
The LuLu
March 24th, 2009Some gals at dinner the other night were saying how bangs are back. Naturally this got me thinking about Louise Brooks. Also about a book I used to flip through at Powell’s back when I hadn’t the dough to buy new books. It’s called KiKi’s Paris and it’s about the Paris scene in the twenties when Hemingway and Picasso ruled the roost.
But about the bangs…We used to call this haircut “The Louise Brooks” or “The Lulu” and here’s why:
And you probably noticed a few other currently trendy looks in there too. The nerdy guy with round glasses plays in every indie band that ever comes out of Glasgow. There’s surely a picture of him in an attic somewhere that he must look pretty bad in by now cuz he looked just fine last year in that Vampire Weekend video.
There seemed to be a lot of movies being made in the twenties and thirties about young, pretty, working class girls hooking up with horrible old rich men. International travel by cruise ships had maybe spread the new American classless society to London, Berlin and Paris where a shiteload of films were being produced. The great depression probably fueled the fire.
Here’s a video Gothman made from my favorite movie about a poor girl getting destroyed by a rich pig. Of Human Bondage, starring Bette Davis and my periodically favorite actor of all time Leslie Howard:
I will be making a whole section on Leslie Howard, arguably the coolest man who ever lived.
COURTNEY TAYLOR-TAYLOR
7 Comments
I was not familiar with either of your selections, Courtney, but both were great.
Man with a Movie Camera is my favorite from the 20′s period. Russian director Dziga Vertov who had a personal philosophy of attempting to capture life as it is or capture life unawares with the video camera.
Oh, and check out 1:05 or so – The tripod would not have looked out of place in the Mission Control Video. There is a Lulu haircut at 2:15 as well. Flapper alert.
oh dear Courtney, you make my day ! i adore you ! and i’m so moved too ! these kind of films are funny and so poetic too ( i’ve got a lot of photos of my parents and gran parents in black and white you know small ones and they looked so smart classy and their look “intemporel” , Louise Brooks was a Diva and i’m just an incondionnal fan of Gothman’s videos, a Genius too…
a great idea to open a section about Leslie Howard!
merci beaucoup ( i wish my english was better, forgive the simple words)
I have to say that although the argument is strong for Leslie Howard, because let’s face, it if you are a rumoured spy that ups the cool factor, I still have to go with Cary Grant (see “The Awful Truth”) or Clark Gable. I mean the man single handedly destroyed the undershirt… I love the posts – they are awesome!
Man I love seeing Courtney writing like this.
Nice. I always enjoy the meshing of the tunes over the classic movies.
courtney, there was never, and will never be, an american classless society. the classess here just tend to run into each other a bit more.
i think i need gothman to give me a ‘must see’ list.
p.s.
regarding the top clip, all i can think is, “that water must be filthy.”




