Tonight I did watch a movie, a Silent from 1929 called "Diary Of A Lost Girl", starring the great Louise Brooks. I own it - it was one of the dvds I bought in December from Kino, when they had their Silent Movie sale. "Diary" was directed by the German auteur GW Pabst, who we must now refer to as The Great GW Pabst. I can't believe he is not as well known as FW Murnau or Paul Leni, two other German masters of Silent cinema. Pabst is certainly as good as those guys, and maybe even better. I have seen three of his films now, including two masterpieces with Brooks ("Pandora's Box" is the other one) and the theatrical "3 Penny Opera", which I reviewed here a few weeks ago. I will resist making a pun about Pabst, in which I would be tempted to include the words "Blue Ribbon", but if I were going to make that pun it would be accurate, because Pabst deserves a Blue Ribbon for every film I've seen by him at the very least.
I will try not to give you too much detail from "Diary Of A Lost Girl", because you must see it for yourself. It's a Masterpiece, not only of Silent cinema but of all cinema. Our Miss Brooks stars as the daughter of a well-to-do pharmacist, and they live in a building in which the pharmacy is downstairs, at street level, and the family residence is behind it and also upstairs in a roomy mansion.
This movie was made almost 90 years ago, but it could have been made today, because of the issues it confronts head on. As the movie opens, we see the family housekeeper leaving the house in a hurry. She seems nervous and frightened. Next, we see why. The pharmacist has a partner, a tall, very Germanic looking man. He runs the pharmacy itself, and he is down there now, looking at photographs. This was a 1929 film, but even so, we see what he is up to. He is looking at pornographic photos of the housekeeper. This is shown very discreetly, nowhere near what would be considered as graphic as nowdays, but the implication is still clear : that the scary looking pharmacy partner is engaged in a porno operation with Louise Brooks' "respectable" father, the head pharmacist who lives upstairs behind the scenes with his sister, Brooks' aunt.
As for Louise herself, she is about to celebrate her Catholic Confirmation. She is all dressed in white, accepting presents from extended family members. All of this represents innocence.
But that is soon to be stolen from her, because the Downstairs Pharmacist has a plan.
First, however, the housekeeper who was leaving as the movie began turns up dead in the basement. That is because the pharmacist has given her a drug overdose to prevent her from exposing what is going on in the house.
Innocent Louise Brooks wants to know what is going on, and so the scary Downstairs Pharmacist promises to tell her, if she will meet him that night, downstairs in the pharmacy. She is naive, so she agrees to meet him.
And he drugs her too. Then, when she is unconscious, he.....(think Harvey Weinstein).
This is a brutal movie and 100% concurrent with what is happening today. It is told, thankfully, not in the ways of modern moviemaking, which would depict the full graphic horror of rape and violence, but in the implied, discreet gestures of Silent film. Still, the message is very clear and no mistake can be made as to what is happening. Here is young Louise, all in white and happy one moment, and a few scenes later - after the horror with the pharmacist - we see her emerging from a room with a baby.
The monster has impregnated her, but it is she who is blamed, and her father - the Head Pharmacist, who is complicit in the porno operation - ships her off to a reformatory, but only after he forces her to give up her baby for adoption.
That is all I am gonna tell you, and I am sorry for telling you that much, because it is so grim. But director Pabst, working from a script based on a book, is not gonna allow the situation to stand as it does. Brooks has to endure a lot more, and in fact she becomes a prostitute, so I just told you more even though I said I wasn't going to do so. Other prostitutes, victims themselves of a male dominated society, are sympathetic to her plight, and they become her only friends. But she desperately wants out of that life.
This movie tells the story of what has been happening to women for hundreds of years, but it does so in a way that preserves the dignity of the lead character and also her best friend in the movie, played by an actress named Edith Meinhard.
I've only told you part of the plot. There is much more to come, and many different characters to meet, both good and evil, whose desires and morals impede, or help to clear, the path Louise must trod to find her freedom.
The black and white photography is glistening in the "portrait lighting" style that was developing in Hollywood. Brooks had no acting background before she came into film, she was chosen for her distinctive look, but she had what you would call Movie Star Charisma in spades. Because of her style, she seems so modern. She could have made this movie today, in 2018, and so could have the director GW Pabst. It would have been very timely now.
"Diary Of A Lost Girl" seems like a precursor to today's news, but it isn't. It's just a film, made 90 years ago by a master filmmaker in Germany, during a period of artistic freedom in that country, that starred a great American actress from the early years of movies, and portrayed a situation that women have found themselves in throughout history. Pabst goes all the way, though, and as the movie ends, he provides a postscript for salvation. I won't tell you about it, and I've already told you too much.
I would just say, in closing about this film, "Diary Of A Lost Girl", that if you are interested in the history of cinema, or women's history, then it is a must that you see this movie. I mean, you already know the story - we know all about these monsters that are being exposed now, and they are indeed monsters. There are Demons in the world, and we have to call them what they are or we will never be rid of them. Demons who live inside some human beings. We are confronting it now, I hope, in Hollywood.
In "Diary", GW Pabst confronted it head on in 1929. ////
That was all the news for today, except for a short hike at Limekiln which produced the photo I posted on FB earlier this evening. Elizabeth, I hope your day was good. I saw a couple of Namm posts, Sarah and Drewsif I think.
Me and you should go next year. Then we can go to Disneyland too, cause Namm is right next door in Anaheim.
Okay, it's a done deal. We're goin'. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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