of her soul to Hollywood that she refused to let us have all of her. There had to be something left over for herself. She would not be caged. And so, she remains unreachable, untouchable, unknowable. She is a Wonder who encourages the human mind to wonder. Like the child she once was-- who put on breeches and performed plays with her friends-- she continues to indulge in this wonder of life. What is concrete is reassuring but uninteresting. Thus, she like the intangible questions of the universe, remains provocative, dangerous, desired, and feared. God created Garbo. Garbo created cinema. Her religion endures.

Not bad to look at. Greta's slightly hunched walk and awkward postures would

 influence the very definition of beauty. One looks at the broken angles

 of today's models and still sees a world of "posers."

HISTORY LESSON: Lulu vs. Lola Lola

Some moments in the universe of celluloid are so impacting that it seems impossible for history to have been otherwise. When it comes to Filmdom, the importance of casting, the magical coming together of director and script, and the synchronicity or serendipity of different events that lead to a masterpiece make it impossible in retrospect to see a finished project any other way. Still, it is interesting to sometimes question, "What would have happened if...?" What if a different director had gotten a hold of this? What if this guy were cast instead of that guy? Would it remain a classic??? Likewise, it is equally entertaining to wonder what would have happened if a failed project had only been entrusted to a different pair of hands, though this train of thought is ventured on less often-- a dead dud is often just left thus.

An interesting twist of fate in cinematic history involved not just one woman, but two: Star of the Month Louise Brooks and German film siren Marlene Dietrich. Their futures would be indelibly shaped around their involvement with the film Pandora's Box. This film, which would come to define Louise's career, almost went to Ms. Dietrich, and the role that skyrocketed Marlene to stardom--The Blue Angel-- very nearly went to Ms. Brooks. Had the original casting gone ahead as planned, the careers of both women may have been very different, and thus a large part of cinematic history would have been altered.

Marlene craved the role of Pandora's Lulu, but director G.W. Pabst was adamantly against it. Rumor has it that she was in his office, ready to sign a contract, at the very moment that the ever mercurial Louise cabled to accept the part. Marlene was fuming, as was the rest of Germany, when they learned that an American would be playing the legendary heroine from Benjamin Franklin Wedekind's smash play. The quest for Lulu in Berlin was equivalent to the later search for Scarlett O'Hara in Hollywood. It would be a long time before the world, Louise and Marlene included, discovered the brilliance of the casting and the beauty of the finished film. 

Why did Pabst turn down Marlene, the toast of Deutschland, for the incomparable German role??? He thought she was too old (about 28 when production started, whereas Louise was 23) and too... Marlene. In her film work, Marlene was never just some girl, never the average woman. She was always a character within a character-- Dietrich in lambs clothing... Or rather man's clothing. Louise (above) was not a caricature of herself-- she was a woman comfortable in her own skin, daring without trying. She was unconsciously sexy and threatening in her lack of awareness . Marlene on the other hand, was a beautifully perfected contrivance-- hypnotic but inauthentic. She cared too much about her persona, therefore she could not have been the relaxed and effortless vixen Pabst needed for the role.

Ironically, after Pabst finished on Pandora, he was looking for his next project, which he hoped would be a film based upon the Heinrich Mann novel, Professor Unrat, starring his new leading lady Louise as the sultry Lola Lola. Instead, he lost the film rights to another director, Josef von Sternberg, who entitled the film The Blue Angel and cast his own favorite actress, Marlene Dietrich (below). In a very small world, the world of Movieland is even smaller. *(If you haven't seen this film, do. Because this was von Sternberg's first sound film, it is an important moment in the history of cinema. But, with sound being a new phenomenon, each scene was shot twice, once in German and once in English, so it could be sold to the American market. For the love of all that is decent and holy, see the German version and not the English- one is flawless, the other clumsy. Even von Sternberg's sumptuous decor and attention to detail in the mise en scene cannot save the mumbled stutters of actors trying to speak a language not their own)!
 

Though Marlene certainly enjoyed this new victory, which would be groundbreaking for her career, Louise was probably completely unaware that Angel was even a prospect for her. Again, it was all meant to be, for Louise would have made a poor Lola Lola. The same things that made Marlene a lackluster candidate for the liberated, yet ultimately doomed victim Lulu, made her the perfect, ruthless heart-breaker of Von Sternberg's film. Lulu wrapped men around her finger as an afterthought or at best as an entertaining means to an end. Lola Lola is a calculating maneater-- searching and destroying purely for sport. There is a violence and immediacy to her intelligent manipulation of the opposite sex. She possesses complete control and never plays the victim.

As a result of these two destined casting decisions, the women would be forever tied to their respective directors: Louise would become the muse of G.W. Pabst, and Marlene would be a disciple of Josef von Sternberg. The careers of both women would be shaped by these men, though the end products would be very different. Marlene wanted to be molded into an icon. She craved stardom and the power brought by her false persona, which she gladly adopted and melded with. Louise, conversely, did not understand celebrity and feared this same power, which she subsequently shunned out of skepticism. As a result, Marlene's star continued to rise while Louise's burned out. Both are considered legends today, but it would take time for Louise to regain that status. Had she not starred in Pandora, she may not have reclaimed her throne at all. Marlene never let her crown leave her head for a second.

In another twist of fate, the two unwitting nemeses finally crossed paths. Not long after filming on Pandora and Angel ended, Louise was at a charity event with David and Irene Selznick. She wandered around the mock casino, eventually finding herself in an empty room. Well, almost empty. There in all her pretty, blonde glory was Marlene, who-- to Louise's utter surprise-- offered a very friendly, "Hello." There was no confrontation or clash of egos. What the two women talked about during that time, will remain a secret known only to the two of them. Doubtless, the acknowledged bisexual, Marlene, tested the waters to see just how "open" the equally mysterious and androgynous Louise was. (It turns out Marlene was a little more freewheeling, and no physical relationship was consummated. If one had, certainly both unabashed women would have talked about it).  

 
In the end, they both seemed to have a mutual respect for each other. They actually had a lot in common-- save for the fact that Marlene was often cited as the hardest working woman in showbiz and Louise the laziest. Marlene admired the strong and intriguing young girl who had stolen the role of a lifetime and made it her own; Louise was fascinated by the ferocious energy and sexuality that Marlene was able to put into Lola-- though she would later write an article about Marlene and how the fresh young girl of Der Blaue Engel had disappeared after Marlene had become Hollywood-ized. Louise saw Marlene's career decisions as personal suicide, but in her own eyes, Marlene was a success. She had come to America as another Garbo-like import, only to create her own eternal identity. Her fame was a choice she embraced. Louise fled hers. Both were proud women: one proud of her work, and one proud of the work no one could make her do. For one brief moment, their artistic destinies intertwined. The rest, as they say, is history.
 

STAR OF THE MONTH: Louise Brooks

For February, the month of hearts, let us pay tribute to one of the broken ones: Louise Brooks.

"Brooksie" is a truly confounding individual. She had the talent and charisma within her to take the world by storm, which she did, and the opportunity to luxuriate in fame and fortune, which she did not. Louise wasn't interested in the trappings of stardom, mostly because she wasn't interested in being "trapped." What she loved was freedom, liberty, and the experience of all things powerful, pleasurable, and sensual, (both mentally and physically). Growing up in a home devoid of any real emotion or nurturing, Louise learned to take care of herself and to explore life through a purely cerebral and animal way. There was no room for vulnerability or romance, and love was a word that her vocabulary failed to define. Her early sexual abuse also led to her social disenfranchisement, which left a vacancy within her-- something she couldn't quite understand, a void she could never fill. She would search in vain for an anchor but was always sent adrift in a sea of questioning and doubt.

This inner turmoil was unrecognized by the public, who ate up Louise's unparalleled, photogenic face and lightning bolt, onscreen presence like forbidden fruit. A born dancer, Louise enjoyed cinema but never wanted to be an actress. Movie stardom, it turns out, needed her more than she needed it. On a sort of whim, Louise took on the challenge of acting, probably out of curiosity but mostly for the money-- she loved to spend money on books and clothes, the only things worth having in her opinion. She would eventually be renowned for her fashion sense and especially for her "Buster Brown" haircut, the definitive flapper look, which all young girls began to copy. Her films in America were normally lackluster, noteworthy only because of her presence. After she had had enough of Paramount and the sadistic B.P. Schulberg, she journeyed to Germany and did the best work of her life with the influential G.W. Pabst. Pandora's Box and The Diary of a Lost Girl, though panned during their own time, are hailed as cinematic classics today and are some of the best silent works of art to ever come out of celluloid.

Louise was hard on her career failures, and after returning to America, she made a few more paltry films, mostly westerns, (yes, really), and returned to Kansas and the family that had formed her into a hungering curiosity. She wandered listlessly, dancing awhile, then finally found salvation in the written word back in her beloved NY. She penned many articles-- all highly praised-- on cinema, its stars, and its social implications, most of which were printed in foreign film magazines. Her "bio," Lulu in Hollywood, re-awakened the Louise Brooks fervor, and in her last years she became a sensation once again, but this time for her more personally valued intelligence and talent and not her beauty.

Louise remains a mystery, mostly because all of the seeming advantages she had within her grasp, she flippantly and even coldly turned her back on. She was always at once strong and doomed-- desperate to be loved and intensely afraid of it. She never understood her purpose or her impact on the public, and so she could not trust it. An enigma, an alluring vixen, a heartbroken child, Louise was everything and all at once. It was this sense of her intensity and energy that drew audiences to her like moths to a very, VERY hot flame. We are still drawn, searching endlessly in the beautiful faces of "Lulu," "Thymian," and "Fox Trot" for the lost secrets of Louise Brooks.