Monthly Archives: October 2010

Marilyn Monroe: TAPFER LIEBEN. Ihre persönlichen Aufzeichnungen, Gedichte und Briefe (2010) Marilyn Monroe´s diaries, poems and letters

Posted in Books, Diaries, Letters, Nonfiction by

What a find. After all these years Marilyn Monroe’s diaries, poems and letters have been found. The German market is the first to publish this sensational book. I am really enthusiastic about is as I am a great admirer of Marilyn Monroe and have always been. The book contains diary entries, poems and letters in English and German translation. None other than one of my most beloved writers the Italian Antonio Tabucchi has written the foreword. We can discover how sensitive, vulnerable and intelligent the tragic actress was.

There are many photos in this book and pictures of the original pages on which she wrote and scribbled or drew. Some of the notes have been taken on random bits of paper like bills and the like.

Apparently the photo below was her own favourite one.

amazon.de

Boileau-Narcejac: The Fiends/The Woman Who Was No More aka Celle qui n’était plus/Les diaboliques (1952)

Posted in Books, Crime, French Books, Thriller by

Boileau-Narcejac, the French writer duo, are for France what Simenon is for Belgium or Agatha Christie for the UK. They are not traditional crime writers though. Solving the mystery is not the main interest when reading them. What they are famous for is the twist in the stories. The combination of the spooky with the suspense. The density of the melancholic atmosphere. Their writing is a cinematographic one. Once you open one of Boileau-Narcejac’s psychological thrillers you feel as if you were in the middle of a movie. No wonder their books were made into movies. The most famous one is certainly Hitchcock’s Vertigo that was based on their D’entre les mort/Sueurs froides aka The living and the dead.  The second most famous one is Cluzot’s Les diaboliques that was later remade starring Sharon Stone and Isabelle Adjani. It will not be easy to find English translations of their work. They are out of print, I guess. This book is no exception but it is worth trying and libraries should have them, I am sure.

Sit back, open the book and let yourself be enchanted by this atmospheric, haunting tale in which there is a lot of dense fog along dark, sparely lit piers. The lanterns illuminate the quay only barely and inside the house you see a couple, Ravinel and his lover Lucienne, planning the murder of Ravinels’s wife. They are after her life insurance. Lucienne who is a doctor has planned it carefully. They will give Murielle an anesthetic and drown her in the bath. Ravinel is a salesman. He works in Nantes but lives near Paris.  They trick Murielle into coming to Nantes, kill her and drive with her body back to Paris where  they dump her in a river. But this is only the very beginning of the story. If Murielle is dead, how come she is writing letters to Ravinel? Ravinel knows the answer. She is a ghost. Isn’t she? The second part of the story takes place in  Paris which gives the writers the opportunity for detailed descriptions of little smoky bars and cafés, old, dark houses. The way they describe a Sunday morning in a house, with all the different noises, children screaming, radios blaring and the smells of coffee and breakfast is wonderfully evocative.

There will be much more confusion in this book and the end is quite astonishing.

Boileau-Narcejac are masters of their art. If you have ever seen one of those French movies, maybe Le quai des brumes with  Jean Gabin, then you know the feel. There is a certain visual simplicity that is highly atmospherical. A solitary lamppost on an empty street, its yellow halo penetrating the fog. A lonely person in a room smoking and thinking. The pictures are simple but the feelings are complex. Their writing is economical and highly efficient at the same time.

I would really like to encourage you to discover these great writers.

Since I am not sure if I finish my German book/books for R.I.P. I count this as Peril The Third.

Celle qui n’était plus amazon.fr

F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu – A Symphony of Horror aka Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)

Posted in Movie by

Murnau’s Nosferatu is the first horror movie that has ever been made. I think it is not the first vampire movie. There was another one that is forgotten by now, but Nosferatu is the first to be based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

The German movie Nosferatu has written cinema history for many reasons. I had wanted to see it since years and thought I take the opportunity of the R.I.P. challenge to do so.

Murnau’s Nosferatu is one of the oldest movies  I have ever seen. As I am not such a fan of silent movies I was really sceptical. No need for that. Nosferatu is highly watchable. And very spooky. I got the restored version and it looks brilliant, the black and white is toned with different colours. Murnau chose to follow Bram Stoker’s Dracula very closely. Since it is a silent movie much of the horror is conveyed through facial expressions. If you have never seen a silent movie it takes some getting used to but then it is fascinating. It is quite relaxing to hear music and no talking for a change. If it was only for the figure of Nosferatu himself the movie would already be worth watching. The role made Max Schreck famous. Nosferatu is not a beautiful or erotic vampire although the element of sexual attraction is present. Murnau’s Nosferatu is dark and scary.

Hutter, the young assistant of a real estate agent, travels to Transylvania to close a contract with the ominous count Orlok. Orlok wants to buy an old house that is located opposite to where Ellen, Hutter’s young fiancée, lives.  The moment Hutter arrives in Transylvania there are many signs that point to something dark and evil. The castle in which Orlok lives towers gloomily over the city and no one wants to accompany young Hutter when he asks for a guide. When Hutter finally meets the count he let’s him see a picture of his bride and Orlok falls instantly in love. He can’t wait to get to Germany and boards a ship immediately. Hutter sees a horse carriage loaded with coffins and is shocked. He senses that his bride might be in danger.

Both travel to back to Germany as fast as they can. One by ship, the other one on horseback. When the ship arrives, the crew is found dead and rats are running all over the ship’s planks. When the dead are examined they have little marks on their necks and show all the signs of having died from the plague. Soon the whole town is struck by the plague.

Many of you know the story but for those who don’t I will stop here.

There are many elements that contribute to make this movie scary. The rats and the plague. The faces of the actors, heavily made-up with dark make-up around the eyes. The black and white pictures that make the scary elements look much more threatening. The locations, Bremen and other original places in Eastern Europe. Nothing was filmed in the studio. But there is more to it. We can feel a really dark undercurrent in this movie since it was meant to allude to the Spanish flu epidemic that had afflicted and traumatized Germany (and many other countries) from 1918-1919 and cost more lives than the Great War. And it also reflected the German’s fear of the Slavic people stemming from their experience of the war in Serbia.

Nosferatu is a truly haunting and very expressive movie that should be discovered or rediscovered by many.

I would be curious to know if anyone else has seen Nosferatu or what you think of the trailer.

Black Cat Awareness Month

Posted in Cats by

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As much as I like Halloween, I do believe that this custom does a great disservice to black cats. Seeing as it is coming up at the end of the month I decided to declare October to be the Black Cat Awareness Month.

I have another reason however to choose October as this is the month when I got the first of my two black cats. The story is a sad one actually even though it turned out to be a lucky one for them.

It was a cold October morning in 2008 when me and my boyfriend decided to drive to a cat shelter in Colmar, France, just about 40 minutes from where we live. I had wanted a cat for quite a while and seen the homepage of the shelter. When we arrived I was shocked. I had never seen a place like this before. The place looked rundown and there were only dilapidated houses and  shacks. Most of them were lacking any kind of heating. Dozens of mangy looking stray cats were roaming the place and big noisy dogs in cages barked frantically. It was noisy, dirty and off-putting. Total chaos. We looked around a little bit and finally asked someone for help. They were quite nice and later I understood that these people are doing a terrific job. None of them gets paid and they really struggle. That week they had received far over 100 new cats, many of them not older than a few days. Usually in French shelters the animals get put down within a month, if no one takes them but in this one they don’t do it and they often take those from the so-called “killing-shelters”.

“What type of cat are you looking for?” the woman asked us.

“Preferably a quiet one.” I said.

“Really?” I did not understand her emphasizing this word as I did not know that quiet meant shy, meant maybe difficult. A combination no one would want. “Long hair, short hair, any ideas about the color?” she asked next.

“Black. Short hair.”

“Black?”

“Black”

I have hardly ever seen anyone speed like this. She ran in front of us to a little house and up some horrible stairs that looked as if they were going to cave in any minute. When we stood in front of the door she asked again “Black, right?”

I nodded and then she opened that door and I swear, until the end of my days, I am never going to forget this. The little house was swarming with black cats.

“You know,” she said, a little embarrassed. “In France, we are still quite superstitious. No one wants a black cat. That’s why we have at least two houses full of black cats.”

There was one very tiny, little cat, a female that had already been at the shelter for almost a year although she was barely 1.5 year old. I looked at her and I knew:  That’s her. I realised later that if we hadn’t taken her, no one would have. Too little, too timid and – let’s face it – hard to handle as she was semi-feral.

We had to come back the next day as she needed a rabies shot to be allowed to cross the border. At home we spoke about names and decided to call her Isis as she looked quite Egyptian. The next day when we returned she had received her shot and her international passport had been fixed.

“I’m sorry,” said the girl who was there. “I had to put a name in the passport, else she cannot cross the border but you can always change it later.”

Guess what name she chose? Right, Isis.

A month later we decided to get another one because she did not like to stay alone during the day. And that’s how we got another black cat. Little Max. He was only 4 months old but extremely sick when we got him. He almost didn’t make it.

They are both lovely cats, although Isis is difficult and accepts hardly anyone but me. She was frankly bad when we got her. She seemed traumatized and had probably been hit and one leg looked as if it had been broken.

I often ask people what they think of black cats and mostly get the same reactions. I asked the vet if she knew if it was any better in Switzerland or Germany and she said that it was the same as in France. Black cats will sit in shelters endlessly. Until they get sick or lose their mind. Apart from England, where black cats are said to bring luck, they are not appreciated. I think this is very sad. When I watched the IKEA TV commercial with the cats in it I was stunned once more.  Not one black cat in it.

Black cats are not more difficult than other cats. They are not moodier or less friendly. They have wonderful shiny fur and their eyes look so smashing in those dark faces.

Should you consider to take a cat from a shelter, think of the black cats who have a much smaller chance of being taken.

Do you have any thoughts or stories to share about black cats?