This is a tribute, a tribute to the only person I have admired for years. Miss Vivien Leigh. 


  

 She have meant a lot for me during the last seven years. Now, on the July 7^th, the day she died 41 years ago I'm going to explain why I admire her so much. This is probably going to sound quite weird but I am having a really hard time trying to put my finger on what it is about Vivien that is SO amazing. 

I first saw her seven years ago when my mother forced me to see Gone with the Wind. If it hadn't been for my mom I probably would not have turned out the way I have (at least not when it comes to movies). I saw GwtW at least once a day for the first two weeks after my first introduction to the movie. I'm NOT joking! Today, Gone with the Wind is my favourite movie of all times. I was caught by Vivien's beauty and the vitality in her acting. Her performance as Scarlett O'Hara is one of the most brilliant acts in a movie I have ever seen. 

Vivien as Scarlett O'Hara together with her co-star Clark Gable as Rhett Butler 

The first thing that I'm going to talk about is her acting skills. Vivien Leigh was discovered in the mid 1930^th. She, like most great British actors, has been well schooled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. She has quickness and alertness in her way of acting that makes me so impressed. Vivien is so full of life and high-spirited that when she enters in a scene your eyes are naturally drawn to her. She never saw herself as a movie star; she was an actress, an actress that preformed on a stage in front of an audience. Although she was in 19 movies she enjoyed the stage, which I have the highest respect for. I think it is a much harder job expressing the same state of mind and mood every time you enter a stage than act in front of a camera.  

Another thing about Vivien Leigh that has caught me is her appearance. She is one of the most beautiful actresses I have ever seen. She saw her beauty as a handicap and the word she hated the most was beautiful. I have a hard time finding another word to describe her looks... but I simply can't find one. She never had a cute girlish appearance she was a stunning beauty. Something that has hit me again and again is that she had an originality in her looks that was different from the kind of prototypical Hollywood-actress at her time. One of the things that make me think of it is once again her vitality and high-spirited creature that always is mirrored through her eyes. 

 

Her first out of two Academy awards for her achievement in Gone with the Wind  

I can say a lot more about her, too much I guess, but she was a human being like every body else. I do not want to glorify her, she had her faults as well and sometimes people (especially other fans) seem to forget that. I admire her A LOT and I think that it's mostly because she is every thing I am not. I'm kind of living my own "Hollywood glamour dream" through her.  

  "I hope I've one thing that Scarlett never had. A sense of humor. I want some joy out of life... And she had one thing I hope I never have. Selfish egotism." - Vivien Leigh

During the last couple of weeks I have seen both 'Caesar and Cleopatra' with Vivien Leigh and 'Cleopatra' with Elizabeth Taylor. As usual my brain starts to compare the films with each other...

            VS           
                    

BOTH FILMS ARE SO WORTH SEEING. IF YOU GET THE CHANCE TO SEE ONE OR BOTH OF THEM, SEE THEM!!

Kate Walsh was born in San Jose, California, on October 13, 1967. She grew up partly in San Jose and partly in Tucson, Arizona, later attending the University of Arizona, where she got involved in regional theatre. She later moved to Chicago where she began working with the Piven Theatre Workshop and, later, the Chicago Shakespeare Repertory. She performed on National Public Radio in the production of the radio play "Born Guilty". Walsh later moved to New York City and joined the comedy troupe "Burn Manhattan", performing in a number of Off-Broadway plays.

Her first major television appearance came on "The Drew Carey Show" (1995) where she portrayed Niki Fifer, Drew's girlfriend and a woman struggling with her weight. She went on to portray Carol Nelson in HBO's "The Mind of the Married Man" (2001) television series, and played Norm MacDonald's romantic interest in the sitcom "The Norm Show" (1999). She continued to appear on television programs in supporting or bit parts.

Nowadays we know her as Dr Addison Montgomery playing Mac Dreamy's wife during a couple of seasons in "Grey's Anatomy", staring her own show where her character from GA goes to LA to be a part of another team, "Private Practice".

The story is about the young Holly Golightly, Audrey Hepburn. She is a spender who lives the high life full of fancy clothing and sparkling jewelleries. One day a struggling writer Paul Varjak, George Peppard, moves into a New York apartment building and becomes intrigued by his pretty, quirky neighbour Miss Golightly. Holly's lifestyle confuses and fascinates Paul; in public she flits through parties with a sexy, sophisticated air, but when they're alone she changes into a sweetly vulnerable bundle of neuroses.

Holly Golightly is a very mysterious character full of secrets, which you never really gets a good grip at. She is very virtual and naive young girl who is searching the perfect New York-millionaire.

I think that Audrey Hepburn is doing an amazing job in this picture. I have seen the film twice and the only thing I really remember from the first time is her acting. Very quick and it flows so natural. I think she is brilliant, I haven't seen a lot of her pictures but in my eyes she is doing high standard acting. She is so small and fragile and still so powerful and breathtaking.

I wasn't very impressed with the movie the first time I saw it. It was something about all the comical twists that you probably laughed at in the 60^ths but now it just seems so lame and silly. Take the little Asian man, Mr Yunioshi (played by Mike Rooney) who lives in the same building as Holly and Paul. He is always knocking his head in his rice lamp and is always complaining about the noises in the house. He is supposed to be the "comical part". Then there is the scene where Miss Golightly and Paul goes out to do things they have never done before, they walks in to Tiffany's, a luxurious jewellery store and asks to get a "cracker Jack gift ring" engraved. Then they run into the Library and Mr. Varjak signs his one published novel, after that they walks the streets in New York with stolen masks on their faces. This is supposed to be funny and daring. I don't see it.

After giving the movie a well-earned second chance I really like it, a picture full of wonderful
music and powerful acting. I hope you do the same.

One Monday morning in the middle of November my mother showed me a very small article in our morning paper. It stood "Gone with the Wind 2"; I read it and got really upset. The heirs of Margaret Mitchell had hired an author (Donald McCaig) to write a follow-up to Gone with the Wind. Not even the heirs of Margaret Mitchell herself would be allowed to do a thing like this (my opinion). Nobody will ever be able to write a great follow-up (to anything) and here it stood that the book was already published. I decided not read it nor to like it; I also decide to write a super duper-ranting text in my blog. I thought that I would do it at school so I brought the article with me that morning. When we had our first break that day I ran to a computer to start my research on the book and the author. Suddenly I stumbled across amazone.com where they had a "preview" of the first three pages in the book. Stupid as I am I started to read... I ended up buying the book and after a few weeks it was mine.

The book is written in Rhett's point of view and you meet the young Rhett Butler before the war, through the war and the marriage to Scarlett. The twisted end was a disappointment to me; they totally ruined the whole existents of Gone with the Wind. I don't care if they rewrote the story a little by making Rhett convince Scarlett to sell the lumber business early during their marriage. It didn't change the fact they spilt up where Gone with the Wind ends. But in the "phase after GwtW" the old Butler's overseer (the villain in the story) sat Tara on fire to get to Rhett!? 

How could they do that? I almost cried with anger when I read that. The heirs ruined the whole existence of the original novel, don't they understand that the whole point with GwtW is that there is a love greater than the love to another human being, a love that even I have a hard time understanding. The coldness in all of Scarlett's relationships (even to her family) is so obvious through the whole story but still there is a passion burning inside her like a fire. The land! A home, somewhere you belong. That is the only thing that matter! How could they burn Tara!?!

Then the fact that they made Rhett the perfect gentleman, I don't believe that ether. I know he was a greater person than Scarlett ever was (I think most people are), but I think he made some stupid mistakes in the past (the greatest to fall in love with Scarlett) and had to pay for them, badly. I don't think that he was honest all the way and that all his faults just where gossips mix together. The fact that they had to make the overseer, Isaiah Watling (coincident?), the bad guy just to make Rhett shine shows hoe badly their story is, in my opinion.

Meant to last?

I don't know...

Yesterday I watched The Phantom of the Opera (once again) and remembered thoughts were I have compared Heathcliff, from Wuthering Heights, with the Phantom. The first though that hit me is that the characters have similar personalities. They are cold, dark, selfish, and their passions are powerful enough to destroy both themselves and those around them.  

Plot summary on Wuthering Heights (1992): Cathy Earnshaw is Heathcliff's foster sister; more than that, she is his other half. When forces within and without tear them apart, Heathcliff wreaks vengeance on those he holds responsible, even into a second generation. 

Plot summary on The Phantom of the Opera (2004): He's a genius who must hide his facial disfigurement behind a mask and in the catacombs beneath Paris's Opera Populaire, known only as the Phantom of the Opera or Opera Ghost. His one companion is his young singing protégé, a soprano named Christine Daae who is drawn to and mystified but at the same time terrified of her Angel of Music whose rapturous voice sings songs in her head while she sleeps and whispers in her ear during day. Everyone at the opera house is used to the Phantom's deadly pranks when his demands are not met but when a canopy falls on top of her, nearly crushing her, the opera's leading diva: Carlotta resigns. With no understudy, the mangers turn to Christine who at the time was no more than a chorus girl. The show casts her into immediate fame. But when Christine, whom the Phantom has fallen in love with, accepts a marriage proposal from her childhood sweetheart Viscount Raoul de Changy, the Phantom's heart is broken. His despair quickly turns to furious, jealous rage and is willing to do anything to win her, even if it means raising the stakes to the ultimate level in Christine's choice between her love for Raoul and her strange attraction to the Phantom. They both are in vengeance and rage with leads them to their own destruction by following these feelings. Heathcliff ruins the family's happiness and safeness for two generations; he drives himself mad because of all his revenge and fury. The Phantom drive this passion that he secretly holds for Christine that he is willing to destroy the Opera house just because he don't get things his way. 

Rahlp Fiennes as Heathcliff. God he does an amazing job!

But the thing most in common between Heathcliff and the Phantom is their childhoods. They both have been victims of violence and abuse. When you first are introduced to Heathcliff, you meet him as a starving, orphan child, who is brought into the Earnshaw's household by Mr Earnshaw. Where he is viewed as a thing rather than a child. He becomes Mr Earnshaw's favourite child and jealousy is shown between Heathcliff and his foster siblings, Hindly and Catherine. When Mr Earnshaw passes away Hindly is the head of the household and he is abusing and violent towards Heathcliff.  Halfway through the story you get to know some background facts of the Phantom. He, just like Heathcliff, has been a victim of abuse and violence. He was a part of a travelling circus; he was seen as a freak show because of his disfigured face. He was kept like an animal trapped inside a cage. 

Gerard Butler <3

 I think that these two similar situations have had huge influence on the both characters development. As a child, you learn how to interact with other people by imitating their behaviours toward you and others around you. They have both been treated in such unacceptable ways that they don't know how to handle such strong feelings as great disappointment or betrayal. They just know rage and fury that leads them to vengeance and revenge.

I hope you can understand my point of view ;)


These two films are AMAZING!