On Sunset Boulevard by Ed Sikov
I have often remarked on how I enjoy the element of scope in a read. This book has it in
spades. Sikov must be a genius. The way he incorporates such disparate
elements, from the depths of Nazi Austria and Germany to the heights of
Hollywood elite, puts the reader right in the thick of things.
Screenwriter, director, producer, storyteller,
man-about-town, Billy Wilder was one of the most acclaimed filmmakers in
Hollywood history. From Wilder’s early jobs as freelance journalist in Berlin
to script writing for moving pictures, we see a man destined for greatness.
Berlin during the 20’s was the film capital of Europe. Eventually
Wilder, as well as many other (read lucky) Jewish film professionals, escaped
the approaching storm. Not surprisingly, many wound up in Hollywood. Others,
including Wilder’s own mother, (not involved in film) were never found.
On Sunset Boulevard
addresses in detail every motion picture Wilder was involved in. One of the
things that exemplifies how all-encompassing these accounts are is that if the
reader is tempted to skip over details—scripts, hiring and firing of directors,
actors, artists and other film professionals—one will soon find they need to go
back over the skipped passages for something important which needs clarifying.
It’s all there. If you read the whole thing.
Not to say that the book doesn’t have its fictional
elements. Mr. Wilder, quite the raconteur, varied his own accounts of events,
often altering his stories according to a desired effect on whoever was
listening. We are left to decide what is actually real and what may not be
quite so.
Some of the most interesting areas are Sikov’s takes on the
personalities, strengths and weaknesses of individuals. For instance, it seems
that Gary Cooper was something of a dunce. He’d complain about too many ‘big
words’ to memorize. Cooper said that because he didn’t even know what the words
meant, he couldn’t stay within character while he memorized the sound of the
word, because to him it was virtually impossible to decipher any meaning.
Wilder, a maverick for his times, battled constantly with
the authorities of the Motion Picture Code. This was not unusual. During the
30’s the Code had its judgmental fingers in virtually every film made in the
U.S. Apparently Wilder and his perennial
but more conservative writing partner, Charles Brackett, had a love/hate
relationship that brought out the best of both men, and by association, their
wildly popular films. These films were raw, sexy, irreverent, and didn’t always
require that bad guys go to jail. Or to hell. The code didn’t like raw.
I’ve only read about half of this 675-page tome, and tend to
read it in fits and spurts rather than charge through. (Not the kind of spurts
that occur reading erotica.)
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
Oscar De Leon got his nickname Oscar Wao as a street bastardization of Oscar Wilde. He’s a fat,
black mulatto teenager living in Patterson New Jersey who wants to get laid,
but he’s simply too much of a geek for it to happen. He lives in a community of
other immigrants from the Dominican Republic. Oscar lives on science fiction,
comic books and is a fair and dedicated writer himself.
Mostly related by an omniscient narrator who we eventually
learn is one Yunior de las Casas, a hip compatriot of Oscar’s, also a writer, but
not as out of step as Oscar. Yunior is much more in tune with how to be a
Dominican/American. If we put our trust in what Yunior says in his hip street
jargon mixed with Spanglish, he actually gets laid.
This sounds at first to be pretty ordinary fare, until we
start getting into the history of Oscar and Yunior’s island roots. There is a
phenomenon Dominicans call a “fuku” or “Curse and Doom of the New World” that
comes into play. The island of Hispaniola has been fertile ground for dictators
and strongmen, including the man who may have wreaked as much havoc as Columbus
himself: Dictator Rafael Trujillo—culocrat.
Culocrat you say? According to Yunior, a culocrat is a strongman obsessed with ass (‘culo’ in Spanish) who won’t take
‘no’ for an answer.
Trujillo was a serial rapist who, when he desired a woman or
girl, would make his desires known to her extended family. Somebody had better
offer up the daughter, niece, wife, mother, or whoever caught his rapacious eye.
Otherwise he’d make the family’s life miserable, if not over.
The culoculture
extended to the dictator’s henchmen as well. If a man was in Trujillo’s good
graces, he could get away with rape. Or murder. Or worse.
Suffice to say that Diaz does a tremendous job integrating
Oscar’s family history into the narrative of a geek boy who can’t get laid. The
novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007.
Two intriguing sounding titles, Daddy.
ReplyDeleteThe description of the culocrat reminded me of Louis de Bernieres SENOR VIVO AND THE COCA LORD. The head of the cocaine trade behaved exactly the way you describe.
Thanks for that recommendation, Lisabet! I just went on line and saw that "Señor Vivo" is part of a trilogy that looks intriguing. I haven't had much luck with South American Writers, but will give de Bernieres a shot.
DeleteActually, de Bernieres is British. That trilogy is fun, very much over the top but also quite philosophical. He's very much a humanist.
DeleteMy favorite book by him (so far) is Birds Without Wings, a rich novel about cultural differences and connection set in Turkey and Armenia around the time of the Armenian genocide.
Yep I realized that he's British after posting that comment. But the description of his writing looks as if he writes with a magical element, much like the several South American writers I've read. I'll certainly check him out.
DeleteTest
ReplyDelete